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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 > 2010 > April > 30
Friday, April 30, 2010
Editorial: GM overhypes, sure, but trends aren’t bad
When General Motors’ top guy made a television ad saying that GM had “repaid our government loan, in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule,” he was immediately lambasted for leaving out some details:
That about 90 percent of the money the federal government put into GM was no longer in the form of a loan, but in stock ownership. And the taxpayers won’t get that money back until the stock is sold. And nobody knows when that will happen or how much money the stock will bring.
Pretty important details.
CEO Ed Whitacre also came in for another criticism, one that turned out not to be so fair.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said GM had merely used government money to repay the government, simply shuffling money around. Bloggers and newspaper editorial pages alike glommed on to the charge.
But when the non-partisan, fact-checking outfit Politifact checked with experts, it found they said that money is money. The fact that GM was willing to part with some had to be treated as meaningful, good news.
“It’s a genuine paying back,” said Lawrence J. White, economist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “It does reduce the federal government’s involvement.”
And it’s certainly a far cry from a call for more bailout money. That’s the kind of news that was always expected last year.
Even better news: GM, Chrysler and Ford are all saying they might actually make money this year.
The government has changed its projections about how much money it might lose on the loans it gave the auto and banking industries. Last year, the Treasury Department was saying the loss might be as much as $500 billion out of the nearly $800 billion spent. But many banks have been repaying their loans with interest. The projected loss is now $87 billion.
At about 1 percent of the output of the economy in a year, that wouldn’t be so awful, certainly not as the price for keeping the The Great Recession from turning into a new Great Depression.
Inevitably, the Whitacre ad was widely assessed in the context of the debate about whether the bailout was a good idea. That subject is still of interest to the public, of course.
But of even greater interest is the future of the American auto industry. On that, the repayment and the positive projections aren’t the only good news. There’s also the fact that the American people are apparently no longer committed to the notion that the cars of foreign-based manufacturers are better.
An Associated Press poll shows 38 percent of Americans rated American cars in general the best, and 33 percent said Asian cars. Four years ago, the respective numbers were 29 percent and 46 percent.
The poll doesn’t necessarily signal a new day, but it signals an opening. Obviously, Detroit owes some thanks to Toyota. That company’s multiple recalls and problems with gas pedals have had impact.
But Toyota’s problems are not the only ones in the news. It’s easy to imagine that the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler would be taken by consumers as evidence that American cars are inferior.
Worth remembering now is that the auto industry bailouts weren’t simply tide-us-over loans. They came with all kinds of strings attached and resulted in the abandonment of entire lines of cars, new arrangements with unions and more.
The idea was to foster a leaner American auto industry, focused on dramatic change (such as electric cars), toward the goal, one might reasonably say, of taxpayer recovery of most of that other 90 percent. That still might not happen, but there’s progress, which nobody would have assumed a year ago.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment | Categories: Auto industry, Editorials, Martin Gottlieb
TweetGuest column: Did nearby buildings play role in fatal airplane crash?
This commentary is written by Andrew Sarangan, a pilot and flight instructor at Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport. He also is an associate professor at the University of Dayton.
Tom Hausfeld, the pilot of the ill-fated flight on April 1, might be alive today if not for the poor decisions to erect buildings on the approach path of incoming airplanes.
While fear and concerns have been raised about the possibility of airplanes falling out of the sky onto innocent people, the true hazard is actually the other way around. When Hausfeld lost engine power, he was required by the federal aviation regulations to maneuver the airplane away from persons or property on the ground. This is exactly what he did.
Not a single piece of metal fell on anyone outside the airport fence. It is also evident that he struggled to hold the airplane high enough to clear the roofs of the buildings that were on the approach path, which robbed him of the precious last few knots of airspeed that is so essential for staying airborne.
The foremost tragedy in this story is that we lost a fine citizen and aviator and his daughter.
The second tragedy is how the event is being spun to advance the interests of businesses and other groups.
The pilot and his passenger were the victims. The hazard was the building. How anyone can turn that story around is amazing to me. Monro Muffler built a shop at the very edge of the runway, and then complained to the news media about low-flying airplanes.
