Isn't it about time to "sunset" the economic development sales tax?

The so-called "economic development" sales tax has taken roughy $4,000,000 per year out of the local economy for years now and has paid out more in administrative costs to the MDC staff and the local chamber (but I repeat myself) more than it has managed to pay out in "incentives". A lot of the "incentives' that have been paid out were essentially buy-ins to photo ops like the one delivered to Trace Engines.

Truly, was Trace Engines ever going to end up anywhere besides Midland given its ownership?

So I was wondering.....

Given that whatever "multiplication factor" applied to development dollars spent by the ED Grandees must also apply to those same dollars if retained and spent by the taxpayers, and

Given that had those dollars not been taxed away from the taxpayer they would have actually been spent thereby generating the much touted "multiplication factor", and

Given that the Midland Development Corporation has essentially banked most of the money they have harvested thereby negating any "multiplication factor", and

Given that anyone familiar with the Time Value of Money knows that the most critical years in figuring return is the first few years. And now that the Midland Development Corporation has been around roughly seven years without showing any real positive results, then

One has to wonder if the combination of all of these things creates some sort of point out there where the MDC can't produce a positive return on the money turned over to it no matter what they do.

By taking money out of the economy and essentially banking it and keeping it from circulating for all of these years will the MDC, return on investment-wise, finally reach a point of mathematical elimination?

I only ask because I want to push Old Otto's buttons some more.

I've never said Midland Memorial Hospital was perfect, but over the past three years I have seen more positive articles written about the new systems in place at MMH in MAJOR national news outlets than one would expect from a small town hospital.

The Wall Street Journal offers up the latest article in "tomorrow's" edition. Here is an interesting item from the article regarding the "stick and carrots" in the Stimulus Bill to do what MMH is already doing:

The federal government has offered both a carrot and a stick, neither of which, some fear, will make modernization more affordable. It has earmarked nearly $20 billion in stimulus funds as an incentive for hospitals to use electronic records by 2011. And it will penalize those who don't use them, cutting a percentage of their Medicare payments starting in 2015. Once fully phased in, the penalties could amount to a loss of $3.2 million annually in Medicare funding for the average 500-bed hospital, according to a new report from PriceWaterHouseCoopers. But the incentive payments for using health information technology -- about $6 million by the fourth year for the same hospital -- are "a small carrot compared to the amount of resources it will take to deploy this technology over the next five years," the report says.

Here are some interesting statistics regarding MMH in the article:

At Midland Memorial, doctors and nurses can retrieve patient records, lab results and X-ray images instantly. In the past, it could take hours and even days to gather them all. The system helped the hospital catch up on a $16.7 million coding and billing backlog for about 4,500 patient records in four weeks, which might have taken five or six months to do.

In the 18 months after the system went live hospital-wide in June 2006, the hospital reduced medication errors and patient deaths. Infection rates dropped 88% thanks to guidelines in the record system that prompted nurses to follow infection-control procedures, such as changing a dressing or following correct procedures when inserting a new IV.

Bed sores were also reduced as the system prompted nurses to turn patients in their beds at a set number of hours depending on their condition to prevent the sores. And Midland was able to increase by 77% its staff compliance with guidelines to care for patients on ventilators, which, if not followed, can lead to pneumonia.

Vote how you like, but MMH has been moving forward, not backwards in it's delivery of healthcare to the citizens of Midland.

Most of this post I agree with. But one line, to me at least, is a leaping non-sequitur.

And instead of throwing tea parties or getting involved in other symbolic gestures, maybe it is time for the party to find some real leadership.

The big "R" republicans only like the idea of the tea parties because they appear to be more critical of Democrats than of Republicans.

And regardless of what CNN or the DailyKos is telling you the Republican Party is not behind them. Nor is Fox News.

The whole attraction of the Tea Parties is their true grass-roots origins. These are people who usually don't protest. Period. Unlike the always reliable and ubiquitous Rent-A-Mobs employed by the Left.

Some have even tried to portray the tea parties as some sort of reaction by "people who just can't stand the idea that a black man is in the White House."

That a white, male, Republican congressman with an ACU rating of 98% was outright booed when he tried to speak at one doesn't seem to complicate their thinking much.

