Super Grover

Do you know who Grover Norquist is? Have you ever heard of him? Well, you probably should know, because while nobody was looking, he pretty much took over the country, at least in terms of economic and fiscal policy.

Grover Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform. He is a policy wonk, a person who until recently was best known for opining on America's tax policies, falling on the conservative side of the fence on such issues. Really, he was one of many people in similar positions at similar organizations that advocate for right-wing causes, like James Dobson at Focus on the Family or Edward Crane at the Cato Institute. A guy who gets on talk shows and speaks his mind, like the pundits and the political strategists. However, in recent weeks, he has grabbed attention for getting Republicans at both the state and federal levels to sign a pledge not to raise taxes. No matter how much we need to, not one cent. Never mind that taxes are at their lowest level since 1950. Never mind that if spending cuts reduce our debt quickly, imagine how much more quickly spending cuts AND tax reform that includes closing loopholes, ending corporate welfare, and targeted tax increases would work.

However, the House Republicans have drawn their line in the sand, and essentially told President Obama and the Democrats, "We will not raise taxes, we cannot raise taxes, it is our sworn pledge to Grover Norquist." Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but your obligation is to the people who voted for you, as you are elected officials, and Grover Norquist is not. The problem here is that the GOP has become so beholden to ideological dogma that this pretty much makes Norquist a high priest in their church, if not, at times, God. "In Grover We Trust." Yeah, I know that's probably gonna piss them off, considering how much they like to claim that A) they are all devout Christians, B) it is the Democrats who worship at the altar of politics, not them, and C) Obama is the one who has forced unelected "czars" down our throats who have the ability to write and change policies. Well, this is even worse: At least Cass Sunstein was appointed by an elected official. Grover Norquist hasn't been appointed anything, as far as I can tell, except maybe, as I said before, God.

This decision by lawmakers to put allegiance to Grover Norquist above allegiance to their sworn duty is not only happening at the federal level. The Pennsylvania state budget deadline nears, and Gov. Corbett has come up with a plan that does not raise taxes and does not impose fees on the natural gas industry that is currently tapping the bonanza known as the Marcellus Shale. Never mind that these companies have to pay taxes in EVERY OTHER STATE, and that the money from these taxes could restore all of the cuts Corbett made to the public universities. As it is, Corbett did relent on letting the cuts dwindle from half down to about 20%, but it's still very damaging to our institutions of higher education, as I have previously stated here. Also, Corbett's budget sets aside $700 million... for what? A rainy day? I don't know if the Republicans in Harrisburg have noticed, but the economy right now is not a rainy day... it's a friggin' monsoon. However, the media noted that Corbett allowed a raise in hospital fees, and they declared that because of this fee raise, Corbett's budget may not earn Grover Norquist's seal of approval.

Uhhhh... WHAT? I didn't realize that Grover Norquist had the power to approve state budgets, even above that of the ELECTED GOVERNOR OF THE STATE. Until he actually earns elected office, and high elected office at that, he really has no sway over anything other than the goings-on of his organization. And to say that he would bring about a wave of campaign cash behind a primary challenger that would sweep the infidel elected officials out of office is just laughable. It's nice to sign a pledge to do something. It's always good to have core principles, but there are extreme situations when you just have to say, "You know what, we just can't stick to our guns right now. Things have gotten so far out of wack that we have to restore balance and normality, and (*gasp*) do what's right."

When No Labels came into existence late last year, I signed the "No Labels" pledge, and I believe very much in what they are trying to do. However, if I became an elected official... well, first we should all cringe in fear of that ever happening... but if I did, and I had to choose between what I believed was the best solution to the problems I was elected to deal with and the pledge I signed with No Labels, you better believe I would go with the best solution.

The latest on the debt ceiling, incidentally, is that Senator Chris Coons from Delaware (you might remember him as the guy who beat Christine O'Donnell for his seat) is part of a team looking at whether or not the 14th Amendment states that the country must honor its debts regardless of going over a legislated "debt ceiling." The specific language states, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." Therefore, President Obama could just go to the Republicans and say, "Look, you're going to budge on taxes, or we're just going to move on without any of your desired spending cuts and we will not go into default because the Constitution says we can't." The problem is the Republicans and the Tea Party are so convinced that the debt ceiling is legal that they would probably be willing to invoke a constitutional crisis and take the matter to the courts in order to win... which would have the same effect on world markets as a default, perhaps even worse. Not to mention the fact that the credit rating agencies don't have to follow the language of the Constitution; they can (and will) lower our rating if we do not fix our debt problems.

