Better to repeal campaign finance law than force donations to the black market

A recent protest supporting the 99% movement took place in Downtown Ferndale Friday, and it was covered by The Daily Tribune.


Nancy Goedert was quoted as saying public funding for campaigns is a soapbox issue for her, but I don't think Mrs. Goedert or others that like that idea have thought it through.


Publicly funded campaigns are a closely-related issue to corporate free-speech, and more specifically, corporate funding of campaigns.  But what protesters often forget is many of their favorite organizations, like MoveOn.org, are also corporations that support both financially and otherwise, political campaigns.


As I wrote in February this year,

"MoveOn actually doesn't believe all corporations should be prohibited from free speech.  MoveOn.Org is itself a corporation--though a not-for-profit 501c3, and presumably wants to preserve free speech for itself.  What they must mean, then, is for-profit corporations should be prohibited from free speech, but that would include companies building green-products like wind turbines and solar panels, growing and selling organic foods, and other corporations that are in good standing with MoveOn."

Another complaint against corporate free speech is the amount of money donated, and the many ways corporate donations are hidden--being given to political action committees and other "issue" campaigns, is a by-product (read: unintended consequence) of current campaign-finance laws.  People, corporate or private, will find ways to support their candidates and causes either directly or indirectly.


Rather than create a black market for corporate donations by making direct contributions illegal, why not remove all the limits and let the donations speak for themselves and the candidates?


For instance, if Goldman Sachs wants to contribute $5 million to President Obama's campaign, wouldn't the public rather know that than have Goldman funnel those contributions through an array of grey-market PACs?  At least then we might now exactly who Goldman is supporting and to what amount the candidate may be obligated to return in favors--like bailouts for banks that are "too big to fail."


Or if local attorney-celebrity Geoffrey Feiger wanted to donate $125,000 to John Edward's campaign, instead of (allegedly) requiring his partners to make those contributions he could have made them directly himself and spared himself and everyone else a lot of time (and money) trying to figure out if what he did was legal or not.


The other problem with publicly funded campaigns is trying to figure out which candidates the funds would go to, and what money-raising restrictions would be placed on other candidates.

A lot of 99%ers complain about the failure and dominance of our (predominately) two-party system, but how much money would the government give to the Green, Socialist Workers, Libertarian, or Communist parties?  Should those parties be shut-out?  What of religious parties?  Mightn't contributions to their candidates' campaigns risk violating the so-called separation of church and state?

And who in the government would decide how much money to give to candidates, and how would that person or department be appointed or elected?

No, the better idea is to repeal campaign finance laws and let the public vote with their own dollars.  And if the public really wants to shut-down corporate free speech then they should look for a case to overturn  Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council.

"America is just not what it used to be."

"America is just not what it used to be."  Or so says Abdullah Pollard, a 58-year old laid-off telecommunications worker as reported by the Associated Press in the Detroit News story, "Protesters want world to know they're just like us."

But are we like them?

One of the problems with the Occupy Wall Street protesters is not knowing what their demands are.  Like the Tea Party, official lists are hard to come by as neither group is centrally controlled (though Nolan Finley thinks OWS is at least centrally financially supported).  The Wall Street Journal reports at least two of demands:

1. Repeal the Bush tax cuts and
2. Prosecute Wall Street Criminals

A few others they plan to vote on next week include forgiving student debt, reforming campaign-finance law and enacting the Buffett tax.

The first one is relatively easy to do, but relatively useless.

In February 2009 the WSJ reported what would happen if we taxed (or confiscated) 100% of all the income of America's top 2%:

"A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion."

Along those same lines, George Will put it into a different perspective:

"In 1916, the richest man in America, John D. Rockefeller, could have written a personal check and retired the national debt. Today, the richest man in America, Bill Gates, could write a personal check for all his worth and not pay two months interest on the national debt."

The second item, "Prosecute Wall Street criminals," is more difficult to endorse until the protesters can be more precise on who they think the culprits are and what they think their crimes were.

I, at least, agree with the protesters that the culprits ought to be dealt with--and not gently.  But I suspect we'll disagree heartily about who the culprits are.

