Time to wash

Quite an experience today. I went to a "meet the candidates" event and talked with a few voters. While there I ran into a flunkie for a prominent elected official. In a fairly brief conversation, the flunkie offered to help me raise money for my campaign. The offer seemed genuine and I suspect this person would indeed be able to help me raise significant money.

However, I am quite confident that the motives for helping me are the wrong motives. This is not to help me in my campaign, but rather to get back at someone else. Combined with my strong feelings of dislike for the official, this was quite unpleasant. I was quite clear in rejecting the help. As I told my wife and also a close friend, I would never be able to wash myself enough. My wife tells me this is why I'll never make it as a politician. I'd rather earn money in my law practice and other business ventures and spend some of my own money the next time.

I'm not opposed to soliciting campaign contributions, by the way. I see nothing wrong with it at all. Maybe I should think about it. My gut is that it couldn't be enough to make my campaign a winner -- it would have to be more than $500K, and I don't think that's possible. How much money would this official have to raise for me before it would be worth it? Comments appreciated.

McNulty's campaign reform

In his debate response, McNulty indicated he is a cosponsor of the "Clean Money, Clean Elections" bill in Congress. I think he's referring to HR 3099. This bill has done nothing in Congress since July of 2005, so again we can see how effective McNulty is in Congress.

Turning to the content of this bill, it does not include free postage for candidates. It gives free broadcast time to candidates: 30 minutes in primaries and 75 in general elections. That includes both TV and radio, and it works out to 60 ads of 30 seconds in primaries and 150 ads in a general election. Radio spots are usually 60 seconds, so it's only 30 spots and 75 spots. I spent $25K on TV and radio in 2004, and that bought a lot more than 150 spots. My district has the advantage of being in only one media market. Many districts cover multiple media markets, so the free TV would be dramatically reduced for candidates in such districts. The 20th district (Sweeney, Gillibrand and Sundwall) for example has 3 different media markets - Albany, Plattsburg, and NYC. [Correction -- 4 media markets -- I believe parts of Delaware and maybe Otsego are in the Binghamton market.]

Candidates would also receive campaign funds, but there's a complicated formula to determine how much, and I think if you read that carefully, it will become apparent that it's not a lot of money. If I read it right, in a primary election you get 32% of the "base amount" - the amount expended by the average winning candidate in nationwide over the last 3 election cycles. Sounds good until you realize that many incumbents run unopposed, and many others face no significant challenge. The average might well turn out to be about $100K, so the typical candidate might get only $32K for a primary. It's 48% for a general election, so that would work out to $48K. If the base amount was the average of winning challengers, rather than winning candidates overall, that would mean a lot more money, but that's not the proposal. It's also unclear what counts as "expended". Do McNulty's contributions to local Dem committees, other parties, and such, count? At a quick look I don't see a definition for that word in the bill.

It's not enough money. Winning challengers almost always spend $1 million or more. Limiting challengers to even $200K ensures that challengers will be unable to get their message out. In NY there's roughly 450,000 registered voters in a congressional district. It costs $100K to send one postcard to each registered voter. It takes money for candidates to get their message out.

Note that both proposals offer less money for primaries. Since most districts are gerrymandered, the most competitive races are often in primaries (see Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman). Giving less for primaries is designed to make those elections less competitive.

To get the benefits of the bill, candidates either have to be from a major party (i.e. Republican or Democrat), or that candidate must personally have gotten 25% of the vote in a previous election. Candidates who fit this must then get 1500 contributions of $5 each, presumable each of these from a different person. If you're not from a major party, you need to get 2250 such contributions.

Any candidate who faces a challenge from a candidate spending beyond the "Clean Money" amounts would receive an amount to match the amount spent by this other candidate. In other words, if someone spends a lot of money on a race, the "clean money" candidate gets matching funds from the government.

This bill plainly favors incumbent Dems and Republicans to the detriment of challengers and third-party candidates. What a surprise that McNulty would support it. Incumbents will all take the "clean money" route. Challengers who stick with the "clean money" approach will be so limited in spending that they won't be able to overcome the incumbent's name recognition advantage. When an incumbent faces a challenger who spends more than the CM amounts, the incumbent will get free matching funds with no effort. Challengers will also have to jump through a variety of hoops to qualify for the benefits, while incumbents will have a campaign staff and party machine at the ready to make sure it gets done easily. Most challengers will fail to qualify and get no money at all after wasting a lot of time trying to jump through the hoops. And of course, third-party and independent candidates have even more hoops to jump through.

I challenge anyone to explain why this bill would improve the democratic process in America.

Reviewing Raleigh

As I mentioned in a very recent post, the Informed Constituent ran a print debate including myself, the incumbent, and his Dem primary challenger, Tom Raleigh. I reviewed McNulty's positions in the previous post.

Now on to Raleigh:

1. Regarding restoring confidence of the people in their elected officials, Raleigh, like McNulty, supports campaign finance reform.
Also like McNulty, and other supporters of such "reforms", he fails to explain how this will actually make a difference. It's my firm position that past campaign finance reforms helped incumbents dramatically by making things more difficult for challengers. The proposed reforms will do so even more. The problem is not campaign finance, but various aspects of the election process that favor incumbents.
Raleigh also prophesizes that his campaign will shock the political system. So far the only shock looks to be the clobbering Raleigh will take in the primary since almost no one knows who he is and he has no clear message.

2. Asked what he would do to help working families, Raleigh discusses two issues: health care and fuel/energy.
On health care he calls for a "national health care strategy", but fails to explain what that means in any substance. On his website he sort of says he's for universal health care, but he's still not clear on it.
On fuel and energy, he calls for reducing our dependence on foreign oil and shifting to renewable sources of energy. He does not explain how we'll get there, either in the debate or on his website. He does oppose drilling in ANWR, a position all three of us share. Raleigh's reasoning for that is identical to my own - it's a strategic reserve, best left in the ground until we really need it.

3. On the balance between federal and state power, he says he supports States' rights. Like McNulty, he fails to mention individual rights in his answer.

