Is This the Modern Day "Cow-Tipping?"

Cow tipping

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A cow lying on its side

Cow tipping or cow pushing is the purported activity of sneaking up on a sleeping, upright cow and pushing it over for one's entertainment. As cattle do not sleep standing, cow tipping is a myth.^[1]

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It's no surprise in this economy that many states and localities, not to mention the federal government, have had to reach out for non-conventional sources for new revenues.  Simply stated, the people are pretty much tapped out and scream loudly about tax increases, as they should.

But, nowadays, these states and localities have helped cottage industries spring up, signing contracts and engaging the services of vendors who use cameras to enforce both speed and traffic light laws.  After all, depending on the jurisdiction, these tattle-tales produce tickets of usually around $40.00 for each violation.  There is a split in the revenue between the county and the vendor, and there are usually enough violations to make it "worth it" for the county.  Courts have held that the devices produce admissible evidence, and almost nobody will take off work to fight such a ticket in these tight times.

 "Red light cameras" have become so ubiquitous, it's easier to notice an intersection that doesn't have one than to see one that does. 

Speed enforcement has become another source of revenue.  Not that anyone would go faster than the posted speed, mind you, but there appears to be a market for these cameras, and they apparently do work.  (They work for the half mile or so from before the camera to just out of its reach past the device.)  

Together, this machinery frees up the police for "real crimes" and "real traffic offenses" and yet still brings a stream of revenue to the jurisdictions that use them. The cameras snap photos of those traveling 12 mph over the posted speed, the red light cameras snap photos of people still in the intersection after the light has turned red.  The speed cameras, 5 more of which Baltimore County plans to add to its arsenal in the next few weeks, are supposedly to be used in two areas:  1)  school zones and 2)  construction zones.  (Watch for cow tipping...)

State law allows for a school zone camera "within one half mile" of a school.  What that means is that the cameras, when placed, don't even have to be within spitting distance or even visual range of such a building.  Of course, no one wants to see a child run over in the process of going to school.  They make horrible hood ornaments.

So, in that case, you would think that school zones would only be enforced during daylight school hours, right?  Oh, no.  Wrong!!  Many roll 24/7, just in case Junior decides he wants to be the first on his block to get to his home room... at 4:30 AM.

Baltimore County has recently experienced problems with some of this equipment, and I'm sure it goes on in other jurisdictions as well.  On several occasions, some miscreant has shown... ummm... let's call it "displeasure" with unattended stationary equipment.  In at least two occasions, the devices have exploded into flame, and others have suffered paint on the lenses and so forth.

Disclaimer:  No matter what I happen to think of such equipment, I do not support vandalizing another's property in that or any other manner.  (Not that I might not get a wry amusement out of it, just sayin...)  And, to be perfectly clear, I am not guilty of any such incidents.  I'm just observant.

Construction zones are the other area where the cameras are used.  In case you haven't seen them, most give you a hint that they're there.  You can't miss a lit sign showing "Your Speed."  (Can you?)  If your speed is > posted + 12 mph (in MD--your state's mileage may vary), the camera flashes as you go by, and sooner or later--usually sooner--you get your car's photo in the mail, along with a notice that you need to send in a check along with the remittance stub.  They, too, usually run 24/7, whether there's an active work zone or not.

At some point, so the story goes, someone got a similar notice in the mail.  He sent a photocopy of a $20 bill.  They sent a photo of handcuffs.  Won't vouch for the truth of it, but if someone wants to go to Snopes...

Here, though, is where the "tipping" comes in... the speed cameras in the construction zones.  In these zones, the cameras are mounted to the front of a vehicle, usually a van. The vendor's operator needs to sit in the van and monitor the equipment for failure or whatever.  Well, the question comes up about what to do when you "gotta go."  I've noticed that the ones on the Baltimore Beltway (I-695) and I-795 north and west of Baltimore, have been provided with portable toilets, the outhouses, "spot-a-pots," or whatever you want to call them.

