Rodent Regatta

Craig Cantoni preceded this essay with the following:

The Arizona Republic had the largest circulation drop in the nation of 8.1%, although it serves the second-fastest growing state in the nation. At the same time, hardly a week goes by without someone writing me and saying that although they love the libertarian (really classical liberal) themes of my weekly column (for which I accept no money) and the conservative themes of Bob Robb’s column, they are cancelling their subscriptions in the face of the overwheming number of stories and editorials favoring increases in taxes and government spending. Is there a connection between the two facts? Selfishly, I want circulation to increase and have written articles for other publications and Internet sites detailing the lack of balance in news stories in the establishment press on social, economic and tax issues, in the hope that someone at the paper would notice and respond accordingly. My latest is below. As a consultant to a newspaper that has increased circulation and profits considerably, I understand the demographics facing newspapers, including the fact that young people are not reading newspapers as much as older people, but that makes it even more shortsighted to disenfranchise older readers, many of whom are conservative.

Then, about an hour later, I received the following:

About an hour ago I had sent an e-mail offering my take on the Arizona Republic’s 8% drop in circulation and attaching an article of mine on the formula used by the establishment media to cover taxes and government spending. (The e-mail and article are posted at the end of this.)

Since then, I have picked up the Arizona Republic and read the front-page story on cities renewing pay raises. The theme of the piece is that city workers have had to endure cuts in their cost-of-living (COLA) increases this fiscal year, the poor dears. The story proves my earlier point as follows:

First, the 40 column-inch story only quoted city employees, city managers and a union representative. It quoted no one with an opposing view, no taxpayers who are fed up with high taxes, and no local compensation consultants (The head of my compensation consulting affiliate and I have over 50 combined years of experience in setting pay rates and designing pay plans). I had said in my earlier e-mail and article that the formula followed by the establishment press, including the Republic, is to quote tax takers (government employees and other recipients of taxes) much more than taxpayers, who are often not quoted at all.

Second, the story implied that city employees have suffered without pay increases, yet the accompanying table says the opposite. For example, according to the table, Tempe employees received a 3.5% COLA increase and 5% ”other” increase in the 2002-2003 fiscal year. Then, when increases were cut back the next fiscal year, they received no COLA increases and 1 to 5% ”other” increases. I don’t have any clients that increased wages by 8% last year. Moreover, planned increases by my clients for this year range from 1 to 5% and none of the increases will be COLA increases. In fact, a new client, a bank president, wants a new pay plan and said that he doesn’t want cost-of-living increases and will not grant merit increases unless both the employee and the bank perform well. In other words, what is a standard pay practice in industry is seen as draconian by city employees and their cheerleaders in the press.

Third, the article did not mention that the budgets of most cities have increased faster than inflation and population growth over the last decade. Nor did it compare the pay and benefits of government employees with private-sector employees. Coincidentally, I published an article yesterday on this subject. It is pasted below. At the end of the article I’ve pasted the e-mail and article that I sent out about an hour ago.

What the hell are they teaching in journalism school?

Journey From Naivet and Apathy to Taxpayer Rage
by Craig J. Cantoni
May 31, 2004

My father-in-law recently assisted me in my lifelong journey from the naivete and apathy of my youth about government spending to my taxpayer rage of today.

Having once performed community service on the board of the housing authority in his small hometown in rural Pennsylvania, he recently sent me the pay scales of the full-time staff of the authority, knowing that I have 30 years of experience in evaluating the worth of jobs and establishing pay rates and benefit levels in the private sector. He also knows that I have written columns about how recipients of government housing assistance rip off the system, and he shares my concern over high taxes and unbridled government spending.

It is no surprise that housing authority employees gorge themselves at the public trough as much as government employees from other agencies. But there is nothing like seeing the disgusting feeding frenzy firsthand in one small corner of Leviathan to understand why the government is obese, likely to get even fatter and unlikely to ever go on a diet, regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are in office.

It’s bad enough that the recipients of public housing often live in housing that is nicer than the housing of taxpayers, as I saw when my father-in-law gave me a tour of the new public housing in his hometown. But it is rubbing salt in the wound to see that housing authority executives and employees get better pay and benefits than taxpayers. And it is like sticking a blunt needle in the wound to see housing authority executives, both Democrats and Republicans, come to my hometown of Scottsdale from colder climes for taxpayer-paid junkets, er, housing conferences, during the winter.

