Conference back40::soapbox

    
    Ron, why not?? I mean Clinton is bailing out Mexico for 20 billion,
    what's one more billion for D.C.!! It would be nice if we stopped
    helping out all these other countries, until we fix our own problems
    here in the good ol US of A. Let Japan or some other country come to
    the rescue for a change. It's always good old Uncle Sam to save all
    these countries, ie Russia, Mexico, etc...... And we wonder why our
    national debt is so out of whack!!!! I would be curious to know if any
    country actually paid us back what they "borrowed"
    
    Mark

    Heard that Newt wanted to give the city of DC to MAryland. Did any one
    else hear this?

    To bail them out would only encourage further funds mismanagement, IMO.

  Oddly enough, it's conservatives who were most in favor of state aid to cities
and towns last time we went around on this. 

  After the 1988 election Massachusetts was in financial trouble and the
democrats wanted to cut "aid to cities and towns" which at the time accounted
for 35% of the Massachusetts budget. It was conservatives who fought against
this and eventually forced the state to back down. There was even a referendum
on the ballot in 1990 pushed by conservative groups demanding that the state
maintain the 35% payments to cities and towns. 

  Personally I think this is a form of legalized money laundering and it is
either a GOP or Democratic supported issue based on partisan politics. I agree
with the GOP on this at the national level and the democrats in Massachusetts
at the state level and feel we should do away with unfunded mandates. Beyond
that we should do away with funded mandates as well. At the state level we
should do away with all state aid to cities and towns. 

  Ok, maybe 5% worth of exceptions since not everything falls into a cubby hole
that neatly but most of it should go.

  George

    
    Well, Newt DID wistfully mention giving Marion &co back to Md.  I
    agree with him that this is the right answer, but it's politically
    impossible because the Marylanders don't want it.   Too bad.
    
    Then he said, OK, we're stuck with it.  Let's get Price Waterhouse
    or one of the "big 6" auditors to do a complete financial audit of
    the city first.  This is also a great idea, but may be a non-starter.
    
    He invited Marion over for a chat.  Actually, Marion could have over
    Clinton, Gore, and Newt for a few joints.  They could talk about the
    good old days.  Only BC wouldn't inhale....
    
      bb

    DC doesn't WANT to go to MD and MDers wouldn't approve annexing the
    District.
    
    I say, clean house, revoke home rule, appoint an adminstrator reporting
    to the appropriate Congressional committee, and make sure that they
    have a 5 yr get well plan.
    
    The cap on medicare payout RETRO to 1991 is a joke.  This was into the
    1st year of the Kelly administration.  And no one paying these bills
    since '91?!?!??!!  If that isn't financial mismanagement, i don't know
    what is.
    
    Now I know why PEPCO has been doing better financially since they cut
    Kelly loose.

    George:
    
    Heard on the news that Massachusetts is economically progressing while
    the country is not.  What do you think the reasons for this might be?
    
    -Jack

RE     <<< Note 276.7 by MKOTS3::JMARTIN "I lied; I hate the fat dinosaur" >>>

>    Heard on the news that Massachusetts is economically progressing while
>    the country is not.  What do you think the reasons for this might be?
    
  In spite of the constant doom and gloom predictions from groups like the Mass
High Tech council or what ever they are called, Massachusetts never dies. 

  We've got some of the best Colleges and Universities in the world for the top
students, an outstanding collegiate education system for the rest of the
students, a good base for business and banking, and a hard working population. 

  We've got Democrats solidly in control of both houses and a Republican
party that is almost exclusively libertarian with almost no right wing wackos.

  We've got theater in Boston, we've got Basketball and Hockey in the Ga'den,
the Patriots and B.C. playing football and we've got the mighty Red Sox who are
about to build a championship team which will dominate the World Series for the
rest of the decade. 

  All this and we still manage to feed the poor,
  George

    I find it interesting you attribute one of the successes as a democrat
    controlled Beacon Hill...when this is the same regime that gave us the
    Massachusetts miracle in the late 80's under Dukakis.
    
