March 31, 2005
RIP
If you don't have a living will, get one. Here is a form from the State of Tennessee. Your state probably has a form available too.
Posted by Paul Witt at 01:13 PM | Comments (1)
March 30, 2005
In the Name of Politics
From here.
But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.
Indeed
Posted by Paul Witt at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2005
Lower the speed limit?!?
When I lived in Ohio I averaged one speeding ticket a year. I've lived in Knoxville for 5 years now and the only tickets I've gotten were in Kentucky on my way back to Ohio to visit family. I love this area for that. Tickets don't seem to be the cash cow they were in Ohio.
Apparently the Knox County Commission has voted to ask the state to lower our speed limits. Here is a KnoxNews article on the subject. What good will this do? We have an entire city of drivers ignoring the current speed limit because it's not enforced. Slowing down some drivers (those that respect the speed limit - enforced or not) while the rest of us stick to our current high speeds is not a recipe for safe roads.
Not to mention that the stated reason, cleaner air, is just plain stupid. Slowing people down so they're on our roads a few minutes longer isn't going to reduce pollution. The only real way to reduce pollution is to get people out of their cars and require that all cars get better mileage. Given the decades of poor urban planning and unchecked sprawl, this county is in no position for a decent mass transit system.
What this county needs is progressive leadership with a long-term vision, not simple-minded ideas like a lower speed limit.
Posted by Paul Witt at 10:54 AM | Comments (1)
March 18, 2005
Social Security is just fine
Tuesday night's 5th District Democrats meeting featured Dr. Justin Green giving a talk about Social Security. He pointed out some very interesting facts about the system.
The Social Security Administration puts out an annual report with detailed guesses on how the program is running and its long-term outlook. For years the trust fund has had a surplus of funds and those funds were borrowed by congress for immediate spending. In exchange, the government issued US treasury bonds to the trust fund. These are the same instruments given to foreign banks that loan our government money. This is where the double-speak comes into the discussion from opponents of the program.
In the worst-case scenario outlined in the annual report, the trust fund will start cashing in those treasury certificates in 2018 and will be running in the red by 2042. This scenario assumes that women will leave the workforce, population growth will fall to 0%, worker productivity will average +1% per year and our GDP will increase by 1.75% per year. Just how pessimistic are these numbers? Population growth is currently averaging 1% per year. That number includes the birth rate and immigration. Our productivity currently increases at 3% per year. Our GDP increased 4.4% in 2004 and the average GDP increase during the Great Depression was 2%.
Feeling better about the long-term prospects for the system yet?
By comparison the middle-case scenario sets the annual GDP increase to 2.25% and the fund never runs out of money. The best-case scenario had our GDP increasing at 2.75% and we could increase benefits today and never run out of money.
In other words, the system is just fine.
But what would happen if the system did have to start cashing in those bonds in 2018? Not much. Our government would have to tighten their belts and balance the budget. That's never a bad thing. It also has no choice but to honor those debts the same as it would any other debt. To do otherwise would send the wrong signal to our creditors.
Posted by Paul Witt at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
Trouble in GOP-land?
One of the things that struck me about getting involved in local Democratic politics is, well, the politics. I just assumed that the more local you got the less those kinds of things took place. So I don't find this story too surprising other than that it made the paper. Better them than us I suppose. The thought that just as we're getting more organized they're having some problems bring a small amount of joy to my heart.
But mostly I'm surprised to see Brian Hornback be elected as their County Party Chair. I actually met Brian last year at a candidate forum held by the 5th District Democrats. They held a short debate between him and his non-partisan challenger for his School Board seat, Karen Carson. I didn't know either of them and didn't ask around about their party affiliation and by the end of the forum, didn't care. Karen came across as genuine while Brian was smug and annoying. Karen had my vote. I didn't even know for sure until this story came out that Brian was a Republican.
From what I heard after the election, he campaigned like his reelection was a lock. I was happy to see him get beat. Now I see this guy is running the local party. Unless I caught him on a bad day, this was not a good PR move by the local GOP. The first story about his tenure would seem to confirm that idea too.
Posted by Paul Witt at 09:55 AM | Comments (2)
March 14, 2005
Starting over
I decided to start over with the blog and use Movable Type this time around. The old messageboard hack using YABBSE worked ok but it's no longer in development and patching it with all the code I added/hacked in was difficult anyway. So here we are.
Now to start posting more often.
Posted by Paul Witt at 05:12 PM | Comments (1)