Please excuse my screaming. It comes from the realization that there is so much vested interest on both sides of the political aisle in maintaining the status quo of so many rice bowls that there is no hope of reforming the system or reducing the per-household cost of government from the current $24,000—especially with the establishment media changing its role decades ago from government watchdog to government lapdog.

I could find no expose or critical news story of housing authority pay and benefits in the first 10 pages of a Google search on the subject. Clearly, the establishment media is sleeping soundly in its master’s lap as Pulitzer Prize-winning material about government waste goes unreported. Tellingly, the media wolf pack wakes up and howls and growls over corporate fraud and obscene CEO pay, which is a tiny morsel in a huge doggy dish in comparison to government fraud and obscenities, especially the Ponzi schemes of Social Security and Medicare and the nonexistent Social Security trust fund. The pathetic pooch-like press is like a dog that salivates over a dog biscuit while ignoring a two-pound porterhouse steak.

Other important distinctions between corporate and governmental theft escape canine-brained reporters. For example, shareholders were not coerced to buy Enron stock, but taxpayers are coerced to hand over 15% of their pay in FICA taxes. Worse, thanks to a form of child abuse at the hands of the government, today’s retirees are sending much of their entitlement bill to today’s children.

It doesn’t take much research to determine the depth of the housing trough. For example, the starting pay for a maintenance laborer in the Dayton Housing Authority is $13.32 an hour. Munch, munch.

What are the qualifications of a maintenance laborer? A high school degree or GED, and the ability ”to read and comprehend simple instructions,” as well as the ability to ”add, subtract, multiply and divide.” Granted, that leaves out many graduates of government schools, but my wife, who is a human resources executive for a national apartment company, says the housing pay is about 40% higher than private-sector pay for comparable work. Belch!

Benefits are even richer. Unlike the private-sector, most housing authorities have pension plans instead of 401(k) plans, fully paid medical insurance, 13 paid holidays, 22 days of vacation after 20 years, and the ability to accrue 12 sick days a year and then to cash in the unused days.

I’ll need a sick day after writing this.

Of course, the richer pay and benefits are warranted, given that government employees work harder than private-sector employees. Just kidding. The real reason for the higher pay and benefits are statutes requiring prevailing union rates. It’s not a coincidence that union membership has plummeted in the private sector, where competition prevails, and skyrocketed in the public sector, where competition is nonexistent.

Now that you know why I’m in a rage over taxes and government spending, maybe you can tell me why most Americans remain naive and apathetic.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

George and I Are Pantywaists

by Craig J. Cantoni

I’m a pantywaist, a liberal, a pacifist and an appeaser. And I hate soldiers, cops, firefighters and anyone else in a uniform.

Not really. But that’s what Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and other ”conservative” talk-radio blowhards would say about me. Why? Because I believe that the Iraq war is a mistake and will make us less secure. And I don’t believe that anyone who wears a uniform is automatically a hero and deserving of adulation.

In reality, I’m a former artillery captain who still has an artist’s rendition hanging on his office wall of a forward observer sitting in a mud hole, surrounded by hordes of Red Chinese, with binoculars around his neck and a map in front of him. The caption reads, ”The Greatest Killer on the Battlefield.”

As the drawing suggests, I have no problem incinerating people and nations if they are a threat to my family, my neighbors or the nation, and if doing so will eliminate the threat and make us safer. Nor do I have a problem with preemption and telling France and the United Nations to put croissants up their nose, if doing so will make us safer.

I strongly dislike Jane Fonda, Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, and would like to put croissants up their nose. At the same time, I strongly disagree with the foreign policy of Paul Wolfowitz and other neocons, and would like to put croissants up their nose. Because I disagree with the latter, it doesn’t follow, ipso facto, that I like the former, as talk-radio blowhards would have their listeners believe. And because I find it painful to listen to President Bush’s speeches and follow his thinking, it doesn’t mean that I believe that John Kerry is presidential material or that I’m an unpatriotic liberal.

The fact is, I was in the Army Reserves for eight years after active duty and saw firsthand that some reservists had joined for the extra money, some for macho reasons, some because they worked for the government in civilian life and could get plenty of time off for summer camps and special training, some because they craved authority that they couldn’t get in their civilian jobs, and some for patriotic reasons. Some were malingerers, some were incompetent, some were disadvantaged with few other options in life, and some were dedicated professionals.

I also realize that firefighters and police officers have a wide range of motives for choosing their profession. Some police officers want to help society, some want a nice uniform and retirement, some are thugs, and some get an undeserved bad rap, as I believe was the case in the Rodney King affair. Some firefighters risk their lives to save others; some start fires for the thrill of it, as was the case recently in Phoenix; and some, as in my hometown, gorge themselves at the public trough with union featherbedding and rich pensions.