    -Jack

RE     <<< Note 276.9 by MKOTS3::JMARTIN "I lied; I hate the fat dinosaur" >>>

>    I find it interesting you attribute one of the successes as a democrat
>    controlled Beacon Hill...when this is the same regime that gave us the
>    Massachusetts miracle in the late 80's under Dukakis.
    
  The economic problems of the late 80's in Massachusetts were caused by a
combination of Federal and Local problems. 

  In the early 80's the state passed two referendum which were numbered 2 and 3
on the ballot and were called Prop 2 1/2. It limited the ability of cities and
towns to raise property taxes by more than 2.5% per year without an over ride
by local voters. 

  About that time the double digit borrowing of Reagonomics and the investment
in defense research caused a boom in the Mass economy vastly increasing the tax
base. The state used it's surplus to bail out the cities and towns giving them
as much as 35% of the state taxes to cover increases in town and city spending.

  When Reagonomics failed and the defense cuts hit suddenly the tax base in
Mass shrank back to where it had been before this all started. Problem was, the
cities and towns still wanted their 35% to make up for what they could not
collect due to Prop 2.5. This threw the state into a panic. 

  Dukakis and the state legislature tried to balance the budget by cutting back
the 35% aid to cities and towns but conservatives would have none of it and
pushed the referendum requiring Massachusetts to keep up that 35%.

  When Weld took office he essentially ignored the referendum (he found some
technical way out), and cities and towns were forced to either pass Prop 2.5
over rides or learn to do without services. Then as the recession ended, the
tax base increased and the problem evened out.

  But regardless of how you want to look at it, that was one brief moment in
Massachusetts politics. The Democrats have been in control for most of this
century and all and all we've done rather well throughout that period.

  George

    Berry sure has a lot of chutzpah blaming it all on his predecessor!
    
    

    re: .10
    
    >combination of federal and local problems
    
    
    Yup, a democratic congress and democratic representatives on the state
    and local level.  

RE               <<< Note 276.12 by CSOA1::LEECH "I'm the NRA." >>>

>    >combination of federal and local problems

>    Yup, a democratic congress and democratic representatives on the state
>    and local level.  

  It was a Democratic Congress who was pretty much going along with Reagonomics
and local town and city officials where pressuring the state to give them the
money to make up for their short fall due to Prop 2.5. 

  The democrats in the Mass State legislature and the Governor had almost no
input into those areas except that they agreed to pass along the 35% to the
cities and towns which at the time was mostly surplus. 

  George 

    No input?  
    
    Gimme a break.

  The Massachusetts Governor and State Legislature have no input at all as to
what is done by the U.S. President and Congress. 

  And back in the '80s they had no control over Prop 2.5 because it was a
binding referendum. Each city or town had the right to decide for themselves to
uphold or over ride prop 2.5 on each issue. 

  The only thing the state had to do with any of this was to give the 35% to
the cities and towns in the early 80's. They then failed to cut of the 35% in
the late 80's when prop 2.5 and the failure of Reagonomics started chewing up
the state economy. 

  Once we started getting clear of the national economic slump and sifting the
state tax base away from depending on defense spending and once Weld figured
out some sort of trick to keep the state from getting smothered by the prop
2.5 bailout, we started pulling out of the mess. 

  George

    I would not read much into the fact that the Mass. economy is now
    growing faster than the rest of the country. We were a lot slower coming
    out of the recession and are now catching up with growth that has
    already been realized in other parts of the country such as the
    Midwest. 

