The list below includes links to the searches of each of the five top recipients in Monroe County. These are complied from the current list (August 27, 2010) of top NYS recipients.
- The University of Rochester, $45,846,317 (link)
- The Rochester City School District, $38,180,286 (link)
- The County of Monroe, $26,319,233 (link)
- The Monroe County Water Authority, $23,730,887 (link)
- Regional Greater Rochester Transit Authority – RGRTA, $20,915,542 (link)
I’ve been keeping my eye on the Recovery.org website over the last few months, trying to see where Stimulus money is going in the Rochester area. The results are very interesting across the board – I’ll probably report more general information at some point later on.
But what jumped out at me today was the list of the highest-paid NYS award recipients. The Regional Greater Rochester Transit Authority, for example, won a $16 million award which according to the website has generated exactly 16.68 jobs:
This grant has resulted in the FTE of 16.68 jobs being sustained for the quarter ending June 30, 2010. These job hours are made up of manufacturing, design and legal work. To date, an additional 8,213 job hours have been sustained and reported in previous quarters as a result of this grant.
16 jobs? For that kind of loot? It appears that the RGRTA is planning on either replacing or augmenting the fleet with some new and nominally more energy efficient vehicles. Which of course means that while the money’s coming here, it’s not being spent here. It’s being spent wherever these busses are being made.
It would totally be worth asking a few questions about this project, I think. But I’m not the guy to do it. Conveniently, there is plenty of contact information right there on the award summary. Any takers?
Reading this Carl Bailik article in the Wall Street Journal about the merits of merit pay for teachers, I am struck by the notion that teachers require government-instituted merit pay evaluation programs in order to improve their performance. There is no such program for us PHP developers – nor was there any such program for press-brake and punch fabricator operators when those were my professions – but I don’t think anyone can seriously accuse me of soft-peddling my job as a result.
But granted, those professions I’ve held have all been in private industry: there’s no tax money going to pay for my salary. Fair enough. What, then, of other government professions? DMV clerks? Postal workers? Congressmen? And what are the benchmarks for those professions?
The truth is that professionalism cannot be quantified. And a lack of professionalism will certainly – as indeed the article notes – breed dishonesty. And either way, the only real test of one’s professional ability and ethics is personal observation. The fact is: you know who at your job is a fuck up and who isn’t.
So to what end are we imposing merit systems to teachers? What will it accomplish? The answer is: it makes politicians look good and taxpayers feel good to discuss the possibility. It might even make them both feel better once instituted: people might get a sense that they’ve accomplished something and made the world a better place. But really, its just a political football that is of more importance to the feelings of the players than it is of substance to the children being educated. mh.
Newt Gingrich, via Gage Skidmore on Flickr
I remember it as though it was yesterday: John Kerry, when explaining why it was wrong to go into Iraq, declared that there should be a “world standard” of what constitutes an acceptable cause for war. In doing so, he was arguing that the causes for going to war aught to be morally defensible and garner the support of other free nations, so as to strengthen the hand of the war’s protagonist. But in doing so, he also opened himself up to criticism by every Conservative and Republican politician, politico and pundit for “surrendering” the sovereign right of America to fight a war on her own terms in her own time. That criticism came from all corners of the Republican “big tent,” including Newt Gingrich. No other nation, they said, should be able to tell the United States that we shouldn’t go to war; no nation, they said should hold the standard for what we as Americans can do.
And during the Health Care Reform debates, equal umbrage was given to those who pointed to France or Canada as models of what nationalized health care could look like in the United States. This criticism came from all corners of the Republican “big tent,” including Newt Gingrich. America, they said, was different; America’s standards are her own, they said, and no other standard applies to our “greatest health care system in the world.”
Now the new controversy being used to whip up support on the Right is the plan to raise a new Muslim center in downtown Manhattan. Not on Ground Zero, as you’ve heard it reported in the media, but two blocks away. Those who have been to Manhattan know that “two blocks away” is not the same in New York City as it is in Mayberry. Two blocks away from the site of the Twin Towers may as well be in another city. Nevertheless, this has raised hairs on the backs of Conservatives, who think it’s a grave injustice to put a Muslim center so close to the site of the 9-11 attacks.