Putting on a police or firefighter uniform doesn’t change human nature, instantly transforming the wearer into a hero, as the Right believes, or into a villain, as the Left believes.

Moreover, it is counter to the facts to believe that policing and firefighting are any more dangerous than other lines of work. For example, the fatality rate for law enforcement officers is about the same as roofers. In 2003, 148 officers were killed while on duty, with over half of those the result of auto accidents or other on-the-job accidents. Much more dangerous occupations include taxi drivers and convenience store clerks.

To me, an unsung hero is the Indian immigrant who toils long hours in his inner-city convenience store without knowing if his next customer will blow his head off. He has no medical plan, no pension, no uniform, no special status in society, and no firearm or training in how to use one. Nor does his family get a fancy funeral, public adulation and death benefits if he his killed ”in the line of duty.” However, he does get called a ”dot” and overhears other snide remarks about his appearance and accent from other racial minorities. But don’t look for coverage of this racism by establishment reporters, who want the public to believe that only white Anglo-Saxons can be racist.

Don’t get me wrong. I applaud when a police officer or firefighter does something that is worthy of applause. For example, four firefighters in my hometown recently saved the life of a boy by lifting a car off of him. It doesn’t matter if civilian passersby would have done the same thing. The guys are deserving of public praise.

I also defend the police when they warrant it. For example, when I was shopping in a liberal enclave in the New York metropolitan area during the Rodney King affair and overheard some customers parroting the one-sided coverage on the local news, I interrupted and said, ”It’s too bad that you automatically conclude that the police are at fault and that there can’t be another side to this.” They looked at me as if I were a jackbooted Nazi.

The point is, talk-radio blowhards engage in black-and-white thinking like the liberals they criticize. To them, you’re either for something or against something. There is no gray in their world, no nuances. Just like the Left, everything is a litmus test. According to the Right, if you’re against the Iraq war, you fail the litmus test of patriotism. According to the Left, if you’re against socialized medicine or another collectivist scheme, you fail the litmus test of compassion.

Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy have three other traits in common. First, they live in an echo chamber, only hearing their one-sided beliefs repeated over and over again and not letting new ideas inside. Like being in a closed garage with a car engine running, they breathe their own exhaust and exhibit all the signs of being poisoned by intellectual carbon monoxide. For Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, they like to hear themselves talk and shut down callers who disagree with them. For Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, they live in the cocoon of the East Coast liberal establishment and think that the New York Times is a balanced newspaper.

The second thing they have in common is a love of government power. Both sides want to use government power to remake the world into their image.

And the last thing they have in common is this: The contemporary liberalism of Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, and the contemporary conservatism of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, are at odds with the classical liberalism of George Washington, who, if alive today, would be opposed to the collectivism of the Left and the foreign escapades of the Right.

But, as we know, Washington was a non-compassionate pantywaist.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author and columnist. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

Platitudes and Maxims About the Public Good
by Craig J. Cantoni
May 23, 2004

Have you ever noticed that those who spout platitudes about the public good tend to be the people who benefit the most from the so-called public good?

Take seniors who say that there is a public good to them getting free medicine from the government, so that they don’t have to eat cat food and live in a cardboard box under a bridge, or whatever exaggerated claims they make. There is no doubt that the seniors receive a good, but it comes at the expense of future generations that will be picking up the tab. As is often the case, the public good for one person is a public bad for another.

This leads to the following maxim:

Those on the receiving end of a public good like the public good more than those on the paying end.

Another example is the claim that there is a public good to using public money to build sports stadiums for privately owned sports franchises, because the franchises are good for the local economy. There is no doubt that an economic good accrues to team owners, players, sports fans, newspapers that cover sports, and the owners of bars and restaurants near stadiums. But if any good accrues to non-fans and taxpayers at large, it is far smaller than the good that accrues to those who receive a direct benefit.

This observation leads to the second maxim:

When the recipients of a public good are allowed to define what is a public good, there are no limits to what can be called a public good and what can be taken from the public treasury in the name of the public good.

The first two maxims seem so obvious that one has to wonder why they are not obvious to the average American. The answer is another maxim:

Socialism results in socialized thinking.

The best example of this is public education, which has been around for so long that few people question why compulsory education has to be delivered by government schools or why it is a good idea in a free, pluralistic society for the government to have a monopoly on k-12 classroom thought. If someone has the temerity to raise such questions, he either gets platitudes about the public good in return, or worse, looks that say, ”What kind of question is that, you right-wing extremist dumb ass?”

