Willy Wonka and last week’s bills
Jan30
I originally posted this article last Friday, but my blogging program chewed it up and it disappeared. So here’s the article again resplendent in its original glory.
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It’s my favorite line from the original (and best version) of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” Willy Wonka, the eccentric chocolate maker turned tour-guide for a quintet of miscreants, walks into a room of bubbles and says, “water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.” Of course, the line is loosely quoted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
The Democrats are having the same problem. There is no dearth of bills; just ones worth passing.
You get what you pay for
Jan22
West Virginians are already decrying the Governor’s proposal to increase the legislature’s salary from $15,000 to $25,000 per year by 2009. Even the Charleston Daily Mail’s editorial page has joined the fracas.
Legislative pay increases are something easy to attack; that’s why there hasn’t been one since 1994. But before you grab your phone and let your representatives have it, consider a few things for a moment.
Close the doors, you’re wasting electricity
Jan17
The legislature’s relative productivity is fairly low. Every year they have sixty days plus a handful more for the budget to deal with issues of the state. When Governor Joe Manchin breaks out the war paint and calls them in for a special session, there’s even more days.
But most of the time is fritted away thanks to leadership unwilling to take the problems facing our state serious or consider the Republican agenda.
Random thoughts for the week
Jan12
In this menagerie I discuss the West Virginia Record’s online poll, the legislature’s reaction to Manchin’s speech, and The Hill’s article on potential Republican’s candidates in West Virginia’s ‘08 federal races.
The state of the speech
Jan11
In Governor Joe Manchin’s state of the state address he spoke of giving focused tax incentives to businesses that bring good paying jobs. It’s a little too late for that sort of talk. Only 6 months ago West Virginia lost the FutureGen Alliance plant to Texas because Manchin’s administration refused to provide any incentive except a spit of land that did not meet the plant’s qualifications. The Manchin-biased Gazette called it an “epic failure.”
New session brings questions
Jan10
Hang on to your hats; this session will be one of the most unpredictable. For years things have stayed pretty much the same. Legislators have come and gone, but the leadership has remained. Last year the House bid adieu to Speaker Bob Kiss and Minority Leader Trump, while Senate Minority Leader Vic Sprouse decided to retire to a cozy � and quiet � corner of the West Wing.
West Virginia Senate, take 5
Jan8
It hardly seems possible that five years ago today I first mounted the steps to the West Virginia capitol to begin working for Senator Steve Harrison. It was only the third time I had visited the capitol. The walk toward the granite edifice was nothing short of daunting.
As is my custom for any early morning meeting, I was late for orientation. If I had not known I was in the capitol, I would have thought I was barging in on a Methodist Ladies Auxillary meeting. Not one of twenty or so people in the room was under forty, most were over fifty-five and all were decidedly female.
Charleston Daily Mail buries Ford
Jan3
I have conscientiously avoided criticizing our state�s newspapers (at least the reporting end of it) simply because they know the difference between �imbricate� and �embrocate.� That, and the lowliest typesetter is paid more than I am for writing this blog. Somehow in the euphoria of blogging�s success, members of the pajama media have snootily decided that the old dinosaur is headed for extinction. I steer clear of joining the online Nostradamuses because they�re wrong.
The top articles of 2006
Jan1
As years go, 2006 is ranked lower in the food chain than a chicken at a Baptist convention. But much is to be said for any year that I survive or more importantly survives me.
Each of us can say there were ups and downs. I attended way too many funerals and not enough parties.
This site however had a banner year. It started out in January with approximately 15,000 unique visitors a month and has since doubled – and then some – to over 35,000 unique visitors. Every major paper in the state and the Associated Press quoted it and I even got coverage in some of the larger radio stations. Not too bad.
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