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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > March > 13
Friday, March 13, 2009
Editorial: Boehner flounders for role other than ‘no’
Bob Schieffer, of CBS: “Why do you think that it’s a good idea to just simply freeze spending?”
John Boehner, R-West Chester, U.S. House Republican leader: “Well, because I think if you look around the country, our economy is struggling. American families are tightening their belt, but they don’t see government tightening its belt.
“And I think that we can get through this year and lead by example and show the American people that government can go on a diet as well.”
One has to sympathize with Republican congressional leaders these days. They are constantly being compared with President Barack Obama or the late President Ronald Reagan — not to their advantage. They’ve seen Republican numbers shrink dramatically in Congress.
They are being lambasted by all manner of Republicans, including Rush Limbaugh. They are having to defend themselves against the charge that he is more important than they are. And they’re seeing their constant, rather extreme criticism of the president (an alleged “socialist”) have no measurable impact on his popularity, at least so far.
Mainly, they’re told they have to be different than they seem. They can’t just be the party of “no.” They have to come up with something, even if it’s only a way to re-cast their opposition.
And yet they know in their hearts that there’s a principle involved here. They honestly see their job as opposition, not because they’re in the opposition party, but because they believe in the opposition ideology.
Certainly Rep. Boehner is to be believed when he says his opposition is nothing personal. He has a reputation for getting along with House Democrats. In a body where things get quite personal, quite bitter, that’s nothing to sneeze at.
But when it comes to substance, he does seem to be floundering. Take this freeze thing. There really isn’t much more to his case than he presented in his answer to Mr. Schieffer, except this:
At hand is a $410 billion “omnibus” spending bill for this year that Congress should have passed last year but didn’t. Two percent of the bill would go to “earmarks,” including a huge number sought by Republicans.
Rep. Boehner, on principle, opposes earmarks — locally focused projects that are typically unknown to anybody but a legislator or two or three.
The bill increases overall spending by $30 billion — almost four times more than the cost of the earmarks — over last year.
The proposal to freeze this spending at last year’s level comes from a man and a party that just proposed a stimulus bill of hundreds of billions of dollars. His plan was half the size of President Obama’s, but it would have created twice as many jobs, he insisted. Like the Democrats, he saw a need for much new debt.
So what’s this talk about “government tightening its belt”? A $400 billion stimulus is belt tightening?
More striking yet is the sheer oddness of the rationale: “American families are tightening their belt, but they don’t see government tightening its belt.”
The fact that the American people — including those making business decisions — are tightening their belts is universally seen as the immediate problem to be addressed by a stimulus. Private belts are so tight that public belts had to be loosened, so spending is occurring somewhere.
To go from that, in no time, to “we’ve got to emulate the belt-tighteners,” that’s quite a trip.
Setting aside the matter of consistency, this question remains: Does anybody really believe that government belt-tightening will help get the country out of this mess? Maybe Herbert Hoover.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, National Politics
Kevin Riley: Downtown effort is rolling
The plan to recreate downtown Dayton is gathering momentum.
Led by Michael Ervin, a retired physician and health insurance executive, and supported by the city and the Downtown Dayton Partnership, the Greater Downtown Plan is being built after a series of public meetings.
Those meetings and other events provided plenty of public input. The goal is a business plan for downtown that will be, as Ervin likes to say, “actionable.”
At this point, the partnership is assembling the information that has been gathered from the public meetings and an online survey of about 1,000 people.
Hundreds of people attended three public meetings seeking ideas for downtown, a turnout that was a pleasant surprise. Attendees included a broad mix, including city and suburban residents, activists and people of all ages. That’s important because it shows that many of us understand that downtown concerns all of us.
“It was standing-room only,” Ervin said. “There was a lot of excitement.”
Several themes are emerging:
— Housing downtown is important. One way to make downtown more vibrant is to simply have more people live there. And if we want younger professionals (one of the best targets), the housing has to be in their price range.
— Downtown should be a better and more friendly “product.” In other words, improving the look and infrastructure would make it more attractive, from curbs to sidewalks and other basic things.
— Downtown has a number of bright spots, including the Oregon District, RiverScape, Fifth Third Field and its diverse architecture. These things need more of a connection to each other.
Ervin has assembled a number of committees that will recommend plans in key areas. Those areas include:
— Housing/neighborhood development
— Jobs
— The riverfront
— Amenities/entertainment
— Transportation
— Green and sustainable plans
He has been quietly enlisting people and organizations to support those committees and has patiently put key people together, emphasizing he wants action from them.
“We’re not interested in just theory,” he said. “We’re not going to create wish lists. It has to be real.”
A next step will be the release later this month of “creative re-use” drawings by local architecture firms. The architects took on a volunteer project to make some bold proposals for about 10 downtown buildings. The ideas will be available to developers, but the architects weren’t asked to prove the plans were financially viable.
The architects call for innovative housing units and a number of amenities to go along with their ideas.
Several have proposals that will be particularly attractive to cyclists. And one bold proposal calls for a pedestrian walkway that would go from Fourth Street to the river between Jefferson and St. Clair streets.
