Police "Discretion" Leads to Police Extortion

It is common knowledge among my friends that the DC police set up alcohol checkpoints on the driving routes going North from the party districts of Adams Morgan and U Street. It is also common knowledge that the MPD has Stalinist "discretion" in causing an arrest.

The arresting officer, Dennis Fair, said in an interview that “If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in DC. We have zero tolerance…. Anything above .01, we can arrest.” That’s not .10 but .01. And people are arrested in the nation’s capital with zero BACs. The DC’s Attorney General says that it’s legal for drivers to be arrested for DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol) with “no registered BAC.” Indeed, DC police do arrest people with 0.00 BAC if they admit to having had a single drink with dinner.

This is for real, as a friend of mine who blew 0.00 on the MPD breathalyzer was tossed in the terrifying DC Jail for a night and had to pay big legal fees to get her case reversed.

So what is a citizen to do? You can take taxis, which I mostly do. You can also buy off the police, just like in Mexico. I pay $40 per year for a very valuable FOP sticker. For the uninitiated, that stands for Friends of Police and the money goes to the cops. I am religious about taking taxis when I am imbibing but had one notable and unpredicted lapse. One hot summer Sunday night last year I ended up drinking too much scotch and smoking too many cigarettes at a friend's house downtown. I got caught up in a police gauntlet on 15th street and thought, oh shit, this is where my life gets horrible. The MPD were making the driver of every car in front of me get out of the car and were searching trunks. But when they came to me, the cop pointed his flashlight at my FOP sticker and said, "You have a good night, Ma'am," as he waved me by.

I have a new car now, with no FOP sticker, but they telemarketed my tonight so I hope it comes soon. They asked me for $55, but I said I was disabled (I am, by a cold) so they gave me the old rate. Still, it is pretty much extortion and too much police "discretion."

Budget Horror Gets 67% Worse

Whooaa! Just a couple of days ago I submitted my outrage on this blog about Fenty's $5.7BN 2008 budget, pointing out that it totals $10.4K per District resident, which means that working adults will have to pay multiples of that to fund it.

So I was thrown for a horrible loop when I read an article  in the DC Examiner today stating that the Fenty budget is $9.2BN, or 61% higher than the horror budget.

D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray said Monday he’s concerned that the chief financial officer’s $9.2 billion budget could create a $40 million deficit.

What is the root of the discrepancy? The Examiner is not known for writing illuminating articles, though I give them kudos to metro coverage the the Wa Post completely ignores. Perhaps this is the crux of it:

Mayor Adrian Fenty and Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi submitted a budget Friday that failed to fund two District agencies — the Office of Personnel and the Office of Contract and Procurement — and instead relies on revenues from fees the two agencies would charge other District departments.

A $92BN budget equals $16.7K per capita. But the reality is far worse. If you subtract the number of people over 65, under 18 and the unemployed, the tax base falls to 334,717, which implies a tax burden of $27.5K per taxpayer. Considering the dysfunction and poverty of much of DC, the real tax base is probably much smaller than that, and the real tax burden much higher on working adults.

Latest Outrage - The Mayor's Budget

Leonardo posted on this last night, and it's really got my blood boiling. You might remember that this blog gave it's support to Adrian Fenty during the Democratic primary last year - due in large part to his pledge NOT to raise taxes. Well it has only taken the good Mayor a few months to break that pledge.

According to The Examiner, the Mayor's 2008 budget includes an "increase in the E-911 fee, a monthly tax paid on every phone line, from 76 cents to $1.55..." Outrageously the Examiner is apparently willing to buy the Mayor's spin that a duck isn't a duck. The Examiner's article on the Fenty budget includes this non-sequitur, "the plan doesn’t raise taxes." Well according to the Examiner's own freaking article it DOES raise taxes.