The solution is simple: Republicans, GROW A BACKBONE. You were elected to fix our problems, including the debt, and that means you will have to agree to spending cuts AND raise taxes. PERIOD. Grover Norquist has NO power in this country, he is NOT an elected official, and he is NOT your boss. WE ARE. So either tell Grover Norquist where he can stick his pledge, or be prepared to face a very angry electorate for the next 15 months leading up to the next election.

Crazy From the Heat?

My Twitter is blowing up right now over 2 shocking developments: Jim Riggleman quitting as Washington Nationals' manager, and the Philadelphia Flyers trading 2 of their best players. Riggleman's team has won 10 of 11 to nose above .500, but he wanted a contract extension and the Nats reportedly wouldn't even talk about it. The Flyers want cap room to sign a top-flight goalie, but these moves seem to suggest that one year after making the Stanley Cup Finals, they may already be blowing up the team. Then again, today's shockers may be seen as typical in a summer of sports craziness. Work stoppages, possible work stoppages, post-game rioting, we've seen it all so far this summer... or have we?

The biggest story of them all right now is the NFL lockout. The NFL lockout is about one person: DeMaurice Smith. As soon as he became the director of the NFL Players Association (replacing the late Gene Upshaw), I had a bad feeling about him. When he told players to start saving their game checks, I was right. Smith wanted this lockout. He took over the players' union with one goal in mind: to make waves. Smith likely felt that, following a legend of players' rights and NFL stability (post-1987) like Upshaw, the only way he could earn the players' respect was my making a huge splash, and a work stoppage is just that. He just told his loyal followers that they're not even close to a new deal, which is likely more about keeping them all in line supporting him than it is about tamping down expectations. This work stoppage is not effective for Smith unless and until it actually causes meaningful things (training camp, etc.) to be affected.

The great thing for him (and the problem for us) is that the players are happily drinking the Kool-Aid. Drew Brees' comment that the owners sensed "weakness" when Upshaw passed was sickening to me, and I'm sorry if so many people like him, I DO NOT. The Saints have been such a great story these last couple years, but I am no fan of Drew Brees. Make no mistake, this lockout will spill over into July, then August, and we likely will have a shortened season. Perhaps this means we might get Fox and CBS carrying CFL games to satisfy the die-hards' desire for pro football in August.

It will also shine a greater spotlight on college football, although that may not be what the collegians want right now. With the Ohio State scandal, the lingering fallout of the USC mess, the NCAA all set to take down North Carolina, and the coaching imbroglios at Pitt and West Virginia, I'm sure the NCAA was content to fly under the radar, at least until the season begins and maybe they can let the play on the field direct public opinion. One thing is for sure, with the turmoil at Pitt and WVU (and the hiring of Paul Pasqualoni at UConn), Syracuse looks pretty good in the Big East this year.

And now, we can add to the NFL lockout the probability of a NBA lockout. David Stern made his last best offer to the players, and it looks like they're going to reject it. They've already cancelled the summer leagues. The NBA lost me with the last lockout in 1999, best known for Patrick Ewing pulling up to talks in his limousine and then crying poverty for the cameras. Millionaires vs. billionaires does not get me excited. I'm sure the NHL, fresh off the best Stanley Cup Finals ratings in years, is eager to pick up all the casual winter sports fans who will be screwed when the NBA stops again.

That is if the quality of play we see in prime-time improves. Even though the ratings for the Finals were good, the series itself wasn't, necessarily. The ice quality ranged from okay to awful; if anything, this served as an advertisement for why the Stanley Cup Finals should not be played in June. I know the networks insisted that the NBA and NHL championships be moved from May so that they don't pre-empt May sweeps, but at this point, the Stanley Cup Finals in May would likely get better ratings for NBC than most of what passes for their regular programming. And with cooler temperatures, the play would not be so sloppy in the last 10 minutes of every period.

