Comments

  1. Once the public records are releases, check the campaign contributions for the firms that did the work.  I’m betting there will be a correlation between the money that left the state coffers and the money that made its way to Mitt’s account.

    • Mitt had to have more than one reason to disburse this money:  just the publicity alone from the idea of nixing tolls could be done without the effort of cutting checks to these firms.

  2. And without asking a lawyer, you would know this – how?

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    BTW – isn’t moving the Turnpike under MHD control one of Patrick’s goals?  And that will be different – why?

  3. ‘Cause, you know, he was a fiscal conservative. — Charley.

    Those guys do have a counter-empirical faith in privitization of government functions.

        • This article brings up some good points but I don’t see how it shows that conservatives have a “counter-empirical faith in privitization”.  Many of the issues pointed out by this article are non-partisan; neither side is for fraud.

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          Also, the privatization that is the issue in this article are those activities that are “clearly inherently governmental” such as the oversight of private contractors.  This is not the type of privatization that conservatives are supporting.  In fact this is a problem started by the Democrats as shown in the article with the following:

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          …the recent contracting boom had its origins in the “reinventing government” effort of the Clinton administration, which slashed the federal work force to the lowest level since 1960 and streamlined outsourcing. Limits on what is “inherently governmental” and therefore off-limits to contractors have grown fuzzy…

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          The Bush administration has increased these types of private contracts and there are many problems with agencies such as Homeland Security.  However, you would be hard pressed to find any “small government” conservatives who consider Bush one of their own.

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          If you would like a good example of privatization, I suggest you look at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MADEP).  I gave a quick explanation of this system on a different blog.  This is the type of privatization that conservatives support.

          • The New York Times again.

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            Not all conservatives are small government conservatives. Some favor whatever business favors. Some conservatives are social conservatives and do not care particularly whether government is large or small so long as it is righteous.

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            Republican governors frequently argue for more privatization and as Matt Yglesias argues privitization does not magically cause efficiency.

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            A short visit to Privitization.org does show that I was wrong to say it is a conservative or Republican issue. They list the following governors as having sought their advice:

            • California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger;
            • Florida Governor Jeb Bush;
            • Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels;
            • New York Governor George Pataki;
            • South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford;
            • former Virginia Governor George Allen;

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            Clearly, as you can verify, a bipartisan phenomenon. My apologies….

                • Wasn’t sure and didn’t want to “go on the attack” before I had that information.  So here goes.

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                  1) You have chosen to ignore the following quote from the article you provided:

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                  …the recent contracting boom had its origins in the “reinventing government” effort of the Clinton administration, which slashed the federal work force to the lowest level since 1960 and streamlined outsourcing. Limits on what is “inherently governmental” and therefore off-limits to contractors have grown fuzzy…

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                  And the fact that the article you provided is mostly talking about something that is non-partisan, FRUAD.  I don’t think you could find a conservative or liberal or anyone in between who would say it is ok for a private company to fraudulently take our tax dollars.

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                  2) To attempt and further back up your position you provided a left leaning editorial and a left leaning blog.  Hardly fitting the request by gary for some evidence to back up your statement that conservatives have “a counter-empirical faith in privatization of government functions.”  What’s next a Wikipedia link?  How about something that isn’t editorial? (The link you provided to the Times didn’t work but was this the same as the truthout editorial?)

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                  3) The information you provided from Privitization.org.  Where you intentionally being disingenuous or did you just not read all of the information on that page.  You copied a list of republican governors who have requested advice from the organization a) is that a bad thing? and b) why did you ignore the last bullet that read “reform-minded mayors in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Cleveland, New York City, and San Diego?” Because most of them are democrats?

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                  Also, you ignored this from that page:

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                  Privatization Center staff have worked closely with Republican and Democratic officials at all levels of government.

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                  Not to mention if you looked at the page it actually does a good job of presenting pros and cons for privatization.

