More Dumb Legislation

In February California State Senator Alan Lowenthal presented legislation that I nominated as Dumbest Legislation of the Decade in only the first month of the decade. With that bill Lowenthal wanted to eliminate free parking for Californians and their guests visiting with cars.

Lowenthal is at it again, presenting legislation that his fellow Democrats have passed through the Assembly, that is unnecessary and extends the Nanny State a bit further.

SB 183 is another piece of legislation that impacts all Californians because of the actions of a few. According to the California Air Resources Board, that appointed body that has powers to enact rules and laws without approval of any elected officials, and has done so driving companies out of business, the same body who accepted a report as the basis for their imposing job killing laws in which the author was known to have fraudulently boosted his credentials, according to the ARB California experiences 30-40 deaths each year due to carbon monoxide poisoning in the home. Out of 30 million people 30-40 people die due to carbon monoxide in the home. How many of these deaths are attributed to the hibachi dragged into the illegally converted garage where a family or two sleeps? Perhaps most.

Because one-one thousandth of our population dies, according to the ARB, from carbon monoxide, Senator Lowenthal has presented a bill requiring virtually every home and residence to have carbon monoxide detectors. Not just any carbon monoxide detectors (CMD), since the bill states "the State Fire Marshal to certify and approve carbon monoxide devices and their instructions, as specified, for the use in dwelling units intended for human occupancy, as defined." Manufacturers must pay off the State Fire Marshal to get their CMDs approved, more revenue for the state.

According to the bill if you are a homeowner in a dwelling requiring a CMD and do not install a detector you can be fined $200. Since the detectors run from $15 to $25 chances are you will install one. By the way, it appears the state is mandating the purchase of about 10 million of these detectors, what is the tax revenue from the mandated purchases?

Since most of the carbon monoxide deaths I have read and heard about occur in garages with hibachis burning charcoal as heat I wonder exactly how many deaths this law forcing Californians to spend about $200,000,000 will prevent. How will the law prevent families living in unpermitted living units with heat from ignorantly burning Kingsford coals and endangering themselves and their families?

I want to try to stay ahead of Lowenthal and his ridiculous legislative agenda so I did some research. A national killer that puts down more people than plane crashes, firearms, snakebites and lighting is choking while dining. According to the National Safety Council over 2,100 people each year die while eating. Assuming California with about 10% of the population takes on 10% of the deaths (actually since our elected representatives feel the general California population is so ignorant and incapable of taking care of ourselves without the state protecting us the number should be higher), that brings choking deaths in California to 210 per year, more than those dying from carbon monoxide. We have to eat so unfortunately Lowenthal cannot ban food.

However, there is hope! According to the National Safety Council 90% of the choking deaths are caused by steak. Yes steak kills more people than plane crashes and look at all the regulations we have for planes! Steak comes from cows and cows produce methane, use water, take up lots of land that cannot be used for low income housing and are just bad for our environment. Not only that according to statistics steak kills almost 200 Californians every year.

Ban cows. Lowenthal can save the environment, like his dumb free parking legislation was intended to do, and save more Californians' lives than his carbon monoxide detector mandate. Lowenthal can present the Bovine By-product and Environmental Protection Act of 2010. Ban the raising of cows in California and the consumption, sale, distribution or cooking of steak in the state.

If he cannot get support for that I am sure Lowenthal and his fellow Nannies can pass legislation requiring all restaurants serving steak to slice the meat into little tiny choke proof pieces before serving, just like Mommy used to do.

DCS 04142010

Dumbest Legislation of the Decade: Winner in 1st Month!

The new decade was a mere 28 days old. The 'Tens still had another 3, 624 days to go. Not even one percent of the decade had passed. And in its infancy the decade already had the dumbest legislative idea of the decade being presented in Sacramento. I know there is still a lot of time left, and a lot of elected officials with dumb ideas, but it will be very difficult for any politician to surpass the idiocy of the proposal being pushed by California State Senator Alan Lowenthal (D).

Did I really need to put the (D)? For an idea like this can only be conceived and pushed as realistic by an entrenched long term California Democrat.

Senator Lowenthal wants to eliminate free parking. ""Free parking has significant social, economic and environmental costs. It increases congestion and greenhouse gas emissions."

Laugh or cry?

