Rasmussen pits Populists vs. The Political Class

From Rasmussen Reports:

There has been a lot of talk recently about populist outrage at the corporate and political shenanigans surrounding the financial bailout. As a result, Rasmussen Reports created a tool to measure the differing views of the Political Class and Mainstream America. The mainstream, or populist, view sees big government and big business as political allies rather than political opponents.

Here are the three test questions:

-- Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America’s political leaders?

-- Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?

-- Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?

I'm sure you can figure out if you're a Populist or a member of The Political Class.

Tim White

MRJ on schools & linear park

From the MRJs Jesse Buchanan:

CHESHIRE -- Police arrested three youths at a Cheshire High School student dance on Saturday, including one who police say spit in an officer's face... A 15-year-old Southington resident was charged with assault on a police officer.

CHESHIRE -- The Board of Education may change the responsible Internet use policy for the district to allow students' work and images to be posted online.

SOUTHINGTON -- Among $163 million in federal stimulus transportation money approved Monday by Connecticut's Recovery Working Group is $3.35 million to extend the town's bikeway 2 miles from West Main Street to the Cheshire town line, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced. The projects were approved, Rell said, to create jobs on statewide bus and rail projects and enhance pedestrian and bicycle access.

I'll need to find out if we got all our ducks in a row on the stimulus package.

Tim White

Just say NO to Taxman Tim's newest bailout scheme!

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wants to use more of our tax dollars to benefit his Wall Street cronies. Isn't it obvious that this $1 trillion bailout was designed by the same insiders - Paulson (R-Goldman) and Rubin (D-Goldman) - who gave us the $700 billion Bush bailout? Why give them more money?

I haven't yet gotten into the details of this Treasury plan, but in a matters of minutes I found one clause that is ripe for favoritism being provided to the insiders:

To start the process, banks will decide which assets – usually a pool of loans – they would like to sell. The FDIC will conduct an analysis to determine the amount of funding it is willing to guarantee. Leverage will not exceed a 6-to-1 debt-to-equity ratio. Assets eligible for purchase will be determined by the participating banks, their primary regulators, the FDIC and Treasury. Financial institutions of all sizes will be eligible to sell assets.

There you go. I can't wait to hear the criteria that will be used in conducting that analysis. I wonder what the chances are that Goldman and the other Insiders will be receiving the most favorable terms... while those not in favor will be receiving less favorable terms.

Of course, no one will be portrayed as the Insiders that they are. Instead they'll be portrayed as "steady, stable firms."

What a joke.

Just say NO to Geithner's $1 trillion scheme.

Tim White

The Dodd saga continues

First the Courant's Kevin Rennie used RealClearPolitics to discuss Mrs. Dodd's financial relationship with an AIG company.

And in yet another demonstration of being seemingly detached from the real world...

The Chris Dodd stories are everywhere:

March 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate last month passed a measure limiting “luxury” spending for corporate travel by recipients of federal bailout funds. Two weeks later, about two dozen senators of both parties left town for political meetings on the Florida coast...

Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who heads the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, sponsored the amendment to the $787 billion stimulus package that requires companies that received funds from the Troubled Assets Recovery Plan to curb “excessive or luxury expenditures,” including spending on events and private jets.

Over the weekend of Feb. 27, two weeks after the Senate passed the measure, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party fundraising arms for Senate candidates, each held their annual winter meetings in Florida.

About a dozen Democrats, including Dodd, 64, gathered at the Marriott-operated Ritz-Carltonresort in Naples, Florida. Donors who gave at least $15,000 were invited and offered a “coastal view” room at the group rate of $469, according to the Democrats’ invitation.

At least 11 Republican senators held a similar retreat at The Breakers resort in Palm Beach. Rooms could be had for $475 a night. For another $292, participants could play in a golf tournament. The invitation urged guests to make reservations for the resort’s spa “indulgences.”

Tim White

George Washington's farewell address (26/51)

Paragraph 26 (of 51) in George Washington's farewell address:

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution, in those intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way, which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

Dennis Kucinich wants to End The Fed

For my Democratic friends who are wondering about my outrage with the Obama economic team that continues to be effectively run by the same old, same old... Dennis Kucinich offered these comments less than two months ago:



Perhaps America needs something of a realignment in which people-first Senators (such as Feingold-D, Sanders-D and Demint-R) and Representatives (such as Kucinich-D and Paul-R) need to team up against the Establishmentarians. Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Larry Summers are not the change I can believe in.

Maybe America's ready for a bit of Andrew Jackson style populism?

Tim White

Some municipal pension plans of CT towns

I called the CT Conference of Municipalities two weeks ago for information on school bus contracts and the current offerings of municipal pension plans.

With regard to the use of defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans, five towns responded. If I understand this information correctly, four towns continue to offer DB plans to non-union employees. One town stopped the practice in 2006. Here are the details:

With a $20,000,000 deficit in the defined benefits pension fund, I want the Council to stop offering the DB plans to future non-union hires to limit the taxpayers' exposure. And I also want to do this because I see no guarantee that employees will actually receive those benefits in 30 years.

Breachway... any comments? I know this is your field of expertise.