I will not bother to address why a new Muslim center in the middle of culture-rich, heavily-ethnic New York City is so concerning to Conservative Americans. I will not ask the question, “have any of these people ever been to New York in the first place?” or wonder why the Conservative American’s favourite whipping boy – New York City, the wretched hive of scum, villany and Democrats that it is – should be of such terrible import and sanctity once Muslims “move in.” What I will address is this statement, from Newt Gingrich, himself:
Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for “religious toleration” are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City. Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca.
And they lecture us about tolerance.
If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom. They should be asked by the news media if they would be willing to lead such a campaign.
To abbreviate his statement: there are no Christian churches in Saudi Arabia, and so by that standard, there should be no Muslim center in Manhattan. Got that? America’s standards have now sunk in the eyes of Newt Gingrich and his supporters – in a mere eight months, mind you – to Saudi Arabian standards.
Wow. That’s a pretty steep drop. Not even the Dow – not even the Dow during the Bush Administration – can follow an act like that. Saudi Arabia, a nation ruled by the very same Sharia Law that raises such a panic among the good Christian Conservatives raising the objection, is now the standard by which we measure our religious tolerance as a society.
At least, to hear Republicans tell it.
Ok, so I know that headline is something that would make most Progressives and Democrats howl that I’ve gone all Rightie on them. Let those people howl.
But we have twice now in the last five years found members of the majority party discussing openly the possibility of changing the “filibuster rules,” to make it harder or even impossible to filibuster a bill. The latest is Senator Dick Durbin just yesterday. I am hardly a fan of the filibuster as a general rule, but it seems to me that the drama surrounding its use these days is largely manufactured and more a product of the state of the Senate over the last ten years or so than a real tactic.
It is doubtful to me that there is anyone in the Senate with the fortitude to manage a filibuster for real. Nevertheless, the idea of staying up past nine o’clock without the aid of cocaine and hookers seems to strike fear into the hearts of Democrats and Republicans alike, regardless of whether or not the monster under the bed actually exists. The question is therefore not whether or not anyone will stay up past their bedtimes to block the majority party’s agenda but whether the majority party has the votes to stop it if it did happen. “It” being the filibuster that probably will not actually happen, but the media and the Senate insists *is* happening over and over again.
If the Senate was down to a 55/45 split or even a 51/49 split, breaking a filibuster would be nearly impossible. Since the hypothetical filibuster is at this point unbreakable, the Senate is forced to consider the alternative: that reality might be preferable to fantasy, and majority vote might very well be all that is required.
Would the majority party continue to insist that they require 60 votes to get anything done in this case? Would we effectively have a complete government shut-down because of hypotheticals? Perhaps temporarily. But it won’t take long for folks up there to realize that, without bills to point to, they won’t have much to show their constituencies come the next election.
The crazy comes to New York: Rick Lazio, fresh out of ideas to close the gap between him and Andrew Cuomo, challenges the Democrat to a debate – solely on the non-topic of the “Ground Zero Mosque.”
Kodak posts Q2 loss, stock falls.
Far be it from me to deprive the national news media their ability to drum up hysterical psycho-drama every waking moment of the day, but I thought that I might offer a few good reasons to cast a bit of doubt on the dire predictions of the smarmy, gossipy Washington press corps so eloquently embodied in Dana Millbank and others. And while I fully understand that I have no voice on the national level, I thought I’d give you a few good reasons to be less amazed than they will profess to be come the end of this latest election cycle:
#5: Just because your “agin” one Party does not make you “fer” another:
Its hard to believe I actually need to say this out loud, but I will: just because I’m pissed at a Democrat does not mean I will vote for a Republican. There has to be a reason to believe that the Republican will do better, which as I will address below, is dubious at best right now. As fun as the media finds it to refer to the people who watch their shows and pay their salaries as “pitchfork-wielding,” knuckle-dragging thugs, the fact is that most of us do not even own pitchforks in the first place. Those of us who do probably have better uses for them. You know, because we think for ourselves.
#4: The Republican capacity to self-immolate.
Republicans had things pretty locked up in Arizona. That is, until Sharon Angle won the nomination there. Now Reid is up by 7. That is, despite a completely upside-down approval rating for Reid in his state. With other winners like Rand Paul and the rest of the Katzenjammer Kids, we can have at least some faith in the Republicans ability to mess this up. And indeed, it is a standard trait of the non-incumbent party that they tend to play Keystone Cops until such time as they simply cannot help but be more attractive than the incumbent party.
