Chicago AM Saturday 14 April 2012 

Voice of the People, Chicago Tribune

Gentlepeople:

Early in this year's summer-like March a Chicago Park District drinking fountain was already running just east of the Berwyn LSD underpass. Not only running, but continuously, as in the old days. This went on for over a week. Did district management finally decide the constantly running fountains did not waste much water after all? Soon reality returned: to get a drink from that fountain now you need to press a button.

Back on Sunday 22 June 2003 the Chicago Tribune published an article saying “Chicago's lakefront drinking fountains, which run 24 hours and use 1,400 gallons of water a day per fountain, are the first of the Park District's 1,000 fountains being fitted with new faucets as part of city efforts to conserve water.”

I've been studying these fountains probably since first being picked up by my father high enough to get a drink in Gresham's Foster park in 1937. I really got involved in the last two years before the article, when, over two full seasons, using a 1 pint container and a stop watch, I measured how much water they wasted. In over a hundred tests they consistently put out 1 pint every 20 seconds, 3 pints a minute, or 375 gallons a minute for all 1000 fountains.

Some perspective: a single Chicago fire hydrant running full blast puts out 1750 gallons/minute - 4 times what 1000 fountains do. Further, even the article's unsubstantiated 1400 gallons of water per day per fountain works out to only 972 gallons per minute for 1,000 fountains, slightly more than half what a single fire hydrant puts out.

Talking with a Chicago Fireman about this I questioned: ?"That means, a full blast hose from one hydrant will fill a 55 gallon drum in 2 seconds? Fireman: "Oh Yes!!!"

A Thursday 22 June 1995 Tribune article said: “Of the 47,000 hydrants across the city, officials say more than 3,000 have been opened by people seeking refuge from the heat during the recent string of 90-degree-plus days”

and further “... the Water Department took more than 2,500 complaints Wednesday, callers from some neighborhoods reported water pressure was so low bathtubs wouldn't fill, toilets wouldn't flush. The Fire Department was fearful that water pressure in some areas might not be sufficient to fight a fire.”

That same Tribune article also said: “The new fixtures... will cost about $300 per fountain, plus about $200 for parts and labor....” So we spent $500,000 dollars to reduce the city water usage by less than that of turning off a single fire hydrant?

On another occasion I asked an on-duty park district plumber if it was a big project to turn the 24/7 fountains on every spring and off every fall. “Big project? Hardly. We're out here working on all sorts of things. When we get thirsty, we look around for a fountain. If there's one not yet turned on, we turn it on and get a drink.”

So before the save water campaign, turning the fountains on and off seasonally was not even recorded time-wise. Now we need to send out highly paid (not that they don't earn it) union plumbers every spring to re-install, and every fall to de-install, 1000 faucets.

The $half million to buy the 1000 original valves is gone, But can't we have the plumbers just activate/deactivate the valves every spring and fall, and let the rest of us get a fine cold drink of pure clean Chicago water more conveniently than anyone else in the world?

Back to the 22 June 2003 article's reference to “city efforts to conserve water.” After the installation of the last of the 1000 new faucets, did the the manager of the water department rush in to tell the mayor: “Instead of each of our two water intakes pumping 500 million gallons a day, they are are now pumping only 499,300,000 gallons of water per day! Can I get a raise now?”

Arnold H Nelson ah_nelson@yahoo.com

Chicago PM Saturday 7 April 2012  

The Voice of the People, Chicago Tribune

Gentlepeople:

The Chicago Tribune Editorial “Fear and Medicare, Round 2” (Thursday 5 April) has a dozen references to the federal government paying for citizen'shealth care, but not a word about where in the US Constitution this is justified.  

General Welfare Clause?   James Madison wrote in Federalist 41   “a specification of the objects alluded to by that phrase [general welfare clause] follows... not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon.“  Following that semicolon is a list of 17 Congressional powers, from 'borrow money on the credit of the United States' thru 'make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers' ..... but not a sign of health care.

Commerce clause? If “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” can be stretched to justify the federal government paying every citizens' medical bills, is there any expense that cannot be justified by the commerce clause?

This situation was not helped by the 1943 Current Tax Payment Act instituting income tax withholding by employers, resulting in 70% of all taxes collected by the federal government coming  from employers' bank accounts, not voters'.  Since employers must write those checks against their bank accounts (They go to jail if they don't)  they just add it to their product cost.  So that 70% comes from a painless national sales tax, but the voter is told he deserves something for it.

If voters were required to send in their income tax payments every month with a check from their personal bank account, they would be more careful of who they voted for to Congress, especially what they were proposing the government do, and how much it would cost the voter.  Maybe call a local insurance agent, representing private sector companies that sell all sorts of health and medical insurance.

Arnold H Nelson  in Chicago ah_nelson@yahoo.com

From the Wednesday 4 April WSJ BOTWT:

“The best explanation is that he [Obama] is preparing politically for a judicial defeat. But that begs the question of why he is taking the particular, and highly unusual, approach of waging rhetorical war on the Supreme Court.”

Googleing 'beg the question” gave me:

"Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself, such as: "I think she is unattractive because

she is ugly."

Recently I came up w/ a test: If 'beg the question' is followed by an actual question, isn't that incorrect?

Will my BOTWT subscription be cancelled because of this audacity?

Arn Nelson in Chicago  ah_nelson@yahoo.com

Obama SCOTUS nominations?

Chicago AM Wednesday 4 April 2012 

Voice of the People, Chicago Tribune

Gentlepeople:

The Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page writes in his Sunday 1 April column “Justice Kennedy's Obamacare swing vote” that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution provides “the main argument for the government to regulate health care.”

