Nassau County is the next: Detroit, Puerto Rico, Harrisburg, Orange County, Rhode Island, Compton, Vallejo, or lover of Chapter 9?
Check out our finances Paul Krugman as we are being bled by school zone cameras and slot machine crazed politicians?
Come outside the Beltway Paul and visit Nassau OTB.
The
great American Ebola freakout of 2014 seems to be over. The disease is
still ravaging Africa, and as with any epidemic, there’s always a risk
of a renewed outbreak. But there haven’t been any new U.S. cases for a
while, and popular anxiety is fading fast.
Before we move on, however, let’s try to learn something from the panic.
When the freakout was at its peak, Ebola wasn’t just a disease — it was a political metaphor. It was, specifically, held up by America’s right wing
as a symbol of government failure. The usual suspects claimed that the
Obama administration was falling down on the job, but more than that,
they insisted that conventional policy was incapable of dealing with the
situation. Leading Republicans suggested ignoring everything we know
about disease control and resorting to extreme measures like travel
bans, while mocking claims that health officials knew what they were
doing.
Guess
what: Those officials actually did know what they were doing. The real
lesson of the Ebola story is that sometimes public policy is succeeding
even while partisans are screaming about failure. And it’s not the only
recent story along those lines.
Here’s
another: Remember Solyndra? It was a renewable-energy firm that
borrowed money using Department of Energy guarantees, then went bust,
costing the Treasury $528 million. And conservatives have pounded on
that loss relentlessly, turning it into a symbol of what they claim is
rampant crony capitalism and a huge waste of taxpayer money.
Defenders
of the energy program tried in vain to point out that anyone who makes a
lot of investments, whether it’s the government or a private venture
capitalist, is going to see some of those investments go bad. For
example, Warren Buffett is an investing legend, with good reason — but
even he has had his share of lemons, like the $873 million loss
he announced earlier this year on his investment in a Texas energy
company. Yes, that’s half again as big as the federal loss on Solyndra.
The
question is not whether the Department of Energy has made some bad
loans — if it hasn’t, it’s not taking enough risks. It’s whether it has a
pattern of bad loans. And the answer, it turns out, is no. Last week
the department revealed that the program that included Solyndra is, in
fact, on track to return profits of $5 billion or more.
Then there’s health reform. As usual, much of the national dialogue over the Affordable Care Act is being dominated by fake scandals
drummed up by the enemies of reform. But if you look at the actual
results so far, they’re remarkably good. The number of Americans without
health insurance has dropped sharply, with around 10 million of the previously uninsured now covered; the program’s costs remain below expectations, with average premium rises for next year well below historical rates of increase; and a new Gallup survey
finds that the newly insured are very satisfied with their coverage. By
any normal standards, this is a dramatic example of policy success,
verging on policy triumph.
One
last item: Remember all the mockery of Obama administration assertions
that budget deficits, which soared during the financial crisis, would
come down as the economy recovered? Surely the exploding costs of
Obamacare, combined with a stimulus program that would become a
perpetual boondoggle, would lead to vast amounts of red ink, right?
Well, no — the deficit has indeed come down rapidly, and as a share of G.D.P. it’s back down to pre-crisis levels.
The
moral of these stories is not that the government is always right and
always succeeds. Of course there are bad decisions and bad programs. But
modern American political discourse is dominated by cheap cynicism
about public policy, a free-floating contempt for any and all efforts to
improve our lives. And this cheap cynicism is completely unjustified.
It’s true that government-hating politicians can sometimes turn their
predictions of failure into self-fulfilling prophecies, but when leaders
want to make government work, they can.
And
let’s be clear: The government policies we’re talking about here are
hugely important. We need serious public health policy, not
fear-mongering, to contain infectious disease. We need government action
to promote renewable energy and fight climate change. Government
programs are the only realistic answer for tens of millions of Americans
who would otherwise be denied essential health care.
Conservatives
want you to believe that while the goals of public programs on health,
energy and more may be laudable, experience shows that such programs are
doomed to failure. Don’t believe them. Yes, sometimes government
officials, being human, get things wrong. But we’re actually surrounded
by examples of government success, which they don’t want you to notice.
Stop scratching on holidays
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
HI-
Thanks for
the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy,
if you give me a mailing address.
Claude
Solnik
(631)
913-4244
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Island
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Home > LI
Confidential > Stop
scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
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