4. Regarding the "War on Terror", he gives a lengthy answer. To summarize, he seems to say the war in Iraq was wrong, that we should work with other countries, use diplomatic and economic power, and develop our intelligence forces. I mostly agree with Raleigh on this, but think he doesn't go far enough in withdrawing US troops from overseas in general. He still seems like an interventionist, but with a different approach from Bush & McNulty.

5. On the balance between security and liberty, Raleigh gives an empty answer, making vague comments like we must "tread very carefully" and "Congress must not be timid".

6. On the "greatest challenge facing America", he picks two. First he says "we must come together as a nation." Next he says we must mend fences abroad. His only specific is on the second, saying we should limit the number of politically appointed ambassadors. Presumably he thinks ambassadors should be professional diplomats.
I don't think he's nuts on the ambassador thing, but if that's what he thinks is the greatest challenge facing America today, he's way out of tune with the American people.
Strangely, McNulty also said that restoring our international reputation is the greatest challenge. I think very, very few Americans are concerned about our international reputation.

7. On why voters should choose him, Raleigh says we need more military veterans in Congress. He pretty clearly implies that those without military experience cannot truly understand or appreciate the complexities of the post-911 world.
I respectfully disagree. As someone who hasn't been suffocating in the US military bureaucracy for Raleigh's 22 years, or in Congress for McNulty's 18 years, I appreciate that the world was already complex before September 11, 2001.

One interesting thing about Raleigh's responses is the length. His responses were more than double the length of mine, though he says fairly little in all of that space. McNulty's responses were about the same length as mine, and I think he said more than Raleigh in that space. Between McNulty and Raleigh overall, I disagree strongly with many of McNulty's answers, and some of his answers were dishonest. Raleigh said so little of substance in his responses that I don't disagree with him as much, but then again I don't really know where he stands. If I were voting in the primary, I'd vote for Raleigh, and I will encourage my Democrat friends to do so.

A touch more press

I'll take what I can get. Rex Smith of the Times Union mentioned me in an editorial today. It's a well-written, thoughtful piece on the reasons why a newspaper does or does not cover a campaign.

While I don't like the conclusion, I understand. My only quibble is his description that I criticized the TU for not covering "my" campaign. My letter was a broader criticism than that. #1, I criticized their hypocrisy in calling on Sweeney and Gillibrand to discuss issues when the TU reports every mudsling in detail, while ignoring candidates who do talk about issues. And it wasn't just about my campaign -- I specifically mentioned the LP candidate in that district and the Democratic primary challenger in this district, referring to how they also talk about issues and don't get coverage either.

Dissecting McNulty

The Informed Constituent ran a "print debate" on the 21st district, with responses from myself, Tom Raleigh, and the incumbent, Mike McNulty. They have fortunately put this content on their site, so anyone can read it here: Redlich McNulty Raleigh print debate.

In this post I will dissect McNulty's responses. I'll probably dissect Tom Raleigh's responses in the future.

1. Regarding confidence of the people in their officials, McNulty's short "what I would do" response was to enact "Clean Money Clean Elections" campaign reforms. As far as cleanliness goes, this is the same guy who funneled $35K of PAC money from his campaign to his brother. But more important, voters should understand that campaign reforms have consistently benefited incumbents. In the end they always make life more difficult for challengers. It's not surprising that an incumbent would support such reforms. Incumbency reelection rates used to be in the 80s (i.e. 85% of incumbents would win reelection). Since the campaign finance reforms were passed, incumbency reelection rates have soared to 98% in 2004. Campaign finance reforms are bad for democracy.

2. On what he would do to help working families, he set out a laundry list:
a. Raise minimum wage
As I've previously posted, I'm opposed to any minimum wage. Read that post for more. McNulty's position is not surprising since he's a union hack, and minimum wage is a big union issue.

b. Repeal Bush tax cuts for millionaires; replace with tax deductibility for college tuition and other assistance to help working families.
This is classic liberal Democrat class warfare -- McNulty wants to soak the so-called rich. He's a phony on this. When you get down and take a good look at his voting record over the years, he consistently votes to raise taxes on anyone and everyone. National Taxpayers Union has consistently rated him one of the biggest tax and spend liberals in Washington for his entire 18 years in office. Repealing tax cuts is just another way for McNulty to spend more of our money.

c. Universal health care coverage
More of McNulty's socialist ideology. Why is this an issue? Why not free food for everyone, or free housing, or free clothes? Why is it health care that has to be "universal"? The reality is that we don't have a medical insurance system. We have a medical payment system. I don't need insurance for a primary care visit, or for most of my family's medical needs. If I was paying cash straight up, all of that would cost far less than the $13K+/year I'm paying for my family now (and we still have co-pays and deductibles).
People need insurance for big-ticket items like heart surgery and cancer. Car insurance doesn't pay for routine maintenance. Why should health insurance? The real solution to the health care problems we're having now is to allow for more high-deductible insurance options. Let me cover the first $5K or $10K with a medical IRA, and buy insurance in case my bills run higher than that in a given year. Our insurance market is so overregulated, thanks to the McNulty's of the world, that such options are hard to find.
I don't even want to start thinking about how much McNulty's universal health care coverage would cost, but I'll bet it's hundreds of billions a year. And then we'll all find out about rationing. We need more capitalism, not more socialism.

d. Repeal the "huge" tax cut for oil companies and develop clean, alternative sources of energy
Well, McNulty wants to raise taxes again -- Of course, raising taxes on oil companies would increase the price of gasoline, but most people enjoy paying more for gas. Develop alternative energy? 18 years in Congress and the guy's done nothing about this.

e. Something about a bill for "Family and Workplace Balancing"
This sounds like just another way to make life more difficult for employers. As an employer, I understand how difficult it is to create jobs. McNulty wants to make it even harder.

3. On the balance between federal and state power, McNulty says the feds "should not overrule more progressive State laws, but should have the right to expand civil rights for all.
Liar, liar, pants on fire! McNulty has consistently voted opposite of this on abortion and gay marriage.