The tea parties are about smaller government. Period. And both parties are guilty of expanding government.

Case in point: From local Congressman Mike Conaway's Blog:

This past week our President broke one of his more important campaign promises by signing a spending bill that contained earmarks. I am disappointed that he did not veto the bill and thereby begin the process of learning how to make hard choices when it comes to spending at the Federal level.

To review: The President did not begin the process of making hard choices by vetoing a spending bill that contained earmarks....some of which were posted by....um....er....Mike Conaway.

And get this: Not only is our Reddest-of-Red-State-type Congressman posting earmarks while critcizing the posting of earmarks...according to this he refuses even to list which earmarks he posted.

As I asked in an earlier post: What does Republicanism have to do with conservatism anymore?

I know, I know.....the word Fascist gets thrown out in political discussions more than it should but I do mean it.

Don't freak out, Obamatons, I didn't say Hitlerism. I said Fascism. In the sense of pre-World War II 1930's Italian Fascism that was all the rage among the intellegentsia throughout the world.

Explain to me why this whole Government/Uniom takeover/ownership of both GM and Chrysler doesn't amount to that type of government/industrial system.

When you voted for Hope and Change, did you ever think that your candidate would nationalize two of the big three auto makers? Is there any indication that major banks won't be next?

And how would you like to be Ford right now? Not taking Obamabucks handouts from the Feds, struggling to make it as a private enterprise, but now you have to negotiate a labor contract with the UAW. The same UAW who know owns a huge stake in BOTH of your domestic competitors. A conflict of interest for the UAW? Fear not, President Obama will smooth it over with his velvety baritone and a teleprompter set to scroll at just the right speed.

I have purchased my last GM vehicle. When the time comes for a new purchase I will look first to Ford, then to Toyota.

At this point, with both the government and the unions sweeping in to take over GM and Chrysler I want their "experiment" to fail. Fail hard. Fail big. Fail massively.

They will not get another cent from me because they forgot one little detail: They didn't pass a law that requires me to buy GM or Chrysler.

Yet, anyway.

Midland City Council members indicated a variety of misgivings about the EZ Rider bus system during a Tuesday round-table discussion but nonetheless voted almost unanimously to let Midland-Odessa Urban Transit District accept $4 million in federal stimulus funds to buy new buses and other equipment.

Kind of like I have misgivings about eating an entire gallon of Blue Bell ice cream even though it was free.

Apparently, Mayor Perry is the only one on the entire council now who understands that the only thing stimulated by the EZ Rider transportation system getting access to $4 million in "Stimulus" money will be its ability to cost the taxpayers even more money in the future.

Let us stipulate that these transportation systems are not supposed to make money.

But who on the council can defend taking federal tax dollars to expand a system by making capital purchases so that it will cost even more to operate and doing this when ridership is trending downward?

You have to figure that the most "rider" rich routes have already been selected so any additional routes will produce decreasing marginal returns on riders. While we add bigger and more expensive busses.

Here is what is most alarming: Those voting to take Porkulus money on the council rightly had.....um.....misgivings about doing so. Most probably because they knew that it wouldn't work, if by "work" one means increase the marginal ridership of EZ Rider.

But they took it anyway. They saw it as free money.

They actually cast a vote to take tax money and plow it in to something they knew wasn't a good and effective use of the money because the alternative.......leaving $4 million on the table.....was inconceivable to them.

This in Midland, Texas. "Fiscally conservative" Republican stronghold Midland, Texas.

Between this kind of nonsense and our own "fiscally conservative" Congressman showing up pretty high on the "earmarker" list you can begin to see why the Republicans are in such dire straits as a party right now.

It is because nothing over the past four or five years would indicate that Republicanism has anything at all to do with conservatism.

Senator Specter has finally succumbed to the blandishments of the Democrat party and become Faust, giving the Democrat Party an impregnable majority unless some Blue Dog Democrats grow a conscience. But then they wouldn't be Democrats, would they?

China has warned the United States not to spend this much money. They're concerned that we'll take the Latin American option, which is to inflate the currency to pay back debt in cheaper dollars. China may decide that they don't want our debt, knowing that it will be worth less. The only way to move it would be to issue it with ruinous interest rates, which would lead to further inflation of the currency...