Breaking his no new taxes pledge isn't even the most egregious part of the Mayor's new budget - not by a long shot. Remember that $1.5 BILLION surplus (translation excess tax dollars) that the city has been sitting on? Well long ago this blog predicted that that surplus would simply be eaten up by politicians and bureaucrats here in the District. Surprise, surprise, thats exactly what's happening. The Mayor's pork-tacular budget eats up almost $600 million of the District's surplus!

That's right folks. The District collects a billion and a half in EXCESS tax payer dollars - above and beyond the services we receive - and what do they do with it? Return it to the tax payers from whom they extracted it? Nope, instead they decide to piss it away as part of a pork-laden budget. Unbelievable.

The $5.7 BN Budget Horror

The Examiner had this scoop on the DC 2008 budget, which the Post missed:

District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty’s $5.7 billion fiscal year 2008 budget, unveiled Friday, ramps up funding for public charter schools and new police officers, sets the mayor’s school takeover plan into motion, raises one fee and eats up a chunk of the city’s reserves.

Based on the latest US census count of the District, that budget adds up to $10,354 per DC resident of tax burden per year. Which means that most individuals without children will pay a multiple of that.

Is that really the way to run a city? It seems incredibly expensive to me.

DC Schools: We Need More $$ Because We Have Fewer Students

The DC public school system has asked the city [A.K.A. DC taxpayers] for an additional $70 million to add to the proposed $810 million 2008 budget, which was already a 4% increase over last year's budget. The reason? According to the Northwest Current (no links available online), the schools are,

Faced with budget cuts due to falling enrollment...

No rational enterprise would cite additional costs of dealing with fewer customers. But the DC schools are not rational as they cannot fire employees even if they are not needed anymore so we taxpayers are stuck paying for them and their out-of-market retirement and health plans.

It is time for DC elected officials to stop the insanity of buying votes with union endorsements.

In related news, a Wash Examiner's article on dropping DC enrollment is here. George Washington University granted nine DC students full tuition, but did not let DC charter school students apply. Finally, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation allocated $122 million to DC high schoolers', including charter students, but did some racial profiling by limiting those grants to Wards 7 and 8.

P.S. the $14.7K that DC spends per student is the highest in the country.

Protesters Stage Mock Occupation of DC

Honestly, sometimes I just do not understand what in God's name people are thinking. According to The Post, a group of Iraq War protesters staged a mock occupation of DC:

They carried imaginary assault rifles, barked commands, roughly "detained" suspected hostiles with flex cuffs and hoods -- and generally shocked, frightened and delighted tourists and office workers.

"How does occupation feel, D.C.?!" shouted Geoff Millard, head of the local chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War....

How does mock occupation feel DC? Well lets see. Here is what one observer on the streets noted:

"I don't know what they're doing, but they're in everybody's way," said Janet Ruck, a career counselor in Washington.

Upon hearing an explanation, she said, "So they were intentionally getting in people's way. I don't think that people have lost touch or forgotten [about the war]. I don't think this is the way to get people to connect."

Yes, nothing draws the average person to your position like pissing off someone just trying to get to work. Of course out in the left wing blogosphere this macabre piss-poor street theater is being celebrated as "absolutely fascinating." There are plenty of words I can think of to describe this - mindless, bizarre, misguided, freakish, etc - but "absolutely fascinating" ain't a description I would pin on this.

New Metrobus Starts Service

Unless its made out of marshmallow to prevent Metrobus from killing or maiming any more DC residents - I ain't interested. If you are interested, however, you can read about it here.

Metrobus: Stay Out of My Way

Metrobus has new flashing orange lights on the front of the top of the bus. This is supposed to be a safety measure but in my limited driving today I was almost ploughed down by those buses twice.

To me, those flashing lights say: stay out of my way, bitch, or I will mow you down.

If You Only Read One Thing Today

Read The Post's phenomenal piece on Robert Levy - the man responsible for over-turning the District's wildly unconstitutional gun ban. A Cato scholar, and a self-made man, Levy doesn't even own a gun.

