Pax Hammericana

Yeah! More Taxpayer-Approved Pork!

So, despite massive propaganda in its favor, the good ol' boy deal arranged by the Oklahoma County Commissioners for Oklahoma County to buy the old GM plant and lease it to Tinker Air Force Base barely passed voters with 53% of the vote.

I would imagine that one of the main reasons the vote was as close as it was is that a retired Air Force Brigadier General came out against it. 

These types of arrangements -- local sales tax increases, bond issues, etc. -- are the place for real activism to take root.  These taxes are also the most just, but they are also the proposals most likely to be jammed through without officials being held accountable for their reasoning.  These local issues also rarely have true cost-benefit analysis required or performed, and, worst of all, fishy deals like this pass only because of massive promotion from government officials and low voter turnout. 

For what it's worth, I sent the following letter to The Oklahoman, although it wasn't published:

Dear editors,

I am writing to encourage Oklahoma County voters to vote against the proposed bond issue on May 13^th.  To put it quite simply, the proposal does not pass the smell test.  Three particular questions have been unanswered by the bond advocates: 1) If the proposal is truly expected to raise money for the county, why have the commissioners proposed a general obligation bond, which will raise taxes, rather than a revenue bond, which would pay for the bond out of profits from the deal?  2) Why has no detailed cost benefit analysis been conducted and shared with voters? (The commissioners do have a website on the proposal but offer no details on this question.)  3) Given the condition of Oklahoma County roads, schools, and water and sewage infrastructure, why is the purchase of this plant a better investment than those critical facilities?  Citizens deserve more than a haphazard proposal that sends $55 million toward what looks for all the world like a project that will benefit the few at the cost of the many. 

These questions only point back to the deeper issue that a county government should not be in the business of doing deals that are not financially feasible for the federal government to do on its own – and for that matter, probably should not be owning businesses in the first place.

Sincerely,

Michael Hammer

It Never Stops

I suppose I need to hire staff or start blogging full-time, because if I wait even more than half a day to blog there is some new outrage to try to make people aware of.  Then there are just some things that blow all the other things away.  THIS is what I'm talking about in that respect.

Just in my own little corner of the world, I am actively engaged in the following issues:

Debating FOR free market health care;
working to provide a fair policy at my employer to help provide insurance to families without screwing those without families;
Working AGAINST using public resources to defeat Oklahoma House Bill 2513, which would allow concealed carry of handguns on campus;
Arguing to counteract the lies and hysteria about secondhand smoke that has led to the proliferation of smoking bans...

and on and on on.  It just never stops.  My mind is tempted to say that there must be some root cause.  And I suppose morally there is.  Certainly, as human beings, we will perpetually struggle against one another to establish our own moral vision.  But I am also reminded of the Founders' prophecy: "The price of liberty is eternal vigilence."

Still, I hope over time to discover how it is that the powerful places of policymaking were overtaken by do-gooders, authoritarians, and other seedy types -- and why it is that the struggle for liberty seems to take place largely beyond the walls of power.

Oklahoma Legislative Round-Up: Round 1

Around in these parts, we're in the early days of the legislative session, where bills are struggling to work their way out of committee like so many butterflies struggling to escape the cacoon.  There's my fruity metaphor for the day. 

Anyway, there were some important issues coming into the session:  some of the normal stuff (funding for education and roads, tax cuts, etc.), but also things of a more interesting nature from a national point of view. 

As some of you know, an issue I have been keeping an eye on for several years now is the Real ID Act.  Seeing as the Department of Homeland Security has thrown down the gauntlet to the 17 states that have refused or delayed implementation, I have been curious as to when and how the various states will capitulate or be bought off. 

I went back to read the final anti-Real ID Oklahoma law, and I was surprised at how strong the language really was.  Any change to the law must be done by statute passed by the legislature.  A number of states, and an earlier version of the Oklahoma bill, left that discretion in the hands of the governor. 