If you have savings, you're screwed.

Vladimir Putin has suggested to Mr. Obama that he not place all his faith in a government's ability to do things.

We have been warned away from socialism by one communist country and a country formerly communist, and run by the same old communists. And still our Lords and Masters charge headlong to convert us into a social democracy of the sort which is strangling Europe. Europe. Which cannot create the jobs it needs for its people, even though some of its nations have declining population; most have population increases which are not at replacement level. And if Europe had not had the United States defend it, they could not even have the social democracies that they have now.

So, as we goose-step into socialism, all the happy little Americans are so pleased to follow our president, whose soul is a TelePrompTer, heedless of the fact that there is no country bigger or richer to pick up the pieces. There is no other country able to police the world, which is a very dangerous place. But we're all happy now that we have charming, but clueless, president who looks so good rolling his shoulders like a linebacker as he saunters toward Marine One. I would ask if he can walk and chew gum at the same time; we know he can't stand still and talk.

But there is good news. The New York Times Company is in an even deeper hole; advertising revenues are down 27% and lost $74.5 million. Well, the Huffington Post is urging Net Neutrality and there is always the Fairness Doctrine, both names utter lies, with the express aim of suppressing dissent.

Fascism, anyone?

Update from McPaper. (The Times itself has an article but I wasn't up to seeing how they'd blame Bush for their own troubles.)

To save $133 million annually, the Times Co. recently suspended shareholder dividends. To raise money to pay down debt, the company sold most of its midtown Manhattan headquarters for $225 million and will lease the offices instead. It also got a $250 million infusion from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim at 14% interest and gave him potentially valuable stock warrants.

Emphasis mine. This makes up for Faust. Carlos Slim? The Old Gray Lady has an angel. I bet Rupert Murdoch is having the laugh of his life. Here's to you, Rupert.

Be prepared to be embarrassed, no matter how you feel about the government. This is cringe-making; you don't know where to look. The left howled about George W. Bush's speech and he sounds like Demosthenes compared to Obama.

Is there anyone home? Is there anything to this president? From this clip, the answer is no. I wish that it were an isolated incident but every single time that the TelePrompTer has screwed up, it took him down with it. Remember when he was reading the other person's speech, and didn't know it until he was thanking himself? It would be risible except that it's so sad.

Mike Huckabee has a show on Fox News; in his introductory speech, talking points, I suppose, he got the closest I've seen him to being angry. He posits that His O'liness is a puppet for George Soros.

I think a puppet for Nancy Pelosi.

Can a puppet have two masters?

The conservative moment will never be able to honor William F. Buckley, Jr., enough--he gave it intellectual respectability when before it was people grumbling alone. (And if people don't quit insisting on perfect conservative purity conservatism will consist of people grumbling alone out of power just like 60 years ago.)

Buckley's child Christopher Buckley, another author, wrote very nice piece in, and don't blench, The New York Times. It presents a side of Bill and Pat Buckley that I had never guessed.

I found myself liking this the best of all of his writing.

Among the comments on the Hospital Bond, there are lots of criticisms of the Hospital Administration, Hospital Staff, Management, level of care, and the oft used anecdotal quote that "Local Dr's tell me to goto _______ hospital, not MMH."

I may not be an investigative journalist, but I like to base my opinion on some kind of reliable data or measure to see exactly how poorly, or well, our hospital may be performing. HealthInsight.org is a non-profit organization that helps improve the quality of health care system in Nevada and Utah, and as part of that mission, they have developed a methodology of

"[computing] hospital rankings using publicly reported data downloaded from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare website (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov - last accessed 3/26/09). This data set contains hospital-specific performance on 25 quality measures for over 4,500 hospitals nationwide."

There are some caveats to using the data, but it can provide some useful comparisons and trend analysis to see if any of the statements of our commenter's hold any water. Specifically the data is in presented in percentiles, so hospitals are ranked against themselves, and some small hospitals which only perform one type of service will rank higher than full service hospitals. Generally speaking, I would start worrying about a hospital which is in the bottom third of hospitals, or in the 33rd percentile or lower. So, what do the figures say?