It is Lowenthal's idea to eliminate free parking for stores and businesses. He feels employees should pay to park, having to do will encourage them to ride public transportation to work, employers that provide free parking are encouraging their workers to drive cars. Those filthy nasty things that are increasing the temperature of our planet by several degrees each month, or so the mythologists would have us believe.

In a state with an unemployment rate over well over 10%. In a state with businesses shutting down or leaving for other states, or countries. In a state with the highest taxes on residents and businesses. In a state with the most broken budget in the nation. In this state what is really needed is one more tax on its citizens and businesses.

I'm guessing that Sen. Lowenthal's bill will have exemptions for state and local government employees. And exemptions for schools and teachers. And exemptions for businesses where a certain percentage of the employees belong to unions. I would not be surprised if exemptions are also given to medical marijuana facilities.

The basic premise for Lowenthal's bill is that free parking causes more pollution. Because free parking encourages people to drive. If you had to pay for parking everywhere you would drive less and that would save our planet. So he would give subsidies to cities that charge residents and businesses for parking. So basically cities like Mendocino and Blythe with plenty of open space would pay for parking structures in Long Beach and San Diego.

The basic principal of stupidity that applies here is the same one that has applied to a tremendous amount of California politics the past decade: the global warming myth. Lowenthal is a drinker of the Kool-Aid provided the movement that has begot the scientists who have been proven to deny publications and exposure of ideas contrary to theirs regarding man made global warming. A movement that conveniently starts and stops its temperature readings to meet their conclusions. A movement that has as a member the chief United Nations scientist who has been caught citing "science" of glacier melting to actually be an unsupported quote in a newspaper. A movement that has spawned the California Air Resources board which voted to accept a report that led to legislation on diesel emissions that has already closed several businesses in the state; a report written by a man who falsified his scientific and academic credentials and whose scientific methods were called into question.

Of course we should not be surprised that a bill to prevent free parking would find traction in Sacramento, after all these are the same people who have mandated the end of the traditional lightbulbs in the state in order to save the globe and have them replaced with highly toxic and dangerous "squiggly" bulbs. Yes the heat and radiation from my little 40 watt bulb is much better than the one filled with mercury that can kill my daughter if broken.

This bill is also not surprising coming from Senator Lowenthal. He is the who said in February 2009 in the middle of the perennial budget debates created by Lowenthal and his fellow Democrats, "it doesn't matter how we got here." A man who feels record budget deficits that will stretch out for another decade due to the structural problems created by his party and his branch of the government (albeit abetted since 2003 by the governor and at least one or two Republicans) does not care how the budget got to be as bad as it is is a perfect candidate to propose legislation as dumb as no free parking. To save the environment.

Lowenthal has been in office since 1998, first in the Assembly and now in the Senate. His tenure coincides with the explosion of state spending that has ruined the California budget and economy. Since 1998 the spending from Sacramento has doubled. Taking advantage of increasing revenues through the real estate boom and the economic growth period of the early 2000's Democrats in Sacramento, abetted at the time by Grey Davis, increased salaries, benefits and the number of workers receiving those benefits, expanded social programs beyond the needy, created new groups of recipients, and put bond measures on our ballots that voters passed. The Lowenthals of the past decade have burdened our state with structural deficits and a state on the brink of bankruptcy.

Evidently that is not enough. Now they must finish the job and push the state over the edge by further punishing businesses, shop owners and citizens. The result will be more business closings, more jobs lost and more citizens leaving for Texas or Arizona or Nevada to start businesses, invest their savings, help their new communities and prosper in a state that will allow them to do so.

I will repeat what Sen. Lowenthal said in the press release for the no free parking bill, "Free parking has significant social, economic and environmental costs. It increases congestion and greenhouse gas emissions."

I say that bad legislation has even more significant costs as we have seen and experienced in recent years in California.

The decade may only be a month old, but it will be a challenge for anyone to present dumber legislation in the coming 119 months that Senator Alan Lowenthal's No Free Parking bill.


L.A. Times story on the legistion.

Politicians Say The Darnedest Things

Attorney General Eric Holder, State Senator Alan Lowenthal, Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger

This past week three politicians had some real doozies, two I thought were just plain dumb statements and the third has caused quite a stir from some on the right but I thought it was truthful. Here they are, you be the judge.