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                  I guess by “well crafted” you mean where you only pick sources or information that confirm you position and ignore every thing else.

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                  4) Your statement that “Not all conservatives are small government conservatives.”  I would argue they are.  If you are a conservative you believe in small government, free markets, strict interpretation of the Constitution and states rights.  At least when you use conservative on its own, when you start adding modifiers like social or, the one I hate the most, companionate you change what a conservative is.  As shown by George W. Bush who was billed as a companionate conservative but has yet to do a conservative thing since he got office. 

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                  I said before, the idea of what conservatives mean by privatization can be seen in the MADEP (link to my explanation of this system provided above).

                  1. Privatization is consistently pushed more by Republicans than Democrats. Whatever Clinton has done here, it is much smaller than what Bush has.  Heck, we even have a large mercenary force in Iraq. Our Republican Administration has contenanced a huge amount of contractor fraud in Iraq.

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                  2. If you don’t think I can quote Paul Krugman on a left-leaning blog and you don’t even bother to read him yourself, then why are you even talking to me? Am I only allowed to quote from your or Gary’s “tribe”? I’m saying I find Krugman’s and Yglesias’ arguments convincing. If you don’t, I invite you to refute them. They know more about this stuff than I do. They write better too.

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                  3. Of course, Privatization.org is going to claim to be bipartisan. They gave such a lot of evidence of being bipartisan too, didn’t they?  Why, they made claims. Claims! Actual claims of bipartisanship! Gee, I’m convinced. I’m sure you are.

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                  4. “If you are a conservative you believe in small government, free markets, strict interpretation of the Constitution and states rights.”  You’re writing this on a blue website, right? So the Bush Administration is not conservative. Really? Any other useful, real-world definitions of the political world you care for me to note for future discussions? 

                  1. As I have said many times now, conservatives believe that privatization should not included those things that are “clearly, inherently governmental.”  The problems you have pointed out are fraud, which is bipartisan.  And the problem with some of the privatization that has been done by the Bush administration is they have privatized jobs that should be government jobs and that has led to a lack of sufficient oversight.  And this was a trend started by the Clinton administration.  Also, the Bush administration could be one of the worst in the history of this country, certainly in my life time, but their flawed policies have nothing to do with your original post that you have been asked to back up. 

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                  You said that conservatives have “a counter-empirical faith in privatization of government functions.”  You were asked to back this statement up, to which you supplied one article from the NY Times that did not back up this claim, a blog, an opinion piece and you selectively quoted a web page; none of this is “empirical” evidence, the standard you set.  So please provide this backup for your position, or were you just bloviating and have none?

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                  2. I did read the articles you provided, that is how I knew what they were.  However, they are opinions and lack any “empirical” evidence to back up your statement.

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                  As far as refuting their statements, in a nut shell here you go.

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                  Matthew Yglesias Blog
                  He has a great line “no magical ‘it’s the free market’ dust” but his argument here doesn’t make sense.  He says…

                  the idea is simply that an inefficiently run private enterprise (and there are many) would simply go out of business. An inefficiently run government office, by contrast, goes out of business when it loses political support and sees its budget grow as long as it maintains political support.

                  This is argument that my side makes for the free market and privatization.  Competition breads efficiency and lowers the cost to the consumer and governmentally run programs do not have competition.  Then his blog goes on to point out that the privatization done by the Bush administration is not giving the efficiency due to the privatization of things that are “clearly, inherently governmental” and fraud.  So what does this add that I haven’t already said?

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                  truthout editorial
                  This piece again points out the fraud and outsourcing of things that are “clearly, inherently governmental”, nothing new.  And even supports my assertion that Bush is no conservative with this line…

                  under the guise of promoting a conservative agenda, the Bush administration has created a supersized version of the 19th-century spoils system

                  Again, the issue in this piece is fraud.

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                  So not only are these opinion pieces and lack the “empirical” evidence you claimed to have, they add nothing new to the discussion.