4. On the "war on terror", McNulty says the Bush policies have been an abject failure. He says he wants a timetable and immediately begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. He says some other vacuous pandering things like that we should honor our veterans.
Of course we should honor our veterans! McNulty dishonored them when he voted for the war in Iraq. Now he's completely ducking his responsibility for the war. McNulty voted for the Bush policies. Voters should remember this.

5. On national security and civil liberties, he gives a mostly vague answer and then brags on voting "NO" on the 2005 Patriot Act Reauthorization.
He neglects to mention that he voted "YES" on the original Patriot Act. McNulty makes Kerry look consistent.

6. On the "greatest challenge facing America", McNulty says it's "restoring our international reputation" and that electing a Democratic Congress is the answer.
I could make a list of 10 things that are far more important than our international reputation. And I'm quite sure that more partisanship is not the answer to that problem anyway.

7. This question asked why voters should choose him "over all others". He throws some more BS, and brags about endorsements from special interest. He also throws in the following: "In the last national survey b the AP, my district ranked 45th highest out of all 435 in the receipt of federal funding."
McNulty's been bragging about that survey since it came out ... 5 years ago ... based on data that was from a couple years earlier. The Times Union, in a Page One story on 8/10, quoted McNulty uncritically on that a week or so ago, and the Troy Record misquoted him as #2 in the country during the 2004 race. Also, the district lines changed in 2002, so it's not the same district. And I haven't noticed any bridges to nowhere in the Capital Region, so what's this really measure? It measures receipt of all federal funds. We get a lot of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security money in the Capital Region, but the big money is funds from the feds to the state governments, and that money comes to Albany because that's where the state government is. McNulty has nothing to do with that money coming here. I hate to give Pataki credit for anything, but if credit for this goes anywhere, it goes to Pataki. Then again, I don't really want to give anyone credit for a porkfest.

In case any journalists read this blog, I hope you will call McNulty on this bogus statistic. Make him back it up -- give you a copy of the survey and make him explain why this is something he should get credit for.

More on Social Security

The Wall Street Journal has a great editorial on Social Security in Tuesday's (8/22/06) paper. It discusses criticism of the current system. Some suggest that we will either go bankrupt trying to pay the benefits coming down the road, or we'll have to impose a horribly high tax rates in order to pay them. The latter scenario doesn't really work because extremely high tax rates would devastate productivity and we'd never have enough to pay the benefits.

The WSJ pooh-poohs these concerns with the reassurance that at some point benefits will be cut so it won't be such a big problem. Benefit cuts is not the answer today's seniors want to hear. I offered a better way out of the Social Security mess on a recent blog post. The WSJ also hints that private accounts would somehow make a difference, but they don't explain this in any way.

I'm sure many are uncomfortable with my proposal to let people opt out. But if you compare it to the nightmare scenarios we're facing under the current system, it's gotta be better.

McNulty's hypocrisy on Iraq

I just noticed this post on Democracy in Albany, the second part of an interview with incumbent Mike McNulty.

McNulty is asked about the war in Iraq, and who should be held responsible for the decision to go in.

MS: Who should be held responsible and how?
McNulty: Well, where does the buck stop? The President - from the very beginning, is the one that promoted this effort.

McNulty refuses to accept any responsibility for his vote in support of the war in Iraq. He follows the current popular Democrat line that they were fooled into voting for it because "Bush was wrong" about WMD, terrorist links, etc.

Bunk! I said it before we went into Iraq and I'll keep saying it. If we're concerned about WMD, North Korea and Pakistan were much bigger threats than Iraq. If we're concerned about links to terrorism, many other countries were (and are) more obviously linked to terrorism, such as Pakistan, Iran, and Syria. Notice how Pakistan is on both lists? And we still call them our ally.

Bush did not do this by himself. Congress failed to stand up and say no. Mike McNulty failed in his duty to this district and to the American people. There were a number of congressman (such as Maurice Hinchey) who did oppose the war from the beginning. If Mike McNulty had opposed the war, and if he was a leader, he might have brought others with him and stopped it.

Now, instead of accepting responsibility for his role in getting us into the war, he's placing the blame elsewhere.

The line is not: "The buck stops with that guy." It's: "The buck stops here."

McNulty should step up now and apologize to his constituents. Like that'll ever happen. We'll see how he does when we debate.

Times Union gives Sweeney a boost

The Times Union reported today on Rudy Giuliani's appearance in support of John Sweeney. I noticed a couple of interesting things about the article.

It indicates that Sweeney "got a boost" from Giuliani, who endorsed Sweeney during a day of campaigning, including "a visit to a fire house, a stop at the racetrack and a rally with more than 100 residents."

How is this a boost? They saw 100 residents out of the 660,000 residents in the congressional district. Whoop dee doo! However, 100,000 people or more will read about it in the TU. That's the real boost.

It's a real shocker that Giuliani endorsed Sweeney. That's a real hard-hitting news story. Apparently Republican Giuliani was thinking about endorsing Democrat Gillibrand. [If you can't see the sarcasm in here, please read it again.]

More interesting was the fact that the reporter reported a response from challenger Gillibrand. It's pretty common for newspapers to report something positive about an incumbent without calling the challenger for a comment. McNulty in my race has gotten a lot of positive press in the TU without any response from a challenger (either myself or his primary opponent Raleigh).

Nice to see some mitigation of the incumbency bias. Maybe at some point the 21st district will become a newsworthy race ... but I'm not counting those chickens just yet.

More on trade barriers - TU letter to editor

I recently posted about why trade barriers are bad economic policy. My post was about an article in the Times Union about a certain trade barrier involving bearings. Now the local bearing manufacturer has written a letter to the editor of the TU. I will dissect the letter here.

Letter: ... an important decision that will help preserve good jobs in New York and the rest of the nation.