Midland Memorial Hospital is in the 51st percentile of performance Nationally. Which means it is barely in the top half of hospitals in the US. But what about Lubbock, only the Lubbock Heart Hospital, LP is ranked higher than MMH (63rd percentile). UMC and Covenant are 45th and 37th respectively. Dallas isn't a bad bet, with Baylor (86th) Parkland (73th) and Methodist (69th). Houston isn't that bad either, with Hermann (71th), St. Lukes (64th) and St. Joseph (62nd). Though you may want to avoid the short drive to Odessa. Ector County's Medical Center Hospital clocks in at the 18th percentile and ORH in the 8th.

So what about trends?

From Q4 of 2006 MMH has risen from a performance rating of 81 with a National Percentile ranking of 33 to a performance rating of 91 and with a National Percentile ranking of 51. To me that is a pretty good trend line, which means the current administration must be doing something right.

Ector County isn't so lucky, over the same time period, they have risen from a 77 to an 82 performance ranking, but because so many hospitals have raised their performance levels also, their percentile rank has actually dropped from 20th to 18th.

Digging into the individual data points, a comparison of MMH and UMC Lubbock reveals that UMC beats the pants off of MMH in room cleanliness, quietness, getting a 9 or 10 on outpatient surveys which then translates into only 66% of patients recommending MMH to 79% recommending UMC to friends and family. Oddly enough, UMC nurses got 3% better for communication, but MMH doctors were 3% better at communication. The rest of the health care based measures were pretty much a dead heat (save poor Pneumonia treatment scores at UMC). Which makes me wonder if the perception that Lubbock is a better hospital comes from non-professional staff, facilities and facility upkeep, because treatment and professional staff are similar (with Midland performing better in many areas) according to HSS Survey data.

Just looking at the data, I would have to say that MMH has made some great strides in the last 3 years and if the comparison to UMC Lubbock is instructive, MMH may be perceived as a poorer hospital just because of the way it looks, because the objective care measures and staff competence measures don't correlate to the wide gap between UMC's perception and MMH's perception.

In my previous Hospital thread there are several comments that I think make wrong assumptions about the willingness of the Citizens of Midland to pass certain bond issues. Going back to the MRT's article which outlines several of the recent bond issues since 1980, one might get the impression that Midland has a real aginner mentality when it comes to our civic facilities, especially our schools, since the community voted three bonds down.

In my opinion, Midland is more than willing to approve bonds for our various local taxing entities, but they are not willing to fund certain projects or give out blank checks for undeterminiate projects.

The failed MISD bond issues in 1996 ($110M), 2000 ($72.2M) and 2002 ($91-167M) suffered from an unpopular and ill defined project (a new Midland High) or a majority of the issue didn't include specific projects, but a range of projects that may be undertaken if necessary.

If you look at the remainder of the list, they all passed, even the recent jail bond. I would argue the jail bonds that failed in the past were because Midlanders didn't want us to become a "Prison City" like Colorado City or Pecos. However, when it came down to providing facilities to serve the detention and inmate needs of our own community, that passed.

In the case of the Hospital, the plan is pretty well defined and using the strategies of the Airport and Successful School bonds, they have shown the 50 year old boilers and totally blocked plumbing.

As for costs, at $175M for 350,000 S.F. of new construction and 100,000 S.F. of rennovations, that meets LEED certification, the costs aren't out of line. This would be the 2nd or 3rd LEED Certified Hospital in Texas and one of only a handful of LEED Certified Hospitals in the United States. As a point of reference, the Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas was the first LEED Certified Hospital in Texas and the 500,000 S.F. facility (pediatrics only mind you) cost $200M. I'm sure the emergency department and other full service hospital accommodations makes up the difference in $/SF ratios between MMH and Dell Children's.

(as an aside: To say that having a facility that is on par with Dell Children's and is one of a handful of hospitals to have LEED and GGHC certifications in addition to meeting all the current regulatory and design standards of hospitals isn't going to attract some staff is like saying fielding a fast new car at the track isn't going to attract drivers.)

