Left In Lowell

Why would anyone in their right mind want to elect anyone associated with former city manager John Cox? An anonymous poster reminds us of this:

The Lieutenant advised that the location of a tow company is taken into account when deciding what zone the company should be assigned to. He stated that Jon Kazanjian’s Automotive Repair Shop, Incorporated was assigned the second most lucrative zone (i.e. Zone 6) because of the amount (i.e. $22 per tow) he agreed to provide back to the city for each tow. He advised that his business is also located in Zone 6. He advised that this company did not get a contract last time because it did not have the proper insurance. He advised that he gave the most lucrative zone (Zone 5) to Kazanjian’s Garage, Incorporated (Alan Kazanjian) because he always gave great service to the city and no complaints were received regarding this company. He advised that there was not much difference between Zones 5 and 6. He stated that Zone 5 has 1,650 tows per year and Zone 6 has 1,500 tows per year. This Office examined the number of tows for each zone and determined that by making these two zone assignments, the city lost revenue of $7,618.52 for 2005. These assignments appear to contradict the purpose of this portion of the tow contract which was to raise additional revenue for the city. It is to be noted that Alan Kazanjian (Assigned to Zone 5) for the last 15 years has been a member of the City of Lowell Zoning Board of Appeals and is presently the Chairman of this board.

And Walking the Halls posts about an allegedly inebriated former CM John Cox verbally attacking city councilor candidate Keegan - and what’s worse, in a manner which appears to be an attempt to ascertain whether she is “with” Cox: (bold mine):

If AK [Alan Kazanjian] gets elected you can bet that will signal the potential return of former City Manager Cox! Who by the way verbally assaulted Council candidate Joanne Keegan outside the Bob McMahon party a few weeks ago. Cox was shouting, “Are you going to be with me, are you going to be with me”, (presumably about his return to the corner office..). He was so aggressive he reduced Ms. Keegan to tears!! An embarrassed Cox had to call the following Sunday to apologize to Keegan, blaming it all on an over abundance of beverages!!! People need to wake up fast, if you don’t want to see Cox and the GOBN return to power get out and vote!

Several commenters chime in to corroborate the story. I believe you can officially call this behavior “unhinged.” This incident, if true, makes it quite plain that there are definitely “sides” to this city council race, and that has to mean that those who are Cox allies (Kazanjian, McMahon, et al) are running with intention to support said former city manager, possibly in a return to the CM position.

That should be reason enough to go out and vote, indeed.

I might be supporting another candidate, but Patrick Murphy has been frequenting my comments and getting little love to show for it, so I’m frontpaging his comment with his detailed positions on Social Security. Murphy has pledged to raise no money other than his own contribution to his campaign, which I can really respect. He’s crazy, but the sort of crazy I like.

As the Lowell Sun continues to misrepresent my positions, or not represent them at all, I’ve included a summary of my positions on Social Security which had been sent Friday to the Sun for this story. (For example, I said the payroll tax was “one of the most regressive taxes”, not “aggressive.”)

Because Social Security is really about the ability of current workers to pay for those who have come before us, the solvency of Social Security largely depends on how productive our workforce becomes in the next few decades. A highly productive workforce can meet the demands placed on the system by retirees. Productivity requires reinvestment and investment requires funds to be available from a high savings rate. Both of these are at all-time lows. We must also expand our workforce toward full employment so that, in a narrow policy sense, more people are contributing to the system.

In short, we need to have policies that encourage both savings and work:

Reduce the payroll tax to encourage work and job growth, and replace lost revenue through pollution taxes on things we want to discourage like carbon emissions and by raising the payroll tax cap..

Reduce the national debt, which is essentially a tax on future generations, by cutting corporate welfare, unnecessary earmark appropriations and tax expenditures, subsidies to oil, mining and timber industries, and the largest farms, and by reforming the tax code for simplicity and fairness.

Protect Social Security from privatization to ensure that the program serves its public purpose of bring greater certainty and security to retirees and is not subjected to downturns in the market.

Protect private pensions by strengthening the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and ensuring that legal pension obligations are met.

Encourage work and full employment by providing for a public need unmet by the private sector with a jobs program based on the principles of the WPA and CCC. Projects could provide for a more sustainable public transportation sector and a public energy infrastructure to meet future needs.

