Monthly Archives: October 2011

Parking Meter Delusions

According to media reports, in last night’s debate between Melina Kennedy (no relation!) and Greg Ballard, the Mayor strongly defended his record. He cited crime reduction (a claim that can be considered true if you count only certain crimes, and ignore those annoying statistics about aggravated assaults and the like) and the privatization of parking meters.

Excuse me? Let’s deconstruct that. We are supposed to re-elect Ballard in gratitude for his decision to give away control of our parking infrastructure and some 60% of the fees we would otherwise earn for the next fifty years?

The ability to control meters may seem inconsequential, but it isn’t. Decisions about parking are a significant element in all sorts of development decisions; the ability to “bag” meters without penalty during downtown construction is a cost-control measure important to developers and others. It has been estimated that the city’s deal–which requires compensating ACS when more than a certain number of meters are bagged–added over a million dollars to the construction costs of the Cultural Trail.

When many of us protested the decision to contract away the lion’s share of parking revenues that would otherwise flow to the city, we were told that we needed the “expertise” of ACS–that the city couldn’t finance and manage its meters without the help of a sophisticated mega-corporation. (Evidently, the disastrous experiences of cities like Chicago that had entered into similar deals was considered irrelevant by Mayor Leadership.)

The bottom line, according to the Ballard Administration, was that it was necessary to trade a lot of city control and money for competent, experienced management.I thought that was a bad deal, but I assumed we would at least get the competent management. Evidently, I was naive.

Yesterday, in my Media and Policy class, a student raised the issue of how poorly local media had covered the administration’s privatization of the water company and parking meters. That led another student to complain that she had received a ticket despite having paid the fee–and was helpless to prove her payment since the meters don’t dispense receipts.

Her complaint opened a floodgate. Out of the 23 students in class, no fewer than 8 of them reported similar problems. Several had attempted to complain–complaints that, as one put it, were “blown off.” One student who had paid with a credit card was told the only way she could get a refund was to bring in her Visa bill. Another reported that her credit card was charged twice; when she tried to get the improper extra charge removed, the response was “how do we know you didn’t park twice?”

So, Mayor Ballard, let me understand this: I am supposed to vote to re-elect you, not despite the fact that you gave control of our parking and millions of our dollars to a company that is doing a crappy job, but because you did so?

Whatever it is you’re smoking, I’d like some.

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Class Warfare

As the Wall Street sit-ins spread, we are hearing more accusations of “class warfare.” Those accusations come from both ends of the political spectrum: the wealthy–particularly those whose wealth comes from the financial sector–accuse the protestors of enmity aimed at the “haves,” and the protestors and their supporters respond that corporate “fat cats” started the conflict by engaging in unethical practices motivated by greed that harmed “the other 99%.”

I actually don’t think what we are seeing is class warfare. I doubt if many of the protestors really have animus toward all those who are better off. They are just really, really angry at the increasingly successful efforts of bankers and others to shield themselves from the consequences of their own (mis)behaviors.

Nor do I think that corporate bigwigs are motivated by a desire to harm the (dwindling) middle class or poor. I doubt they even think about what their “Masters of the Universe” game-playing does to other people. (This lack of awareness–let alone concern–is in fact one of their most distasteful characteristics.)

Rather than dismissing these demonstrations by mislabeling them, I think they are general expressions of discontent with a political system that increasingly favors the well-positioned and well-resourced over other Americans.

The “other 99%” don’t hate rich people. They hate a system that increasingly takes from the poor to give to the rich.

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The Shadow Government

A fair amount of my academic research has addressed issues of government privatization–or more accurately, contracting out. (Privatization, as Morton Marcus frequently notes, is what Margaret Thatcher did in England: selling off government enterprises to private sector owners. In the US, privatization means providing government services through for-profit or nonprofit contractors–a very different thing.)

My research has convinced me of three things: 1) while contracting may be appropriate under some circumstances, it is not the panacea that so many politicians seem to think. Sometimes it makes sense, often not. 2) the cost savings that are touted by privatization advocates are largely mythical, the result of omitting the cost to government of contract management–or the even greater costs of failing to manage those contracts. And 3) far from shrinking the size of government, as proponents contend, contracting actually expands both the size and scope of government, while at the same time making that expansion less visible and government less accountable.

Two recent studies confirm those latter conclusions.

