Rejecting Amendment C

Posted on 2008-10-08 by David

My position on Constitutional Amendment C is much like my position on Amendment A – it is unnecessary tinkering with the constitution. I don’t see any advantage to starting the session a week later than we do currently.

I don’t buy his argument that citizens would "more appropriately honor the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President George Washington, and President Abraham Lincoln" if the legislature were not in session on those two holidays.

I also expect that budget negotiations function just like any other project – they will fill every bit of time available no matter how much time we allow. Giving them an extra 8 days after the final tax revenue amounts are available will only mean that the Legislators will feel rushed in considering the budget adjustments for 22 days instead of feeling rushed about the final numbers for 14 days.

Finally, if the session were set for the first week of January I might see an advantage to moving the session back a week, but starting the third week does not seem any worse than starting the fourth week. I understand the arguments given by Sen. Valentine in favor of the time change but, like the budget adjustments, the draft legislation, budget analysis, and other technical work will fill whatever time is allotted. If our legislature needs more time they could try not considering 5 minor Constitutional amendments in a single session. (How much time was spent crafting, holding hearings, debating, and voting on those?)

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Get Ready to Vote

Posted on 2008-10-07 by David

One of the things I hear about in the news are the stories of people being turned away from polling places for not being properly registered to vote or for showing up at the wrong location. In Utah we have a chance to vote with a provisional ballot where there is confusion, but we also have the chance to minimize the confusion. At the website of the Lieutenant Governor you can find out if you are registered to vote and see where your poling place is located. Go there now and confirm your status as a registered voter by entering some basic information about yourself (name, DOB, county, & house number). If you are registered to vote where you currently live you will see your polling place displayed as well as your party affiliation, otherwise you will be instructed to contact your county clerk.

The great advantage of going now is that if you are not properly registered you still have two weeks to get to the county clerk’s office and get registered in time to vote in the general election. If you are registered you will be able to view a sample ballot for your precinct. The sample ballot contains links to information on many of the candidates and issues (such as the amendments I have been writing about). This gives you one month to get informed before casting your vote if you have not already started to do so.

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Supporting Amendment B

Posted on 2008-10-07 by David

I was pleased to find that Constitutional Amendment B was absolutely as straightforward in its proposed wording as the description suggested. It simply inserts one line into the Constitution allowing for more flexibility in adding funds to the existing state trust fund without making it easier for the Legislature to remove money from the fund. Believing that the fund is a positive tool funding our government services I am happy to support a no-nonsense change that can make it easier to augment the trust fund when resources are avaiable to do so.

At first I worried that making it easier to add to the trust fund would encourage the Legislature to keep surpluses of revenue, but then I realized that 1) they already do keep portions of any surplus fund one-time contributions to pet projects, and 2) they still have the same incentive to give tax-refunds when possible to fuel their re-election popularity. The difference now is that they have the option when there are surplusses to put some of the surplus in the trust fund so that it can increase funding for services in perpetuity rather than being limited to large, one-time gifts to specific projects.

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Rejecting Amendment A

Posted on 2008-10-06 by David

Let me start off by saying that Constitutional Amendment A does not have anything sinister or devious in it. In fact, there is very little in it to raise objections about. My primary objection is rooted in my position on constitutionally based governments in which I prefer to reject any amendment to the established law unless I see good reason for the change – in other words, I default to opposition where constitutional amendments are concerned.

This amendment would clarify the specifics of succession in the office of Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The specifics themselves are fairly mundane, but the situation being addressed is one that hopefully and probably will never occur. (Davis Didjeridu reminds me that a vacancy can happen for less than tragic reasons – such as federal appointment – making this situation more common than I had been thinking.) In the event that one of those vacancies did occur, common sense should allow the succession to happen seamlessly even without these specified specifics being added to the State Constitution.

There is one place where I have a specific objection to the amendment. In the section dealing with the succession of the Lieutenant Governor, it specifies that the Governor must receive the consent of the Senate for the person they would appoint to fill the vacancy. This appears to violate the separation of powers considering that the Governor, when running for office, needs no consent from the Senate when picking a running mate. I see no reason that selecting a replacement should have tighter safeguards than the original selection.

In summary, there is little to recommend this change, and more to discourage it. I won’t be overly concerned if it does pass, but I believe that not making such a change is the better choice.

