May 25, 2017

 

Connecticut is in the midst of a financial crisis. The decisions made now will determine whether our state returns to its former glory days, or whether it continues on its present path of job contraction and depopulation as young people and retirees flee. The first step in bringing back Connecticut is to allow Hartford to go bankrupt. This will send a message to other big spending municipalities and the state itself that the party is over.

Hartford has the highest mill rate of a municipality in the state, 74.29 (meaning a property owner pays $74.29 for every $1,000 of assessed property value) with no close second. Nonetheless, Mayor Luke Bronin’s proposed budget of 2017 has total expenditures of $560 million; but revenues fall $50 million short. The Mayor has proposed some cuts, but has failed thus far in his attempts to regionalize expenses or curtail union contracts. His political godfather, Governor Malloy, has proposed having the state chip in more money to cover this deficit.

But this is just the beginning. Hartford will pay over $70 million in 2017 to fund pensions and debt service. This will increase to $90 million in 2018 and continue to balloon. If fact, Hartford is $680 million in debt. The choice will be for Connecticut taxpayers to shovel more money into Hartford or cut essential services to a city where the average annual income is less than $30,000.

Yet Hartford continues to party on. They stole a minor league baseball team from New Britain, gave the owner a sweet heart deal on the lease, and blew $70 million constructing the stadium. The bus line from New Britain and the infamous Adrian’s landing are similar boondoggles. Yet Congressman John Larson wants to squander $10 billion on a “Big Dig” in Hartford and Governor Malloy wants to blow $250 million on the XL Center. Retirees are raking in six-figure annual pensions in their early fifties.  With cost-of-living adjustments, the taxpayers will be paying these retirees over $200,000 annually when they reach their mid-seventies. And this does not include their Cadillac health care benefits. In fact, many municipal employees have union contracts that fix their pension on their final annual salary. Needless to say, this final salary is packed with overtime.

Only bankruptcy will stop this profligacy. The pensioners will have to take a hit but they won’t starve. The house near Del Ray Beach will just have two bathrooms instead of three.  But the real beauty is when the bond holders (those who purchased Hartford’s debt) get clipped. Now no one will purchase bonds from other cities and the state. No more bus lines to nowhere. No more exorbitant pensions. And no more $200,000 payouts for “unused sick time.”

Critics will point out that allowing Hartford to go bankrupt will be an irreversible blow to the state’s prestige. The opposite is true. Bankruptcy will be the beginning of Hartford’s rejuvenation, as entrepreneurs and immigrants swoop in to buy houses and buildings at low prices without fear of confiscatory tax escalation. The millennials, who prefer urban living, will turn downtown into a mini Greenwich Village. Night clubs, coffee shops, folk song cafes, jazz clubs and exotic restaurants will spring up. Medical practices will return from the suburbs. The schools will improve. In fact, Detroit is experiencing such a Renaissance since it went through bankruptcy. It will be glorious.

But none of this will happen if the political hacks keep feasting at the trough. The best way to destroy a city is bomb it. The second best way is to tax it out of existence. That’s what destroyed Hartford.

 

 

 April 19, 2017

 

As a young physician, I spent a volunteer year caring for the poor in Haiti. After seeing eighty patients, the vast majority whose condition was secondary to malnutrition and poor sanitation, I sat down to dinner with a minister who had lived in Haiti for longer than I had been alive. I opined that doctors could not solve Haiti’s problems and that the Duvalier government had to be overthrown. He responded, “And replace it with what?” I did not have an answer.

I do not recall this minister’s name but let’s call him Reverend Bill. He did not go to Harvard or Yale. He did not have a Foreign Service degree from Georgetown University. He was not a Rhodes Scholar. He went to a Baptist Seminary in Nowheresville, Mississippi.

Yet if Reverend Bill was sitting with the best and the brightest when George W. Bush was planning to overthrow Saddam Hussein, he would have asked, “And replace him with what?” If he was with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama while they plotted the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, he would have asked, “And replace him with what?” And if Reverend Bill was part of Trump’s inner circle now insisting that strongman Bashir al-Assad of Syria has to go, he would ask, “And replace him with what?”

President Trump did a 180 degree pirouette from his campaign position and bombed an airbase in Syria after Assad reportedly used chemical weapons. The Obama administration was assured by the Syrians that these weapons had been destroyed. Secretary of Defense, General Mattis, told the President that allowing Syria to get away with such an atrocity was intolerable.  General Mattis was correct. A response had to be made.

But then President Trump went further and insisted that Assad be removed from power. But how? The Russians, who are now Assad’s protector, tersely refused to back such an outcome. Are we going to risk a confrontation with a country that could lay waste to our country over Syria? Even if Russia agreed to back down, how would we remove Assad? Bomb Syria into oblivion? Invade with hundreds of thousands of troops? And even if we conquer Syria, how would we govern it? Does anyone expect that the Syrians would welcome our governance with open arms? One thing I learned in Haiti is that people would rather be governed incompetently by their own kind than competently by outsiders.