If you doubt me, try this experiment: Ask public school parents if it is fair for religious school parents to pay double for 12 years of education in order to exercise their constitutional and natural right of religious freedom. Typically, like dogs responding to a doggy biscuit, the Pavlovian response will be thoughtless, repetitious barking about the public good. ”Bow-wow, public good, ruff-ruff, public good, wag-wag, public good, sniff-sniff, public good!”

Sometimes the response is different. For example, I once posed the same question to a leftist dean of education at a forum on school vouchers and tax credits. He responded that I was mean-spirited and selfish for asking the question. In his twisted Bolshevik brain, I was mean-spirited and selfish for asking the question, but public school parents are not mean-spirited and selfish for taking money from religious school parents, who, unlike public school parents, get mostly platitudes about the public good in return for their school taxes.

This leads to a fourth maxim:

Those who have been indoctrinated by the government don’t know that they’ve been indoctrinated.

As proof of this maxim, it is rare to find an American who understands that government schools engage in a form of indoctrination, although it is obvious to an outsider that unionized teachers on the government payroll favor collectivism over individualism, because they have a built-in bias for the collectivism of unions, the government and public education.

It’s no accident that students are not taught economics in government schools, for that might lead them to question the economic hokum put out by the regulatory/nanny state and its allies in the National Education Association and mainstream media. It’s no accident that they are not taught that the NEA is one of the most powerful lobbies in the nation, for that might lead them to be suspicious of the NEA’s constant clamoring for more money. It’s no accident that students are not taught about the dark side of socialized medicine, for that might lead them to question why government schools conduct enrollment drives to get parents to sign up for free government health care. And it’s no accident that they are not taught that the stated purpose of public education at its beginning in the mid-nineteenth century was to indoctrinate southern European immigrants and Catholics in the thinking of White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestants, including the St. James Bible, for that might lead students to wonder if some form of indoctrination is continuing today.

Granted, indoctrination in religious dogma takes place in religious schools, but there is one important distinction between that indoctrination and the indoctrination that takes place in public schools. If parents don’t like religious dogma and don’t send their kids to a religious school, they are not forced to pay tuition to a religious school. But if parents don’t like the secular humanism taught in public schools and don’t send their kids to a public school, they are forced to pay public school taxes.

Which leads to the last maxim:

When the public good is based on taking money by force from some people and giving it to other people, it is not good.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

The following 392-word article contains previously unpublished information showing just how bloated public education is. It was published by the Arizona Republic on May 26 as a weekly point-counterpoint with a public school teacher. Craig Cantoni and the teacher are debating whether the pay package for the new Scottsdale school superintendent is too high.

More Bang for the Buck in the Phoenix Diocese
by Craig J. Cantoni

The new Scottsdale school superintendent, John Baracy, has the potential to earn just shy of $200,000 under his contract with the district. Is that too much?

This may surprise my face-off friend to my right, but I can’t say that it is too much. I also can’t say that it’s too little or just right, although I have 25 years of experience evaluating jobs and setting executive compensation.

Why can’t I say whether Baracy is paid appropriately?

Because there is not a free market for public school superintendents, due to the government controlling 90 percent of K-12 education. It’s like asking if Politburo members in the former Soviet Union were paid appropriately, or for that matter, if members of the U.S. Congress are paid appropriately.

When superintendent pay is set through a political process instead of a market process, it is subject to the fevers of the day and to political manipulation. The same holds true for teacher pay and per-pupil spending.

Although in economic terms the near-monopoly of public education has ”crowded out” a private market, a remnant of competition can still be found in Catholic schools. The Phoenix diocese has 14,600 students, 28 elementary schools, six high schools and 20 preschools. Yet the diocese superintendent, Mary Beth Mueller, doesn’t even earn half of what Baracy earns.

One of the reasons she doesn’t earn half is that she has not built an empire. Her staff consists of two assistant superintendents and two administrative assistants. To compare, there are over 100 people on the central office staff of the Scottsdale district, which has about twice as many students but fewer schools.

Unlike the Scottsdale superintendent, Mueller doesn’t get paid for propagandizing about declining enrollment and money. The Scottsdale district calls it ”community relations,” but that is a euphemism. Few Catholic parents even know that Mueller exists, and judging by the paucity of coverage in the local media about the efficiency and effectiveness of parochial schools, neither do reporters.

Mueller just does her job quietly and competently without fanfare or controversy. Meanwhile, the Scottsdale superintendent ”earns” over twice as much, has a huge staff to help him and gets plenty of publicity.

