Saturday’s birthdays begin with Henry Mancini:
[http://www.youtube.com/v/v1V7EwR5w2A]
The late Dusty Springfield:
The recently late Gerry Rafferty:
No comments on Presty the DJ for April 16
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I originally wrote this in September 2008.
At the Fox Cities Business Expo Tuesday, a Smart car was displayed at the United Way Fox Cities booth. I reported that I once owned a car into which trunk, I believe, the Smart could be placed, with the trunk lid shut.
This is said car — a 1975 Chevrolet Caprice coupe (ours was dark red), whose doors are, I believe, longer than the entire Smart. The Caprice, built down Interstate 90 from us Madisonians in Janesville (a neighbor of ours who worked at the plant probably helped put it together) was the flagship of Chevy’s full-size fleet (which included the stripper Bel Air and middle-of-the-road Impala), featuring popular-for-the-time vinyl roofs, better sound insulation, an upgraded cloth interior, rear fender skirts and fancy Caprice badges.The Caprice was 18 feet 1 inch long and weighed 4,300 pounds. For comparison: The midsize Chevrolet of the ear was the Malibu, which was the same approximate size as the Caprice after its 1977 downsizing. The compact Chevrolet of the era was the Nova, which was 200 inches long — four inches longer than a current Cadillac STS.
Wikipedia’s entry on the Caprice has this amusing sentence: “As fuel economy became a bigger priority among Americans following the Arab Oil Embargo of late 1973 and early 1974, Chevy made the smaller 145 hp (108 kW) 350 cubic-inch small block V8 with two-barrel carburetor standard on all Caprice models except wagons.” That engine, 35 horsepower weaker than the previously standard 400-cubic-inch V-8, rewarded buyers with fuel economy of (I hope you’re sitting down to read this) 13 miles per gallon in the city and 18 miles per gallon on the highway. Filling up the Caprice’s 26-gallon gas tank took a big dent out of a $20 bill in its early days; few people want to ponder filling up that gas tank today. If fuel economy was your bigger priority, you were not likely to buy a Caprice anyway.
In an odd bit of GM design (and GM has been known for odd design over the years, such as the strange tailgate on the Caprice station wagon), the coupe’s trunk was larger than the sedan’s trunk. One could fit people into the coupe’s trunk, and the only problem you’d have is that the back end would hit every high-angle driveway coming and going.
The thick B-pillar (that is the part of the car between the front and rear doors on a sedan, or behind the doors on a coupe) was designed in anticipation of stiffened federal rollover standards. That was the ostensible reason as well for the death of the convertible; 1975 was the last year one could buy a Caprice, Pontiac Grand Ville, Buick LeSabre or Olds Delta 881976 Cadillac Eldorado, which was the same size as, but considerably more expensive than, the Caprice. convertible, or a Chevrolet Corvette convertible.
I haven’t asked my father why we got the Caprice, but I’d guess it was a combination of two reasons — our previous car, a 1969 Chevy Nomad wagon, had hit the 40,000-mile park in the days when cars started to experience major problems at that milestone, and he had been named an assistant vice president at the bank where he worked, so the family could afford a larger and nicer car (particularly when he put his bargaining skills to work at the local Chevrolet dealership).
The Caprice was a milestone car for our family. Younger readers probably cannot imagine that there was a day when cars didn’t come standard-equipped with air conditioning, cruise control and AM/FM radio. The aforementioned were all options, and the Caprice was our first car so equipped. (My parents declined to pay for an AM/FM stereo radio, however, or tilt steering wheel or split bench seats, which their tall oldest son would have appreciated. They also declined to pay for the gauge package containing a trip odometer, an engine temperature gauge, and a fuel economy gauge. That’s right, a fuel economy gauge — “Power” on one end, “Economy” on the other — for a car that got between 13 and 18 mpg.) My mother, who didn’t work while her sons were in grade school, used the Caprice for various errands, and that was our vacation and road car, taking us and our stuff in excellent-for-the-’70s comfort on trips to upper Michigan and Canada, Detroit, Florida and Las Vegas, the grandparents and other spots.
One year later, my wife’s family purchased a 1976 Chevrolet Impala, which was the same size but was less fancy. Those were the cars in which Jannan and I learned to drive. (Yes, they can be parallel-parked, but it’s not easy.) When I got custody of the Caprice, I used to park it in stalls in Madison parking ramps designated for compact cars.
