Face time with Joe the Plumber

My wife submitted a "Joe the Plumber" story to the McCain campaign awhile back (read it at http://hthdidigethere.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-am-joe-plumber.html). Last night, we received a call from the campaign, inviting us to their rally in Columbus, Ohio tomorrow afternoon. We have been given seats in the VIP section, and the call indicated that we will be seated with Joe Wurzelbacher and possibly have an opportunity to meet him, as well as Senator McCain, Governor Schwarzenegger, and possibly some of the other dignitaries in attendance.

I'm new to the world of campaign events, so I don't know if we will get much time at all with Joe and/or anyone else in attendance. However, we're intending to show up early and spend time there, so I suspect we will get a chance to do more than the typical "grip 'n grin".

So, assuming we get the opportunity to ask, what would you like to ask Joe the Plumber? (I have dibs on "For how much are you planning on suing the State of Ohio and Helen Jones-Kelley, and can I help?" 8^)

FWIW, I will be Twittering as much as I can from the event from my BlackBerry (http://twitter.com/GoHskrs). We may even attempt to get video with our camera if the opportunity presents itself. I'll be blogging afterwards and posting pictures here.

Update: Joe wasn't there, but it was still worthwhile to be in the "Joe the Plumber" line, which was a lot shorter ... 8^)

Pataskala income tax FUD

(That's Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt -- a term of art in the computer software industry, often pertaining to established vendors' attitude toward new technology. The established vendor will attempt to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about the new technology in an attempt to maintain their established customers.)

Today's FUD is $500K-plus in cuts ready if Pataskala's income-tax issue fails, by the aptly-named Lori Wince. Our leaders have already determined what muscle will be cut if they don't get their income tax the seventh time around:

• No parks and recreation department;
• Personnel cuts in planning and zoning; public-service; and street departments;
• Suspending road resurfacing;
• No capital improvements unless funded by other grants.

Already cut:

• Snow removal, except on major streets;
• Streetlight repair

(The article doesn't state whether we'll get those last two back if we knuckle under to the income tax. I suspect not, but I'm not going to look it up right now -- it's a moot point if the tax issue fails anyway.)

The timing of this issue is unfortunate, due to increases in overall property taxes (about 10%) in 2008, plus the financial panic and drop in the stock market that has reduced our 401(k) and retirement balances. Now, Pataskala wants another 1-2% of our paycheck, without repudiating their ability to also collect municipal property taxes. Anybody else besides me thinking that it's a really bad idea?

A systemic take-down of all the mass transit myths

can be found here, entitled The Bankruptcy of Mass Transit, by Bill Steigerwald, with significant input from Wendell Cox. Here are just a few of the nuggets that can be found within:

You have a situation now where, believe it or not, 60 to 65 percent of the movement of people in the Tokyo area and the Osaka area is by transit -- a stunning figure. When you figure that in the Pittsburgh area the number is less than 2 percent. By the way, it only exceeds 4 percent in the U.S.A. in New York, which is 9 percent.

I keep arguing in my own mind, who is more responsible for the abject failure of transit in the United States? And mind you -- transit expenditures have gone up more than 300 percent adjusted for inflation since 1970 and ridership has gone up less than 20 percent. There is no other sector of the economy, including health care, where I can find escalation even close to that. Transit holds the record. It is a damned outrage how bad transit has been.

and finally, the coup de grace:

All that being said, there is no hope whatsoever for transit.

As they say, read the whole thing ...

No! No! A Thousand Seven Times No!

Like a zombie that just refuses to stay dead, the Pataskala income tax issue is coming back this November for a seventh time:

The Pataskala City Council on Monday placed an income-tax issue on the November general election ballot.

The move marked a reversal of sorts for the council, which had spent weeks debating whether to place an income tax on the August special election ballot. The council even voted twice -- once in late April and once in early May -- to place a 2-percent income tax with a 1-percent credit on the August special election ballot. Both votes ended in deadlocks, so the issue did not make it on the ballot.

No deadlocks occurred Monday.

The council voted 5-1 to place the same 2-percent income tax with a 1-percent credit on the November ballot.

The good news, if there is any, is that it took two months to get the issue on the ballot, and it will be on the general-election ballot, not a special August election. With the interest in the Presidential election, lots of voters will get a chance to weigh in on this tax issue -- an August special election wouldn't attract the same turnout.

