Arnold G. York
Football, politics and hurricanes
Dogs and quarterbacks
Michael Vick, star quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, has copped a plea to dog fighting charges, which likely will put him in federal prison for a season or two. Apparently, he found out there is one thing that Americans love even more than their football players and that’s their dogs. It wasn’t just dog fighting but, apparently, the losing dogs were dispatched not too humanely by Vick and his codefendants. In addition to criminal charges, his 10-year, $130-million contract seems to be down the drain, as he’s become the NFL poster boy for how not to behave. For his sake I hope there are no PETA members in whatever federal hotel he’s headed for, because those people do not forgive and forget.
State budget
As I write this column, we’re about an inch away from a new state budget after a delay of 52 days, which is not the state’s all-time budget delay record but it’s getting close. The California record was a budget that was 69 days late, which was signed on Sept 5, 2002. Once this budget gets signed, everyone is going to have a solution to the problem. The Democrats are going to say that requiring a two-thirds majority of both houses of the Legislature approve the budget is an anachronism and the only way to solve the problem is to have an initiative that would reduce the budget requirement to a simple majority, or 55 percent, as it is in all but three states in the country of which California is one out of the three. The Republicans are going to say that the only way to fix the problem is to have fair legislative districts so more candidates are running in competitive districts, and that means have some independent commission draw the district boundaries. The Democrats, of course, are going to be totally against that plan since the California Democrats, and certainly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Californian, are still seething about Tom Delay’s gerrymandering of the Texas map to produce more Republican congressmen from Texas. No one says it outright, but what they’re really saying is if you’re going to play dirty we can also play dirty. So the marquis of Queensbury rules are out and bare knuckles is in.
Who is advising the president?
You might think that the president, “stay the course” Bush, who’s dealing with approval ratings, which are in the toilet, would be out looking for motherhood and apple pie issues to try and boost his those ratings. The ratings are important to the White House because as they go down, their political power goes down. Bad ratings tell their fellow Republicans that they might want to put a little distance between themselves and the president or they’re likely to get sucked into the vortex. This is particularly true for Congress members who have to run every two years and for some senators who are coming up for reelection in 2008. Well, along comes the very popular Child’s Health Insurance Program, which expires soon and is up for renewal. The program extends health insurance coverage to children from lower income families so they can get necessary medical care. Everyone, that means Democrats and Republicans, like this program. Politically this is a no-brainer. So, as you would expect, the president proposes renewing it; however, his proposal is at a level that would kick nearly one million children off of the program, according to some projections. Some of the states, like California, are trying to pick up the slack. So what does the White House do? You would think they would try and help the states, but that’s not what’s happening. They’re actually changing the regulations to make it more difficult for the states to pick up the shortfall if they want to. If I were a Republican, I’d be pulling my hair out and wondering if this White House has become totally stone deaf. You would have to suspect that the White House is living in some sort of an alternative universe, where up is down and vice versa. This is just not me talking. Republican governors, like Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Sonny Perdue of Georgia, are working to renew and extend this program and the White House is fighting them. With support like that, it’s going to be a very tough year to be a Republican candidate for office.
Lastly, say a prayer for Mexico because Hurricane Dean is coming at them with 160 mph winds and unless something changes, they’re going to get hit, and hard, with some other impacts further north along the U.S. border areas.