But for the sake of argument, let's start with Freddie and Fannie.  Or to save time and space, let me borrow from Thomas Sowell.  Writing in a recent column about realities over rhetoric, he writes:

"The political crusade for 'affordable housing' and minority home ownership drew many blacks into homes they could not afford. The net result was an especially high rate of foreclosure and, in the end, black home ownership rates lower than they were before the affordable housing crusade began."

In this case, Mr. Sowell's comments are not applicable only to blacks, but to everyone lured or enticed into purchasing homes they may have been able afford the lower down-payment for, but were unable to afford the maintenance, repair, utilities, and taxes.

Returning to Mr. Pollard's comment, "America is just not what it used to be," let's consider The Constitution hasn't changed much since its adoption in 1788, but American's constitutions have changed considerably more.  We may live longer than American's in the 18th century but we're frailer. We've created industries based on blaming others for our misfortunes and exacting our retirements from them.  More Americans are dependent on welfare than ever before.  Our debt to other countries is greater (as a percentage of GDP) than ever before, and we're less self-sufficient than ever before (think energy policy).

On the contrary, Mr. Pollard, America is the same as it ever was.  It's the citizens that have changed.  Immigrants used to come for the opportunity of America, not the steady paycheck.  They came for the rewards that would accrue to those clever and hard-working enough to build something new, not government entitlements.

The immigrants that came to America and built it were willing to risk everything they had so they might own a piece of the dream.  They settled the wilderness and risked dangerous and months-long trips to seek their fortunes out west.  Many lost their lives in pursuit of their dream.

American's today are risk-averse and want instead to be relieved of all discomfort and responsibility--even that they might stub their toe on uneven sidewalks.

No, Mr. Pollard, America is the same.  It's Americans that are different.

Bullying is on the increase because adults are on the decrease

Warning: this article contains explicit language that may upset young children or naive adults

A child fakes illness for a week because a bully threatened to punch him in the stomach the next time he saw him.

Another child is told by the bully he'll cut his penis off. Another is told to go home and take a picture of his penis and bring it to school or his face would be bashed-in.

"I'm going to bring a chainsaw to school and cut your head off," says a seven-year old girl to classmate.

"Go home and sit on your couch and tell your parents you're going to commit suicide."

These are not stories from middle or high school.  These are stories from elementary school students bullied since the start of kindergarten.  These are stories from a district that has a policy about bullying.  Each of the threats is credible because adults hadn't proved able or willing to stop them.

But this article is less about bullies and their victims than it is about parents, teachers, and administrators.

There's a lot of talk about bullying lately.  But it's only talk, hand-wringing, and politicizing.  Children of all ages can be bully or victim.

The bully's greatest accomplice is a school system unable or unwilling to expel them for the safety of other students.  Bullies face few consequences at home because their parents aren't parenting.  Bullies are enabled by social workers and administrators more interested in experimenting with bullies to help them find "more productive" ways to express their frustrations than kicking, tackling, punching, touching the genitals of or threatening other children.

These adults may not enable the bullying, but they certainly prolong the victimization of other children.

And do you know what young children learn from adults?  They learn their parents are unable to protect them from daily abuse by other children.  They learn that telling teachers or lunch monitors about a boy touching little girls on the playground does nothing to arrest the behavior or remove the culprit.  It teaches them that sending the bully to the principal's office accomplishes nothing because the bully will return to class.

In short, the adults responsible to provide for children's safety turn their backs on the victims so they may trip over their platitudes about misunderstood or disadvantaged bullies.

Without specific punishment for either the bully or their guardians, a state-wide law requiring school districts to have a bullying policy will accomplish nothing.  Without the ability to remove bullies from the classroom adults have done little to protect their own or other children.

As much as you might feel for the victims or even the bullies, the problem is adults neglecting their responsibilities, even after it's too late.

Don't risk losing the news

News can be provocative.  News can be controversial.  Eliminate the provocative and controversial and publications risk eliminating the news as well.  A publication that intentionally avoids potentially contentious news and viewpoints does a disservice to its readers by not informing or exposing them to issues that may require the reader's action, the reader's deliberation, or even the reader to form new opinions or change old ones.

This thought occurred to me after reading an online publication's editorial policy regarding this November's election.

