Author: Norm Leahy
-
Occupying Richmond
by Norm Leahy On or about October 15th, the “Occupy [insert city name]” phenomenon intends to make its Richmond debut. The nascent group has quite a large Facebook presence — larger than what the tea parties were able to muster at their height back in 2009 — and reading through the postings provides an education…
-
High Speed Rail’s End
by Norm Leahy The latest issue of Ken Orski’s “Innovation News Briefs,” delivers a blow to the hopes of those who thought that, one day, high speed trains would zip between Washington, DC and pokey old Richmond: By including only a token $100 million for high-speed rail as a “placeholder” in their FY 2012 budget…
-
Making the light rail boondoggle even bigger
By Norm Leahy The Virginian-Pilot is on board with an expansion of Norfolk’s short, costly and scandal-plagued light rail line. But in a fine display of Babbittry, we’re not supposed to pay attention to the scandals, cost overruns, delays and such. Those petty concerns only get in the way of progress. And how to pay…
-
Kaine leaps into the Ponzi Pool
By Norm Leahy I don’t begrudge Democratic Senate candidate Tim Kaine’s desire to stir-up the base with this meeting, or forum, if you prefer, on Social Security. It is amusing, though, to read the quote Wes Hester pulled from the Kaine campaign’s press release announcing the event: A release from Kaine’s campaign announcing the Tuesday…
-
Paying for disaster relief
by Norm Leahy Rep. Eric Cantor is taking a bit of heat for saying that any federal monies spent on disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Irene should be offset with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. But consider the quotes in Anita’s piece, both from Rep. Cantor and from the group criticizing him,…
-
Richmond Fed surveys show stagflation’s return
by Norm Leahy The Richmond Fed has released its Fifth District Surveys of manufacturing and service sector activity and the outlook for both is rather bleak. Output is falling, as are employment and wages. But what’s showing signs of growth? Inflation. From the manufacturing report, we get this somber news: District manufacturers reported that raw…
-
The weak suit that could undermine challenges to the health care law
By Norm Leahy Ken Cuccinelli is worried. It’s not a familiar feeling for Virginia’s Attorney General. Mid-way through his first term in office, Cuccinelli has translated his firm conservative beliefs into a series of court cases challenging what he, and his supporters, sees as federal government excesses. So often has he taken the feds to…
-
Connaughton changes his tune on the gas tax
by Norm Leahy Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton told a group of road contractors in March that the state was going to have to “adjust” the gas tax to keep it as a viable source of revenue. As “adjust” does not mean “lower” in government-speak, Connaughton was promising the assorted tax consumers that he would…
-
Forget FOREX, VRS’ problem is with active management
by Norm Leahy The headline news is that Virginia and Florida are suing Bank of New York Mellon for “…cheat[ing] pension funds in those states by choosing improper prices for currency trades the bank processed for the funds. But the real headline story that, so far, I’ve only seen posted here, is how Virginia’s public…
-
With Warner snub, “super committee” shows it’s hardly super
Senator Mark Warner had some small hope of being named to the congressional “super committee” that is supposed to pore over the federal budget and find hundreds of billions of dollars worth of additional savings (or taxes increases, or both) in order to avoid across the board cuts. Those automatic cuts would result in a…
-
Downgrades, finger pointing and irrational voters
by Norm Leahy There has been and will be a great deal of finger pointing in the wake of the S&P downgrade of the federal government’s debt. But there’s an old saying, or maybe it was just a Dire Straits lyric — when you point your finger ’cause your plan fell through, you got three…
-
Tax holidays are the (political) gift that keeps on giving
It’s sales tax holiday time, again, in Virginia. Yes, it’s a special time of year when the state generously lifts its sales tax on certain items, in this case, school supplies, to encourage consumers to get out there and spend. I’ve written more times than I care to recall about how such holidays are poor…
-
Ron Paul wants to cancel $1.6 trillion in debt
More specifically, the Texas congressman and GOP presidential hopeful has introduced legislation that would cancel the $1.6 trillion in Treasury debt held by the Federal Reserve: Paul has argued for the last few weeks that the idea represents a quick way to make the growing fiscal crisis more manageable. Under his bill, H.R. 2768, the…
-
Another victory like this and we are undone
The great debt deal, which will save the Republic from… something… increasingly resembles a sad joke. Your morning chart, courtesy of Tad DeHaven, offers a sobering look at what the political class and its pilot fish consider a win on spending: Somewhere, Pyrrhus of Epirus is smiling. Now here’s another chart to ponder: It plots…
-
A deal only a politician could love
by Norm Leahy The news readers on the financial networks this morning were almost giddy. The political class has reached a debt ceiling deal! The futures are up! Now we can get back to the serious business of letting fund managers talk their books! This mindless cheerleading will go on for most of the day,…