Hayseeds No. 85

They're Watching You on the Net.

It seems like homeland security now wants to see who you talk to online, and as such are developing programs to survey chat traffic. Sounds nice, but the amount of chatter and false positives is going to make it totally useless. And just what we need—more government harassment.

FreeNYS.org: Arguing for Reform in NYS.

His site was down for a while thanks to his auto-letter generating software ticking off state legislators, but now it's back up for all to see.

In particular, he wants:

1. The right of direct referendum.
2. Maximum of 6 years service for all elected officials and their staff members.
3. Limitation on the growth of the NYS budget to the population growth plus the inflation rate.
4. Requirement for any future state mandates to be fully funded in the NYS budget.
5. An end to the majority leaders’ power to appoint committee chairs, set committee budgets, and set the budgets for members’ staffs; and creation of procedures for committee chair nominations to be made by petition, committee chair elections to be held by secret ballot, and committee budgets to be voted on by the whole legislature.
6. An on-time balanced budget, which complies with the same accounting standards that all businesses are legally required to follow, and the creation of procedures to remove the governor and senate and assembly majority leaders from office in the event of a late budget.
7. Annual September 30th publication of the following Upstate NY Measures relative to the other 49 States: Per Capita Income, Per Capita State & Local Tax Burden, and Cost of Doing Business Index.
8. Legislative districts to be organized along town and county lines.

His rational is explained in the Utica O-D. Many of his ideas are misguided, but still interesting points for starting debate in NYS.

Let's take a look. Direct referendum is a terrible idea that will give special interest groups all kind of power, and take things out of the hands of experts. Two will remove experienced legislators who know their stuff (can you put a price on the knowledge of Grannis when it comes to Public Health Law?).

Three and four sounds nice, but in pratice might be troublesome. What do you want to cut today? Controlling Medicaid, one unfunded mandate on the counties would be a helpful and less drastic step.

Five's okay, but it will empower legislative leaders to be their own obstructionists. Give power to many, and many will be able to stop. Certainly people like Gottfried and Sanders (just random examples ;) would not fear to create their own little fiefdoms of control and power.

Six's pretty drastic and won't happen. But we are free to dream. Seven's already done by various interest groups and it would just waste money for the state to do again. Eigth would lead to one-man-one-vote representation problems that would be impossible to recetify. Sounds nice to do away with gerrymandering, but impossible to do with politicans wanting their power.

At any rate, I didn't take him serious at first, but with over a half million hits on his website, since it came back up, lots of people are taking notice:

It's clear that Bitz's voice is being heard, state Sen. Raymond Meier, R-Western, said.

"I think he is part of a growing chorus," Meier said. And it's all part of a growing tide that Albany can no longer ignore.

Even The Business Council of New York State has taken notice of Bitz's efforts.

It thinks his message is getting through, Matthew Maguire, director of communications, said.

"I don't think there's any doubt initiatives like Mr. Bitz's have gotten the attention of Albany," he said."What we have to do is convince Albany that doing nothing will not do," Maguire said.

The walls of power tremble...

Should We Take Mark Bitz of FreeNYS.org Seriously?

At first glance he seems to be just another one of those rigth-wing crazies who hate the state, because they feel like he's being short changed. There are a lot of rural right-wing nuts out there, and I need not give examples (they certainly email me enough).

Then there is the question of Mark Bitz just being another big businessman. Indeed, his farm employees 139 different people from all levels of business. That's not a large bureaucracy, but it's still a significant company. I'm not sure if you could call Plainville Farms a small business or even a family business in the traditional sense of the word. Certainly more then what I would traditionally think of in a family farm.

Yet, it's not an superlarge agri-bussiness in the sense of Cargill or other large companies. On the Plainfield Farms Website they brag about their products being natural, hormone free, and raised in an environmentally-friendly matter. I guess it's all relative—some environmentalists call animal agricultural one of the most polluting industries out there. Maybe his stuff is good, but one would have to inspect his operation by more then some cheesy webshots.

At the end of the day, maybe we should not be looking at Mark Bitz and his motives, as a marxist would do. Instead, we should evaluate his policy suggestions and decide if they are bad or good.

Tonight SUNY New Paltz Looks at Reforming State Government.

Many of the same suggestions will be brought up, with Assm. Brodsky, Assm. Cahill and Blair Horner of NYPIRG leading the roundtable that will be moderated by the wonderful political scientist Gerald Benjamin. As a side note, Benjamin's book on NYS Government is highly recommended.

The forum will specifically focus on Brodsky's call for a consitutional convention, something that's unlikely to happen, and how to best reform things. Blair Horner is expected to argue that the best solutions be simple statutory ones that will make minor changes that will ensure on-time budgets and ethical policies.

Some Schenectadyians Continue to Protest Paying to Toss.

Somehow there are some morons somewhere on our planet that believe that trash disposal ought to be free, and not at least some what relative to the real environmental cost.

I'd be much happier if they charged by weight (the EPA calls this pay-as-you-toss programs), but that involves extra costs that are unlikely to happen.

Schenectady is in hard times. Before raising taxes, it makes sense to assign reasonable userfees for services that are clearly being used and neccessary for the people.

Brilliant Bloomberg Might Have Blood on His Hands from Vellea's Release.

It seems like fellow Republican Bloomberg contributed to the committee that decided to let that dangerous grafter (har-har) back on the street.

So he'll back in plenty of time to be lobbying at full steam in January. Good for Guy Vellea. Life's tough in prison. It's all such a joke.

Medcaid Tax Hikes Spells End for Police in Fulton County.

They're be a few statees around for the time the bad boys hang their wives in the milking parlors, but don't expect any to come and help you when you have a problem.

Out of control Medcaid stuff is really taking a bite out of local budgets and milking us hard for property taxes.

No Child Left Behind: Just Some Kicked Out.

It seems that some schools are seeking higher preformance by kicking those out who can't preform at a desired level. That is of course, asking very nicely for the students to quit with an authorian tone.

Troy Students Protest Lock Down.

It seems that disaster that happened last week has made some people really angry.

Conflict of Interest?

It seems as though some are claiming that Destito has a conflict of interest, with her writing law relating to governmental operations (particularly in relation to Indians) and her husband selling alchoholic products to Indian reservations.

So they claim she has a monetary stake in the law she's writing. But is this particularly bad or unusual? Both Agriculture committee chairs own farms (and Nancy Lorrane Hoffman employees state workers ;), elections committee chairs set election law for themselves. And so forth.

Breslin and Other Democrats Tell Joe:

You better fix Albany or watch out. Smells like a pretty empty threat, but there is a lot of movement in that direction.

NYC's Garbage Politics.

It seems like nobody wants to have to have a transfer station in their neighboorhood in NYC, for obvious reasons.

I imagine such a station is far worst then what we have in Westerlo if only because there you have to deal with idiots in pickup trucks who don't tie their trash down. Most of them don't spew out the same amount of smoke out their trucks, and carry so much trash, even though some people go their once every six months after burning everything they can, stinking up the whole neighboorhood of two people.