Response: The decision will also raise costs for manufacturers and consumers in the US and the rest of the world, and will likely destroy more jobs in other industries than it will save in bearings, as we saw with the steel tariffs a few years ago.

Letter: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rep. Michael McNulty and Rep. John Sweeney all stepped up to the plate when New York jobs were on the line, and they deserve the thanks of every New Yorker.

Response: Now why did they leave out Chuck Schumer? Is it because Schumer is not up for reelection? When this company (Pacamor Bearings) says every New Yorker, does this include the company, which is incorporated in Delaware? If you're so focused on NY, why isn't your company incorporated here?
Should New York businesses who will now pay more for bearings also thank these representatives? How about the consumers of those products, who will now pay more for the products they buy?
And why would members of Congress have any influence over a decision by the International Trade Commission? The ITC is supposed to make a factual determination about whether there has been dumping or other unfair trade practices, and further whether a domestic business has been injured by such practice. See the ITC anti-dumping rules. This is a fact question and members of Congress should not be offering any testimony in such a proceeding (unless they happen to be experts, which is laughable here).
So, either Clinton, McNulty and Schumer exerted inappropriate influence on a quasi-judicial body, or they did nothing and they're getting free press for doing nothing - but what else is new?

Letter: In the late 1980s, our company was thrown into bankruptcy due in part to the surge of dumped imports that led to the creation of these anti-dumping orders. The orders have provided a vital lifeline to the domestic industry -- allowing us to bounce back from bankruptcy, invest in our workers, and upgrade our equipment.

Response: In the late 80s, you mismanaged your business and deserved to go out of business. The government has rewarded your mismanagement by protecting you from your own incompetence and in the process has stuck other manufacturers, and the ultimate consumers of your products, with higher prices.

Note that the accused dumpers include China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Those 6 countries account for well over half the economy of the rest of the world. So far the substance behind the decision is not available from the ITC. Anti-dumping rules such as these are disfavored by international trade rules such as GATT and the WTO. The US persists in them because it allows incumbents like Sweeney, McNulty and Clinton to curry favor with special interests like Pacamor Bearings. It is not to benefit Americans or New Yorkers.

Social Security and Medicare - a way out

Okay, now I'm going to put my foot firmly on the third rail - Social Security.

When I talk about my position on Social Security with those under 40, I get a strong positive reaction. When I do the same with those over 55, they start twitching like they're going to have a seizure.

My position is simple, and the economic logic is compelling. Let people opt out of Social Security and Medicare if they want to. Those who opt out would no longer pay the "employee" share of their contribution. The "employer" share would continue to go into the system. For those, like me, who are self-employed, our self-employment tax would be cut in half. For those who don't know, the employee share and employer share are 7.65%, and the self-employment tax is 15.3%. Those who opt out would be ineligible for any future benefits from the system.

Economics: Each person who opts out leaves all of their past contributions in the system (a fiction, I know), and cuts their effective future revenue to the system in half. They cut the expense they impose on the system in the future by 100%.

A response I often get is that this wouldn't work and would bankrupt the system. Well if cutting future revenue from this group by 50% while cutting future expenses by 100% will bankrupt the system, then the current system is already in a whole lotta trouble.

There might be a short-term problem with keeping up with expenses for current retirees due to the drop in revenue, but this can be resolved if we (say it with me) Stop Wasting Money in other places as discussed at length elsewhere in this blog.

Part of this proposal is that we have to guarantee benefits to those who stay in the system. If you've paid in and you want to stay in, we must honor the deal that our country made with you.

At the same time, if you believe in freedom, you have to let people leave if they want out. Perhaps the motto of this policy is "Let My People Go". Almost everyone under 40 would opt out in a heartbeat. What is the rationale for depriving them of this choice. Remember that they would be choosing to continue paying half into the system just to be let out. Why would we do this? Because we don't believe the benefits will be there for us when we get older. The age of eligibility keeps going up. By the time I get in the ballpark it'll be over 80. My grandfather died at 65 and my father died at 64. I'm optimistic about my future, but what are my odds of collecting?

In the long run, this solution will end Social Security, but it will take about 50 years (when today's 40-year-olds are 90, and those over 50 who stayed in will be mostly dead). Within about 20 years, the system will start getting a lot stronger as the youngest of those who stay in the system will turn 70, and a substantial number will have died off. I'm not rooting for their deaths, mind you. My mother's in that group along with two other people who are wonderful grandparents to my children. With that 20-year prospect not too far away, we should be able to borrow to finance the short-term shortfall if we have to (though I still prefer the Stop Wasting Money approach).

My proposal should be contrasted with the phony reform approach of Bush and most Republicans -- private accounts. I favor real private accounts - they're called IRAs, and they're not mandatory.

I'm sure many who read this will reject it outright. But stand in the shoes of today's 20-year-old. The current system has this young person putting 15% or more of their income into Social Security and Medicare for 50 or even 60 years before he/she will collect anything. If you're in our young friend's shoes, do you think it's likely you'll be collecting on this deal when you get there? How long does our young friend have to live to break even, before you start thinking about how interest should have increased the value of the contributions? Even at 40, I would opt out because of my doubts about the system. My brother says the same at age 44.

Let my people go.

Raleigh update

Since no one else seems to care about Tom Raleigh's primary campaign, I'll keep mentioning it if I see something. I was checking the FEC database and saw that he spent $7500 of his own money on billboard advertising. I haven't seen the billboard anywhere. If anyone has seen it, please post a comment to let us know where it is.

Not that he has a lot of good options, but I don't think a billboard is the best move. $7500 would have bought a substantial amount of radio time. That's about what I spent on radio in 2004, and it bought me a pretty good distribution of spots on 4 major area radio stations and four smaller stations in Fulton, Montgomery and Schoharie counties. It also would be enough to buy a good run of TV ads on one of the major TV stations.

