Left In Lowell

Oops!

On a different note, as much as the inner partisan in me is gleeful at the prospect of less Republican representation, this is really, ultimately, going to hurt the most vulnerable among us - funding for schools, roads, and all other essential services is based on the census data in large part. That is because that’s the fair way to apportion funding - a straight up counting of people. So, I am sad that there’s a distinct possibility that some counties will be undercounted, and hence, underserved. I would advise against failing to return your census data, except of course, none of the far right would listen to me on that score.

Oh great masters of finance, lead us. (Yes, that’s sarcasm.)

The Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance strikes down a particular law in Massachusetts. So yes, Virginia, that ruling will affect elections as we know it.

(The title and first line, FYI, refers to David’s title, “Allow me to be the first to formally welcome our new corporate overlords.”)

Anyone wanna help with signature collection this coming weekend, for the Gov, Lt. Gov, and for Eileen Donoghue?

I will have papers, but we need bodies! Email me (lynne [at] leftinlowell.com, with an @ obviously) if you can help! I’m sort of planning on going out this weekend (when we can wear shorts! 75 degrees out!) but if you want to get cracking earlier (once this rain is gone) I can accommodate.

The tentative plan is to descend on local grocery stores in the district with paired-off people (one with Gov/LG papers, the other with Donoghue), where I think it’s easiest to collect signatures. Or if you live in a condo building and want to collect them there, that’d be great. Just let me know! If enough people join up, I will pick a meeting place either Friday night or Saturday for paper and clipboard distribution. (If you own a legal-sized clipboard and can bring your own, even better!)

No wonder the mob has gone after David Frum. In this article, which looks at a survey done about the perceptions of tea party protesters, we find out why, exactly, they think there’s a tax crisis in the country. Hell, if I thought 40% of GDP was going to just the federal government, I might be out protesting too!

Tuesday’s Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

They are also hugely wrong on the percentages of taxes on a $50,000 salary.

The other common assumption is that taxes have gone up under Obama. W.R.O.N.G.:

Tea Partyers also seem to have a very distorted view of the direction of federal taxes. They were asked whether they are higher, lower or the same as when Barack Obama was inaugurated last year. More than two-thirds thought that taxes are higher today, and only 4% thought they were lower; the rest said they are the same.

As noted earlier, federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this survey is all about the perceptions about the federal government, not local and state. So added together, the numbers for total taxes go up a bit, obviously. But if you think about it, once under Bush you reduce even the moderate tax rates under Clinton, but you still have the same number of kids to educate, the same numbers of fires in buildings, the same amount of roads to repair, buses to run, and impoverished kids to feed, or hey, even more than you had, the local and state governments have to make up the shortfall somewhere. That somewhere ends up being our local property taxes in the end.

However, make no mistake - the tax rate under Clinton was merely moderate. Under Bush, they became, historically, extremely skinny. And we paid for it in the form of perpetual federal deficits, debt, and zero room to react to a bad recession. But don’t tell a teabagger that. They won’t listen.

[HT BMG.]

I recommend reading Andrew Howe’s thoughtful take on democracy versus tyranny, and governing versus the dangerous rhetoric of revolution. As you’ll recall, I’ve already posted mine.

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the mor–er, afternoon…hilarious.

Also, gross mental picture, peeps! Ug!

Update: Also (totally unrelated) this “This Modern World” cartoon is awesome.

It came up in comments to a previous post on the health care reform bill - the concept that bringing more people into the system, giving them health care access, would cause a shortage of doctors, particularly primary care physicians.

Well, gee, someone thought that through, and worked very hard to mitigate that. One of the most liberal members (OK, THE most liberal) of the Senate. The only one elected as an actual socialist, in fact.

The historic bill signed today by President Obama includes provisions Senator Sanders long advocated for, including $10 billion over five years to expand, construct and operate community health centers. It also increases the investment in the National Health Service Corps to train more primary care doctors and other health care professionals. Another $2.5 billion for health centers operations is in the reconciliation package.

All told, the legislation will double the number of health center sites nationally over the next five years from 7,500 to 15,000. The number of patients served by these facilities will rise from 20 million today to about 40 million by 2015. That means most Americans will have access to primary care, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs on a sliding-fee scale so that no one is turned away.

So much for the socialists = bad policy meme. On the contrary, the more progressive members are the ones who think ahead, plan for the inevitable outcomes, all on the side of the least among us. Wonder who’s the more Christian? Way to go, Bernie Sanders!

Get ready, weather.com is saying that Monday and Tuesday will see more heavy rain, and that parts of the northeast could get at least another four inches.

Since when did we turn into Seattle, anyway? I feel for residents who have basement problems. We’re lucky (well, mostly by design), ours stays dry - if the eight inches in 24 hours didn’t flood us, not much will - but I have family members going through a rough time.

Brace yourselves. I’m posting this mostly because it surprised me to hear about it, and if I hadn’t heard about it, maybe some of you hadn’t. I hope the weather people are wrong! But it wouldn’t hurt to check in on your sump pumps or other mitigation devices ahead of the storm.

Today’s Jen Myer’s article in the Sun regarding the “yard waste pick up” touches upon the major issues surrounding this debate:

The city’s 26,500 households are billed $125 each for trash collection. However, the actual cost is about $290 per household, with the city’s general fund subsidizing the remaining $4 million cost.

In this economic atmosphere isn’t weekly yard waste pick up a luxury? Also, since this service is subsidized by the general fund, should we first protect the services that are provided to the entire City, i.e. police, fire, schools, etc…?

In case you missed it, two weeks ago, the City Council entertained a motion from CC Patrick Murphy requesting that the “City Manager review the data on the cost effectiveness of yard waste collections during the summer months.”

Here is a 6 minute clip of the discussion that took place on the motion:

As you can see there is a philosophical difference in this City Council. Some are the Councilors are being pro-active, trying to figure out how we are going to close the budget gap and other just want to say no.

In response to CC Murphy’s motion the City Manager presented a 5 page report from the “Solid Waste & Recycling Advisory Committee” which is made up of 5 Lowell residents. Here is the link to the CC Packet which contains to this document. (pages 19 - 24)

Currently, the pick up of yard waste costs the City $390,990; and this is for 35 weeks from April through November. If they picked up every other week with an option of dropping your yard waste at a central point during the off-week, it would cost $235,081. That is a savings of $156,000.

It is a no-brainer.

How quickly our electoral paradigm has shifted! Yesterday, I became a fan on Eileen Donoghue’s state Senate campaign facebook page. I was fan #9 (and the eight already listed, I knew most of them personally, ha). Today, I hopped on and looked again, and already, there are 140 fans listed. I’m guessing it’ll quickly ramp up from there.

Five days ago, this Senate seat wasn’t even an “open seat.” Now, the battle has been engaged already, online!

Can’t say that as a web designer and developer, I’m unhappy about the new, virtual engagement process of our elections.