Encourage worker productivity by channeling public investment into a better education system and a universal single-payer expansion of Medicare for all Americans. The more productive our workforce becomes, the better we are able to meet demands placed on the system.

Encourage workers’ savings rates by increasing the earned income tax credit, reducing the payroll tax for middle- to low income wage earners and replacing the regressive 401K contribution credit with a more equitable program of matching savings contributions up to a certain capped amount.

Sorry for the length, but all I’m running on here is ideas, and the Sun refuses to print them.

All the best,
Patrick

The Sun has several items of interest regarding the MA-05 race up on the front page of their site. First, in the “breaking section” (which confuses me, but nevermind), Eldridge looks to distinguish himself in 5th field:

He said his support of universal single-payer health care and fair trade along with overwhelming support from unions make him stand out from the crowded field of five Democrats.

“That’s what people are looking for, leadership. You may not agree with me but you’ll know where I stand,” Eldridge said.

I found this, particularly, very interesting - hard numbers on the campaign support, which is usually disclosed by a candidate only when things are going well:

Eldridge said he has at least 8,000 votes locked down in his district, and said the race could be won with as few as 20,000 votes.

The fact that there are hard numbers of supporters nailed down is a result of a true grassroots campaign, of the kind that won Deval Patrick his governor’s seat. It’s a very effective method. And sure, I think Jamie’s outstanding of course, but 8,000 is an impressive number for a campaign that’s only a couple months old. Grassroots campaigns are like snowballs rolling down a hill: they start small and then, with the right candidate and campaign, just keep getting bigger. If they’re talking about an 8,000-strong voter support now, I can only guess where this will end up.

More on MA-05 in the Sun - though, they screwed up on the title. I’m guessing this is one of those insert boxes that put candidates’ positions in list format with no title in the paper version (I don’t have the paper in front of me to check), but they used the first line of the insert for the title, and it makes it sound like an article on Eileen Donoghue instead of all the candidates. Maybe they should have made up a real title for the web version that denoted the content - namely, a list of all candidates’ positions on Social Security. One of the Sun’s problem with its website is that they don’t understand how to make the content useful to users. Titling things properly would help a whole lot.

But anyway, good list of positions, so take a read…one did strike me, where Niki Tsongas will not be making friends with younger Baby-Boomers:

* Open to increasing the age requirements to qualify for benefits, but not in the near future.

I’m not necessarily against the idea of eventually changing the age requirement in like, maybe, decades (when people seem to be living better quality lives in their 60s - I’m not sure there’s evidence of that yet…only that we’re living longer, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be capable of working longer). But I don’t want this as a solution to any Social Security solvency problems. The easiest, quickest, and fairest thing to save SS is to raise the cap on what income can be taxed. The stats of that cap, at $97,500, has changed in percentage-of-earners that are subject to it, as those at the top leave their middle-class and poorer neighbors behind in salary.

In the list of Tsongas’ positions, it nowhere mentions lifting that cap. Other candidates, including Eldridge, Donoghue, Finegold, and Miceli mention lifting the cap to varying degrees.

One last thing, a reminder: There’s another debate tomorrow!

Progressive grassroots group Democracy for America, founded by Howard Dean, has endorsed Jamie Eldridge for US Congress. From the press release:

DFA chair, Jim Dean says the endorsement was made on behalf of the progressive grassroots, due to Eldridge’s strong leadership as a State Representative and progressive ideals.

“Representative Eldridge is a true reformer,” says Dean. “DFA endorses him with great pride and enthusiasm of his belief in politics powered by people – his leadership and experience will move the country forward.”

The national endorsement actually does mean something, as activists outside the district learn about Jamie’s record and his progressive positions. It’s not just people within the district that care about a candidate, but many outside are concerned as well, because the fights Jamie chooses to engage in affect the whole debate in Congress. One more voice for single payer will mean being that much closer to passing the bill which could change all our lives. Another Representative willing to be brave in his call for withdrawing the troops means less equivocating among Democrats. If we are to choose a candidate to replace our sitting Rep, let it be the one who has a record of being a leader at the forefront of the issues of the day, not a politician with a timid finger in the wind.

You can donate to Jamie at my ActBlue page.