Tim White

State Sen. Sam Caligiuri's bills in 2009 (14/14)

And this is a wrap on legislation proposed by Cheshire's delegation. This is the fourteenth and final installment of state Sen. Sam Caligiuri's bills that he introduced / cosponsored this year:

SB00685 AN ACT REQUIRING IMMEDIATE SUSPENSION OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE OPERATOR'S LICENSE OF UNINSURED MOTORISTS INVOLVED IN COLLISIONS.
SB00696 AN ACT REQUIRING THE IMMEDIATE SUSPENSION OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE OPERATOR'S LICENSE OF ANY PERSON UNDER TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE WHO IS CONVICTED FOR A FIRST OFFENSE OF DRUNK DRIVING.
SB00699 AN ACT CONCERNING THE REGISTRATION AND OPERATION OF CERTAIN LOW SPEED NEIGHBORHOOD ELECTRIC VEHICLES.
SB00727 AN ACT CONCERNING THE USE OF DEADLY PHYSICAL FORCE IN DEFENSE OF PREMISES.
SB00728 AN ACT CONCERNING ENHANCED PENALTIES FOR THE COMMISSION OF CRIMES WITH ILLEGAL OR UNREGISTERED FIREARMS.
SJ00018 RESOLUTION PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO PROVIDE FOR DIRECT INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM EXCEPT FOR MATTERS PERTAINING TO THE STATE BUDGET.

Tim White

Geithner's not a Goldman guy, but...

his chief of staff is!

From the NYTimes' Peter Baker on February 3, 2009:

Some who worked as lobbyists have found places in the administration, including Mark Patterson, who represented Goldman Sachs and is now chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

I guess Goldman effectively still has enormous influence over the Treasury Department... even after Hank Paulson (R-Goldman) and Robert Rubin (D-Goldman) had left.

Change I can believe in!

Tim White

Unconscionable: AIG bonuses or the bailout?

From the New Britain Herald's Scott Whipple:

With the news that government-rescued American International Group is awarding more than $165 million in bonuses to its executives, U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, D-5th District, said Wednesday he will introduce legislation to crack down on taxpayer-funded bonuses "for the very people that got us" into this economic mess...

Calling AIG’s actions "unconscionable," Murphy said his bill aims to ensure that what AIG did can’t happen again.

IMO, the "unconscionable" act was supporting the bailout in the first place. But hey, the bailout had bipartisan support, as it was supported by both Bush's Hank Paulson (R-Goldman) and Obama's Robert Rubin (D-Goldman). I can't fathom why anyone would think Paulson and Rubin were in favor of bailing out Wall Street, at the expense of the common good. But at least we know that Goldman is a "stable" firm, not needing a bailout.

Seriously though...rather than showing outrage over bills he supported, perhaps Congressman Murphy could start reading the bills on which he votes and stop supporting welfare for Wall Street?

Tim White

CPD budget meetings always interesting

The CPD, represented by the Chief and Asst. Chief, came to last week's budget meeting. There was a pretty frank discussion about the budget, including my question about the impact of potential further reductions to the CPD budget.

Totally unrelated to the budget though was something that caught my attention.

A few years ago when Gary Walberg became Chief, I recall a story about the CPD dress code. If memory serves me, former Chief Walberg explained that he was eliminating the use of white dress shirts for the four top officers (including himself) of the PD because he wanted everyone to be the same.

Anyway, at the budget meeting, it appeared that rule has been modified again. These meetings always offer me something to ponder.

Tim White

AIG bonuses: The real problem for Dodd and Congress

Congressman Ron Paul speaks on the real problem with the AIG bonuses - Apparently no one in Congress read the stimulus package before the vote!

Ron Paul says only five copies of the 1,000 page bill were even available. And while the $165 million (and counting??) in bonuses is obscene... The Fed printed another $1 trillion on Friday to buy "toxic assets."

Ummm... forgive me if I missed something, but isn't that why Congress voted for the $700 billion Bush / Dodd bailout last fall?

...the revised bill that was voted for contained provisions that assured that if the Treasury did not recoup their investment through the resale of the troubled assets Wall Street would be billed for the difference...

- Chris Murphy, October 6 2008, explaining his support for last fall's bailout.

Well, at least the bailout was assured of being a bipartisan effort with the likes of Hank Paulson (R-Goldman) and Robert Rubin (D-Goldman) crossing the aisle to work together for the good of their cronies the country.

Ron Paul explains Congress and their inability to act responsibly:



It's this kind of honesty that got me to knock on doors in New Hampshire for him.

I'm so glad he ran for President. Now there's at least one honest politician in Washington who has a bully pulpit from which to speak the truth.

Tim White

Turmelle on the bus contract and teacher staff levels

The NHRs Luther Turmelle offers this piece on the Council sending the school transportation contract to bid.

And he also has this piece on the annual notice sent to teachers about the possibility that their contracts will not get renewed:

The Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday night to notify the roughly 40 nontenured teachers that they may not get a contract next year.

Superintendent of Schools Greg Florio and members of the board stressed the action doesn’t mean the district is going to lay off 40 teachers.