So, if history holds, for this bond to go down, there has to be something community wide that is unpopular about the hospital's project....and I don't see it, feel it or hear it.

What I do see is a bunch negativity about the hospital administration....and yet a jail bond passed with about the same level of negativity towards Sheriff Painter and the Commissioner's Court.

This is why I think the Hospital Bond is going to pass.

Here is a man who explains the folly of big government as succinctly and as well as anyone I know.

The National Post of Canada has some good journalism, better far than the house organs of the hateful left here in America, which are with satisfying regularity going bankrupt.

Christopher Hitchens, once the literary editor of a Marxist magazine, has become an enemy of fascism anywhere, and has bravely attacked it on the left. There is a Canadian scholar Jamie Glazov, who has published United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror

Here is an excerpt from The National Post:

The day after the 9/11 attacks, superstar left-wing academic Noam Chomsky exonerated the terrorists, stating that the Clinton administration's 1998 bombing of Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan constituted a far more serious terrorist act, and warning that 9/11 would be exploited by the United States as an excuse to destroy Afghanistan.

Leftist academics across the United States echoed Chomsky's themes, lamenting the tragedy while cheering the motives behind it -- which they cast as just retribution for America's transgressions. History professor Robin Kelley of New York University stated:
"We need a civil war, class war, whatever to put an end to U. S. policies that endanger all of us." Professor Eric Foner of Columbia University, a renowned Marxist historian, expressed his personal confusion about "which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House."

Barbara Foley, a professor of English at Rutgers University, felt 9/11 was a justified response to the "fascism" of U. S. foreign policy. Mark Lewis Taylor, a professor of theology and culture at Princeton Seminary, thought the WTC buildings were justifiable targets because they were a "symbol of today's wealth and trade."

[Disclaimer, a member of my immediate family works for Midland Memorial Hospital, so assign your bias rating carefully!]

$115 Million Dollars. It's a hard number to choke down, especially for a civic project that is going to impact our property taxes for a very long time. However, I will vote for this bond next week in early voting.

I know the perception of Jessica's Well Contributor's is that they oppose pretty much all taxes, but perception and reality don't really match up, because individually we have supported some local tax initiatives. So, though I will be voting for the hospital bond, don't think I'm giving up my opinions on the mismanagement of federal, state and local tax dollars by our various entities, including the Hospital.

For instance:

To their credit, the Hospital District hasn't used a property tax bond to fund facilities in a very long time, but they have enjoyed a small building and purchasing spree using revenue bonds. Taxing entities love revenue bonds because they don't have to go to the electorate to get them approved. In the case of Midland Memorial, when they were "in the black" with good Medicare/Medicaid/indigent reimbursements, they took excess property tax revenues and leveraged them to borrow money for things like buying the West Campus and building the new medical office building, instead of lowering the property tax rate, or saving for a project like this.

These "excess revenue" bonds weren't a blessing. According to the Texas Bond Review Board, as of 8/31/08, the Midland County Hospital District had $28,456,304 in outstanding revenue secured debt with the latest maturity date being 2016. When the hospital got about $2.6M less dollars in reimbursements from the state in 2008, those revenue bond payments made the red ink flow and the heads roll at the Hospital late last year.

[Are you taking notes revenue bond lovers in Midland County and the City of Midland?]

Just to put it in perspective, if the $115 Million Dollar bond issue passes, the Hospital District will be the 3rd largest bond indebted Hospital District in the State based on principal outstanding ($132M). That puts us behind Harris County ($322M + commercial paper), El Paso County ($271M), but ahead of Tomball Hospital Authority ($121M), Richardson Hospital Authority ($105M), and Oak Bend Medical Center (~$100M).

So I guess the question remains, with all the reported mismanagement and the mountain of debt the community would take on, is it worth it?

I say Yes, for several reasons:

1. Face it, quality health care is the cornerstone of any community. When we can no longer attract doctors and provide quality health care in our own community we all suffer.

2. When prominent names in the community dedicate $60M in private funds to the effort, that tells me something. Among the taxing entities, only Midland College seems to draw that kind of philanthropic support.

3. Midland Memorial has undertaken many projects in the past few years that have brought our hospital to the forefront in technology and cost effectiveness, but they can't keep that edge if the facilities can't keep up.