First come California State Senator Alan Lowenthal (D) on the floor of the Senate during the marathon session to pass a bill to bridge the cash crunch facing the state. As you may recall the bill was held up because our state wisely requires a two-thirds majority to pass tax hikes and the Democrats needed three Republican Senators to vote for the bill on the floor. What Lowenthal said was, in my opinion, not only quite dumb but very indicative of why California has the constant fiscal problems it does.

“It doesn’t matter how we got here.” Our state is on the verge of bankruptcy, tax payers are not receiving refunds from money already paid to the state, workers are being furloughed on an every other Friday basis, a $42 billion deficit is on the horizon, and “it doesn’t matter how we got here.” Um, yes it does; it matters very much how we got here and the fact that Lowenthal, and no doubt plenty of other Democrats in Sacramento and across the state, think it does not matter is about ninety percent of the problem. We got here because despite holding out for less spending increases the past five years Republicans were still unable to stop a 40% increase in spending by Democrats—enabled by our SaysHeIsARepublican Governor. It matters because willy-nilly without concern as to the future our gerrymandered-term-limited-Democratic dominated Assembly and Senate spent money like whores in a lingerie store on pet projects and pork benefiting their main financial contributors: unions, particularly public employee unions. Mr. Lowenthal it does matter and it will matter and if you and your colleagues do not recognize this then please step aside and let someone else with an understanding of cause and effect take your places.

Next up comes our Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-sort of). After the catastrophic bill was passed he called Sacramento legislators “courageous.” Um, no it was not courageous it was in fact quite cowardly. Cowardly because it addressed none of the systematic problems that created not only this fiscal crisis for our state but guarantee future fiscal crises. Cowardly because our elected officials refused to face down those who bought their seats for them with millions and millions of dollars of campaign contributions and tell them they had to give something up for this state to get on the road to financial health. Cowardly because they know the system remains broken and rather than actually be somewhat courageous and fix the problems they passed them off to the next generation of lawmakers, and the one after that, and the one after that. “Courageous” is one of the few adjectives that would come to mind for me when it comes to describing our state government and its approach to their fiscal duties. Cowards hide problems or blame them on someone else, that is what our state legislature has done, again.

Finally is a statement made this week by Attorney General Eric Holder. During a speech for a ceremony celebrating Black History Month, Holder spoke about race relations in our country and said the American people“are essentially a nation of cowards.” Important in framing this topic is that Mr. Holder is black This through Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter and many other talking and writing heads on the right into a snit. Comments ranged from “maybe he did not notice we elected a black man as President” to “perhaps he has forgotten that even forty years ago he would not have been able to eat in many of the restaurants in the city where he gave this speech” to “this is just like Michelle Obama saying she was not proud of her country” blah, blah, blah. They rose up and essentially said the Holder’s comments were dumb.

I happen to agree with Holder’s comments, when it comes to race relations and dialogue we are cowards. I know I often am. I am a coward because often in a group I will not say what I want to say, or will change it because I do not wish to offend, or worse be labeled. Race dialogue in this country has become almost non-existent unless given by the Jessie Jacksons, Al Sharptons or Rev. Wrights who shape the dialogue by castigating all that is not their version of black-white relations. Often those, who are not people of color—i.e. white—attempting to speak about race, or have a dialogue inevitably make a statement or use a word or somehow have their comments intentions misunderstood and are torn apart by those with an interest in perpetuating racial divisions (see Jackson, Sharpton, Wright, et al). While trying to have an honest dialogue those who disagree with their viewpoint will attack them, will label them racist, will demand retractions and dismissals. Against this backdrop of possible repercussions, fear is created for many white people who then become afraid to discuss race relations and openly ask questions and share their thoughts and feelings. So yes Mr. Holder we have become a nation of cowards, what are you going to do to change this? How are you going to give me the courage to speak my thoughts without fear of retribution, labels and misconstruing of my comments to fit someone else’s agenda? How will you allow open and honest dialogue between all blacks, all Asians, all Hispanics, all whites? It is easy to label someone and dismiss them because of the label—a favorite tactic of some commentators on the left. It is much more difficult however to create and respect an environment of openness that allows everyone to speak their opinion, to learn other’s opinions, and come to understand that unity does not mean uniformity, nor agreement.. Unity means the ability to live together, respect each other and be able to have discussions, conversations, disagreements and experiences together—openly, freely.

Two dumb statements and one truthful statement. Two statements that foreshadow more of the same bad governance in our state and one statement that, if properly interpreted and acted upon, can forever change our nation and our ability to interact and live in Unity.