The Caprice was a better driving experience than one might think, although it was like driving from your couch, with the wide bench seat. The engine was indestructible, though it didn’t run very well when cold, because GM hadn’t figured out how to tune cars to work with their new-for-’75 catalytic converter yet. The Caprice was no Corvette, but with radial tires and suspension to match, the car didn’t sway or rock over bumps in turns as much as some cars of the era. (I once watched an Eldorado rock for an entire block after going over a railroad crossing.) Nevertheless, the Caprice was built for comfort, not speed.
Big cars used to run in my family. My grandparents on my father’s side used to have a fleet that included a 1973 Cadillac Coupe de Ville (six inches longer and about 500 pounds heavier than the Caprice), a 1978 Lincoln Continental Town Car (the same size as the Coupe de Ville), and, for my grandfather’s farm implement sales, a Chrysler LeBaron wagon (dwarfed by the Cadillac and Lincoln since the LeBaron was based on the compact Plymouth Volaré and Dodge Aspen). My aunt and uncle on my mother’s side once owned a 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis sedan, whose size was between our Caprice and the aforementioned Town Car.
Big cars used to run in our neighborhood too. Looking up and down our street, there was a 1960s Cadillac and a 1970 Pontiac wagon next door, and a succession of Chevy Impalas for the traveling salesman one west of there (that was the house of the neighborhood Corvette owner too). The house across the street featured new Plymouths, because the house was owned by a Chrysler–Plymouth salesman. Up the street from him was a large Pontiac wagon, followed by a mid-size Plymouth wagon. The father of a friend of mine up the street sold International Harvester Travelalls. Our Boy Scout carpool included an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, and parents of a classmate of mine owned perhaps the largest station wagon of all time, the Chrysler Town & Country. There were no Cadillacs or Lincolns, but the cars were big because, for one thing, the families were pretty big.
Big cars used to be the only cars you could buy. “Compact” cars (which, again, were the size of today’s full-size cars) didn’t start appearing in Big Three showrooms until the late ’50s and early ’60s. (American Motors Corp. had had smaller cars before that, but that didn’t get them much traction in the marketplace.) Intermediate cars didn’t hit the scene until the early to mid-’60s. If you wanted a car into which you could fit your entire family, either to go to church or to go on a trip on the new Interstate Highway System, you bought a full-size car, whether it was a fancy Caprice or less-fancy Impala. And in an era without air bags or other safety features, size meant safety and security.
My Caprice was the next to last of an era. GM downsized all of its full-sized cars in 1977, followed two years later by Ford and Chrysler, which then got rid of its full-size cars in 1981. The traditional full-size GM cars went away in 1996, and today only the Ford Crown Victoria (which is sold only to fleets such as police departments), Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car are the last of the old barges. (The Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis and Town Car platform debuted in 1979.)
The newest domestic full-size rear-wheel-drive cars are the Chrysler 300 and its Dodge Charger and Magnum cousins, and the Cadillac STS, all introduced in 2005. (You may be seeing the Charger in a median strip near you or, if you’re unlucky, in your rear view mirror, since a police edition Charger is now on sale.) The Cadillac DTS is about a foot longer than the STS, but the DTS is a front-drive car.
I should have added “sold in this country” to the previous paragraph. You can still buy a Chevy Caprice, if you live in the Middle East. The current Caprice — a large rear-drive car, just like the last one built in this country — is built by GM’s Australian subsidiary, Holden, and exported to the Middle East, where they don’t worry about paying $4 per gallon for gasoline. The Australian Caprice gets 17 mpg city with the V-8, and 20 city mpg with the V-6, both of which are quite an improvement over 13 mpg. has a 360-horsepower V-8 (50 percent more horsepower than the gas-sucking 454 V-8, optional on the last huge Caprices), another reason to wonder why GM isn’t bringing this stateside.
And about that fuel economy: With the Big Three in difficulty, the Wall Street Journal’s Holman W. Jenkins Jr. suggests a way to help the automakers without spending $50 billion on them, while simultaneously getting Congress out of your car:
Look at gallons consumed, miles driven, barrels imported or emissions emitted: [The Corporate Average Fuel Economy rule] has had no significant impact on energy consumption. Its sole practical effect has been to inflict on Detroit the need to produce, with high-cost U.S. labor, millions of small cars designed to lose money.