4. Most issues people compain about in the health care realm can't be controlled by our local hospital district, so I don't consider those in my own analysis.

As for the outcome, I think the measure will pass by a slightly larger margin than the Jail Bond did. Though the Hospital has gone all out with a media campaign, this issue isn't generating that much heat locally. Yeah signs are scattered about and the paper has printed many positive stories and a few ranting letter to the Editor against, but otherwise this thing is cold. Even the website set up for the bond shows only 64 views on their most watched YouTube videos. This is going to be decided by the small pool of habitual voters, and I think they'll support the hospital.

Now, discuss....

According to Paul Begala. Remember this piece of work? He is a Democrat political consultant and was a counselor to Bill Clinton during that spot of bother over Clinton's perjury over his sad little affair with Monica Lewinsky.

On the CNN website, Mr. Begala intones, "Happy Patriots' Day. April 15 is the one day a year when our country asks something of us." Begala is of course upset at the Tea Parties that are going on. To him money that we earn, that we work for, and that we have plans for, is not our money--our money is what tax lice like him let us keep, and he is personally offended that we believe in private property. Well, he is a Democrat political consultant, which tells us all we need to know. Which is that what isn't nailed down is his, and if he can get it, it wasn't nailed down.

Begala offers us

So why are a bunch of Fox News clowns and right-wing cranks hosting "tea parties" all over the country? The Boston Tea Party, in case the clods at Fox didn't know it, protested "taxation without representation." Note the second word: without. The goofballs tossing tea bags today have representation. They voted in the election; they lost.

April 15 is the day when the IRS, under menaces of prison terms, extorts whatever money it can from us. The protesters at the Tea Parties are protesting against the actions of their government, actions that not even all the Democrats approve of. There are valid moral and ethical reasons to dislike this largest-ever barrel of pork--from it being a payoff to Democrat constituencies, to the fact that some people do not want to indebt their children and grandchildren for decades. And Begala says that those who object to fiscal rapine are being selfish cranks and it matters not that the government has gone mad spending other people's money. I believe that it is only ethical that you do make a principled stance against any evil, no matter how it came about.

By Begala's logic there should never have been a protest against George W. Bush, who did win two elections. The sneerocracy on CNN should have kept mum, and Keith Olberman ought to have been put on an Ativan drip instead of allowed to twitch in front of a camera. Because, after all, they lost in 2000 and 2004.

This egestion from Begala is not surprising. I recall the sunset years of the final Clinton administration with much distaste, owing mostly to the parade of fixers and bullies that Clinton surrounded himself with. James Carville, whose only weapon is intimidation by shouting; Harold Ickes, the meanest man I've ever seen; John Podesta, first just another Chicago type, then Clinton's fixer for the bimbo eruptions, and later Chief of Staff; and primus inter pares of the ruffians, the thug Paul Begala who sophistry doesn't even rise above the level of the basest of hypocrisy.

So. If Israel didn't listen to Biden, wouldn't they be not ill-advised? I can think of few words that have fallen to the floor from Plagarism Joe's mouth that have not turned out to be bad advice for the recipient.

US Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday the new Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be "ill-advised" to attack Iran, but stressed that it was unlikely to do so.

"I don't believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that. I think he would be ill-advised to do that," Biden said in an interview with CNN, when asked about possible Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

"My level of concern is no different than it was a year ago," he added.

Presenting his new government to Israel's parliament a week ago, Netanyahu alluded to an eventual nuclear-armed Iran as the biggest threat to his Jewish state.

"The biggest danger to humanity and to Israel comes from the possibility of a radical regime armed with nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said, making clear his remarks were aimed at Iran.

President Barack Obama's administration has repeatedly said that all options are on the table for dealing with Iran, but is trying to launch a new dialogue with the Islamic republic after a three-decade freeze in relations.

Hmmmmm.

And we're going to be OK because Fearless Leader will be charming the "radical regimes with nuclear weapons" into seeing things his way and disarming. Charm to disarm. New t-shirt slogan.

What Would George Soros Short?

