Category: Pennsylvania

This story seems to have gotten picked up by the national press:

HAMBURG, Pa. – National Guardsmen in Humvees ferried food, fuel and baby supplies Thursday to hundreds of motorists stranded on a 50-mile stretch of highway for nearly a day by a monster storm blamed for 15 deaths.

The traffic jam on the icy, hilly section of Interstate 78 in eastern Pennsylvania started to ease by the afternoon, but drivers were still seething.”How could you operate a state like this? It’s totally disgusting,” said Eugene Coleman, of Hartford, Conn.

Hey Mr. Coleman: Screw you and the horse you rode in on. I’ve had too much experience driving through your sorry state to know that sitting on a highway there is a regular occurance. You people have no room to lecture other states about their highway systems. You just have I-95, pretty much, and if I can average 30 through it, I’m doing pretty well. For some reason your state’s highways are under such perpetual construction, it’s been nicknamed “The Construction State” (satire on the state motto “The Constitution State”).

I should note, that Hamburg, PA is one of my favorite places in the entire commonwealth. Not only does it have Cabelas, but has some great hiking trails as well. I highly encourage folks to visit this area, and spend some money at Cabelas while you’re at it.

I’ve never been in favor of public financing of campaigns, because of one very simple reason:

Independents can also participate in the program, but would get less money.

And everyone thought that public financing will clean up politics.  It will not.   It’ll just allow the current set of politicians and government bureaucrats decide who will get the money.  That’s too much power to have in the hands of government anyway.

The desire to get special interests out of politics is a desire of those in power to insulate themselves from criticism, and not have to work as hard to hold their seats.  Everyone is a special interest, and we have a constitutional right to lobby our government, and I do believe that means I have a right to give however much money I want, either directly, or through interest groups, in support of candidates who agree with me on the issues.

Vince Fumo, long time State Senator from Phiadelphia, is facing 139 felony indictments from a federal grand jury.

The feds said Fumo, 63, one of the state’s most influential power brokers, used his Senate workers to clean his house and provide personal services, and tapped a charity he helped organize to provide him with cars, tools and other goodies.

The charges include conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and aiding and assisting the filing of a false tax return.

If convicted of all charges, Fumo, a state senator since 1978, could face from five to 15 years behind bars, sources said.

That’s a lot of time, but if found guilty, I hope he serves it all. When I speak of getting criminals off the streets of Philadelphia, it would seem that includes a fair number of their politicians. Maybe that’s why they would rather disarm us than lock up criminals. It would mean locking up too many of their own.

I should point out that Fumo was one of the Philly politicians that had close ties with the NRA (yes, there are some pro-gun politicians in the city), but corrupt politicians can go to hell, no matter how much they might agree with me on other issues. 139 felony indictments is no laughing matter. We’ll see how this plays out in the federal courts.

Ed Rendell is a tax raising madman! In addition to a 1% boost in the state’s sales tax, he’s also now proposing an increase in the state gasoline tax as part of the 2007-2008 state budget:

“We propose a tax on gasoline. But for the first time we propose a tax on those who make gasoline rather than those who buy it.”

Umm, Ed, what’s the difference? You think the gasoline refiners are going to just eat that tax rather than pass it on to consumers? Do you think we’re that stupid? Plus, I would point out that Sunoco is a huge employer for both Pennsylvania and particulary the Philadelphia area. We have plenty of other refiners in the state too. It would seem to me that a new tax on them would not really encourage them to create more jobs. If there’s one thing that Pennsylvania definitely does not need it’s higher business taxes. That’s what this is. Don’t try to pull the wool over our eyes.

Oh, also:

In his speech, Rendell also called for legislation that would allow local governments to make their own gun laws and would limit handgun sales to one per month.

Push that, and we NRA types will do everything we can to make sure the Democrats lose their newfound control of the PA house. You got into office by keeping your mouth largely shut on the gun issue. Open it again, now that you have lame duck status, and you’ll hurt your party in downstream elections. We didn’t elect you governor to act like the Mayor of Philadelphia. But even that’s not enough:

Rendell also wants to increase the tax on waste haulers, increase cigarette taxes by a dime a pack, impose new taxes on cigars and smokeless tobacco products, and impose a surcharge on electricity of about 45 cents a month for the average residential user.