Also, the first few games were most notable for the chippy (to put it mildly) play. The Boston Bruins play the intimidation card: they hit to injure, they like to mix it up, they like to get in your head. As a Buffalo Sabres fan who saw Bruins take out not one, but two key players in the playoffs last year, I was not surprised when they started Game 1 by looking to hit anything in a blue sweater. The problem is Vancouver decided that the best way to respond to this was by sinking to their level. As a result, we had Alexander Burrows biting a Boston player, Maxim LaPierre making light of said incident in Game 2 after Burrows was not suspended (which he should have been), and lastly Aaron Rome's high hit on Boston's Nathan Horton, which resulted in a concussion for Horton and a suspension for Rome for the rest of the series. The remainder of Game 3 may as well have come from the movie "Slap Shot", as the Bruins looked to pummel Burrows in every way possible; the refs likely ejected him for his own safety. Then, the Bruins fans (who rallied around their fallen star and helped turn the series in Boston's favor) responded to the sight of Vancouver's Mason Raymond being carted off in a stretcher in Game 6 by cheering and chanting, "Let's Go Bruins."

Despite holier-than-thou sportswriters telling us that such things are the reason why "nobody watches hockey", the ratings show otherwise, particularly for Game 7, and by then, the nastiness had subsided. However, if this style of play were to continue and the NHL were to revert back to a Broad Street Bullies-era style, it would spell disaster for hockey. Hopefully, next season, with more eyes on the sport (especially if the NBA is locked out), the league will be more conscious about restoring order to the game. The thing that gets me about that Boston-Vancouver series was that with all the chippy play, there were NO fights. Dropping the gloves and solving things that way might have prevented a lot of what happened in that series. Might they have been discouraged from doing that because of the NBC cameras and the enhanced microscope on hockey during the Finals? I certainly hope not. Two players leaving on stretchers is a lot worse than a couple guys throwing down.

And speaking of throwing down... the riot in Vancouver after Game 7 was a damn shame, and it gave jingoistic flag-waving types the chance to belittle the entire nation of Canada, and gave Boston fans a chance to yell, "See, their fans are just as bad as their team!" The post-mortem of the riot shows that it was unruly mobs of troublemakers who were only looking to use the occasion of the game as an excuse to cause mayhem. The same result would have happened if the Canucks won. The worst part about this is we'll probably end up seeing some Citizens Review public forum a year from now, in which we'll be told that the greatest travesty about this riot was not the riot itself, but how the police treated everyone... just like what has happened in Toronto recently in the aftermath of last year's G-20 summit riots. The revisionist history in that forum, absolving destructive anarchist rioters and putting all blame on the police because innocent journalists and bystanders got rounded up with the rioters, was sickening.

In short, the month of June has been enough to make you shake your head incredulously. And there's lots of summer left...

Musical Youth

Thanks to my irrational love of old DJ tapes, I recently came across one from the summer of 1985. This particular tape was (technical term) "unscoped", meaning it was the whole show, music included. This meant that in addition to hearing the DJ's show, I also heard all those "current" hit songs of July 1985, and soon I was more engaged by the music than by the DJ's show. Nothing against this particular DJ (one of my idols), but I had stumbled upon an awkward personal musical phenomenon.

Those summer pop songs from your childhood, the ones that come on the radio (if they ever come on the radio) and immediately take you back to being a little kid and give you that good feeling. Speaking of irrational love, I should not like these songs, not if you consider my tastes in music. I like rock music, from all eras, but when it comes to the 80s, I find that there isn't all that much real rock in the decade that I like, and what I do like never made the radio because it was stuff like The Cure and The Pixies that was off the radar during those years (although Depeche Mode was on the radio in '85 so not a total loss). So critically speaking, it makes no sense, but when the heart rules the mind (a little reference to GTR there... incidentally a song that doesn't make my list), you tend to judge a song's worth on what it means to you rather than if it's any "good". This is particularly a problem now that such songs tend to come up on "classic hits" radio stations, a format name that was conceived because nobody from my generation wants to admit that songs from the 80s should be considered "oldies".