Anyway, here are just a few interesting bills winding their way through.  I will update this periodically:

• House Joint Resolution 1080:  This legislation, authored by Rep. Banz, calls what is apparently a constitutionally required constitutional convention.  Apparently, Oklahoma is supposed to have one of these every 20 years.  It has been 38 since the last one.  Ordinary citizens can become delegates, so I will keep you posted on how this works!
• House Joint Resolution 1089:  Authored by Rep. Charles Key, this legislation asserts the sovereignty of Oklahoma under the Tenth Amendment.  In practical terms, this legislation declares null and void any federal action in Oklahoma that is not explicitly authorized by the U.S. Constitution.  Philosophically, Rep. Key endorsed Ron Paul for president, so this is not a shocker.  I am less clear on how this legislation will work in practice.  If passed and executed, it would lead to a very different state of affairs -- and probably mountains of legal action.
• More on the above: I suspect Rep. Key's motivation has to do with DHS' grandstanding on the implementation of the Real ID Act among the 17 states that have rejected it.  The most consistent argument against the Act is that it violated the Tenth Amendment, pushing the federal government into an area of governance that it had no explicit authority to take.
• Still more:  Rep. Key's legislation is just the latest in a growing number of confrontations between the states and the federal government.  Also on the Real ID Act, after DHS' grandstanding, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer rallied the 17 states and called for a confrontation on the issue.  Also in Montana, state and federal legislators recently uploaded a webpage declaring the state's right to secede from the Union if the U.S. Supreme Court decides that the Second Amendment does not constitute an individual right to bear arms.  Contention between the states and the federal government seems to be reaching new levels.  The number of states allowing and licensing medical marijuana continues to grow unabated, even as the federal government uses more draconian measures of crushing this federalist experiment.   
• House Bill 2444:  This simple piece of legislation authorizes the Oklahoma Ethics Commission to create a "No Gifts" database, where legislators can put their name and ask lobbyists not to offer gifts of any kind, even small gifts such as meals.  The bill passed the House Rules Committee by a wide margin, with only two opposing votes -- one of whom is Rep. Rob Johnson, a legislator who usually places very high in the list of legislators receiving gifts from lobbyists.

I suppose some disclosure is in order: I opposed Johnson in a 2006 run for the Oklahoma House of Representatives.  I have never had personal animosity toward the man, but his penchant for gifts and his opposition to this bill are unnecessary and uncalled for. 

I hope this will be our first interactive post, where people will do their own research and keep up with important legislation.  You can search all current legislation, the text of bills, etc. at http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/WebBillStatus/main.html. 

Hurray for the Big Men

Yesterday, Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett declared victory for the sales tax for Ford Center upgrades.  At a victory party with the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, no less, Cornett declared a "golden age" for Oklahoma City.

The article reads as a who's who of mutual back patting.  Just try counting the times that civic and political leaders recall the "big league city" theme that formed the basis of the campaign for the tax.  Keeping in line with standard journalistic ethics these days, no one representing the 38.1% of voters who opposed the tax was quoted in the in the article.

And so the first chapter of this epic comes to a close.  For the meager price of an estimated $121 million, Oklahoma City has bought itself a team that will most likely leave its current lease in Seattle, will most likely be sued by Seattle for breach of lease, and has received a purchase offer from Microsoft's CEO and another major investor.  These investors have offered to cover 50% of improvements to Key Arena in Seattle -- 50% more than the Sonics owner offered to OKC, but still 50% too little.

More on this to come.  

Too Little, Too Late

No one will read this before today's March 4th voting is over, but the more I pay attention to them, the more I find municipal special elections to be a time of depression and anger.

Oklahoma City voters today will decide on extending a sales tax to pay for improvements to the Ford Center in order to lure an NBA team -- in all likelihood, the Seattle Supersonics.  Ironically, Seattle has doled out welfare to the team in the past, but the city was unwilling to do so again, meaning that the new Oklahoma owners of the team needed to come home to seek the welfare dole.

Luckily for them, city officials have been more than willing to comply.  Ignoring the economics of the issue -- which incontrovertibly prove that this type of welfare for the rich never pays off for a city -- these officials have appealed to the image of the City.  OKC is growing, the say, and this is the thing that will prove we are a world-class city.  I wish I could vote against this tax.  It is the most regressive, unjust tyranny foisted upon the poor (in a state where sales tax is still charged on food) so that the property values of the wealthy can rise fast enough to keep pace with their bloated egos.  No matter what happens today, OKC will deserve what it gets.

I think there is one upshot of local elections:  turnout is so small that local, dedicated groups of anti-tax voters could make a real difference.  Ironically, local taxes could be the most just, keeping money in the community for the benefit of the community -- unlike federal income taxes, which are taken from Oklahoma and given to special interests in California or North Dakota.  But, like all taxes, special interests know how to manipulate the system for their personal gain.