Author: Redactor

Las Vegas is a mecca for gamblers. But these days, you’re a gambler in that town just for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Worried about Columbine-​type shootings, many officials have lost all sense of proportion when it comes to matters of security. An example is the boy that reporter Joe Schoenmann identifies only as “Joseph K.”

Joseph had told a girl, who had left him on hold for 15 minutes, that it’s “people like you who get on the Columbine lists.” For that single impatient remark made during a conversation on the phone while at home, Joseph was summoned to the principal’s office the next day, handcuffed, and arrested. Then he had to cool his heels in jail for ten days while his family wondered what was happening. Then he was expelled from school. Now, if some incidental remark seems disturbing, that might be worth looking into in order to find out whether there’s cause for alarm. But that’s not what happened here. Nobody sat down with this eighth-​grader to ask, what did you mean by such-​and-​such? Nobody took his typical behavior into account. Instead they just came down on him like a ton of bricks. The Nevada legislature deserves a lot of the blame here.

According to the police, Joseph was defined as a “habitual disciplinary problem” because two years ago, the legislature officially defined that term to include anyone who makes even a single apparent threat. So even a kid like Joseph K., who makes good grades and has not been in trouble before, can be condemned as a habitual problem child. That’s a lousy gamble.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The career politicians are gnashing their teeth in Nashville. Why? Because they were unable to impose on Tennessee what one-​term governor Lowell Weicker was able to foist on Connecticut: a state income tax.

There has been plenty of mumbling in the state legislature over the last few years about imposing this new tax. And plenty of protesting by Tennesseans who think they’re taxed more than enough already, thank you. Most of the protests have been peaceful. More recently, though, taxpayers were banging on the doors of the capitol and buttonholing legislators in the hallways. Crazy, huh? Mere citizens demanding to talk to legislators? That does sound pretty dangerous. Who do they think they are … lobbyists?

But you can sort of forgive the impetuosity. After all, Tennessee is a state, just like Connecticut, that does not have any statewide initiative and referendum process. So, it would have been impossible for voters to overturn a bad piece of legislation at the ballot box once their so-​called representatives had passed it. State Senator David Fowler was working to place a referendum on the income tax on the ballot, but who knows whether he would have succeeded. Yet, he seems to think his gesture in this direction should have been enough to send people home. “People outside are protesting, not even knowing we were trying to find a way to give them a vote,” he told the press.

But Fowler is either terribly nave or more than a tad disingenuous. Would the senator have gone even this far in recognizing the rights of the voters without all their public protests over the last three years? I don’t think so.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Sick of hearing about Congressman Gary Condit? Just remember it can always get worse. Today’s subject is one we’d rather not talk about sexual abuse of children.

Two Maryland politicians have become embroiled in scandals involving sexual abuse. Part of the scandal is how others too often turn a blind eye. Alfred Muller had been mayor of Friendship Heights for 26 years until he was accused of molesting a 14-​year-​old boy in the restroom of the National Cathedral. First, seeking another term, he denied the charge. But then he plead guilty and stepped down. After babbling on about taking “full responsibility,” Muller was sentenced. How long will he serve for his crime? No jail time, just three years probation. Judge Shellie Bowers believes Muller paid for the crime with his public fall from grace, explaining, “As for the punishment aspect, I think there’s the humiliation, the disgrace, all of that.”

Or take the case of State Delegate Joan Cadden and her husband, who was convicted of the sexual abuse of his niece abuse his wife knew about but didn’t report to authorities. Seems the whole family, even the abused girl’s parents, put Delegate Cadden’s political career as first priority. State GOP Chairman Michael Steele says, “When you hear family members say they were trying to protect the delegate’s political career, that they turned a blind eye to the abuse because of political considerations, it gives you pause.” Yes, a great deal of pause …

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

You may have heard that pensions for congressmen and most other federal employees are way out of whack. If you haven’t, listen to Hastings Keith.

Former Congressman Hastings Keith of Massachusetts is lobbying Congress to stop doling out far too generous cost-​of-​living increases, known as COLAs to retirees like himself. Keith says, “COLAs are supposed to keep up with the cost of living, not the cost of living it up.” He should know. Not only because he’s on the receiving end himself. Mr. Keith also chairs the National Committee on Public Employee Pensions. Keith says that after 14 years in Congress, his pension paid him $1,560 in the very first month after his 1972 election defeat. And now? Now he rakes in $7,172 a month almost a thousand more than he should after adjusting for inflation.

But the COLAs are also calculated too generously on his Social Security and on his widower benefits on his wife’s pension from the federal government. Only the COLA on his military pension falls short of inflation. In all, Keith pulls in more than $134,000 a year in retirement benefits. What did he have to do to get such a lucrative pay-​out from taxpayers? He estimates he contributed less than $34,000 toward all these benefits, much of that in Social Security taxes. So, each year, Mr. Keith receives four times as much as he paid in over his entire lifetime. And he’s not alone. This is an outrageous rip-​off of taxpayers, to the tune of billions of dollars. And everybody knows it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

There they go again those manipulative career politicians! Economic commentator Bruce Bartlett says that a particularly underhanded budget strategy is now underway in the Congress a ploy that was all the rage during the Reagan years when the Demo half of the Demopublican Party dominated the Hill.

During the Reagan years, the career politicians used to stall and stall before sending their bloated appropriations bills to the President for his signature. Often, they’d wait until the very last minute of the very last day of the fiscal year before calling the U‑Haul truck to lug the legislation over to the Oval Office. What that meant was that if the President at that late hour chose to veto the appropriations for being too lard-​laden, the government would have to shut down, and the chief executive would have to take the political heat for it.

Of course, after the so-​called Republican Revolution of 1994, when the Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress, the Republicans proved to be just as fond of bloated spending as their careerist colleagues across the aisle. Now Senate Democrats are using their newly acquired majority status to drag their legislative feet just like they did in the old days. Bartlett predicts that, once again, the congressmen will call U‑Haul at the very last minute to lug the spending specs over to the White House. And without a line-​item veto, George Bush will have a tough decision to make: sign off on all the pork or shut down the government. Oh, those manipulative career politicians. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This is Common Sense . I’m Paul Jacob.

Smile, you’re on candid camera! If you live in Tampa, Florida, anyway.

The Tampa City Council approved legislation to install cameras in a popular night-​life district of the city. The technology was tested at the Super Bowl. The cameras digitize your face and transmit the image to a computer which matches your face with those of wanted criminals. It’s a cheap and easy electronic way of dragging everybody before a police lineup whether they like it or not. Tampa citizens are up in arms. And now the politicians who authorized the cameras are saying, “Huh? We had no idea this was going on. Outrageous.” Tampa is the place where career politicians just don’t quit.

Twice last year they tried to undo term limits. First they put a repeal measure on the ballot, which voters squashed. Then they mumbled something about calling a special election to try again. It was Council Member Gwen Miller who said enough is enough. Now some councilpersons are saying that the authorization for the peeping-​Tom Tampa snapshot-​taking was buried so deep in other legislation that they just missed it. Okay, I guess that’s possible. Our congressmen don’t bother to read all the legislation they vote for either. Meanwhile, the Tampa councilman who wrote the bill, Robert Buckhorn, says he didn’t call any hearing about the cameras beforehand because no new money had to be appropriated for them. Apparently, it didn’t occur to the buck-​passing Mr. Buckhorn that treating innocent people like criminal suspects might raise a hackle or two. Or maybe it did occur to him.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.