Case in point: at the end of this particular tape, the last song played was "Who's Holding Donna Now" by DeBarge. There is no logical reason why I should like this song. AT ALL. It's a fluffy little faux-R&B pop ballad, one of many from that time period. And yet, after hearing it the other day, I can't get the damn song out of my head! That probably explains how it went Top 10 in the summer of '85, although it doesn't explain how you would never hear it on the radio now, and it certainly doesn't explain how quickly El DeBarge's career went down the crapper after "Who's Johnny?"

If you're around my age, think back to the summer of 1985 and the various artists you heard on the radio: Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Kool and the Gang, the Pointer Sisters, Chicago. All artists with name value who had been around for a while, but maybe not putting out their best work when you think critically. I mean "Born in the USA" was not Springsteen's best album, it was the one that sold the most copies. Kool and the Gang did funk anthems like "Jungle Boogie" and "Ladies Night", but when they put out "Joanna"... dear god, sellout city. And then they followed it up with more ear-candy-but-NOT-funky hits, all with one-word titles... "Cherish"... "Fresh"... "Victory"... And Chicago? Years past their rocking prime, doing power ballads or similarly pop-not-rock songs like "Along Comes a Woman." The mid-80s were chock full of this stuff... and people went along with it. Somehow, Kool and the Gang and DeBarge kept hitting #1 on the R&B chart, and somehow the #1 spot on the Rock chart was going to Sting and Don Henley and "We Built This City". But for whatever reason, if "We Don't Need Another Hero" or "Hard Habit to Break" is playing on the radio, I have to stop and listen to it. On the surface, this should make no sense...

I blame this all on my sister. When you have an older sister, she controls the radio, and plays de facto Music Director for the radio station that is your life at that time. There were certain things I could hear, and certain things I could not. Van Halen? For the most part, verboten. Too "heavy metal" (remember, this was before suburbia had really heard of Metallica or hair metal)... maybe we could listen to "Jump", but that was about it. I think I was in middle school before I knew there was a Van Halen before "1984". Anyway, after hearing "Cherish" and Cyndi Lauper's "All Through the Night" and Ashford & Simpson's "Solid" and the like over and over and over again on the radio, they somehow fused themselves to that 6-year old's feeling of innocence and now when I hear those songs, I'm 6-year old me again and I HAVE to hear the whole song, or download it... but I won't turn the speakers up and blast it, because frankly I'm embarrassed to like it.

Of course, now that I'm much older, it's interesting to think back to that summer and what we didn't know about the artists on the radio at that time. Whitney Houston's first album was out... a terrific debut album (and again, that's not my type of music). We had no idea that she'd end up destroying her voice with drugs. Madonna... yeah, we really had no idea what she was going to do in the next 20 years. "Voices Carry" by 'Til Tuesday... GREAT song. Then, the band wound up being a one-hit wonder, and lead singer Aimee Mann turned into an underappreciated indie folk rock icon of the 90s. And when you're 6, you don't know what the songs are really about. "Saving All My Love for You" by Whitney Houston? A song about sex. "Voices Carry"? A song about domestic violence. And the day you're old and smart enough to realize that's what the song is about... whoa, it spins your head around.

And it's kinda funny... the songs that have been identified as THE HITS of that time period have now been overplayed so damn much on Top 40, then Adult Contemporary, and now "classic hits" stations in the 25 years since that I can't stand to hear them now. It's only the more obscure stuff that was big then, but people somehow realized in the years after that they weren't really that good. Apparently, since I was only 6 at the time, I never realized that, but I can't be alone in this regard. Now, seriously, I need to get this DeBarge song out of my head...

Trading In 6 Years

I'm too young to have ever had a prostate exam, but I feel like going car shopping may be a similar experience. It's probably to your benefit to go through it, but it's really an ordeal to deal with.

It's a process that is full of tough decisions, the first of which is obviously the decision to get a new car. I mean I'd had my trusty 2000 Dodge Stratus for nearly 6 years, at least half of the car's operating life. I've driven it through many states and one Canadian province, it was broken into twice, I've taken out many dates in that car, I've moved twice with that car... it's got a lot of memories in it. When that happens, you develop quite an attachment to a vehicle, one that blinds you to the sheer amount of money it's required to keep the thing legal and running. However, as I've mentioned here before, I have never passed a PA inspection on the first try, and I was not going to go through that again. Believe me, I agonized over it... the cost of a down payment and monthly payments versus the cost of keeping the Stratus legal for another year.