You got it!  On several occasions, I've seen them overturned and lying on their sides.  (See disclaimer above.)  Yeah, somebody's got to upright them, and, yeah, it's a minor inconvenience.  Yeah, even it makes a point of non-violent umm... protest.

But you gotta admit, it is somewhat funny...

They're Changing Maryland's Motto

As many of you know, the Maryland General Assembly will go into a special session starting Monday, May 14, 2012.  This will be the second special session called during Martin O' ("I never saw a tax I wouldn't hike") Malley's nearly six years as Governor.  

In the last special session, in 2007, the General Assembly hiked the sales tax from five cents to six cents.  The following year, sales tax collections had decreased by $76 million.  [Figures from the Comptroller of the Treasury's website.]

What they failed to consider was that people on the Eastern Shore would go to Delaware, where there's no sales tax.  People shopping for clothes who live near Pennsylvania can go north to shop and save 6%.  And the sales tax is still 5% in Virginia, even after their belt-tightening during the recession.

They raised the tax on "millionaires" as a temporary measure.  Many "millionaires" fled the state.  So did many regular people who were tired of it all.

State spending has continued to increase every year, causing the governor to become lacrimose about not having revenues to cover them.  Spending "cuts" the governor has touted are actually decreases in the increases in spending that he and his cronies wanted.  Even this year, the spending is $750 Million over 2011's budget.

The Democrats in the legislature look hither, thither, and yon for new tax victims, so, in 2007's special session, they passed a "Computer Services" tax, primarily because there was no lobby to fight them.  The following year, computer services business professionals showed them the error of their ways, and they had to delay, and then, repeal the measure.

Compare the Census numbers from 2000 and 2010.  There's not a lot of population growth in Maryland.  Why?  Taxation and regulation.  Many from the Eastern Shore are moving across the line to Delaware.  The exodus from the Baltimore Metro area to Pennsylvania continues.  They are just not getting it.

Comptroller Peter Franchot, who, as a Delegate was a big-government spending guy, has been an excellent steward of State funds, and has acted in a fiscally conservative manner.  He has been a voice out in the wilderness, however.  He warned them NOT to raise taxes in 2007, and called for a two year tax moratorium before the General Assembly in 2012.

They're not listening, and more people are moving out.

One of the secret proposals coming up in this special session will be to officially change the State's motto.  Nobody will admit it, and you can't find the bill filed just yet, but it's coming.  The current motto, "Fatti Maschii, Parole Femina" will change to "Bend Over, We'll Drive."

Will the last person leaving the state please turn out the lights?  Thanks!

A Sales Tax ON TOP OF a gasoline tax??? Seriously, Marty???

Marty O'Malley never ceases to amaze me.

Not only is he the biggest wastrel this state has seen since the late William Donald Schaefer, he makes Schaefer look like a piker, and that is pretty hard to do.

Gasoline taxes, which sit at 23 cents/gallon currently (last raised by the said Schaefer in the 1990s), are somewhere in the middle of the list of state gasoline taxes. Several neighboring states have raised theirs since the Bush/Obama recession started.  Their normal purpose is to provide funds for new roads, repair of existing roads, and even helping mass transit.

Except, of course, in Maryland.  For more than the last decade (including the only Republican governor the state has had in 40 years), administrations have routinely raided the "Transportation Trust Fund" to fill holes in the state's budget, moving them into the General Fund, and going for current expenses.  Like the Social Security "Trust Fund," there are plenty of IOUs in both the Transportation Trust Fund and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Trust Fund that will never be reimbursed.  Not that other states haven't borrowed from theirs, but O'Malley has turned it into an art form.

When Marty and his cronies first came into office in 2007, they quickly went on a hiring and spending spree, even depleting the Rainy Day Fund to its lowest level permitted by law.  It boggled the mind.  He (read WE) paid for huge salary increases for some of his political appointees in high positions,  hired a large staff to cater to the Governor's needs, and made sure his buddies got well paid off with state contracts and jobs.  One of those includes a cushy job for his father-in-law, the former state Attorney General--a position Joe Curran still holds, and he even retained a chef on staff in the Governor's Mansion 24/7, just in case he gets a little hungry.  Tough life, ain't it?  RHIP, I guess.

