July 5, 2009

Michael Mayo
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: A teaching moment at last! A trip down memory lane, triggered by your column today, to explain how the most recent devil to be discovered by modern American Liberals, has some interesting antecedents.

Mr. Mayo,

Were I tell you that in the late ‘70s and the early ‘80s the 3rd largest unfunded contingent liability in the Federal budget was the reinsurance of waterfront property you would have said it was just another example of the handouts to the rich.

The idea of promising something without paying for it is, alas, engrained in our political system.

{You have written about your baby daughter and her college fund. May I suggest that that is an example of a contingent liability being funded?]

My first concrete memory of unfunded contingent liabilities on the real world was when Robert Wagner ran for re-election for Mayor of New York City. It was a classic example of urban Democratic politics. Thinking he was going to be opposed by Tammany Hall he ran against the Bosses who advanced his candidacy before. IN the practical sense he ran against himself. And he did it successfully. He also promised that the lack of money would not deter him from aiding the poor, the halt, the lame, the aged, and any other group that caught his attention.

He was replaced by John Lindsay. [When Ed Koch ran he would ask how many people in the audience had voted for Lindsay. When they raised their hands he called them shmucks. When Senator D’Amato used the same word about Congressman Schumer he was exiled to one of Jupiter’s lesser moons. Look it up.] Lindsay bought labor peace with the public employee unions – Public employee unions? It still has a funny sound to it, don’t you think? – by promising them pensions equal to a monthly visit from the late Ed McMahon. Howie Carr calls it the “monthly kiss”.

The practice of padding compensation in an employee’s last 3 years is unknown in any entity that has to show a profit or be doomed. The idea of converting unused vacation time or unused sick time into future monthly payments is offensive to Logic except to those who endorse their check every month. The dictum “Any public policy that involves robbing Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul’s support” is guiding light of local politics – modern American Liberal style.

Fast forward to Florida when Bill McBride was running against Governor Jeb Bush. “It’s not a matter of finances; it’s a matter of priorities” was the headline after one of the debates. This from a man who ran his law firm from the closest ATM machine! At least he was true to his principles.

I believe that the masses are ready to revolt.

Broward County has seen the number of students in public schools decline for 4 years. Has its operating budget gone down? Silly me. Last week some teachers were not rehired. Then they were rehired. Compare that to the people who made Pontiacs. Maybe the best policy for county government here is to live up to another old dictum: “If there is going to be a panic be the firs into the life boat.” Hire a bankruptcy attorney, preferably from Chicago, and line up at the lactating mammary known as the Stimulus Act.

As real estate values decline the tax rates – local, county, school, hospital district, water management, anything for the children – must rise. As the appeals increase, all of which will be approved if the Rule of Law is still in force, the rising tax rates will produce the worst of all possible worlds. Ever increasing taxes in a declining economy with a rapidly evaporating equity or income base in real estate will result in the modern American Liberal nightmare. The golden goose is dead. There will be no more eggs.

There is one answer.

Cut spending. Cut it with a vengeance. Let the various factions fight it out, as James Madison said in Federalist X. Cut it as if your family’s life depended on it because it does.

Class dismissed.

And, yes, there will be a test.







PS – About Florida’s pre-paid college plan…