In the end, I chose to get a new car. I thought I had done the homework, looked over the car ads in the newspaper, looked up the trade value of my car, and I was all set to go in there and get what I wanted. Well, it started out alright... I mentioned the special in the newspaper and said I wanted something like that, and the salesperson told me that this particular model was flying out the door, so much so that they had none left. They had one I could test drive, but someone already had dibs on it, so I test drove it, and the salesperson told me that I could step down to the next model down and I would not notice a difference. So we went out with that car too, and he was right. Similar ride and feel, just less bells and whistles, so I liked it, and I was all set to make the deal and get the car. I asked the guy if the car was available in something other than white... not that I was nit-picking, but it was worth asking. He replied, "You know, you should feel fortunate that this one is available." Okay..

Well, he comes back with the offer... and it was then that I realized that when they say in an ad "$1500 down, $169 a month, plus tax, tags, etc." the tax, tags, etc. tend to inflate the price just a bit... as in it was now $2000 down and $212 a month. I asked if that included the trade-in value of my car, and he informed me that my car was worth... A HUNDRED DOLLARS.

So not only am I already feeling separation anxiety over parting with this car that I have had oh so many cherished memories in... but I've just been told that despite my assessment of the car's value at most of the down payment, instead it's not worth a bucket of warm spit. Hell, the car I traded in to get the Stratus (a much older VW Passat) was dead car running when I let go of that, and they gave me $500 for that one. How is a car that runs MUCH better than that old Passat worth a measly $100? Ah, Pennsylvania inspection guidelines got me again... the salesperson said that the Rust Nazis would likely flunk the thing... even though it hadn't accumulated much more rust since 2 years ago when they originally made me replace the damn hood on the thing. Great. And obviously, I was not planning on dropping two large and paying more per month than I could afford.

At that point, I was ready to quit, as my original best-laid plans had gone to crap. However, if you know car salespeople, you know they won't let a sale get away that easily, so he insisted we go to the used car inventory and look at that. I tell him what I can afford, and they find 2 cars for me. I look at the first one, and it looks good enough, then I observe that it's a 2-door car, but that shouldn't matter to me because I rarely have more than 2 people in a car with me anyway. Apparently, the salesperson thought I was nitpicking again because he said it shouldn't matter how many doors I want, at least they found a car for me, and it was better than the one I had. Like I couldn't just leave in the one I had and be perfectly happy about it... until September when it flunked inspection again. Once again, it's the idea that the car you've driven for nearly 6 years is much more valuable TO YOU than they are telling you in terms of dollars and cents, so don't show me a car I haven't immediately fallen in love with and tell me it's better than the one I have now.

See what I mean about this whole process being so gut-wrenching?

Anyway, we go back into the dealership, and they work out the terms for me... and although the down payment was more amenable, the monthly payment for this older used car was... virtually the same as for the new car I just shot down. At this point, I started trying to find a way to leave. I told the salesperson that it would be best if I take his card and (being a loyal guy) come back in a month or so when I could figure out how to afford another car... or of course, I could just go online and buy something cheaper in the interim, whatevs. Anyway, faced with the prospect of seeing a person he had been working for 3 hours (!) leave without a new car, he went to the manager to make one last -ditch attempt by checking my credit score and coming up with something better. Well, thank goodness that I have a good credit score because they came back with terms that were acceptable... and I even gave a few inches in order to get a 3-year warranty. After all, I'll need to be covered if I ever go through (and inevitably flunk) another PA state inspection.

So in the end... I have a new car, a 2006 Chevy Cobalt. And I will get the chance to pile up some new memories in this car, and grow attached to it, and when I get rid of it, I'll think it's worth more than it really is, and go through the whole thing again. Such is the experience of trading in a car. Although in this case, I presume I will have a much more stable job and income situation in 3 years, so the moment that warranty expires, I'm unloading it. It's a "get-me-over" car... but I already like it more than I did when I first saw it... this car attachment problem is serious.