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Technorati tags: Free New York, Free Niagara, Free Buffalo, government, taxes, spending

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The government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services warn that we “will have to make important sacrifices to pay for health care” in the near future. It indicates that health care spending in the United States will almost double in the next decade to $4.1 trillion in 2016. The average health care bill will average $12,782 for every man, woman and child in 2016, an increase from $7,498 this year.

By 2016 federal, state and local governments will be picking up half of the national health care tab. One organization that promotes reducing the federal deficit, the Concord Coalition, forecasts that if health care costs continue to rise at its present rate it will eventually “push out everything else the government does.”

Given these dire forecasts it is not surprising that the Republican president and the Democratic governor of New York State have targeted health care costs for cuts in their projected budgets for the year ahead.

The combined reductions the two chief executives are proposing would, if carried out, total more than $1 billion a year, and as could be expected raise cries of anguish from those involved in the health care industry and political leaders.

Unfortunately, the proposed funding cuts would take significant dollars from medical centers that teach new doctors and do much of medical research. New York City’s teaching hospitals train about one in seven of the nation’s interns and residents, many of whom practice not only in the city but elsewhere in the state and nation. The governor’s cuts would eliminate about one percent from the revenues of hospitals, with most of the impact in New York City. Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer has proposed cutting $1.2 billion a year in health care costs including more than $350 million in hospital payments.

Murray Light ponders the value of taking funding away from the health care industry.  Rightfully, he is concerned about the affect on the quality of health care.  What he doesn’t question is the very existence of government involvement in health care.

By its nature, government distorts and greatly increases the costs of health care.  The only logical solution is to get the government out of the health care business.  For a further explanation, read here, here and here.

Follow this link for a diagram of where health care dollars are being spent.

Source: Buffalo News - Governor, president hit health care

The decision by New York to confine sex offenders beyond their prison terms places the state at the forefront of a growing national movement that is popular with politicians and voters. But such programs have almost never met a stated purpose of treating the worst criminals until they no longer pose a threat.

The problems with the law, based on similar laws in other states, are:

• Only a small fraction of committed offenders have ever completed treatment to the point where they could be released free and clear.
• A convicted child molester in Kansas finished his prison term 13 years ago, but he remains locked up at a cost to taxpayers in that state of $185,000 a year — more than eight times the cost of keeping someone in prison there.
• Nationwide, of the 250 offenders released unconditionally since the first law was passed in 1990, about half of them were let go on legal or technical grounds unrelated to treatment.
• President Bush has signed a law offering money to states that commit sex offenders beyond their prison terms, and the Justice Department is creating a civil commitment program for federal prisoners.  (Bush seems to have a special place in is heart for locking people up indefinitely)
• Sex offenders selected for commitment are not always the most violent; some exhibitionists are chosen, for example, while rapists are passed over. And some are past the age at which some scientists consider them most dangerous.
• The treatment regimens are expensive and largely unproven, and there is no way to compel patients to participate. Many simply do not show up for sessions on their lawyers’ advice — treatment often requires them to recount crimes, even those not known to law enforcement — and spend their time instead gardening, watching television or playing video games.
• The cost of the programs is virtually unchecked and growing, with states spending nearly $450 million on them this year. The annual price of housing a committed sex offender averages more than $100,000, compared with about $26,000 a year for keeping someone in prison, because of the higher costs for programs, treatment and supervised freedoms.
• Successful treatment is often not a factor in determining the relatively few offenders who are released; in Iowa, of the nine men let go unconditionally, none had completed treatment or earned the center’s recommendation for release.

This is another one of those laws that sound good on the surface, but stink when you look at the actual effects.  The costs far outweigh the benefits of the program.

Politicians like the program because it makes them look like they are doing something positive for society and it increases the number of government jobs which equals votes at election time.  Eliot Spitzer gets a whole new State Agency, The Office of Sex Offender Management, complete with some nice paying jobs for the politically connected.