“We want to change the function of the streets … to be equally useful for cars and people,” Ervin said.
Challenges, of course, loom. At some point the downtown plan will have to be funded. And in these economic times, that won’t be easy.
For downtown to be successful, its job base has to be stabilized. And that is a key matter for the city because employment in the downtown area provides a huge chunk of income tax revenue to support the city at-large.
Downtown must also overcome the perception that it’s unsafe, an inaccurate but deeply rooted fear.
The amount of office space downtown, currently being studied by a consultant, may be too great. That could mean tearing down some buildings and adding others.
And parking remains a difficult issue. The partnership has set up a Web site (easyparkdowntown.org) to offer help. But, in the end, our first and last experiences with each trip downtown are around parking. That experience must improve to draw people — and get them to come back.
But Ervin wants to take this step-by-step.
“That’s the only way it’s going to really work,” he said.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Columns, Kevin Riley
Martin Gottlieb: Brunner has redistricting plan, too
I’m at a two-day conference in Columbus organized by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner on elections administration issues.
Most of the attendees are professional elections officials, or members of county elections boards. People are here from Montgomery County, Greene, Miami, Preble and others.
Ellis Jacobs, the Dayton activist on voting rights and other issues, is here. So are some academics. A few journalists, off and on, but not many.
It’s mainly a sort of convention for people who run elections. They get to talk to each other about common problems, like how to recruit poll workers and train them, how to handle the “provisional ballots” that complicate things on Election Day, how to keep the state and federal governments from imposing too many unfunded mandates.
There have been occasional fireworks. When professors and activists worry about votes not being counted — as in the 40,000 people whose provisional ballots were rejected in 2008 for one reason or another — the elections people sometimes hear themselves being blamed (which I really don’t think is the intention of those raising the issue; they’re more critical of laws).
Some of the elections people — not all — think voters are being coddled too much and need to take more responsibility for getting themselves registered in the right place, with a competently filled out registration form.
Secretary Brunner made at least one effort to make news, unveiling a new project relating to the drawing of legislative districts.
She and some legislators and some long-time activists from the League of Women Voters and Common Cause are inviting organizations around the state to draw maps that are fair and nonpartisan, and submit them to the state. Those maps will be used to get the state authorities to adhere to certain principles of fairness, as opposed to their usual obsession with self interest in shaping districts.
Exactly how that would work has not been worked out entirely. But it looks as though Brunner has a plan to compete with that of state Sen. Jon Husted, who would like to create a commission that is not controlled by either party.
Brunner is running for the U.S. Senate. Husted is eyeing secretary of state. Stay tuned.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Montgomery County, Ohio politics
Editorial: Sugarcreek, Centerville must end war
The battle between Centerville and Sugarcreek Twp. about the land that was once the Dille family farm is risky for both sides. The dispute begs for a settlement.
For one thing, it’s costing a ton. Between them, Centerville and Sugarcreek already have spent close to $500,000 making their legal arguments. The case is still in Greene County Common Pleas Court, but it could go to the next higher court.
Moreover, the case could establish new interpretations of state law for other cities and townships that could throw past and future financing arrangements up in the air.
At issue is the desire by Dille property owners and developers to be annexed by Centerville. A 2001 law was supposed to smooth the annexation process. Instead of having townships and cities fight about tax revenue, the law created an expedited process allowing property taxes from annexed land to stay with the affected township that was losing money, but income and other tax revenue would go to the city getting the new property. The goal was to prevent long, contentious fights that are common in annexation bids.
In this case, the developers also are asking for “tax increment financing” — spending future tax revenues from the developed property to help make the improvements to the land today.
Sugarcreek is balking at that idea. It opposes using its future tax revenues to help finance the project, but the deal may not work otherwise.
The two sides have tried to compromise. With the help of a mediator, they agreed to a framework to settle the dispute, but when they got into the details, negotiations fell apart.
“We just couldn’t get there,” said Barry Tiffany, administrator for Sugarcreek Twp. “Given the scenario and the obligations (Centerville) had made to the developer and the property owners, we just couldn’t get the numbers to work.”
Still, Greene County Magistrate George Reynolds’ recent decision shows the dangers for both sides of pressing a court case. Neither was happy with his ruling, and both are objecting.
Magistrate Reynolds found the Dille annexation was legal, but that Centerville could not use tax increment financing. Centerville City Manager Greg Horn said if the ruling on the financing stands, dozens of so-called TIF agreements for places like The Greene in Beavercreek or Union Centre in West Chester are threatened.
“The potential damage would be staggering statewide,” he said.
Any time a law is challenged in court, there’s a possibility it could be interpreted in ways the fighting parties don’t like. But once a court ruling is made and an appellate court weighs in, the appellate court decision becomes the standard for applying the rules for the area covered by that court.
A lot of interests are indirectly represented at the table in the Dille case. It will take creative thinking and new ideas to break the stalemate. But continuing to fight this case raises the possibility that developers and local governments could both lose an increasingly common financing tool.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Scott Elliott, Suburban Communities