Someone's making a killing betting against the recovery of our economy. Soros has become a little more vocal lately, working with B. Hussein Obama to talk the economy down. To be more accurate, I guess Fearless Leader has actually been talking it up, but "acting" it down...

More here and here. I believe that this is a theme that Post-meister Walsingham has visited before. But as capitalism and, therefore, the economy, are actively being driven into the ground, it is worth revisiting. Comments?

The opening sentence of this article reporting on the joint meeting of the Midland City Council and the Midland Development Corporation is a real gem:

Leaders of the Midland Development Corp. agreed Thursday to begin using their $17 million tax supported economic development fund for more purposes than attracting new businesses and expanding the workforce at companies already here.

Uh, huh. And in high school I decided to use my open Friday and Saturday nights for more purposes than dating the entire cheerleading squad.

The MDC has been around for years now and we have the advantage knowing some history regarding its performance. To be kind, we know that the MDC is not exactly overheating the local economy due to its success in bringing in new companies. Which, if you will remember back to the breathless political ads touting the creation of the ED Sales Tax, was to be its main purpose and focus.

So, translated, what the opening sentence really means is, "Okay, here's Plan B."

Immediately a slew of ideas surfaced of how to "re-purpose" the money into other projects to "benefit Midland" thus illustrating one of the main governing philosophies of the MDC, i.e. that "Economic Development" is whatever the hell the MDC says it is.

Not included was the idea that, since this whole MDC experiment isn't working out at all, that maybe....just maybe...we should just cancel the tax and let the taxpayers keep more of their money.

This particular idea's exclusion from those considered illustrates two other main governing philosophies of development corporations in general, i.e. that these development corporations can do good and ONLY good, and that once established their continuing existence is an inviolable concept.

Plan A failed? Go to Plan B. Then C if necessary.

But never, ever entertain the idea that the money is better left in the hands of the taxpayer. Ever.

It would be interesting to hear supporters of the local ED Sales Tax explain the difference between what it is that the MDC does and what is purportedly done by President Obama's serial bailouts.

Truly, what is the difference between the Federal government giving public funds to GM as a "stimulus" and the local government (through the MDC) giving public funds to Trace Engines or Fiberod as a "stimulus"?

How many who decry the Federal government's intrusion into the marketplace in the name of economic stimulus simultaneously support the local government doing the same through the Midland Development Corporation in the name of economic development?

And to round out an already good lesson on DevelopmentThink there is this:

"I have come to wonder how committed the citizens of Midland are to economic diversification," said [MDC Board Member David] Mims. "If we don't have that kind of commitment, how are we going to get there?"

This statement illustrates perfectly the last and perhaps the most important governing philosophy of development corporations: Unilateral economic development is impossible absent the existence of a tax-sucking development corporation.

The more I have observed, the more joy I have received from observing Fearless Leader working without a net*. But, I have received no more joy from this repeated personal observation than I did this morning in reading the UK Guardian's parsing of one of these net-less acts, performed in front of a live mike, for a large (and largely literate) British audience. To wit:

... the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] ... a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system ... pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK...

Read the whole thing. High-larious! And absolutely spot on, except for thinking that B. Hussein Obama would understand the meaning of the Brit-word "bollocks." Many thanks to Roger Kimball, The Guardian and, especially to Nick Robinson of the BBC.

* "working": talking is the only work the man's done. "without a net": the teleprompter is his net, if talking is his work.

Surely there must be one or two lemmings who wonder just why the hell everyone is marching off a cliff. Perhaps he doesn't get something that other lemmings get? Is there a good reason for marching off the cliff? One of the touchstones of insanity is thinking that you are right when the rest of the world disagrees with you utterly.

A wealthy friend of mine, reliably conservative, shocked me when he said that the destruction of wealth was happening to the people in the upper income brackets. He qualifies and he was looking at me although I'm nothing to write home about. It seemed that he was thinking that the stimulus package might have some good in it.

Which I found gobsmacking. He's the fellow who instructed me in such economics that I understand--that the reduction of the prime interest rate is really indirect taxation. Wide-moat stocks. And a hundred other things.

He's rich and knows economics. He's successful and hasn't held a job in the 21 years I've known him. And so I was wondering if perhaps my information was wrong, and this set me to thinking.