(http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/44/30_44hikefight.html)

But that doesn't mean that his opposition to bridge tolls is rational.

if we are going to use taxpayer money to rescue Detroit, then it should be done along the lines proposed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday by Paul Ingrassia, a former Detroit bureau chief for that paper. “In return for any direct government aid,” he wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company ... Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/opinion/12friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

But I don't know what this plan would do with existing pensions.

None of our current and former state legislators are willing to allow any of their constituents to pay a cent more or accept a cent less than they are already getting, regardless of what happens as a result.

Only a small share of those living in New York State are their constituents. There are probably more of their constituents retired to Florida than in the City of New York.

A tax is when money is taken from one source and directed towards another, usually unrelated party: sales tax goes to the government, not the Gap, when you buy a sweater. Income tax goes to the government, not me, when I get paid for work.

"Tax," is quickly becoming one of those words, like "freedom" or "maverick" that is losing all original meaning in the hands of politicians. A toll to use a bridge is a tax? Fine then. My subway fare is a tax, too. When subway "taxes" are increased to $3, ask Marty Markowitz if he supports tax increases for the majority of his constituents, far more than would be affected by tolling bridges.

It's a good thing too, because the city and state took all future revenues from cigarettes and spent them in the last recession, issuing bonds that we'll have to raise taxes or cut services to pay back if people stop smoking.

In lieu of assuring the future of Social Security and providing universal health care for those far worse off. We have a caste system, with two ruling castes, as I wrote on Room 8. The executive caste got their Wall Street bailout, and now some of the unions will get theirs.

And then there will be no money "due to circumstances beyond our control."

BTW, I hear the casinos are hurting, and the porn industry is in recession due to the rise of free internet content. Are they next in line?

Car maker bailouts saving an indispensable domestic industry? Nope, says the News, they barely even qualify as car makers, and are far from indispensable: "When SUVs and trucks are excluded, Big Three offerings barely make the list of the country's top 10 selling cars of the decade. None has been a top five seller."

The government is now allocating capital, deciding which companies and industries grow and which shrink. And what is the principle by which it is doing so? The more you have, the more powerful you are, the more you get.

Any "liberal" or "progressive" Democrats out there? This is the principle of your party. And the other party. Because it is the principle of a generation.

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/reuters/2008/11/12/ja-solar-cuts-forecast-sees-solar-panic

Be he voted for the 2000-04 MTA capital plan which caused the debt to soar, and the 2000 pension deal that (along with inadequate employer contributions in the 1990s) caused pension costs to soar.

He voted for all the handouts and deals of the 1990s, as state and city funding for the MTA was cut off.

He made no objection to all the fare breaks that caused the fare to plunge relative to inflation.

He certainly made no objection to the non-decision not to restore city funding to the MTA when the city's economy recovered mid-decade. How much of his discretionary capital spending has gone to non-auto transportation?

Not to single him out but remeber: Marty Markowitz was a member of the New York State Legislature, and gladly participated in the destruction of our future as such, in exchange for being permitted to hand out small amounts of our money, as if he was a benefactor, for his concerts.

They all did. They should be thought of and remembered for nothing else.