Levy in his own words:

"By the way, I'm not a member of any of those pro-gun groups," he said. "I don't travel in those circles. My interest is in vindicating the Constitution."

The citizens of the District owe a hearty thank you to Robert Levy. It's nice that someone out there is interested in defending our Constitutional rights.

UPDATE (10:02 am) - Check out the comments! We got a comment from Mr. Levy himself. Again, a hearty thank you Mr. Levy.

Sidewalks Finally!

It seems like a basic urban amenity, but most of my neighborhood has no sidewalks, so we walk in the street, strollers and individuals, dodging cars. WTF?

Well DC is finally putting sidewalks into my neighborhood!

As a Republican environmentalist who doesn't want my gas-guzzling sports car seized in the near future, I frequently walk the mile to Connecticut Ave to get provisions. When DC announced its pedestrian-friendly initiative I had to laugh, as most of my walk is in the road, which is not exactly safe. Guests of mine with kids were horrified, as we would all be out in the road dodging cars with strollers.

The most basic purpose of government is exactly what is happening: to pave the sidewalks and the streets. Anyway today I, who pay tens of thousands per year in District taxes, finally saw something coming back to me, in the form of sidewalks. I still have a huge pot hole in front of my house and please, Adrian Fenty, fix our road before we have to fill it ourselves with gravel, which we are plotting to do. But at least we finally got something back.

Barry Avoids [More] Jail Time [For Now]

Democrat Marion B*tch Set Me Up Barry didn't wake up in the slammer this morning. Thanks to a technicality the former DC Mayor, and the city's most famous crack head, has avoided jail time - for now.

According to The Post:

A federal judge refused yesterday to put D.C. Council member Marion Barry in jail for violating his probation in a criminal tax case.

The ruling was a blow to federal prosecutors, who wanted Barry locked up for missing deadlines for filing federal and District tax returns for 2005. Sidestepping the issue on a technical point, U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson rejected the prosecutors' request to revoke Barry's probation. She said it was up to the federal probation office -- not prosecutors -- to make the request.

In typical Marion Barry fashion, he tried his best to turn this into yet another tin-foil hat conspiracy to get him. More from The Post:

In an interview yesterday, Barry said he was "delighted" about the new ruling and said he "thanks the judge for her fairness" in the tax matter. He added that he believes the handling of his case by the U.S. attorney's office was "embarrassing and humiliating" to him.

"Thousands of Americans have tax problems with the IRS, and they're not treated this way," Barry said. "It's a double standard, and the U.S. attorney ought to stop it."

Barry is "embarrassed" and "humiliated?" Give me a break. It is District taxpayers, whom Barry has made a career of fleecing, that should be embarrassed and humiliated by this.

Is AMT Really So Bad for DC Tax Payers?

No one likes the Alternative Minimum Tax. The worst thing about it is that you don't know if you will have to pay it until you calculate your taxes after the close of the year in which you made tax-planning decisions. This means that the charitable donation you made or the crappy stocks you sold for a loss might end up null and void on your return if you are hit with AMT, which makes you pay a minimum rate of 26% or 28%.

I screamed foul the first time I was hit with it but am now coming to like it more. First of all, it is a flat tax. Its rate is way too high for a flat tax (and used to be 20% before Reagan, of all people, raised it). If everyone paid AMT then the tax code would be simplified into a few paragraphs instead of the mind-boggling mess that it now is.

Second, it treats local property tax deductions as tax shelters. We in high tax places like DC hate this, but why should every US taxpayer subsidize expensive local governments? By making state taxes non-deductible perhaps there would finally be pressure to ease them. Also, anyone in a high tax state or DC would benefit hugely from a flat tax, as the current progressive tax rates severely punish those who live in expensive places, where $100K does not go so far as it does in Boise and we are basically paying their bill.