"We believe that objective community journalism should not thrive on drama and comment wars.  We do not run politically divisive stories, nor do we mix news and opinion by allowing comments on the site. 

"[The editor] typically does not vote in local level elections and is committed to her role of remaining politically independent and doing fair coverage."

It is rare for publishers of traditional journalistic properties to deliberately inject drama or hyperbole into articles except that which naturally seeps-in from the writer's or editor's biases.  Most of the drama is introduced by readers commenting on stories, with the worst offenders posting anonymously.

Regardless whether replies are signed or unsigned, they are the opinions of your neighbors.  Whether informed or uninformed, these are the opinions of citizens that may cast votes for or against your candidate or issue.  Readers may choose whether to read comments or not.  Readers choose whether to post their own opinions or keep them to themselves.

Comments, like the articles themselves, belong to the person that wrote them.  A well-written, well-thought-out comment can be as informative as the article itself or provide additional clarity.  As important, a comment might provide a counter-point, keeping both the publication and author honest.

The greatest risk in allowing comments, especially uninformed or vicious comments (or worse, anonymous), is that other readers may not be able to distinguish between good comments and bad, or may form opinions based on rumor or poorly-reasoned arguments.  But if a reader is unable to discriminate between good and bad comments however would the publisher expect them to detect editorial bias or read between the lines?

As valuable and informative as an article may be, as valuable (or disappointing) may be the reactions of your neighbors to the same article.

Granted, not every comment is civil.  Not every comment is kind.  Heck, many comments are barely on-topic.  But comments do reflect, if imperfectly, our fellow citizens.  You may be either encouraged or discouraged by that.

Whichever you are, I encourage you to leave a comment--we're unafraid of controversy.

There you go again

[Note: This article originally appeared in the August 2011 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

Before becoming too big an advocate for everything the DDA does, some might reconsider their thoughts about trickle-down economics.

Whatever else President Ronald Reagan may be famous for, no other president has inspired as many synonyms for horse-feed economics as The Gipper.

Also known as horse-and-sparrow theory, the idea is that if you feed enough oats to the horse there will surely be something left (behind) for the birds to eat.

It gained national attention recently in 1980 (well, that’s recent for some of us) when Ronald Reagan’s primary opponent, George (the elder) Bush, described Reagan’s supply-side theory as voodoo economics. Voodoo economics became Reaganomics, also known as trickle-down economics.

Traditional trickle-down polices favor tax breaks and subsidies for banks, manufacturers, big oil companies, and the nebulously-defined but much reviled “rich,” with the expectation that those tax dollars will seep through jobs and yacht club memberships to the rest of us so we may afford Netflix’s price increases.

The idea is regularly pummeled wherever Liberals gather in large numbers. But here in Ferndale, and in many cities across the state, that is precisely what Downtown Development Authorities are, if only on a smaller scale.

The Ferndale DDA doesn’t provide tax breaks for downtown businesses (that I know of), but it does subsidize and promote them at taxpayer expense, relieving business owners of having to pay for, or pick out colors, themselves. The intention being, that government can improve the economy for all of us by focusing much of its attention businesses.

Ferndale DDA Director, Cristina Sheppard-Decius was wearing her best Reagan swag when she told the Ferndale Patch,

“This isn't just about businesses and downtown,” she said. “Downtown is the heart of the community, and if the heart stops … You know what happens when the heart stops."

The DDA director knows what her job is and what’s at stake. Our community reflects the health of its downtown.

This actually explains a lot. That noise keeping residents up at night on Troy wasn’t revelers and loud music—it was prosperity leaking into their bedrooms.

So to be consistent with our derision of government subsidies for dairy producers and chicken farmers, or tax breaks for manufacturers and green companies, we risk becoming hypocrites if we don’t also scrutinize our DDA, its revenue, expenses, and its impact on the city’s revenue and expenses.

And conversely, if you think the DDA’s work is important and your life or property values improved by their efforts, then you might consider that similar programs at the state and national level have merit as well.

Whichever path of reason you take, all uses of tax-payer money should be critically examined.

The Business of Government

Another threat to the city’s budget is our own school board.

Until very recently, the district planned to extract $50,000 annually from the city, and still hopes for more from district residents through a possible February millage increase (FF, June 2011).