Tim White

State Sen. Sam Caligiuri's bills in 2009 (13/14)

And here's the thirteenth installment of state Sen. Sam Caligiuri's bills that he introduced / cosponsored this year:

SB00588 AN ACT CONCERNING PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANIES' EXECUTIVE OFFICER SALARIES.
SB00645 AN ACT EXTENDING CHILD SUPPORT OBLIGATIONS FOR CERTAIN FULL-TIME STUDENTS.
SB00646 AN ACT EXCLUDING SEXUAL ASSAULT AND OTHER VIOLENT CRIME VICTIMS FROM JURY SERVICE IN CERTAIN CRIMINAL CASES.
SB00647 AN ACT CONCERNING ANNUAL REVIEW OF CHILD SUPPORT ORDERS.
SB00649 AN ACT REQUIRING NONCUSTODIAL PARENTS TO PROVIDE UPDATED EMERGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION.
SB00656 AN ACT CONCERNING NOTICE OF CERTAIN DISRUPTIVE EVENTS AT STATE-FUNDED GROUP HOMES AND RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES.

Tim White

George Washington's farewell address (25/51)

Paragraph 25 (of 51) in George Washington's farewell address:

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

Sam Caligiuri is not yet a US Senate candidate

Yesterday I suggested that state Senator Sam Caligiuri (R-Waterbury) was officially a candidate for US Senate. But that's not the case:He's married with two little kids.



So he's got a lot to consider before making the leap to the national stage.

Tim White

True or false: The most transparent and accountable administration in American history?

As of yesterday, there was still a lot of pointing fingers on AIGBonusGate. And our own Senator Dodd was taking a beating for it. Thankfully one of the left's own voices is now pointing the finger directly where it should be pointed.

The HuffPo's namesake, Arianna Huffington, spoke with US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and concluded her piece:

Have you noticed how, whenever there is a serious effort to put an end to business-as-usual, we are warned by insiders like Paulson and Summers that the result will be the end of civilization?

"This lack of transparency -- and the lack of accountability that results -- is one of the most significant threats to our democracy," Wyden told me. "This is not at all how the civics books tell us the system is suppose to work. What we have here is a prime example of Washington deny, defer, delay."

He's right. We deserve better. Let's make this D.C. mystery the cause célèbre it deserves to be. Let's demand that the White House live up to its vows of transparency.

Last October I felt favorably toward then-Senator Obama. Today, not so much.

Back in early 2007, Obama made overtures across the aisle with the bipartisan "Transparency in Federal Spending" legislation that he co-authored with Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). But it appears now clear that Obama has lost his way.

Here you can see The Outsider speak on the value of transparency:



"The basic idea is - If you think this is a wise way to spend taxpayer money, then you should be willing to stand up and defend it. And everybody should know about it. And that kind of openness has been the hallmark of American democracy since its inception." - Barack Obama

But how does The Insider act?

President Transparency has now been in office two months. And it's only under court order that we're beginning to learn the disposition of the bailout money - Goldman Sachs leads the way! And yes, that's the same Goldman Sachs where Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin worked before they became US Secretary of the Treasury.

Change I can believe in? I think not.

Tim White

Sam Caligiuri files for US Senate

It appears that Sammy has officially entered the fray! I think he could make a fantastic US Senator... still wanna learn more about his views on monetary policy though. I already know that he votes in favor of fiscal responsibility as he was the only vote to oppose the current two-year budget.

From CTNJs Christine Stuart in June 2007:

After patting themselves on the back and talking about what they did and didn’t include in the budget, the Senate passed the two-year $36 billion spending plan with a 33 to 1 vote on Monday.

Sen. Sam Caligiuri, R-Waterbury, voted against the budget because... (it) includes large spending increases that will inevitably force the state to chose between large tax increases or large spending cuts in the not so distant future.

“We are going to pay the piper sooner rather than later,” Caligiuri said. He said his vote against the budget was the strongest way he could make that statement.

Go Sammy!

Tim White

p.s. I'm still kinda hoping Peter Schiff jumps in the race to force monetary policy to forefront of the debate.

George Washington's farewell address (24/51)

Paragraph 24 (of 51) in George Washington's farewell address:

It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

State Sen. Sam Caligiuri's bills in 2009 (12/14)

And here's the twelfth installment of state Sen. Sam Caligiuri's bills that he introduced / cosponsored this year:

SB00471 AN ACT CONCERNING A TEXTBOOK LOAN PROGRAM.
SB00521 AN ACT ESTABLISHING A DATABASE FOR INFORMATION CONCERNING THE RECIPIENTS OF STATE CONTRACTS.
SB00571 AN ACT CONCERNING RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES LICENSED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES.
SB00572 AN ACT INCREASING THE PENALTY FOR THE BURGLARY OF AN OCCUPIED RESIDENCE.
SB00573 AN ACT CONCERNING A STUDY OF ULTRAVIOLET WATER DISINFECTION SYSTEMS BY THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH.
SB00574 AN ACT CONCERNING IMMUNITY FROM CIVIL DAMAGES FOR ENTITIES PROVIDING ACCESS TO AUTOMATIC EXTERNAL DEFIBRILLATORS.

Tim White