The fact that airplanes fly low just prior to landing is not a new phenomenon. This is how airplanes were flown since Orville and Wilbur. The Federal Aviation Administration and the laws of physics require airplanes to fly in a shallow 3-5 degree glide angle during approach. At Wright brothers airport, this means the airplanes have been crossing the fence at roughly 75 feet altitude for nearly half a century.
Several years back, I recall looking down, during a final approach, at the construction site where the gas station and the Monro shop now sit, wondering why in the world anyone would choose to build there, knowing the risk it poses to aircraft.
Residents are understandably concerned about the possibility of airplanes crashing into their homes. However, it can be verified from National Transportation Safety Board records that statistically this is an extremely unlikely event.
Nevertheless, public perception is still important, and communities and airports need to work together to create a mutually safe environment. But that is a two-way street. Erecting buildings with no regard to aircraft safety, and then accusing pilots of flying too close to those buildings, is not an environment that creates mutual trust.
Communities such as Settlers Walk should work together with pilots and airport committees before building on the land adjacent to the runway and resolve any safety concerns cooperatively.
After all, many pilots and aircraft owners are also residents of Settlers Walk. Airport operations are not regulated by city, state or residential communities. Airports are part of a vast national network and operate under federal regulations. Airplanes flying here from Florida or Texas or even just from Cincinnati cannot be expected to know about the covenants of Settlers Walk or the opinions of Monro Muffler.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Guest Columns
TweetEditorial: Beavercreek makes life harder for bus riders
The problems of bus service to the Dayton Mall, which have been around for more than a decade, could be headed for a solution.
Now, however, the Fairfield Commons Mall is a problem, largely because of a Beavercreek city ordinance.
A church coalition is charging that it’s unfair and unsafe to force low-income mall workers, the elderly and handicapped riders to trek long distances from where buses stop to reach a mall entrance.
The company that owns both the Dayton and Fairfield Commons malls, spurred by the coalition’s complaints, is in talks with the Greater Dayton RTA about locating bus stops on its properties.
At the Dayton Mall, the closest stop currently requires a 300-yard walk across a busy parking lot. RTA and the mall owners are close to agreeing about a safer stop that’s nearer to an entrance, but they’re still negotiating about how many buses and which ones will stop there.
(RTA Executive Director Mark Donaghy wants the major bus routes to have a mall stop, not just a couple of specialty routes. He wants to avoid requiring riders to transfer and wait for a second bus.)
In Beavercreek, a 2000 city ordinance makes placing a bus stop anywhere near or at the Fairfield Commons Mall a tough task, though the mall owners are open to having a stop on their property. Mr. Donaghy calls the law an “anti-transit ordinance.”
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
As things stand now, the best way to get to Fairfield Commons by bus is to walk more than a mile from a stop in Fairborn near Wright State University, across a bridge over the interstate along busy roads without sidewalks at some points.
Beavercreek is planing to build a pedestrian bridge that would cross over the interstate from near the Fairborn Holiday Inn by Wright State and connect to a site near Sam’s Club on Pentagon Boulevard. That would make the walk a little easier, but there would still be treacherous stretches.
Mr. Donaghy would not only like to see bus service to the mall; he also wants stops along the way for other Beavercreek locations, most notably the Dayton Regional STEM School. Students there currently must make a long walk from a bus stop near Grange Hall Road, following a route also not designed for pedestrians.
But Beavercreek’s law is standing in the way. Mr. Donaghy worries that the city could block bus access even if mall owners agree to a stop. Locating a bus stop requires getting a permit, as well as hearings before the city planning commission and city council.
Because Pentagon Boulevard — the most logical route to serve the STEM school, the mall and other locations — is a heavy traffic area, the city ordinance requires specially designed pull-off areas for bus stops. Mr. Donaghy says they could cost up to $50,000 each to build.
If such stops are really needed, the RTA director says he would advocate to his board that RTA build them. But he believes that, in most cases, buses can make do with more typical stops. There’s nothing peculiar about the high-traffic streets in Beavercreek, compared to any other cities in RTA’s service area — or any city in the country.