From apologies to BP to declaring the inscrutable “Repeal and Replace” agenda for both HCR and now Fin Reg, to describing the financial crisis as an “ant,” to telling the unemployed to just “get a job,” its hard to imagine how Democrats could do a better job of painting the Republicans as out-of-touch. Worse for Republicans, the outlandishly misguided behavior is not atypical, but rather reinforces classic stereotypes of the Republican Party that have traditionally hung their chances out to dry when the issue is the economy. That makes a lot of people’s stomachs hurt when it comes time to actually vote for Republicans.
#3: The Low Turnout Myth
There is no doubt but that turnout can be expected to be lower than it was in the last election. Count on the media to point that out relentlessly, regardless of who wins what, as proof that their analysis is right. But if the last election was a record-setting election – it was – and if turnout in mid-terms is generally lower than in presidential elections – it is – then predicting that turnout will be lower is not exactly the stuff of sages. And I fully expect that the turnout, while lower than the presidential election of 2008, will likely be higher than it was in the previous mid-term election.
Because while we know that mid-terms get less attention, generally, this is not one of those general years. This is not a year when people get to just kick back and be happy with their jobs and wrap Christmas presents. Things are serious and serious-minded people will come out to vote.
Another classic canard of the national news media – one which on its face is self-negating – is that because turnout is low, mid-term elections are both dominated by Conservative voters and also an opportunity for a “protest vote.” The extent to which this concept is true is the extent to which Conservative voters “protest” Liberal and Democratic administrations and no farther. One or the other has to be true, or they’re both false.
Finally, while there’s every reason to think that some people who are angry over the current state of the economy – as distinct from Conservative voters who are just extra angry for their own reasons – will want to “protest” the current administration and Congress, they’ll have to step beyond the blogs, the comments, the FaceBook posts, the cameras, the televisions, the radios, the brave talk at the water cooler and step into that curiously quiet and disquieting space known as a voting booth and actually pull the lever. Which leads me to the next point:
#2: No plan, no vote.
Protest is one thing. But no one disputes the fact that our nation is in a precarious spot right now. This is not the time to simply throw the lever against the incumbent party and feel better about yourself. Polls are showing that Americans generally favour experience over fresh faces – a fact that works better for Dems *after* the 2008 than before it. People are paying very close attention to the news and election politics right now because they need to make what most anyone sees as a very important decision at a very risky time. And when they’re in that booth, what good reason is there to vote in a Republican?
Because the Republicans have shown no new messages, no plan and much worse, absolutely no leadership in the last year and a half. There is absolutely no reason to think that we will do anything other than return to the exact same position we were in on November of 2008 if we put the same party back into power.
#1: America digs a winner
To complain about the “obstructionist” non-incumbent party is a means of applying political pressure. To complain about an incumbent party that “won’t listen to our ideas” is just whining. That was as true for Democrats as it currently is for Republicans. In order to show that you can lead, you have to win something. Right now, Republican wins are few and far between whereas the Democrats are on fire with some of the biggest legislation ever passed in my lifetime. You don’t have to like it to see that they’re winning. And winning is a powerful thing in American politics.
Democrats were able to bring the Bush Agenda to a slow, creaking halt around 2005. And they won big in 2006. By 2008, it wasn’t just that the country was in a dire situation, but rather that Republicans seemed completely ill-equiped to provide an answer that did them in. So far, Republicans have yet to have the same types of successes with the Democratic agenda. If anything, they’ve whipped up a lot of nasty, racist, belligerent protest to the Democratic agenda that dragged the HCR debates well past their welcome… and then lost, anyway.
No plan, no wins, a nasty case of foot-in-mouth and a lot of hasty assumptions about how people will vote do not necessarily add up to a winning strategy. Plan on hearing the phrase “The Republicans snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,” quite a lot by December. That’s not because they really did so badly, but because pundits so completely and intentionally misjudged what is about to happen. Certainly, Democrats will loose seats. Certainly, Republicans will crow about the victories. But the needle won’t have moved appreciably in this next election.