The distinction is that TV and radio are required by the FCC to give candidates the lowest rate they give to anyone else, no matter how few spots you're buying. The billboard companies do not have that requirement and will jack you for all they can get (ah, capitalism). Also, TV and radio will reach the entire district. Billboards have a much more limited audience. Finally, on a billboard you can't say more than about 7 words. If you have a soundbite message (like Stop Wasting Money :-) ), it might work. But if you don't have that soundbite, it probably won't take.

If we can find out where the billboard is, it might be interesting to see if he does better in that particular area when the votes are counted. From my limited billboard advertising experience, that amount would not buy more than two billboards, and it's probably only one. I had a Spanish-language billboard on Route 5 in Amsterdam - cost me $1000 a month for 6 months, but you get a break for multiple months. My hunch is that he bought one billboard in a more high-profile area (like I-90 in Albany) for one month - maybe two boards in high-profile areas.

If you see it, please let me know.

Blogging for Congress

I get this all the time and it happened again today. "So, are you running for Congress?"

I have a quick one-liner response:

"I wouldn't call it running. More of a slow jog or fast walk."

Responding to my friend today, I was thinking of saying that I'm jogging for Congress, then realized that blogging rhymes with jogging.

So I'm not running for Congress. I'm blogging for Congress. :-)

Rooting for Raleigh vs. McNulty

There's a primary coming up in about 4 weeks between Tom Raleigh and Mike McNulty for the Democratic nomination for this district. Raleigh came almost out of nowhere about a month ago. I'm very impressed with him personally and am rooting for him (for many reasons, some selfish) in the primary.

While I strongly disagree with Raleigh on a number of policy issues, he's better than McNulty. He appears to be deeply principled. That makes me hopeful that if elected he would not fall into the Washington establishment the way McNulty has. The selfish reason is that my chances in the general election would be much stronger if Raleigh won the primary.

With all of that said, Raleigh does not have much of a chance. I've talked with him a little about the campaign, and I see what they're doing in their campaign. It's as if he has no grasp of the scope of this race. Today I was driving home on Western Ave (Route 20) and saw him standing at a defunct gas station near Crossgates with a big sign. This is a race for Congress, not Village Trustee. There are 7 counties in the district and he's aware of two of them (Albany and Schenectady).

I give him credit for getting some press coverage, but it's not much. He has picked up a fan on a nationwide liberal blog, but two posts on that isn't much. Haven't seen him much at all on Democracy in Albany or any other local blogs (except mine). His website looks reasonably good, but it's incomplete -- the "Speeches and News" link is marked "coming soon." There's only 4 weeks left!

I also give him a lot of credit for getting enough signatures to get on the ballot. He must have worked 60 hours a week on that.

But like many good people who are not sophisticated in politics, he just doesn't appreciate the magnitude of what he's trying to accomplish. 660,000 people in the district. 450,000 registered voters. 175,000 registered Democrats. How do you get a message out to so many people? Sending one postcard to 100,000 people costs $25K. And that's just one postcard. If you campaign in person and meet 100 people a day for 500 days, that's only 50,000. If he manages 500 people a day (impossible) for 8 weeks, that's less than 30,000.

And as for issues, there are some where he has developed enough understanding to sound credible to the media. But is he ready to answer questions about farm policy? Does he have positions on minimum wage, foreign trade, immigration, net neutrality, etc.? The nice thing about being a libertarian is that a lot of these questions are easy to answer because of the simple small-government philosophy.

On local problems, does he even know where Schoharie County is? Does he have a position on the Gilboa dam? Does he even know there's a problem with the dam? Could he drive from West Fulton to Fulton County by way of Fultonville without a map? (West Fulton is in Schoharie County and Fultonville is in Montgomery County, for those who don't know). How about getting from Tribes Hill to Meco Flats? Does he know the difference between the City of Johnstown and the Town of Johnstown (or the City of Amsterdam and the Town of Amsterdam)? What is Tom Raleigh's proposal for improving the economies of the three western counties? I don't think McNulty can answer half these questions either, but he doesn't have to impress anyone. One advantage of being a lawyer who handles traffic and criminal matters is you go to a lot of local courts so you learn your way around. I also worked for a judge in Fulton and Montgomery counties, and campaigned in Schoharie both for myself in 2004 and for the previous Republican candidate in 2002.

A more fundamental problem is that Raleigh has not developed a clear message. I'm watching his campaign closer than anyone, and I can't find a soundbite. When you're having trouble getting the voter's attention, you have to make your message as short and simple as possible (hence my "Stop Wasting Money" theme). Perhaps one of the readers will post a comment and explain Raleigh's message in 20 words or less?

The Daily Kos compares Raleigh to Ned Lamont, who just beat Joe Lieberman in a primary. But there's a huge, huge difference between them. Ned Lamont's campaign spent something like $10 million on the primary, with roughly $2M coming out of Lamont's own pocket. Lamont also had a number of leftist bloggers supporting him and attacking Lieberman. Also, a big contrast between McNulty and Lieberman -- Lieberman continues to support the war in Iraq, while McNulty has done a John Kerry flip-flop. And of course, Lamont got massive press coverage. With all of that in his favor, Lamont just barely won, 52-48.

So while I am rooting for Raleigh, I sadly predict he will do worse in the primary than I did in 2004 (I got 30% of the vote). Lee Wasserman got almost 40% of the vote in a 1996 primary, but he spent $400K and had hundreds of volunteers.

One reason why government wastes so much money

I've started receiving questionnaires from interest groups. The latest reminded me of something I noticed during the 2004 campaign.

This particular questionnaire comes from the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). Eight of the ten questions dealt with how the US gives out foreign aid, especially related to Armenia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. With many of these questionnaires, the focus is whether the candidate is willing to support aid for the interest group's agenda.

I remember from the campaign trail in 2004 how so many people would ask whether I would support spending money on this program or that program. It was rare for someone to ask about whether I would cut spending on something.

I can see where it might be tempting to just say yes to all of these people and groups. Tell them I feel their pain. That's what many candidates do, and that's why government wastes so much money.