Beavercreek city Engineer Dave Beach says the elaborate bus stops are needed for safety reasons. But what could be less safe than the long treks bus riders are making right now on foot along these same roads?
If Beavercreek really isn’t “anti-transit,” and if its leaders truly want to prevent people from getting hurt, they should re-examine their bus stop policies and create a streamlined process that allows access to the mall — safely.
Permalink | Comments (58) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Scott Elliott, Suburban Communities, Transportation
TweetMartin Gottlieb: They won’t leave Jean Schmidt alone
2010 ELECTION
All three Ohioans who think U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt isn’t conservative enough are running against her.
There’s Mike Kilburn, the seven-term Warren County commissioner, the fellow who wanted President Barack Obama to keep his “filthy money.” That’s a reference to the stimulus, whereon more judicious heads ultimately prevailed in the county.
(By the time Kilburn announced for Congress, Republicans including Commissioner Pat South were trying to get Sheriff Tom Ariss to challenge him in a commission primary.)
Also running against Schmidt are political newcomers Debbi Alsfelder, a lawyer and CPA from Mariemont; and Tim Martz, an accounts manager from Indian Hill.
No one has mounted an expensive campaign.
Kilburn seems to be the strongest challenger, though only the southern part of Warren County is in Schmidt’s district. (The 2nd District is mainly eastern Hamilton County and the farther-east suburbs of Cincinnati.)
Kilburn’s “filthy money” crusade (“I’ll let Warren County go broke before taking any of Obama’s filthy money.”) got him national attention, not just regional. So conservative voters who care about the election know there’s a choice.
In one small but visible sense, Schmidt is actually the opposite of Kilburn. She has been blasted on liberal MSNBC as among the “stimulus hypocrites.” They are the politicians who go after stimulus money for their own districts, despite having voted against the stimulus.
What an odd criticism. The money is going to be spent; is she supposed to prefer that it be spent elsewhere?
Schmidt must be on the edge of a record for number of times challenged in a primary. The only new thing this year is the motive of the challengers. In the past, the charge against her has not been ideological. It’s been that she’s not quite up to the job.
When she was first elected in 2005, it was after a hot, multi-way primary. She beat much bigger names — a DeWine and former U.S. Rep. Bob McEwen — perhaps because the bigger names had destroyed each other with negative campaigns.
Then she just barely squeaked through in the general election, a humiliating outcome, given that the district goes almost 2-1 Republican in a close presidential election. Her opponent was a returning Iraq war veteran.
In Congress, she proceeded immediately to get into political trouble. (She questioned the courage of a former Marine who was in Congress as a Democrat. She didn’t know about his widely known military background.)
McEwen spotted weakness and challenged her in a primary, losing by five percentage points.
She ultimately survived an even more humiliating squeaker in a general election. That time her opponent was not a veteran.
Then she won another primary against a well-known opponent. Rough ride. But after 2008 she finally seemed to have been accepted as the party’s long-term choice.
Maybe if 2010 were a typical year she wouldn’t have a challenger. Or at least not three. At least not three complaining that she isn’t conservative enough.
In 2008, her voting record got a 100 percent approval rating from the conservative Family Research Council and a 94 percent from the Chamber of Commerce.
But she did bend to the pleas of Republican leader John Boehner on the bank bailout. After first voting against the proposal, she was among the Republicans who flipped, allowing the measure to pass on its second House vote.
In some eyes, that was enough to make her part of the establishment.
Kilburn also hits on the up-to-the-job issue. He told the Cincinnati Enquirer that “our people are tired of sending millionaire know-nothings to Washington to do nothing for us.”
But he promises to leave after three terms, a great way to limit his own impact. He wants to eliminate the departments of energy and education. He wants to eliminate the corporate income tax, impose a flat tax, and impose means testing for Social Security. Could take more than three terms.
Even if he doesn’t beat Schmidt, it’ll be interesting to see how he does in Warren County.
The small percentage of people who turn out to vote in a low-visibility Republican primary are presumed to be about the most conservative group that can be identified.
And we’re talking about a county known for its conservatism. So the question becomes, just how conservative?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics
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