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                  3. Um, they also only claim to work with republicans.  They have been “consulted” by 6 governors and 6 mayors, only one of which offers any testimonial.  This is really your argument against a source YOU brought into the discussion? 

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                  And again, they actually give good pros and cons of privatization and appear to be against the privatization of things that are “clearly, inherently governmental.” 

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                  So again, where is the “empirical” evidence you claim to have?

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                  4. The Bush administration and Republican party have strayed far from the conservative agenda. Both have been hijacked by religion and fraud.  Unfortunately most conservatives, I’m sure this stands for most liberals as well, are left with a lesser of two evils choice when voting.  Many of us supported Republicans under this premise, but that has been changing (see the last election).  I think it is safe to say that neither party represents any of the things they used to, have become corrupt and can’t even really be put on the political spectrum any more.  They only loosely fit on the left or the right.  Is this really that hard of a concept for you?  Is this really not “real-world”?

          • We’re already deep into the margins. As one who has read the news for years, I’m confident I can dig out numerous cases of Republicans favoring privatization as a magic solution. This is not a jousting event. Neither of us can “lose” or “win” here. I may find your arguments less convincing than you find mine.

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            I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this goes back at least to Reagan.  I obviously don’t have the enormous amount of time you do to engage in large, four part debates. I should be researching other things anyway.

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            Yes, this is fraud. However, the modern Republican — conservative or “conservative”, take your pick — party’s approach makes the fraud more likely. Krugman’s past column on Florida, for example, is chilling. Of a piece too are the Texas law making it near impossible to sue building contractors and the Administration’s current reluctance to chase after tax cheating.

            • Again, your original statment was that conservatives have “a counter-empirical faith in privitization of government functions.”  And you were asked to back up this claim.  Not that more conservatives favor privitization then liberals.

            • I just sought two things: 

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              1: some examples showing US privitization gone wrong, and

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              2: some proof that privitization of government functions is counter-empirical.

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              You addressed neither.

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              Now I’m as fiscally conservative as you’ll find, but I’ll never make a blanket statement that we should privitize all aspects of government.  That’d be stupid. 

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              But you know, a lot of towns have privitized their sewer, water, landfills, and parks and recreation, tax billing and collection.

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              Is there “epirical” evidence that the privitizing towns erred?

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              You made a blanket statement that “Those guys do have a counter-empirical faith in privitization of government functions.” (“those guys” referring to fiscal conservatives) It’s a blanket statement worth challenging. 

              • The word fiscal does not appear anywhere. I’ve also been misspelling “privatization”.  Apologies.

                • Fiscal conservatives was used by whoever promoted the post, not you.  So, who were “those guys” with the counter-empirical bent to privitize?

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                  And to belabor the point, where’s the counter-empirics ?

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                  Also, when did the Bush Administration exhibit “… reluctance to chase after tax cheating.”  I’m just a simple country tax lawyer, but the “reluctant” is an adjective that just doesn’t fit the IRS. YMMV

                • Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

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                  IRS tried it recently.  They outsourced in 2006 collections on certain individual income taxes owed.  Huge success if you measure it based on collections.  People got antsy though about a private agency having some access to tax information, and I think Congress has some pending legislation to end the outsourcing.

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                  Empirics re: success or failure of that particular effort.  I thought is was successful.  Others obviously disagree.

                • Privatization is not always the answer.  As I was saying before, the “clear, inherently governmental” approach should be maintained and the Clinton and Bush administrations ignored this and that is part of the problem. 

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                  I think your example of the IRS is a good one.  Another one I like is the Massachusetts Depart of Environmental Protection.

          • to someone who downrates and replies. Makes the experience rude and unpleasant. Enjoy your rules of evidence and your exciting new abilities at redefinition.

            • was due to you not sticking with your original premise and trying to change the argument instead of back up your original statement.  I believe this is the intent of this rating.

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              If you felt that was rude, I’m sorry.