My response on the campaign trail is to ask the person where they want the money to come from. Do you want me to increase your taxes? They usually answer that by asking me to raise someone else's taxes. Or I might ask where they want me to cut spending. The response is usually vague, or that they don't care. If it's a senior and I'm particularly feisty, I might ask if we should cut Social Security and Medicare to fund their pet program. That doesn't go over well, often driving the person into the beginnings of an epileptic attack. With the interest group questionnaires, there's no opportunity to respond in that way.

A newspaper even reported in 2004 how I would respond to concerns about gas prices by asking the person what kind of car they drive. Usually it was an SUV or pickup (because those are the people getting hit the hardest by gas prices). I'd tell them to drive a more fuel-efficient car. Not what they want to hear. They want the candidate to tell them that we're going to get those prices down. Government does not have the power to do this, but promise it anyway. Then when it doesn't happen blame the other party.

This is why I may not be the best candidate. I tell the truth.

Article in the Business Review

The Business Review did an article about how NY's business environment is hard on local businesses. I'm putting in brief excerpts here with my comments.

>New York's lawmakers talk about wanting to help business, and manufacturing businesses like Hannay Reels, but they're not really serious .... If a company doesn't have a "nano" or a "bio" or a "genetics" or a "tech" in its name, New York policymakers aren't interested ....<

I don't want to call this media bias, but the article focuses entirely on state lawmakers. They mention the National Federation of Independent Business, but they don't mention that the incumbent in Albany, McNulty, has consistently gotten terrible ratings from NFIB for his voting record.

>Improving the overall business climate is not as sexy as announcing a new bio/nano/genetic engineering company, but it's still important<

Much of the article goes along with this focus on how projects like AMD in Luther Forest get a lot of press, and may help the area economy, but it's far cheaper and far more important to improve the overall business environment. Pataki and Sweeney may want to pick the winners, but that sounds a lot like socialism.

Anyway, it's a good article in the Business Review, which generally has good stuff.

Trade Barriers: A waste of time and bad for the economy

The Times Union has an article today about a ball-bearing company in the area that will benefit from a ruling imposing duties on imported ball bearings.

Quoting the article, this was an "important ruling protecting the domestic ball bearing industry from unfair overseas competition."

When is competition fair and when is it unfair? Doesn't the loser always say it's unfair? The article says the duties will be maintained on "France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom." That's a big chunk of the world economy. It doesn't mention China, but I bet they're screwed too.

The TU article does mention that the ruling may hurt ball bearing producers overseas (obvious), but neglects to mention who else is hurt. I'll answer that: US manufacturers of products containing ball bearings, and the consumers who purchase those products.

Economics is quite clear on this. Trade barriers do more harm to consumers than any benefit they may create for the protected producers, and on top of that they harm the producers in other countries. They also encourage other countries to impose and/or maintain their trade barriers, sticking it to the consumers in those countries and exporters here. It's a vicious cycle, and the best way to get out of it is to stop playing the game.

I have a simple position on this issue. Free trade is good. We should eliminate all US trade barriers unilaterally. Once we've done that, I'd turn to countries with high barriers and challenge them to eliminate their barriers. If they don't comply, then I'd target them.

The other interesting thing about the article is the bipartisan nature of the current policy. Sweeney, McNulty and Hillary all supported the decision. Not sure why their opinions should matter on the question of whether the competition is unfair. That should be a economics and statistics analysis, and that may not be a strength for those political insiders. What it really means is the term unfair is defined by politics, not by reality.

Bipartisan. You hear about partisanship. Then you hear about bipartisan. I used to like the term non-partisan, but now I'm thinking of a new kick: anti-partisan. What we really need to do is destroy the political parties. That was the position of George Washington, but why would anyone listen to the father of our country.

Now I have to figure out how I can be a Republican while simultaneously being anti-partisan. If you see smoke coming out of my ears, you'll know the gears are grinding.

Cato document on federal spending

Just a quick post here, on a tip from my brother Steve, that the Cato Institute (libertarian group) put out a good short piece (pdf document) on the growth in federal spending in recent years. A good read for those who want to understand how we're wasting money.

The shocker for me was how much we're spending on "defense" -- well over $500 billion a year. I put defense in quotes because we're not defending ourselves, and I'm not sure who or what we are defending. Mostly looks to me like we're offending and squatting. Not only are we losing in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but every day we're there we inspire more people to hate us.

In a wild tangent, I have to comment on the recent terrorist plot that was foiled in London. It seems that a number of Muslim communities are home to groups of anti-US (and anti-UK and anti a whole lot of other Western and Judeo-Christian things) people who are willing to go beyond merely disliking us and are willing to attack us.

I see what's coming here and I don't like it. For now governments and politicians are trying to deal with these communities in an even-handed manner, only going after the bad seeds. This will not work and more terrorist attacks will come out of these communities. Sooner or later the average American is going to get angry in a nasty way. If you live in one of these communities, you had better start eliminating the bad seeds. If you don't, your whole neighborhood is going to get stomped, burned, and otherwise subjected to a genocidal rage from ordinary folks who will have become fed up. That process will make America a much more unpleasant place for all of us, but we in our nice suburban homes will be just fine.

I'm referring in particular to the mosques and other elements of the Islamic community who allow and even foster rabid anti-US ideologues and their followers. The Jews in Germany did nothing to provoke the Holocaust. By contrast, the redneck and blue collar rage that's coming will have some justification. It will still be wrong. But we have a real problem. Exactly what are we supposed to do when those who aim to kill us hide among those who permit them to plot such destruction? We know they're in these communities but we can't identify them from the otherwise peaceable muslims. The answer is that the peaceful muslims have to do more than just remain silent. They have to stop tolerating the radicals. They have to kick the troublemakers out.

I much prefer the path that would result from an American foreign policy that does not provoke such hatred. I support Israel unequivocally, but the rest of our foreign policy is out of line - wasting money and provoking hatred.

Homeland Security Waste #2: Immigration

I support a much higher level of immigration. I'm swimming against a strong tide on this, I know. I promised not to pull any punches on this blog, so here it goes: If you're anti-immigration, you're just another bigot.