A few weeks ago, the Government Accounting Office released the results of its investigation of contracting costs. It found that contracting was often more costly than providing the same services in-house. And just a few days ago, during a debate over a proposed federal contracting rule, the number of of federal contract workers–people working full-time for the federal government who are contract workers rather than federal employees–was estimated at approximately 7.1 million. That’s in contrast to the full-time civilian federal workforce of 2.1 million.  The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 43% of all employees who do the government’s work are employed by contractors. (It further estimates that 20% of that 43% are paid “poverty wages.”)

It isn’t only the federal government, of course. When you add the “shadow” employees working under contract for state and local governments, estimates of the number of contracted government employees run as high as 17 million. It’s impossible to know for certain, because there is very little data available that would allow governments to monitor these workers, and considerable resistance from the business community to the Obama administration’s recent efforts to collect and analyze such information.

It’s very difficult to hold government accountable when you can’t see government at work. Contract workers need to come out of the shadows.

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A Question for the Godly

The New York Times recently reported on a town clerk in upstate New York who was refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite passage of the recent New York law recognizing such unions. She cited evangelical Christianity as a bar against performing her official duties.

“For me to participate in the same-sex marriage application process I don’t feel is right,” Rose Marie Belforti told The Times. “God doesn’t want me to do this, so I can’t do what God doesn’t want me to do, just like I can’t steal, or any of the other things that God doesn’t want me to do.”

I’m impressed by Ms. Belforti’s godliness. But since she seems to have an intimate relationship with God, and seems to know what He/She wants with such precision, I’d love to ask her a couple of questions. For example, how does God feel about her issuing licenses to divorced folks? People who’ve previously been convicted of crimes God disapproves of?

But most of all, I’d like to know how God feels about her continuing to take a government paycheck while refusing to perform the duties she’s being paid for. Isn’t that like stealing?

Ms. Belforti is absolutely entitled to her religious beliefs; however, she is not entitled to work for the government. If she can’t do her job–for whatever reason–she should be replaced by someone who can.

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It’s Complicated

It’s election season, and as I’ve watched the various ads, debates and speeches—and grown impatient with the slogans and posturing—it’s occurred to me that the current complexity of our society and world may be outstripping our ability to govern ourselves.

Invoking Ronald Reagan or FDR appeals to partisans, and pledging fealty to American values or ones belief in American Exceptionalism (rarely defined) may provide a window into the philosophical orientation of the speaker, but these invocations give us no clue to how the candidate proposes to solve the growing numbers of problems that aren’t amenable to ideological solutions.

I don’t blame the candidates for this. After all, how many of us, however well educated and informed, really have the background to understand the complicated issues we face?

Take economic growth and job creation, and arguments over whether the proper solution is more stimulus or more austerity. I find certain economists’ arguments more compelling, but not because I have any expertise in economics. Like most of us, I read the competing arguments, compare the assertions to what I (think I) know, and decide which proposals seem most reasonable. Add in the European debt crisis, and I’m pretty much going with my gut.

Similarly, ongoing debates about government regulation are typically posed as “more” or “less,” when the real question is “which ones.” How many of us really know enough to opine about the safety of fracking, or the maximum amount of arsenic that’s safe in our drinking water?

The recent hysteria over health care reform was another case-in-point. That the American health care industry (it hasn’t been remotely coherent enough to be called a “system”) is a wasteful, costly monstrosity is admitted by virtually everyone. The question isn’t whether to keep it or change it; failure to change it will bankrupt the country. The question is how, and I defy any of the folks who got up and screamed at Town Hall meetings to offer a comprehensive, workable alternative to the Affordable Care Act—or even to demonstrate a grasp of how things currently work. This is not a defense of the Act (I personally favored “Medicare for All”), because I do not know enough to attack or defend it. My point is that neither did most of the people doing the attacking and defending.

Recognizing the limits of what “we the people” understand points to an uncomfortable challenge. When should democratic processes decide policies, and when should we trust impartial technocrats?

I am generally comfortable leaving such things as the assignments of air lanes, food safety standards, the disposal of chemicals and hundreds of similar decisions in the hands of people who actually have expertise in such matters. I want real scientists deciding whether global climate change is real, not Rick Perry. On the other hand, as we saw during the last administration, the people we elect can always appoint dubious “experts” who will favor solutions desired by their political allies.

Back before our politics became so toxic, we used to say that there is no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage. There’s also no Republican or Democratic way to address food safety, environmental degradation, air traffic control, stock fraud and a million other tasks that government must provide.

None of this is to suggest that a candidate’s philosophy of government is irrelevant. The way in which a President or Mayor approaches the job will inevitably be guided by his or her belief in the proper role of government, and that’s as it should be.

We just shouldn’t elect people who mistake slogans for solutions.