  Back to DC.
  I'm sorry to hear that MD doesn't want DC. About 10 years ago, when DC was
considering becoming a state, it was said that MD would oppose statehood because
if DC was not a District, it should be annexed my MD. DC's problems have gotten
much worse since then; I can see why MD doesn't want to take on this burden.
  I assume we all know that DC's territory was part of MD before the District
was created around 1790. (The original DC also included part of VA.)
  We now have proof that DC is incapable of governing itself. As I see it, there
are only two alternatives. One is to go back to the situation that existed 
before around 1970, when the federal government ran DC, as suggested in several
replies. The other is to see if we can persuade MD to annex DC in return for
the federal govt paying MD the money that would otherwise go to a DC bailout.
(I suppose MD doesn't want DC for any amount of money, but I'll suggest it
anyway.)

    Put it up for bid. See if anyone wants DC as part of their state.
    Right! I am sure Marion can solve the problems. That's why all the
    voters put him back in office in D.C. and I am sure, with his track
    record, he has surrounded himself with quality people like himself. 

    This week, an off-duty policemen came to a convenience store.  When he
    came out, he saw two men robbing a cabbie.  He identified himself,
    pulled his revolver, and ordered them to stop.  Just at this time, a
    patrol car came upon the scene of one black man holding a guy to two
    other black men.  The officers stopped, ordered the off-duty to drop
    his gun.  When he immediately did not do so, one officer opened fire,
    killing the off-duty cop.  One suspect escaped on foot.  The other has
    been charged with attempted robbery and murder, "since his actions led
    to the killing of the off-duty officer."
    
    How sad!

    
    
    How in the world can they charge the guy with murder?  UNbelievable.
    
    
    

The laws in a number of states have been modified so that if someone is
killed while a crime is being committed, all those who participated in
the crime are guilty of murder.

/john

RE    <<< Note 276.20 by GRANPA::MWANNEMACHER "NRA member in good standing" >>>

>    How in the world can they charge the guy with murder?  UNbelievable.
    
  Under common law there are three ways that a homicide can qualify as murder.

  The one that is best known is premeditation where someone plans to commit
a homicide. A second is "depraved heart murder" where someone puts the public
at such great risk that a reasonable person would expect death to occur. This
is the one used for things like pipe bombs in train stations.

  The third way that a homicide can qualify as murder is if someone is killed
accidentally during the commission of a felony. In that case the person or
persons who committed that felony have committed "felony murder". 

  That seems to be the case here.

  George

    Isn`t a felony murder more severe or as severe as pre-meditated?

RE                       <<< Note 276.23 by MAIL2::CRANE >>>

>    Isn`t a felony murder more severe or as severe as pre-meditated?

  Under common law, which is used by many States in the U.S. including
Massachusetts, the three type of murder, premeditation, felony murder, and
depraved heart murder, are the same. Any one of them can make a homicide
murder.

  George

    .24
    Thank you.

    Does DC still need a bailout, BTW?
    
    Not Roger

    Yes, Dennis Connor is up to his ears in debt and his boat was severely
    damaged when attempting to dock after tha last Cup race.  His
    financials are awash in debt and his boat is sinking.  
    
    Brian

    The entire nation needs to be bailed out.  We are legally bankrupt-
    have been for some time now.

    Heard David Brinkley speak at a Digital Trade Show in Tyson's Corner a
    few weeks ago...he looked extremely frail, alot worse than on TV. 
    Anyway he wit is as sharp as ever.
    
    He relayed a story from his new bestseller about the illustrious mayor
    of DC.  
    
    Paraphrased in his words the best from my memory:
         "Our mayor in DC is by far a most unique individual.  Popularly
    elected several times, he was arrested in a hotel room in 1990 smoking
    dope.  He was convixcted and went to jail.  He worked in the prison
    shop making automobile license plates.  After serving his time, he went
    on to run again for his old office of mayor and won re-elction.  On the
    day of his inauguration, the mayor rode in a limosine which had a
    license plate which he made while in jail.  Now we have probably the
    only mayor in the US that can say that!"
    
    Brinkley also cut on Clinton, Dole and the media.  BTW, in an answer to
    a Question about his prediction as to who would win if the pres.
    election was today, he predicted Clinton over Dole, barely.

    SNORT !!!