Third, the AMT treats dependent deductions as tax shelters. I have always been baffled and annoyed at how people with children pay much less in taxes than do those without children. The market side of me says that they should pay more, as they use more services, but I can go socialist and agree that should pay the same. But in what strange calculus should they pay less?

Fourth, by pushing the middle class into paying taxes that more closely resemble their service consumption perhaps the populace will become more aware of the expense of government.

According to the Census Bureau, the median household had a before-tax income of $40,816 in 1999, an after-tax income of $33,676, and paid $7,140 in total taxes, for an effective tax rate of 17.5 percent...

According to the CBO, those in the top 20 percent (quintile) of the income distribution now pay 78 percent of all federal income taxes.

17.5% is low enough, but the average US family of four pays a 4% federal tax rate, lower than the median and almost completely shielding them from government decisions that increase taxes.

As a self-employed person in DC my marginal tax rate is about 60% plus I have to pay for health insurance out-of-pocket and don't get the favorable tax treatment that corporate employees do. At my rate, I welcome AMT but, unfortunately the calculation is "which is higher, ordinary tax or AMT?" and at this point I would rather pay AMT.

DC Govt's Approach to Education

After reading Leonardo's post below, I think this image fairly sums up our elected officials approach to the problems in our education system here in the District.

City Council Finally Looks at the School Budget

The DC Council actually showed some balls by questioning contracts to rebuild the DC schools. And the contracts equalled a cool $1 billion.

That is a start, but I question the wisdom of allocating $2.3 billion of taxpayer money to remodel schools that are half-empty. Any sane person would rationalize the schools before spending such huge sums to fix so many that will have to be closed. Utilization of DC schools hovers around 40-50%. Why are we paying to fix the entire system? Does the word "duh" mean anything to you?

PS the pot hole index is getting incredibly high. Perhaps we could take some taxpayer money to fix the roads as they are just about as bad now as they were in the Barry days, and the DC gov't has no excuse as they have more tax money than they know what to do with.

News Flash: Look Left When Turning Left!

A D.C. judge has weighed in on the murderous Metrobus driver, saying

"Our laws require drivers . . . to look to their left before making a left turn,"

Well that is pretty brilliant and basic and what any preteen would learn in driver's ed.

But the Metrobus union employees are rallying for the bus driver, who killed two pedestrians crossing in the green in the crosswalk. A taxi driver witness's testimony

angered many of the 20 uniformed Metro workers who crowded the courtroom in support of Kolako. "How could a cabdriver see where [Kolako] was looking?" asked one.

After the hearing, many of the Metro workers hugged Kolako. As Kolako was leaving the courthouse, several workers held up umbrellas and jackets to shield him from the media.

Separately, Metro introduced new colored lights in place of the old ones that were white and flashed when a train is coming. I don't understand the point of this but they say it somehow enhances safety. I think it is a waste of money, as no other system outside of ours has lights at all.

A Victory for the Bill of Rights and for DC Citizens

Breaking news... A divided DC Circuit Panel has ruled that DC's ridiculous gun ban violates the 2nd Amendment (surprise surprise). This is good news for the Bill of Rights and for the citizens of the District. Laughably, the best argument that proponents of this non-sense legislation could make is that it was Constitutional because the 2nd Amendment doesn't apply to DC. Gee, thanks to all our progressive "friends" trying their best to limit the applicability of the Bill of Rights.

More on the decision here: http://howappealing.law.com/030907.html#023153

More on Metrobus!!

For another Metrobus observation, go to Rock Creek Rambler.

I personally see Metrobuses fly through red lights regularly and when I am on them I start to pray the rosary, as the drivers seem to place no value on human life. I would LOVE to review the personnel file of the psychopath who drives my E2 route.

The Driver Dental Tragedy: State Neglect or Parental Neglect?

Deamonte Driver, a 12 year-old homeless child, died last week because an infection in his molar spread to his brain. The political response has been to call for more dental aid for the poor, despite the fact that the child's dental care was completely covered under Medicaid and this was really a case of a parent failing to be a parent.