Jesus Christ, Ed. Given the cold weather we’ve been having lately, you’re making Arizona or Texas start to look damned attractive. And you wonder why young professionals like myself don’t stay in the state?

I am not going to agree to raise sales taxes to cover a property tax reduction.  Don’t we have a big surplus right now?  Ed Rendell is a tax and spend liberal.  How did this guy ever paint himself as a moderate?  I’ll take a property tax reduction from the surplus, please.

In Philadelphia, where the city takes an additional penny in sales tax, the overall rate would go from 7 percent to 8 percent. That would rival New York City, where state and local sales taxes add up to 8.375 percent.

Rendell’s proposal would bring Pennsylvania in line with New Jersey, which raised its sales tax last year to 7 percent.

Oh yeah, imitating New York and New Jersey.  Where do I sign up?  Because Pennsylvania just really needs higher taxes.  Thank god for term limits, but I have to deal with this crap for another four years!

I’ve taken a few pot shots at Ed Rendell on this blog, and certainly will take many more, but I feel like I should say some good things about him in the tradition of “If you don’t have something nice to say…”, etc. I will say that Ed Rendell passes the douche test. What is the douche test? It’s pretty simple “Would you go out and have a beer with the guy?”. Ed Rendell passes. Who wouldn’t pass? John Kerry, definitely. Joe Biden. Al Gore. Probably Hillary Clinton too, but Bill passes.

Another thing I will say about our Governor, he’s a shrewed politician, and I think could have a shot at being a presidential candidate if he chose to run. He’s managed to successfully paint himself as a moderate despite a pretty liberal record. As governor, he’s kept mostly quiet on issues that could get him in trouble, and I’m happy that on a few issues, he seems to lack the nanny gene that a lot of liberals seem to have expressed in abundance. And while I think his record contains a strong element of luck, he has a lot of accomplishments he can tout.

Plus, I will admit, this is pretty admirable behavior, from his Wiki page:

The mass snowballing of former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson is often attributed to Rendell. As the story goes, Rendell wagered twenty dollars that the person sitting next to him could not hit Johnson in the head with a snowball at an Eagles-Cowboys football game at Veterans Stadium. The incident ‘snowballed’ and resulted in many fans hurling snowballs at Johnson.

OK, so there’s my nice Ed Rendell post. But I really don’t like the guy’s politics, so back to bashing from here on out :)

Ed Rendell’s energy plan is looking great so far:

Gov. Ed Rendell on Thursday proposed a new fee on the sale of electricity in Pennsylvania to help finance an ambitious plan to promote alternative energy sources, increase conservation and blunt expected increases in utility bills.

Yay! New taxes. I always love new taxes. But what will they pay for?

The fund would finance grants to reimburse homeowners and small businesses for half the cost of installing solar panels.

Solar panels are a not a solution to our energy problems, because it takes years for a solar panel to produce as much electricity as went into making it. There are numerous engineering problems with solar energy. This ain’t a solution, Ed.

The largest share of the money would be invested in clean-energy projects that include solar manufacturing, advanced coal technologies and biofuels.

I’m not down with any of this, except for clean coal, because of the practical difficulties. We will not grow our way out of our energy problems. If you do the math, it’s just not going to work. The only reasonable alternatives to petroleum are coal and nuclear power. I might even be OK with Rendell’s plan if it proposed putting more into nuclear power, but that’s really more of a political problem than an engineering one, and one that will likely have to be solved at the federal level.

All in all, it looks like a tax that will transfer money to special interests. No thanks, Ed.

Seriously, the only thing that depressed me more than the PA Senate getting the smoking ban out of committee is the fact that so many Pennsylvanians don’t seem to care about the private property rights of business owners.

I should note that I’m not, nor have I ever been a smoker, but if I’m a bar or restaurant owner, I get to decide.  If you don’t like that choice, then go somewhere else.  Aren’t people kind of getting fed up with the government intruding into so many areas of private concern?  I am, and I worry for the future that so many people turn to government to enforce their own preferences and tastes on everyone else.  Take that to it’s limit, and we don’t live in a free society anymore.