Posted in meta, State | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Test the Candidates

Posted on 2008-10-03 by David

When I talked to Kyle Roberts the other night I discussed how important communication was for me when I look at candidates and elected officials. It has been very exciting to see as Kyle has begun to implement some of my suggestions to open more channels of communication for the residents of House District 20. He is making more use of his blog (which he had before we talked) and he has added the option for residents to get his blog updates by email (or a variety of other means). As I have seen him implementing things I had suggested I realized that one of the things that voters can do in choosing a candidate to support is to test the candidates.

Go beyond reading what the candidates say and treat them like elected officials. If you like to ask questions or make suggestions to your representatives you should be doing that with the candidates. The key to representative government is citizen involvement – early and often. If we just vote and then stay out of the political process until the next election cycle the end result will be a government that is out of touch and out of control. It becomes dysfunctional like Washington D.C.

I like this discovery and I plan to make use of it in all races of interest to me in the future. I also like being able to follow the efforts of other people who are proactive in contacting candidates. Thad Van Ry provides a good example of that as he sent questions to the candidates for Senate District 23 (my senate district) and then posted their answers. (That is his intro to the series of answer posts.)

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Politics Goes Local

Posted on 2008-10-02 by David

The Senate passed the bailout bill (that they had no business voting on) and with an added 315 pages of pork they might be exposing the real reason that the House did not pass it on Monday. All that extra sugar coating is likely to make the bitter pill go down easier. This reminds me why watching Washington politics is so depressing.

On a happier note, I met with Kyle Roberts last night and really enjoyed getting to know him better. I look forward to helping him to become my representative in the Utah Legislature.

I’m sure I will have some things to rant about on the national level, but I am going to focus on state and local issues for a while (like the proposed amendments to the Utah Constitution) and quit paying attention – as much as possible – to the coming Obama administration and the continued shenanigans that will remain rampant inside the beltway.

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Make “the Silent” a Minority

Posted on 2008-10-01 by David

Recently my niece approached me to ask questions about politics. She’s a young teenager, years short of being able to vote, but she wants to become informed and involved so that she could positively participate by the time she can vote. The conversation served as a reminder to me of how important it is for our young people to be able to obtain information on political issues that is not tainted by the rancor that often pervades political discussions. In other words we need a clearinghouse for civil civic conversation. I decided that I wanted to form an organization that would work for that purpose.

When I read the plea at Ladies Logic regarding our atrocious levels of participation in Utah (and remembered my own pleas to encourage greater levels of participation here), I realized that the time to act was now and that the need was not only for our youth who are approaching or recently passing the age where they can vote but also for every citizen who can’t bring themselves to really participate in the dirty game of politics – many of whom simply stay out of the discussion and vote without becoming well informed on the issues. We need to reach “the silent majority.”

The group I will be forming will be open to, even encouraging of, participation by people of all political perspectives. The only requirement for participation is a commitment to avoid the playground politics of name calling and guilt by association. The aim of the group will be to draw people out of the silent majority until the silent become the minority by fostering civil dialog between people of differing perspectives. We will not aim to come to a consensus except the consensus that wider participation is better than narrower participation. I would like the group to seek to engage other group members in public discussion of issues so that people who have been silent will have a chance to be exposed to various positions on important issues without the likelyhood of being personally insulted by those who disagree with them. I also would like the group, individually and collectively, to engage in discussing issues with candidates for office and elected officials with an emphasis on local candidates and officials and a balance of local, state, and national issues.

In addition to my own energy, and knowledge I need the energy and experience of others who can help me to spread the word, engage effectively with public officials, organize group efforts, and generate ideas to further these aims.

I would ask anyone who believes in the importance of broad political participation, especially if you are in Utah, to please contact me publicly or privately to help me get this off the ground. Leave me comments or drop me an email if you have interest in participating, ideas about what can and should be done, or if you know of people who could help me in this.

Posted in culture, life, meta, State | Tagged , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Government Gray Area

Posted on 2008-10-01 by David

When the House voted down the bailout on Monday I was very surprised by the result, but I was not particularly surprised to hear that of the Representatives facing close re-elections, only two voted in favor of the bailout. This looks like a blatant reminder that the primary concern of elected officials tends to be keeping their jobs rather than showing leadership. I say that while acknowledging that I feel strongly that rejecting the bailout was the right choice. The urgency with which the bailout was pushed makes me immediately wary. Government should never work that fast on anything of importance – except in cases of our nation being attacked. In other words, the members of the house did the right thing, but it appears that they did it, in most cases, for the wrong reason.