Even if you're a "native American", at some point your ancestors walked across what is now the Bering Strait. My ancestors immigrated here, from roughly the 1850s to the early 1900s. There were plenty of people here then who didn't want them to come. People will offer a variety of reasons why they oppose immigration, but they all ring hollow. Bad for the economy? Nonsense. Immigrants continue to add great value to our economy, far and away outstripping any costs they impose. Destroying our culture? I thought we were supposed to be a melting pot. And since when does America have a culture? To paraphrase from my favorite movie (Stripes), we are the wretched refuse ... we've been kicked out of every decent country in the world. No room left? Rubbish. We have lots of room, and many developed areas (especially in this district) have become depopulated. That's why Schenectady welcomes the Guyanese.

As a nation we celebrate the Statue of Liberty. Well what's the poem associated with it?

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Someone please tell me what happened to this. The tired, poor, huddled masses sneak into our country under cover of night and when caught they are harshly treated and then sent back. Perhaps we should rephrase the poem:

Give me your wealthy, your elites,
Your skilled athletes yearning for larger endorsement deals,
The shining scholars of your teeming universities.
Send these, the well-off, silver-spooned to me,
but only a few of them.

Or maybe we should just close the statue, tear it down, and sell it off for scrap metal or send it back to France.

Lest I forget the theme of this blog, all of our efforts to keep out the huddled masses are quite expensive. As a criminal defense attorney in Albany, I've handled a couple of illegal immigration cases so far. In both cases these were otherwise decent people who did violate US immigration law. One will be sentenced to roughly four years in prison, while the other has been sentenced to 9 months. Each federal inmate costs approximately $40K/year to house. Add that up over 10,000, (or is it 100,000) inmates, and you start getting to some pretty big numbers. And that doesn't include the substantial costs of catching them and prosecuting them. Overall it's gotta be 100 billion dollars a year. And it doesn't even work. Much like the drug war, it doesn't matter how much we spend to keep them out, they keep coming anyway.

Minimum wage: a different kind of waste

Saw this article on minimum wage when I tried out Digg.com. It's a good explanation of the problems with minimum wage, and there are some surprisingly good comments on the article at the Digg website.

I oppose any minimum wage. The incumbent in my race supports an increase in minimum wage. That is a clear difference between us. Most Democratic politicians support higher minimum wage, while many Republicans waffle. The wafflers either don't understand the issue (or don't care), or they're trying to seem moderate for election purposes.

The standard "liberal" argument for minimum wage is that it's too low to support a family of four, so let's raise it to ... $8/hour? $10/hour? $13/hour? Different liberals have different targets. When someone with economics training criticizes minimum wage, the liberal answer is that there are no consequences.

Really? I suppose that a minor increase in the minimum wage would have minimal effects, but then, it would also have minimal benefits. But if there's no consequence, why not raise the minimum wage to $200/hour? As one friend of mine cynically puts this, the liberal position is that the government should give everyone a million dollars, make everything free, and we can all go dancing in the fields (at which point you're supposed to flap your arms up and down gently indicating that we're all flying freely).

There are many problems with minimum wage. First, the vast majority of those receiving minimum wage are not supporting a family of four. Many are teens in their first jobs. I'm now an employer, and while none of my employees (okay, my employee - I only have one so far) make minimum wage, I understand that an employee's work has a value to the employer. Some jobs do not create more value per hour than the minimum wage, and those jobs will disappear. If some of those jobs disappear, then teens and other job market entrants will have fewer opportunities to develop workplace skills. The higher you make minimum wage, the more jobs you will destroy. If the jobs don't disappear, then the price of the associated products and services will go up. And the people who work minimum wage jobs are disproportionately supplying poor people, so you're raising prices for poor people.

It would be easy for someone to criticize me, a well-paid lawyer with a $200/hour billing rate, as being out of touch. For starters, remember that billing is not take-home, but I had many low wage jobs when I was younger. In high school I delivered newspapers for dirt, and worked for Dairy Queen and Burger King for roughly $3.50 an hour. After high school I worked at a local camp (Ben Becker's Camp Nassau) at something like $2/hour (I think they had an exemption on minimum wage). I took these jobs happily (though I didn't stay happily at DQ and BK). In college I drove a shuttle bus for maybe $6/hour (I don't even remember). During college summers I lifeguarded for about $6/hour. In law school in 1994 I was making $10/hour as a Westlaw representative. So I remember the low-wage days.

I hope a supporter of minimum wage will post a comment on this blog post stating what the right minimum wage is, and explaining why that's the right number. It would be too much to ask for McNulty, Gillibrand or Sweeney to step up, but I can hope. :-)

Member Items and Earmarks - On the road to Sodom & Gomorrah

The Times Union had a story a while back (June 11) about member items. This is a state legislature thing, but Congress has something similar called "Earmarks".

Member items and earmarks are handouts from incumbents to special interests. I use the term special interests broadly here. It can be money for a local YMCA. But basically what happens is the incumbents get to go around their district handing out cash. Not their money by the way, but taxpayer money.

In some cases this money is used to create high-paying no-show jobs for flunkies. That's something that gets the press upset. They seem less upset by handouts to local groups like the Y, but they miss the point of it. The incumbents are buying votes with our money.

I remember in the 2004 campaign the a local YMCA had a dinner and had the incumbent in my race as the Keynote speaker. I asked for an opportunity to speak as well, and was told that it wasn't a political event. I thought about going and campaigning in the room, but decided that would strike people as in poor taste. I did it once at a Chamber breakfast where he was speaking, but that was a less formal function. Later on during the campaign I commented on the effect of the incumbent's proposed minimum wage increase and its effect on the Y and other local non-profits, who are more likely to pay minimum wage (I'll do another post on minimum wage down the road). The Executive Director of the Y then wrote a letter to the editor criticizing me for my comments.

