Maryland Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Big Brother Plays in Traffic

One of my favorite uncles used to jokingly tell us kids to “go play in traffic.” In reality, not so good for kids. Or for politicians.

Maryland’s recent Senate Bill-277 brought this to mind. It authorizes the installation of cameras to monitor and ticket for speeding near highway work zones and schools. Legislators insist that the cameras will slow down traffic and bring in needed revenue.

How do voters feel? Well, according to a report at TheNewspaper.com “no photo enforcement program has ever survived a public vote.”

Voters tend to regard speed cameras as simply another scam to grab yet more money. The cameras also remind one of Big Brother.

So, how come legislators don’t listen to the people? Maybe one reason is that as TheNewspaper.com also reports, “[P]arties with a direct financial interest in automated ticketing showered members of the Maryland General Assembly and the governor with $707,725 in gifts and campaign cash.”

Oh.

Fortunately, Maryland voters have the right to referendum: They can petition to place this legislation to a vote of the people.

And that is exactly what the group Maryland for Responsible Enforcement is now doing.

Similar battles are being waged in other states. There’s an effort to take away the 200 speed cameras now on Arizona roads; Montana legislators just banned such cameras in Big Sky Country.

Maybe Big Brother should “go play in traffic.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Modern Disabilities

You expect politicians to game the system and rip off taxpayers for their own benefit. But not our police.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, 41 percent of retiring police officers now receive disability payments, and requests for disability pay have jumped an incredible 300 percent in the last year.

In nearby Fairfax County, Virginia, on the other hand, only 3 percent of retirees receive disability.

Of course, police work is often dangerous, and when officers are disabled on the job they ought to be compensated properly. Still, something is way out of whack in Montgomery County.

Former county officers receiving extra disability retirement pay have been discovered working other very physically demanding jobs — like flying commercial aircraft, or breaking up fights as a high school security guard, or serving in the army reserve.

Thomas Evans, a former county police chief, calls snagging extra disability pay “almost as easy as signing your name on the application.”

Now the feds are investigating. That’s good, but how does a system get so far out of whack?

Two factors are at work: (1) a unionized police force means constant pressure for more outlandish benefits, and (2) politicians negotiate these deals with securing the political support of the union in mind, not fulfilling their fiscal responsibility to taxpayers.

Or maybe it’s just proximity to Washington, D.C.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.