Today the Senate is set to vote on the bailout bill – despite the fact that they have no Constitutional authority to appropriate money except in concurrence with the House. Unlike the House, where every member is facing re-election, 2/3 of our Senators are insulated from an immediate election. Because of this I expect that the bailout bill will pass in the Senate as Senators feel more free to lead with re-election not being an immediate issue for most of them. I have not been able to read a draft of the Senate version of the bailout, but assuming that they have not written a new bill from scratch I fully expect that they will do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

I’m really not sure which is worse, but our options in Congress (when we have options) seem to be that our elected officials do the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right reasons.

UPDATE 11:00am: There is no way that any Senator will have read the full text of this bill – it is 451 pages long. I have no idea why it is so long because as of the parts I have read nothing of significance has changed. In fact, the page numbers for the entire first section of the bill (which contains the bulk of the substance) appear to be unchanged. None of the issues I raised with the House bill have been addressed in any way.

Posted in National | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Something for Nothing

Posted on 2008-09-30 by David

As I have been thinking and reading about the credit crisis my mind has been chewing on the idea that there are two very different kinds of investing. One is the kind of investing where you put in an initial outlay of resources and follow that with efforts to improve the investment (whether that is a company, an idea, or a building) so that the final product is greater than the sum invested and thus turns a profit. Some examples are finding a company in need of cash with a good idea, a business plan, and the support of other qualified investors and giving them cash to help realize their plans and turn a profit. Another example is buying a distressed property and fixing it up. Perhaps you are purchasing a house for $150,000 in an area where most houses are going for $225,000. You put in an extra $70,000 in materials and time to get the house in prime shape and then sell it for $240,000 – realizing $20,000 profit for your efforts.

The second kind of investing is the shortcut based on the mentality of seeking something for nothing – it’s called speculating. Although it may look similar to traditional investing it is really just a serious form of gambling. An example of this would be buying into a company that is cutting corners to turn a profit and operating with a loose regard for the rules of their business. They put on a good show with richly rewarded executives and a lot of talk, but there is no substance to their ideas if you do a little digging. Another example would be "flipping" a house. You go in and buy a house with an interest-only mortgage where the owner is in a hurry to sell and then you turn around and sell the house at a $100,000 profit within weeks without putting in any work. It also applies to those who purchase a large, showy home (compared to what their income should support) with an adjustable rate mortgage on the assumption that the value of the home will rise in time to refinance the home later using the "equity" gained by sitting in the home for a year – worse is when they intend not only to refinance, but to refinance and get cash out to support a lifestyle that they cannot support on their regular income.

A financial crisis, at least for individual cases, may result from either approach to investing – but it is much more likely (and I believe it is generally more damaging) when the crisis results from speculating. I am convinced that every time we experience a bubble in the economy – whether it’s a tech bubble, a housing bubble, or any thing else – the bubble is a result of speculation, even though there is legitimate investing taking place as well. In our current credit crunch we will not be able completely sort out those who were burned by speculating and those who were legitimately investing (the same is true anytime a bubble bursts) so we must either rescue some or all of those who were speculating, or else we will have to accept in advance that many people who did nothing wrong will be paying the price for the fallout from the rampant speculation that caused the crisis.

Posted in culture | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Amateur vs Professional

Posted on 2008-09-29 by David

The financial amateurs in Congress have given us the 110 page text of their bailout plan which they will probably vote on today. It’s pretty much like the 102 page draft I wrote about on Saturday. They added the option to insure troubled assets in addition to the option to buy such assets. They also settled on the Graduated Authority to Purchase version rather than a straight-up $700B gift. I’m not sure if this is new, but there is also an option to remove the mark-to-market rules in the latest version.

The financial professionals such as Ross Perot have outlined a much better plan at perotcharts.com. Their plan in the immediate term calls for:

  • Modification or removal of mark-to-market
  • A 120 moratorium on foreclosures and dividend payments by banks
  • Higher national standards for capital bases at banks with the Treasury able to buy equity in those banks who cannot raise equity to meet the standard
  • Raising the FDIC guarantee from $100,000 to $250,000
  • Using any profits from equity that the government does buy to strengthen Social Security
  • An independent oversight board for the plan
  • Criminal investigations into the causes of the crisis

Later they would fix the Glass-Stegall Act, amend bankruptcy regulations, and give HUD/Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac the authority to work with individual homeowners facing foreclosure.

It’s too bad our amateur decision makers are so busy listening to the vested-interests rather than the independent professionals.

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