Day One, read beyond the hype!

Source: Doubts as States Hold Sex Offenders After Prison - New York Times

George Bush now wants to turn website owners and Internet service providers into agents of the Government.

The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned.

That proposal surfaced Wednesday in a private meeting during which U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, tried to convince industry representatives such as AOL and Comcast that data retention would be valuable in investigating terrorism, child pornography and other crimes. The discussions were described to News.com by several people who attended the meeting.

A second purpose of the meeting in Washington, D.C., according to the sources, was to ask Internet service providers how much it would cost to record details on their subscribers for two years. At the very least, the companies would be required to keep logs for police of which customer is assigned a specific Internet address.

Often invoking terrorism (fear mongering) and child pornography as justifications, the administration has argued that Internet providers must install backdoors for surveillance and has called for routers to be redesigned for easier eavesdropping. President Bush’s electronic surveillance program, which was recently modified, has drawn an avalanche of lawsuits.

This is nothing but a costly fishing expedition designed to make it easier for the government to invade the privacy of individuals.  Law enforcement already has the ability to subpoena records related to suspected criminal activity.

Source: Justice Department takes aim at image-sharing sites | CNET News.com

If you missed the headlines, it may be because of stiff competition from the breaking news that Anna Nicole is still dead and Britney is still disturbed. Irony doesn’t get to be ironic when it’s that conspicuous.

— Kathleen Parker

Source: Buffalo News - Fathers, save your daughters

I managed to get the lightbox effect working properly. Now, when you click on a photo in a post, you will get a nice, larger version displaying in a lightbox. Test it below.

Technorati tags: wordpress, plugin, lightbox, photography

Last Tuesday, Feb. 27, I predicted here that an announcement would be coming soon about Bass Pro.  That announcement would include plans for a Bass Pro store in the Historical District of the Inner Harbor area.  It hasn’t happened yet, but judging from Donn Esmonde’s column today, it appears that the talks are continuing with an announcement likely soon.

Lost in the frenzy to cram Bass Pro into the Erie Canal Harbor history site is a simple fact: It is not allowed there. Not even if the sporting goods monolith is cloaked, as proposed, in a 19th century-style building facade.

We spent years pounding out a plan for what does and doesn’t fit near the Commercial Slip. It is the historic terminus of the Erie Canal, now taking shape near the old Aud.

It was a people-driven plan forged by years of controversy and compromise. The battle involved public protests, a federal lawsuit and 14,000 pro-history petition signatures. It included the exploding of an “exploding canal stones” myth floated by state officials to keep the historic canal walls buried. It involved a national conference on heritage economics, meetings with community and preservation groups, and master plans.

. . . The historic site is a small slice of the downtown waterfront pie. The area is teeming with development sites large enough for a Bass Pro, from the likely-to-be demolished Aud or neighboring Donovan Building, to the parking lot at HSBC Arena. If Bass Pro isn’t interested in them, lord knows it isn’t the only big-box retailer out there. But instead of Quinn & Co. telling Bass Pro that the historic site was off-limits, the talks began.

“It smacks of the same sort of desperation,” said one tourism official, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, “that we always bring to the table.”

Desperation is a good word for describing the current talks.  Foolish and short-sighted are other appropriate adjectives.  The latest I’ve heard regarding the ongoing talks is that Bass Pro may occupy about 110,000 square feet of a larger building that is in the 400,000 square foot range.

The historic Inner Harbor has a huge potential as a destination where people can learn some history, relax and enjoy the waterfront.  There is absolutely no reason to put a Bass Pro or any other Big Box retail store in the immediate area.

Taxpayers’ dollars are being spent to develop the Inner Harbor.  I encourage everyone to contact Mayor Byron Brown, Brian Higgins and the Erie County  Harbor Development Corporation and let them know that Bass Pro is not part of the vision we have.  Contact information is after the jump.

Continue Reading “Bass Pro, History and the Master Plan Don’t Mix” »