As a reminder, here are the previous six failures for this issue:

November 2001 (Pataskala - 1.00% income tax):	Against: 71.02%	For: 28.98%
November 2002 (Pataskala - 0.75% income tax):	Against: 68.61%	For: 38.39%
November 2004 (Pataskala - 1.25% income tax, ??? credit):	Against: 66.46%	For: 33.54%
May 2006 (Pataskala - 1.50% income tax, ??? credit):	Against: 58.95%	For: 41.05%
November 2006 (1.50% tax, 100% credit):	Against: 62.43%	For: 37.57%
November 2007 (0.50% tax, no credit):	Against: 57.59%	For: 42.41%

At 2% / 1% credit, this is the highest proposal yet.

I suggested earlier that this issue would be easier to pass if the Pataskala City Council would simultaneously renounce their ability to collect property tax. I see they chose not to do that.

More analysis later ...

Ohio village implements a windfall-profits income tax

Or they'd like to, anyway.

A small Ohio town is proposing a retroactive income tax, to ensure they get a share of a winning lottery ticket sold in that town, presumably to a resident:

Officials in the southwest Ohio village of Amelia say they are resisting the urge to quickly pass a local income tax to get a share of the $196 million lottery ticket that was sold there.

The windfall could mean more than $1 million to the struggling village of about 4,000 people east of Cincinnati.

Pathetic. Had they considered just asking the winner to endow a civic-improvement foundation with some of his/her money?

If the NRA is for it ...

... then the local rag is agin' it, no matter what it is. Today's example is about a small (but NRA-favored, and thus, eeeeeevil) tweak in Ohio laws regarding how firearms can be carried in a vehicle, which would ...

...allow anyone to carry a gun in a motor vehicle as long as it is in a case and unloaded. The case, however, would not have to be locked and the ammunition could be close by and at the ready, so the gun could be loaded quickly. Although the gun clearly would be concealed, no concealed-carry permit would be required to carry a gun in this way.

Although the NRA claims this is a needed boost in Ohioans' self-defense rights, it might just as easily be called the traffic-stop-nightmare bill for police or the drive-by-shooters' helper.

I know this is going to cause shock waves to ripple through the editorial suite of the Dispatch, but most folks heading out to do a drive-by are probably not going to take the time to familiarize themselves with the finer points of Ohio Revised Code. Most responsible citizens don't need a "drive-by-shooters' helper" -- because they don't ever intend to execute a drive-by shooting.

The rest of the editorial is just as silly. Here's another elitist statement:

Landlords who believe banning handguns on their property improves safety should be allowed to impose such bans.

Tenants have freedom of choice of where to live. A renter's wish to own a handgun is a personal preference that cannot be allowed to take precedence over the rights of a property owner.

So those poor unfortunates who have been kicked out of their homes due to predatory mortgage lenders, and are now forced to rent in a high-crime neighborhood as their last, desperate step before homelessness, can't protect themselves if their landlord is a gun-fearing weenie. Protecting your family is not a "personal preference" to these folks -- it is a responsibility that is part of their daily reality. And by the way, their less law-abiding neighbors -- who don't concern themselves with the finer points of Ohio Revised Code, either -- probably are armed.

Pickerington and Westerville asking for income-tax increases

Story in the Columbus Dispatch this morning. Pickerington is at 1%, going to 2%; Westerville is at 1.25%, also going to 2%. Here's the part I just love:

In both cities, officials plan to sell the tax as an increase that a majority of residents would not pay.

Pickerington estimates that 87 percent of its residents work outside the city, while 67 percent of Westerville's workers earn wages outside the suburb. Both cities give partial credit for taxes paid elsewhere.

So, in other words, the tax burden will fall hardest on small-business owners within Westerville and Pickerington, who have no credits to other cities; or on the workers within those two towns, some of whom won't even get to vote on this or benefit from the tax revenue to any significant degree. Yet these same towns have economic-development initiatives to encourage businesses to relocate or expand in their cities, bringing jobs with them -- as long as they pay up.

If you're wondering why I'm not crazy about allowing Pataskala to join the city income-tax cattle drive, maybe the examples of Pickerington and Westerville wil prove instructive.