Why did he inject himself into politics like that? Because he was hoping to get an earmark or some other kind of plum from the incumbent. But he was right. It wasn't about politics. For him it was about money - money for his organization that it needs because of the difficult economic environment they face (especially since minimum wage will increase soon). Unfortunately, while it wasn't about politics for him, his actions (typical of local organizations) helped the incumbent look good to supporters of the Y, and had an adverse effect (a trivial one) on my campaign.

And of course there's a more fundamental problem with member items and earmarks. Why are incumbents the right people to choose where such money should go? That money should stay in the hands of taxpayers, who are better placed to decide where to be charitable. Certainly an earmark to a local Y is inoffensive, but plenty of that money goes to places that are objectionable (like the job for the crony).

I oppose the earmark process and will vote with Congressman Flake to eliminate them. The same should be done with member items in the state legislature. I challenge Mike McNulty and Tom Raleigh in my race, along with John Sweeney, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Eric Sundwall in the 20th district, to make the same pledge. I believe Sundwall, as a Libertarian, already agrees with this position.

Homeland Security Frivolity - Part I

September 11th sure changed America. It gave Congress and the President a big excuse to waste a lot more of our money. This is a big topic, so I'll do it in bites. First I'll talk about the straight "security" wastes. Down the road I'll go after the anti-immigration nonsense, but not yet.

The security spending is complete nonsense. It quickly turned into another porkfest. I remember reading the Fulton County Leader Herald about how Homeland Security bought a truckload of gasmasks for the county. The article quoted the sheriff saying he wasn't quite sure what to do with them.

Take a look at Fulton County sometime. About 50,000 people in a pretty large area. A smaller population than the town of Colonie (80K+), with nearly 10 times the land area. And Colonie doesn't make a good target for a gas attack. One small waste for man, one giant waste for America.

Homeland Security funds went to high-risk places like Montana, Idaho and New Hampshire. Don't forget the Dakotas. The first President Bush saw 1000 points of light. This one found 1000 Maginot Lines.

Here in NY, the state government got all psycho about security. Metal detectors everywhere. One local courthouse now has six state officers guarding one door. In a rural county. Osama is not aiming for courthouses in rural counties. Can we get a clue?

You see, it doesn't matter how many places you secure. If terrorists want to blow something up, they'll just attack whatever isn't protected. Do we need soldiers protecting every school, every Walmart, every apartment building? Why not? The politicians aren't paying for it. We are.

During all the hype I heard Chuck Schumer advocate that we need these radiation detection devices to protect our borders. The devices cost $10 million apiece, and have a range of 80 feet. Let's be optimistic and say 200 feet. So we'd need 25 or so per mile. We've got about 10,000 miles of border, not counting Alaska and Hawaii. 2.5 million devices times $10 million equals $25 trillion, and then we've got to hire 20 million people to run them. Smart planning Chuck. Maybe he was thinking about fundraising for his next campaign.

I've got my security plan. First I make a few million, then I retire to Costa Rica. Think about it. If there was a nuclear war, would anyone nuke Costa Rica? Might be the safest place on earth. Maybe New Zealand. Montana was already pretty safe, but with all that homeland security money, now it's ... well ... just as safe as it was before.

In the meantime, if we could stop wasting so much money, more of us could afford a real retirement plan.

rave reviews

Got a lovely e-mail message today and thought I'd share it with readers of the blog. It's from ttsspy@aol.com, though that could be a phony address.

------
Warren
Why not do your country a favor and limit your runs to the bathroom.
The nicest thing I can think to say about your political sorties is that your are a distraction. Like a green fly on dog shit.
You need a babe or other and get laid more often. That way you wont jerk off in public.
City Of Gorki
------

This is why you have to have a thick skin to be a candidate. I suspect incumbents get this kind of junk more often.

The writer is correct in that campaigns like mine (challengers) are treated by most as merely a distraction. But I'd rather be the fly than the shit. :-)

Getting some press?

I'm pleased to report that the Times Union printed my letter to the editor. While my letter is somewhat critical of the TU, I give them credit for printing it and for the fact that they cover campaigns better than almost all other media in the area.

My LTE is at: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=505809&category=OPINION&newsdate=8/6/2006

Also, the campaign was mentioned in the Free New York blog. This is a group started by Jim Ostrowski, a libertarian in Buffalo who got fed up with how badly the Buffalo area is doing and rightly points out how much the State makes things worse.

Thanks to Jim for mentioning me on his blog, and I hope readers of this blog will check out what Free New York is doing.

The "Pretty Face" gets easy media coverage, again

Saw an article in an area paper referring to Gillibrand's energy policy. It's a completely uncritical puff piece where Gillibrand is quoted as saying she supports light rail, and wants to run it all the way from Lake Placid down to Dutchess County or further south. She doesn't know how much it would cost, and guesstimates it will take 10 years to get it done.

Does she literally mean light rail? Or is it monorail? Or MagLev? We don't know. That is not unveiled on her website. How will it be financed? How much will it cost to ride this thing? Again, we have no answers.

Since I started running in 2003, I have consistently advanced a much more clear proposal for a privately financed monorail running in the I-87 and I-90 corridor. I've got the idea carefully worked out. I sat down and discussed it with a professor at U Albany who specializes in mass transit. No paper has ever mentioned this, except possibly the Metroland.

And that's the difference between an anointed challenger like Gillibrand and the rest of us. The insider gets oodles of free press. Outsiders don't even exist.

How about this -- I actually have a blog and post my thoughts about issues, other candidates, etc. None of the local incumbents have a blog. Insider Gillibrand has no blog (though she has supporters who blog about her). How about some press coverage of the campaign blogs and campaign-related blogs? I seem to be getting along well with two or three of Gillibrand's bloggers, commenting on each others' sites (and I credit them for their politeness - they're better than me).

Isn't that newsworthy?

I love the media's position. They don't like politicians raising money, but they won't cover you unless you raise money. They don't like politicians sniping at each other, and claim they should talk about issues, but they only cover the sniping between insiders and ignore anyone who talks about issues.