When it was obvious that we were heading into a major recession, he browbeat the General Assembly to raise the sales tax from 5% to 6% along with other tax and fee increases (which he hammered the former governor for doing in the 2006 campaign), this despite the strong opposition from his Comptroller, Peter Franchot. 

Comptroller Franchot argued that you don't raise taxes while we're starting to go into a recession.  I have a great deal of respect for him because, as a Delegate, he was one of the more liberal members of the House.  However, as Comptroller, he has been a fiscal hawk--he gets it.  Franchot warned that the revenue estimates from the sales tax increase were not realistic.  One year after the sales tax went into effect, Maryland's sales tax revenues dropped by $76 Million.

Maybe good old Marty has never heard of oh, I dunno, DELAWARE ("Home of Tax-Free Shopping") or Pennsylvania and New Jersey, who don't tax sales of clothing and shoes.

There's almost nowhere in this state that is further away from any other state border than 40 miles, a real quick trip when you want to shop for a number of items.  People simply shopped in another state.  Who'd'a thunk it?  Comptroller Franchot did, but his was the voice in the desert.

When Obama came into office and lavishly spread the "stimulus funds,"  Marty latched onto them like a drunk at last call.  Did this mean we used the funds to plan for the future?  No, of course not.  Time to increase spending, even though we're deep into a recession!  When that federal teat dried up, even though he knew it would beforehand, he showed major surprise and began furloughing State workers, making them take scheduled days off as an unpaid long weekend.

After several years, Governor O'Malley finally realizes that there are major traffic problems in the State (can we say DC Beltway Inner Loop from the American Legion Bridge to US 1 in afternoon rush?), but there are no funds to be found in the Transportation Trust Fund to cover them.  Rather than transfer funds back into the Trust Fund, he whines that you can't get a $100 Million bridge for just $10 Million, and something must be done.

So, he and his budget wunderkinds get the bright idea that the gas tax needs to be raised 15 cents per gallon over the next 3 years.  When that went over like a lead balloon, they changed the proposal to removing the sales tax exemption on gasoline and impose the full 6% sales tax on the entire purchase.  What an improvement!!

I'm certainly hoping this is a false flag--a proposal made that's so outlandish that something more reasonable will be enacted.

Although I'm not in favor of doing anything right now with the gas tax, what with the high cost right now, I wouldn't want to see any proposal pass unless it is tied to a Constitutional amendment putting the Transportation Trust Fund and Chesapeake Bay Trust Funds in an Al Gore-style lockbox.  We could vote on it this coming fall, and measures have already been introduced into the Assembly to do just that.

The real answer, though, is to cut spending and bring the budget back under control.  Comptroller Peter Franchot gets it.  Marty O' never will.

I'm Going with Obama on This One!!!

As all two or three of my regular readers know, I am not one to heap praise on actions proposed by Barack Obama.  However, sit down for this one:  I strongly support one of his recent proposals!

He recently came out with a cost-savings measure in the federal bureaucracy that I can get behind and rally the populace from the rooftops.  (That means it's doomed to failure, but at least he proposed it.  I'll give him props for that...)

Somehow, in a discussion about how there were so many offices involved in international trade, and how foreign companies had to run the gauntlet of all of them, spanning several Cabinet departments, he actually said he wanted to combine the offices that did basically the same thing and streamline the process.  Yes, he really used the words "combine" and "government agencies" in the same sentence -- and with a positive point of view!

I nearly pulled a Fred Sanford and called for Elizabeth, but, then I got a grip.  I needed to examine if my ears were clear enough to understand that I had NOT mis-heard, and that I was not dreaming.  I need to search to see exactly when he said it, and I'll work on doing more research to be able to discuss it more fully.  And I heard it again on the following newscast.  Hmmm...

As I said, I can enthusiastically support him on this (if it ever comes to pass).  That doesn't mean he'll get my vote in November -- he won't -- but, at least a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I'll give him a round of applause for the idea.

Just sayin...