I don’t know if Baracy is paid appropriately, but I do know that parochial school parents are getting more bang for the buck than Scottsdale district taxpayers.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, public speaker and consultant. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

Rewriting the Media’s Formula On Taxes
by Craig J. Cantoni
May 28, 2004

The media’s formula for covering tax and spending issues is as unintelligent, unoriginal and unimaginative as teenage girls who copy the latest fashion trend from Britney Spears.

The standard formula is to quote individuals and special interests on the receiving end of taxes instead of taxpayers on the paying end, thus leaving the impression that there is overwhelming support for higher taxes.

To illustrate…

...an article last year in the Arizona Republic about a state budget deficit quoted 12 people who were either public-sector employees or on some government program. All 12 were in favor of higher taxes instead of spending cuts. No self-interest there. Not one person with the opposite view was quoted. No biased reporting there.

Worse, the story made no attempt to put taxes and spending in context. Like virtually every story on the subject, it was silent about the tax burden of average families and how much the burden has increased over the generations. The reporters were either ignorant, lazy, had an agenda or were sheep-like followers of the journalism herd.

In case they miss the point, none of the foregoing explanations is a compliment—not that it matters to reporters and their editors. Even after their unbalanced reporting has been exposed, and even with the establishment media losing market share, they continue writing articles solely from the perspective of tax takers. ”Hey, it’s the formula, stupid!” is their refrain, and ”Hey, the New York Times does it!” is their excuse.

What would a different formula look like? The following fictitious article shows how a story on taxes might be written to reflect the views of taxpayers.

Taxpayers fed up with state spending
by Bill Balance

The possibility of higher taxes for education and day care has many taxpayers upset.

”Federal spending alone costs the average Arizona family $20,000 per year,” said Steve Sanchez, the owner of a landscape company in Gilbert. ”With state and local spending thrown in, I’m working four months of the year for the government.”

Joan O’Brien of Scottsdale had similar sentiments. ”I’m fed up with the public education establishment repeating the canard that Arizona ranks low in per-pupil spending. The fact is, we rank near the middle, and the average household pays about $190,000 in public education taxes over the lifetimes of the heads of the household.”

”Half of my income already goes to the government,” lamented Craig Cantoni of Scottsdale, ”and the majority of that goes to other people and special-interest groups in the form of entitlements and subsidies. The Democrats talk about fairness, but they refuse to say how much more my wife and I should pay to achieve their utopian view of fairness.” Cantoni went on to describe how his poor immigrant grandparents could afford to send their kids to parochial school, because tax rates in the early 20th century were only about a third of today’s rates.

Melody Carter, a state employee and single mother of four toddlers, had a different opinion. ”How do they expect me to make ends meet on my lousy salary without state assistance for day care?” She refused to explain what happened to the father of her children, why she keeps having children she can’t afford, and why she thinks that she is entitled to other people’s money. ”My personal life is nobody’s business,” she said angrily as she stormed off.

State Representative Robin Wright, a Democrat, was asked if she thought it was fair for a family to pay half of their income in taxes. ”What a mean-spirited, selfish question,” responded Wright. ”People should be happy to help the poor. It’s the compassionate thing to do.” Wright refused to say how much she pays in taxes and how much she gives to charitable causes.

Republican State Representative Susan Poole laughed when she was told about Wright’s comment. ”Typical redistributionist. Yes, people have a moral responsibility to help the less fortunate, but Wright fails to understand that people don’t have a right to other people’s money. Besides, forced compassion is not compassion. That’s why private charity is best for the giver, the receiver and society as a whole.”

Todd Talbot, the director of the Copper State Tax Research Foundation, called the compassion issue a ”red herring,” explaining that over half of Arizonans now get more back in entitlements and government services than they pay in taxes. ”Unless you’re a socialist, you can’t tell me that over half of the population is poor and deserving of other people’s money,” said Talbot.

Talbot believes that the nation has reached the ”tax-tipping point,” which is the point where ”the majority of voters begin to beggar the minority of voters.” His final comment was sobering: ”The fatal flaw of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights is that there is nothing in the law to stop the majority from taking all of the minority’s money.”

Judging by the angry reaction to the latest tax proposals, many Arizonans seem to agree with Talbot.

***

Is the preceding fictional piece biased? Perhaps, but less so than the formulaic reporting of the establishment media. Would news stories similar to the fictional piece change public opinion about taxes and spending? Yes, and that’s why the establishment media won’t change the formula.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com