One final point of purely meta, purely Monday Night Football-ish kind of analysis: this is not 1994 by any measure. In 1994, Democrats had controlled Congress almost consistently for twenty years, were riddled with House scandals, were completely dysfunctional and “suffering” from a perfectly good economy where Republicans could play on greed. Republicans meanwhile had a very organized team and a “Contract With America,” which for all the silliness inherent in that title, was at least a well-laidout set of policy agenda. Democrats currently have no serious scandals brewing, have not had time to become unwelcome as a ruling Party and are very well orga-…. well, bad example.
Just a quick note to all my FaceBook fans and Twitter followers that they can actually use FaceBook Connect or Twitter logins to leave comments on my website. Rather than take the time to fill out all the necessary fields in order to leave a comment here (email address, name, website), you can simply click on the FaceBook or Twitter badges (or WordPress.com, OpenID or IntenseDebate, if you use those) and your credentials for those sites will be used to log you in to DFE!
No Security Hassle!
It’s important to note that none of your information from those other websites is shared with mine: you don’t need to worry about how I will use your information, because I’m not touching it. The only thing that social network logins do is:
- Redirect you back to the other site (FaceBook, for example)
- Ask if you actually want to grant me permission to use your credentials.
- Send you right back to start commenting.
It makes life easier for people who don’t feel like filling in forms and getting new accounts all over the Internet. Now you can better manage your online identity by keeping it only with a few trusted sources. Best of all, you can use the service to post your comments to your New Feed, letting all your friends know that you like arguing politics with us here at DFE.
The Rochester Business Journal online edition is currently declaring that the Sienna Research Institute study shows consumer confidence in the Rochester area is up. Sounds good. Unfortunately, the actual numbers are considerably less rosy. Confidence (which is actually three separate indexes, Current, Future and Overall) is only up about two percent from last quarter depending on the index that you look at. And while the current index is up even from the same time last year, the overall trend over the last four years has been down, down, down she goes. And the state average is less confident than even the national average.
But rather than waste time with silly reports that whitewash reality, perhaps the RBJ could better use its time actually digging into the numbers and reporting the facts.
For about ten years of my life, I was a proud and defiant smoker. I enjoyed a good cigarette at lunch time and I will not lie: I still occasionally smell something attractive – if not overly pleasant – about cigarette smoke as I pass through the doors of the local malls and restaurants. Through most of this time, I was working at jobs that paid considerably less than I currently make. Indeed, these entry-level jobs in the IT world paid somewhat less than a living wage for a single person.
But at no time did I ever seriously consider quitting my habit for financial reasons. I’d bum smokes off people; I’d complain about the prices; I’d sit in my livingroom and climb the walls till pay day. But I never once said, “cigarette prices are too high! I’m quitting.” Tut-tut if you must, but I suspect that this is also the case with many other current and former smokers.
Yet it is precisely this fiction that is trotted out every time the cigarette tax goes up in New York or nationally: raising taxes on cigarettes is a disincentive to smoking them. My evidence thus presented is purely anecdotal and colored by my personal opinion of the matter, but I recently decided to go in search of more tangible evidence to suggest the real effect of taxation on populations of smokers. The thought came to mind when I once again heard about the “Fat VAT” on sugary drinks proposed on both the New York State and national levels.
The results of my initial research are, well, not terribly supportive of that or really any other hypothesis, I’m afraid. The numbers have been adjusted as seemed fair by comparing the taxes not on their own, but rather as a percent of income. In this way, we get a truer sense of what the relative “weight” of a cigarette tax actually is in each state.
New York is helpfully (depending on your point of view) at the very top of the most-taxed stogie states in the Union. Yet our smoking population, while certainly much lower than many other states, is not where you might expect it to be if the hypothesis were true. Meanwhile, the next most taxed state by income, Rhode Island is about as near to the top of the list of smokin’est states as we are to the bottom of the list. And all down the line, there is nothing approaching a consistent pattern.
To be sure, this data is at best evidence rather than proof of anything conclusive. There are a number of variables not factored in, such as cultural and historic factors. We may certainly say that the comparing the various states on cultural levels is indeed comparing apples to oranges. What we might really prefer – and what I have as yet had difficulty locating – is data in a specific state, organized by year, so we can see the percent change in taxes relative to the percent change in smokers.
But even if we allow these faults, certainly one would expect at least some smattering of – some semblance of – a pattern. The scatter chart on the second tab shows this not to be the case – if anything, a reverse trend could be imagined from the data.