It is said by many that government should be run like a business. Though many people say that, most aren’t clear what that would mean.

Few have as good a grasp of running government like a business as do Michigan’s Governor, Rick Snyder, and Ferndale School’s Superintendent Gary Meier.

While other school districts have teetering budgets, Gary Meier is running the school district like a business—looking to increase income and not just reduce expenses, and is safely in the black.

But Gary’s business is a hybrid. He can collect tuition from out-of-district students AND ask for a 7-mill tax increase from in-district residents.

It’s good business if you can get it.

The Ferndale Patch (my next favorite read after FF) quoted Mr. Meier saying,

"In order to move forward with a stable district as a whole, we have to look at revenue. We have to look at the revenue side of the ledger, not just the expenses.

"Every year, a percentage of the surpluses is saved for this project, for this work. Sometimes you have to invest a few dollars to make a few dollars."

Meier and the school board are broadening the district’s revenue by providing services to out-of-district and non-traditional students—which is another way of saying school-age kids and non-school-age adults that don’t live in Ferndale. The district may abandon their plan to purchase the Hayes Lemmerz site, but their desire to consolidate adult education, alternative education, and a possible charter school onto a single campus to make them easier for non-district residents to attend and our district to collect tuition makes too much business sense.

The residents living near the existing adult education center at Taft won’t be sorry to see it go—if it goes.

While campaigning around the school a couple years back, residents were ready with multiple stories about vandalism and drug abuse—anxious to tell them to anyone that would listen. But such sacrifices, perhaps, are necessary when government is run like a business and increasing revenue is as important as increasing test scores.

Except that according to the state’s 2005-2010 progress report, our district’s students aren’t performing as well as our district’s balance sheet.

There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with running a school district like a business as long as the quality of its product remains high and the impact on the environment is low.

Is the purpose of public schools to educate or turn a profit? As shareholders in the Ferndale School district, are residents more interested in its alternative revenue sources or the quality of its product?

Rain Barrel Math

There are 231 cubic inches in a gallon. Ferndale is 3.9 square miles, but if we annex a little bit of Pleasant Ridge we can make it four square miles to make math easier and the TIF district larger.

Four square miles is over 111 million square feet, and over 16 billion square inches.

When one inch of rain falls on Ferndale (and a little bit of Pleasant Ridge) it drops 69.5 million gallons of water, or 1.26 million barrels on our lawns, gardens, rooftops, roads, and parking lots.

One inch of water over 1000 square feet of roof will fill over 11 barrels with water. I’m catching only one of them.

Seniors may have paid, but they haven't paid enough

Ever since Michigan's new governor, Rick Snyder, proposed taxing pensions a parade of protests has been reported in the news media that "seniors have paid enough."  But to assert seniors, or any generation, has paid enough they must also have paid their way.


With a $14 trillion debt there hasn't been a single generation that can be said to have paid its way since before World War II.  Ever since then Congress, elected by the people, have been borrowing money to support a national lifestyle we cannot afford.


If today's seniors, tomorrow's seniors, and the seniors after them, ever want to arrive at a time in their (our) life when they can presume to have "paid enough" we must all start by first electing congressmen, senators, and presidents that can control their spending and welfare appetites.


But the rest of us ordinary citizens can begin balancing the budget by sending back money earmarked for our communities' historic districts, monuments, bridges, and firetrucks and resolving that if these expenditures are that important to us we must pay for them ourselves.  If we can't afford these expenses, or aren't willing to pay for them ourselves, then they must either be not that important or we'll have to live without them--just as earlier generations, much earlier, did.


Or we can continue as we have since the 1950s, just leave it for the future generations to either pay-off, or suffer the consequences of a default.

A tax increase by any other name is still a tax increase

[Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2011 edition of Ferndale Friends] 

I was just getting ready to write, “Boy, I’m glad THAT’S over,” when I realized the 21-38% city property tax increase won’t really be over until Dec 31, 2015.  That’s when the extra mills (up to 5.4552) will expire.

I wonder if that’s what voters expected would happen in 1994 when they approved 7-mills for a school bond for facility improvements.  Or if they thought the 7-mills renewed in 2004 would expire in 2012, or if they’ll think the 7-mills they’ll likely be asked to pass next February will expire.