The Commerce clause, third of eighteen Congressional responsibilities, is “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

Doesn't seem to have a hint of health care there, but in Wickard vs Filburn in 1942 the Supreme Court said Congress can regulate trivial local, intrastate activities that have an aggregate effect on interstate commerce via the commerce clause, even if the effect is indirect. Did anyone hear James Madison clear his throat?

Is there a limit somewhere? Is there anything not already done by the government that can be justified by saying “commerce clause”?

How do medicare and Obamacare look compared to health insurance before them? Large private sector insurance companies began selling various forms of health insurance back in the 19th century. Lots of bad things that can happen to people healthwise, but they don't happen to all people, all the time. Actuaries can design systems where people can get together, each contributing so much, This money can be invested and generate additional funds to take care of people who do have bad things happen to them.

With the current tax payment act of 1943, instead of sending in a check for their income tax once a year, employers deducted it from wage earners' paychecks and sent it in every month. In the beginning the employers covered this with smaller checks they were writing directly to the employees, but this evolved quickly to another expense for the employer, If they don't send it, they go to jail. The money's gotta come from somewhere, so the employers add it to the cost of their product. Painless national sales tax, anyone?

So the feds have vast amounts of cash continuously rolling in, but unlike private insurers, instead of investing it in various worthwhile projects, they deposit in the general fund. Well sure, salaries for the president and congress come from there, but so do earmarks, and Nancy Pelosi's and Michelle Obama's luxurious trips all over the country, and billions of dollars to quckly going bankrupt 'green' disasters like Solyndra.

And some of it goes to Obamacare, too, but instead of contracted amounts as from private insurance companies, actuaries compute how little they need to spend to keep the people believing they are getting something for nothing.

And since the US economy is constantly, reliably expanding, we can always borrow.

But during the George W Bush administration, monthly federal deficits averaged $20 billion, an unheard of deficit at the time. Now our current president has raised that average monthly deficit by a factor of six - that's right, $120 billion per month.

So besides the question, is there anything that cannot be justified by the Commerce clause, how long can we go on sextupling the average monthly federal deficit every five years before we need to go to Greece for a loan?

Ninety per cent of voters are wage earners. If we made them all write checks on their personal bank accounts for their own taxes, how long would they continue to vote in legislators who would vote for junk like this? What would employers do with the money they're sending in now? Hire more employees? Get the national unemployment rate back to George W Bush levels?

Arnold H Nelson Chicago 60640 ah_nelson@yahoo.com

Chicago PM Sunday 1 April 2012

The Voice of the People, Chicago Tribune

Gentlepeople:

The Chicago Tribune editorial "Beware 'the cliff'" of Sunday 1 April opens saying: “we appreciate the current political conniptions in Washington over your tax dollars and your frightening taxpayer debt.”

The conniptions are the result of misunderstandings of federal income and spending. Ninety per cent of voters are wage earners. Because of the 1943 current tax payment act wage earners are not writing checks to the federal government for their taxes. They get a little statement from their employer with their paycheck saying: “Here is how much money we sent to Washington to cover your taxes. If it hadn't been for the feds, we would have given it to you.”

But the employer IS sending monthly checks to the feds, written on their bank accounts. If they don't send it, they go to jail. The money's gotta come from somewhere, so the employers add it to the cost of their product.

The Statistical Abstract of the US says in 2010 38.4 percent of all income taxes taken in by the feds was withheld by employers. Throw in Social Security, which works the same way, you get 73.1 per cent of all taxes taken in by the government came from a silent, painless, national sales tax.

The problem is all those millions of voters, each with fistfulls of pay stubs saying "they paid ..." – they want their social security, their medicare, their food stamps, their unemployment benefits, all those government handouts.

To fix this problem requires only a majority of the House of reps, 60 Senators, and a President with backbone enough to change the US Tax code from "every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages a tax..." to "every employer making payment of wages shall pay all of those wages to the employee...." The employer would still calculate the tax, including a note: "Here is what the feds are expecting you personally to send in within 30 days"

This could not be done overnite. Move 5% of the wage earner population every quarter to the new rules. Failure to cooperate would get the same penalty as present employers: jail.

But in the end, returning to voters the responsibility of writing checks to fund the government would force them to face how much all these entitlements cost, encouraging election of legislators less likely to support federal vote-buying giveaways. What would employers do with all that money they are sending in now? Hire more workers? Goodbye recession!

Arnold H Nelson Chicago ah_nelson@yahoo.com

Chicago USA PM Saturday 31 March 2012

Editors, UK Financial Times

Gentlepeople:

The Financial Times' 31 March editorial 'US Health Reform' refers to US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's contention that “compelling individuals to get insurance would be like creating activity in order to regulate it, which is different to regulating existing activity” as being 'abstruse', difficult to comprehend. How does it rate on the abstruseness scale to justifying government managed health insurance as Constitutional under the Commerce clause: “The Congress shall have Power To...regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Any hint of citizens' health care in there?

The US Constitution also has a General Welfare clause, but 221 years ago James Madison anticipated some misunderstandings of that clause when he wrote:

“Some have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "… to provide for the general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the... general welfare....

“Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it.... but what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? “

And following that semicolon is a list of 18 Congressional powers, from 'borrow money on the credit of the United States' thru 'make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers' ..... but not a sign of health care.

Too bad the Father of the Constitution did not anticipate future misunderstanding of the Commerce clause.

Arnold H Nelson Chicago 60640 USA

ah_nelson@yahoo.com