Yesterday, U.S. Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) invoked Deamonte's case as they introduced legislation designed to put more children who lack insurance or who rely on state aid into a dentist's chair.

"It is outrageous today that in America, a young boy can die because his family can't find a dentist to remove an infected tooth," Cardin said on the Senate floor Thursday. "Anytime we lose a child, it is a tragedy. But Deamonte Driver's death is particularly devastating because it was easily preventable."

Yes, it was tragic and preventable. But the fault lies mostly with Driver's mother, as dental care is fully paid for by Medicaid, which she was receiving.

The Driver case is one of parental neglect.

Fewer than one-third of children in Maryland's Medicaid program received any dental services in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The figures were even lower in Virginia and the District.

But why do only one third of kids covered under Medicaid receive dental service when they are all fully covered? Charging taxpayers new costs is not the best answer when the services are there and parents do not take their children to appointments, largely due to social dysfunction.

CPAC and Other Random Tuesday Morning Ramblings

Thanks to CPAC (which I attended), the number of Republicans in the District probably doubled or tripled at the end of last week.

In case anyone is wondering I didn't catch the Ann Coulter speech live - after watching her call for a new McCarthyism at CPAC in 2005 I have better sense then to sit through that.

If this tiny old blog mattered I would have signed on to this letter urging CPAC organizers not to invite Coulter in the future.

One of the great moments from CPAC was the NRA's Wayne LaPierre showing a clip of a stunned Eleanor Holmes Norton trying to quiet down a crowd of constituents whom she is clearly shocked to learn actually believe in the 2nd Amendment and who want the DC gun ban repealed. I have tried - to no avail - to find this clip on you tube. It's priceless.

Good news - There is a Republican running in the special election to fill the Council vacancy in Ward 7. Bad news - not sure there are any Republicans in Ward 7.

Congestion Pricing for DC?

A little-noticed provision in the budget that Bush sent to Congress provides for $130 million to be allocated to "congestion pricing" schemes, which charge drivers a fee to drive into city centers. From the WSJ [subscription only]:

the centerpiece of the traffic plan involves an initiative that some critics say amounts to a tax, a plan depicted by administration officials as "congestion pricing." The administration will award $130 million in grants starting this spring to help cities and states build electronic toll systems that would charge drivers fees for traveling in and out of big cities during peak traffic times. The money also could go to other congestion strategies such as expanded telecommuting, but administration officials make it clear they think congestion pricing is the most powerful tool they have. The White House will seek an additional $175 million for congestion initiatives in next year's budget.

DC, of course, will gobble up this federal money and try to introduce a congestion pricing scheme of their own. The Wa Post op-ed says that the price will be $1, but the London price, which is the only actual experience of this practice, is 9 pounds per day, which equals about $18 US dollars.

Is New DC Becoming the Old DC Again?

I write this post as I just got my property tax assessment which, incredibly, has increased again. I doubt that I could sell my house for what I could two years ago but the DC assessors think that I could and then more. I couple that thought with the pothole in front of my house that is growing by the day and is just dying to kill my tires. Are we going back to the bad old days in DC?

Tony Williams rescued this city from the brink of disaster by improving city services and getting the budget in balance. His efforts were rewarded by huge increases in property values, as people moved back into the city as the dysfunction eased, potholes were paved and city services improved greatly.

But instead of learning from the lessons of the past, the DC Council has acted like pigs at the trough by enacting a crazy $1.5 billion renovation of all schools despite the fact that they are half empty and refusing to fix that problem first. They also want to throw $50 million to upgrade Abe Pollin's Verizon Center.

DC is sliding back into the bad old days of ignoring citizens' concerns, fleecing them for their money at the expense of providing basic services. My measure of good DC services is the pothole index, and it is looking very bad right now. It reminds me of when I moved to DC ten years ago and the place was a mess.