Perhaps they’ll never expire.  Of course, to politicians, renewals aren’t tax increases.  Once you get taxpayers into the habit of paying taxes there’s little sense in breaking them from it, or even worse, let them expire and have to start from scratch.

But don’t take my word for it.  On May 11, Ferndale School’s superintendent Gary Meier told The Ferndale Patch, “We have a window of opportunity here to maximize our bond capacity and do so without a tax increase.  If we move beyond this window, we lost both capacity and the ability to have it be a no new taxes issue. [sic]”

It’s like a banker extending your mortgage a few years, but telling you it’s a good thing because you won’t notice any difference in your expenses.

But the question isn’t whether or not these are tax increases.  Instead it’s what is the seven-year plan for the district?  Will it have more or fewer students?  How many more or fewer and what is that estimate based on?  Will the district require the same number of buildings?  Or even, will the Ferndale School District still exist in seven years as it does today or will it consolidate with one or more of its neighbors to become a larger, more efficient, lower-administrative-overhead-per-student district offering even more educational opportunities than it does today?

Taxpayers will also be interested to find out what happened to the high school asbestos abatement the 2004 bond was supposed to pay for, and why is the board asking for another $14 million, for which the “biggest improvement” is asbestos abatement in the high school.

Most residents favor safe schools.  But many residents are also likely to favor knowing why the 2004 abatement wasn’t completed, or if it was, did the contractor not lift a ceiling tile? If they did, why was asbestos allowed to remain in the high school another seven years?

It’s hard to be certain in Ferndale, but there is something at least 47 other Michigan school districts are doing to help their taxpayers be certain—they’re putting their checkbooks online.

One-in-six Michigan school children attend classes in districts, including Berkley and Royal Oak, where anyone can visit the district’s websites and see who the checks are being written to.  Even better, at some districts you can see exactly where they money is coming from.

In Ferndale, it would be especially interesting to know where the district gets its money and where it spends it.  Especially especially (two especially-s are more especial than one especially) because the district is studying the purchase of the 34-acre Hayes-Lemmerz site immediately south of the high school for just under $1 million, and is prepared to spend another $7.5 million to renovate the buildings. 

Taxpayers should wonder to themselves, “If it takes 7-mills perennially renewed to maintain the buildings the district has now, how much more will be required to maintain whichever buildings remain on the site after the renovation?” or “If the student population is falling (as it has for 20+ years), who are the new buildings for?” or maybe, “Are the new buildings needed to generate revenue by diverting even more adult-ed income?”

Whatever the new cost will be (and ignoring where the $8.5 million came from and why it hasn’t already been being spent on students) we can be confident it’ll only be a tax increase the first time.  After that it’ll just be a renewal.

Going back to May 3 (remember May 3?  It’s a song about May 3), I was contacted by a reporter asking if I attended the victory party with the other pro-millage folks or if I had celebrated elsewhere.

“Celebrated?”  I asked.  “I don’t think increasing my neighbors’ taxes or needing to in the first place is anything worth celebrating.”

That quote didn’t make the article.

I still feel that way, and I don’t remember ever casting so distasteful a vote as I did on May 3.

And that was the easy part.

The hard part will be making sure city council spends the money in a manner commensurate with the narrow 198… er… I mean… 197-vote margin—which is to say frugally.

To make that job easier it would be helpful if the city had its checkbook online so residents and press could see where they money is going.  For instance, how quickly do you think you could find out how much money the city spent on the Withington lot screening wall, or software, or Plante Moran consultants, or furniture, or its labor attorney?

You could file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and the clerk’s or city manager’s office would hunt down and organize the information for you, or you could try searching and reading minutes from previous council meetings online, or even watch video of meetings over the internet.

But wouldn’t it just be easier to download a spreadsheet?  Certainly it would if each disbursement included the item it was for, which fund it came from, and the date the expenditure was approved by council.

I think this would be a great campaign issue for a council or mayoral candidate to take up—and to deliver—after they’re elected.

Oh, and I almost forgot, the ability to do math is always a good qualification as well.

If you have questions about transparency, the sources for this article, or have comments about it, you may write Tom at tggagne@gmail.com.