What has to be understood is that Syria is not really a country.   Like Libya and Iraq, it is the creation of European cartographers.  Syria consists of dozens of ethnic groups and multiple religions who have been at each other’s throats for millennia. Since World War II, it had numerous coups, wars, and massacres until Hafez al-Assad consolidated power in 1970. He ruled until his death in 2000, when his son Bashir al-Assad replaced him in a Presidential election where he had no opposition.

Bashir al-Assad was not able to keep the lid on the ancient rivalries and during the so-called Arab Spring in 2011, a civil war erupted. Brutal repression, poison gas and multiple massacres have not stopped it. Five-hundred-thousand Syrians are dead and there are over one-million refugees.

The pro-war branch of the Republican Party are chortling that this mess is due to the fecklessness of President Obama who drew a “red line” in the sand an dared Assad to use chemical weapons. President Obama then backed down after Assad did so. But this is not exactly what happened. Rather when some congressmen were beating their chest for war, President Obama suggested that Congress vote on whether we should intervene. These same congressmen then did a Gilda Radner and said “Never mind.” No vote was ever taken.

It may well be that President Trump’s decision to bomb Syria was necessary not only to stop this abhorrent behavior, but to put Russia, China and especially North Korea – who are openly threatening to bomb our West Coast – on notice that the days of America’s leading from behind are over.

But if the President thinks that deposing Assad will lead to Syrian stability, he is mistaken. Like President George W. Bush, he will see his public support plummet if the body bags of our youth start returning from this quagmire. The best option is to negotiate a deal involving the Russians, Assad and ourselves.  But if no deal can be struck, the Syrians must solve their problems themselves.

 

 

 

March 4, 2017

 

Liberals wake up every day with a recurring nightmare: Donald Trump is President of the United States. But then they turn on the television, look on their computer or pick up a newspaper and see that it’s true! Then they go to bed, hoping the bad dream won’t recur. But when they wake up; there he is again. What to do?

They have tried everything to delegitimize him beginning with Jill Stein’s recount, intimidating electors and protesting at his inauguration. Hollywood awards ceremonies are nothing more than contests to see who can bash President Trump the best. Late night comedians spend entire monologues insulting him and his family. After downplaying the atrocities of the Russian government for decades, the liberal media now concoct a scandal-du-jour about how Trump’s campaign colluded with the godless Commies.

Middle America has looked at these antics with bemused curiosity while quietly going to work and raising their families. Coal mines are reopening, the stock market is booming, corporations are investing in America, consumer confidence is at the highest level in twenty years and the percentage of voters who think American is the right track is up 10 percent.  But now the liberals have come up with a cunning strategy that could undermine Trump’s presidency – witchcraft. They are being led by singer Lana Del Rey.

A coven recently met (If you don’t believe me click here) and uttered the following incantation while burning a candle and an unflattering picture of Donald Trump:

Hear me, oh spirits
Of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air
Heavenly hosts
Demons of the infernal realms
And spirits of the ancestors
I call upon you to bind Donald J. Trump
So that his malignant works may fail utterly

The good news for President Trump is that the witches are not playing hardball yet. Note the use of the term “to bind.” This means the demons of the infernal realms are specifically ordered not to do any physical harm to the President, rather to use means “so that his malignant works may fail utterly.” While the incantation is somewhat vague, this could include having the demons disable his Twitter account (although this may actually help the President) or having New York Times columnist Paul Krugman write a pro-Trump article, which would immediately cause the President’s popularity to plummet 30 percent.

The problem for the President is if the covens decide to unleash what is called a “hex.” Then the demons then have carte blanche to harm him. This is serious business.

The President’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus convened a cabinet meeting to handle this crisis. Some of the conservative Christian members such as Ben Carson and Betsy DeVos suggested forming a prayer circle to counter the covens, but Steve Bannon recommended that the President issue an executive order to have Lana Del Rey burned at the stake. The President, a marketing genius, opined they could put the event on Pay-per-view to raise money for his 2020 reelection campaign.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions objected, pointing out that Common Law made this problematic. He cited a case in Fairfield, Connecticut where after months of careful deliberations, a jury decided to have an obvious witch executed. Everything was proceeding as planned until some liberal judge threw out the conviction because of a lack of “due process.” (If you think I am making this up click here). Thus it was decided to have the witches rounded up for being illegal immigrants. While the Attorney General thought this would be thrown out by the courts too, it would be possible to keep the witches in detention centers for months until they had their hearings, thus making convening further covens impossible.

It may well be that the witches decide to back off. They are having a spirited internal debate as to whether transgender warlocks can use the witches’ bathrooms. Then there is the argument as to whether transgender warlocks should be able to ride side saddle while learning how to fly their brooms. Purists consider this to be bad form. Thus, some witches see wisdom in the President’s policies. But for the time being, witchcraft seems to be the best approach the liberals can take to undermine the Trump presidency.