CAFE has to be the most perverse exercise in product regulation in industrial history. It confronted the Big Three with the choice only of whether to lose a lot of money, by matching Toyota and Honda on quality and features; or somewhat less money, by scrimping on quality and features and discounting, discounting, discounting. Rationally, they scrimped — and still live under a reputational cloud in the eyes of sedan buyers. Yet notice that their profitable product lines, in which they invest to be truly competitive — such as SUVs, pickups and minivans — hold their own against the Japanese and command real loyalty among U.S. consumers. …
Had CAFE not existed, there is no reason the Big Three today could not be competitive. As businesses do, they would have allocated capital to products capable of recovering their costs. Investments in fuel efficiency would still have taken place — to the extent consumers valued those investments. That is, if they were profitable.
If Washington found this unsatisfactory, it could have done as the Europeans do and raised fuel taxes to coax the public to make different choices. Politically inexpedient? Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean CAFE is an effective substitute. It isn’t and never was. -
I originally wrote this in June 2008.
My birthday earlier this month dawned without a Chevrolet Corvette in front of my house. (The Corvette at the top of the page was featured at the 2007 Greater Milwaukee Auto Show. The copilot is my oldest son, Michael.)
Which isn’t surprising. I have three children eight and younger, and I have a house with a one-car garage. (Then again, this would be more practical, though a blatant pluck-your-eyes-out violation of the Corvette ethos. Of course, so was this.) I already had to purchase a car earlier this year (replacing a car with 228,000 miles and a cracked engine block, plus several other issues), and we try to limit our vehicle purchases to one per year. The reality is that I’m likely to be able to own a Corvette only if I get a visit from the Corvette Fairy, whose office is next door to the Easter Bunny.
(I hope this isn’t foreshadowing: When I interviewed Dave Richter of Valley Corvette for this month’s car enthusiast story, he said that the most popular Corvette in most fans’ minds was a Corvette built during their days in high school. This would be a problem for me in that I graduated from high school in 1983, when no Corvette was built.)
The Corvette is one of those cars whose existence may be difficult to understand within General Motors Corp. The Corvette is what is known as a “halo car,” a car that drives people into showrooms, even if the potential buyer is looking for something less expensive and more practical and useful than a Corvette. (Chrysler Corp.’s counterpart is the Dodge Viper, which reportedly may be on its way out in the next couple of years.) It is an oddity within Chevrolet, which has made most of its reputation on practical, though, dull cars, at least until the Corvette arrived in 1953 and the Chevrolet V-8 hit showrooms two years later. And yet, the 35 years the Corvette has been in existence, in good and bad economic times, has generated its own cult, with millions of fans backed by businesses geared toward preserving and restoring them.
The Corvette, in its first, second, third, fourth, fifth and now sixth iterations, started as GM’s response to the British and Italian sports cars, usually two-seat convertibles, that soldiers coming home from World War II were bringing with them. Over the years, Corvettes became stuffed with more power than their steering, brakes and handling could handle, adopted the most out-there styling perhaps in American automotive history, were nearly strangled by emissions regulations (the standard engine on the 1975 Corvette had just 165 horsepower), had killed and then brought back the convertible, and, by now, have the best combination of power and refinement for the price in the world — truly a world-class car, but not at world-class prices.
The first Corvette I remember seeing belonged to a neighbor down the street — a dark green 1970 coupe with the base engine, automatic transmission and AM/FM radio. It was, frankly, a scary looking car, sitting incredibly low to the ground and, to a six-year-old, looking as though it was going to bite you. I got a couple of rides in it, with my brother sitting in the passenger seat with me and the younger son of the car’s owner sitting on top of the console. (Can’t do that anymore.)
The first Corvette I drove was a 1969 coupe, but with a (conservatively rated) 435-horsepower V-8 that ran on racing or aviation gas and a four-speed transmission known by car buffs as the “rock-crusher.” It was a beast, particularly due to its lack of power steering and brakes and its ability to transfer prodigious amounts of engine heat into the cockpit. My ride in this car reached (I believe I can say this since the statute of limitations has passed) speedometer-indicated speeds that are multiples of existing speed limits. (During this ride, it occurred to me, as the scenery was going by at a really rapid rate, that I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. A moment later, it occurred to me that my lack of seat belt didn’t matter because if we hit anything at that speed, the authorities would be scraping up whatever was left of me from whatever we hit with a putty knife.)
The current and previous generations of Corvettes appear to be the best of the various worlds the Corvette has represented over the years. Styling is always an arguable point (I prefer the C5, built between 1997 and 2004, to the C6, which has been built since 2005; then again, if you really like a modern version of the C1 or C2, companies can now accommodate your wishes), but today’s Corvettes can go as fast as any that have been built before now. The difference is they handle and stop much better than any that have been built before now, and the obvious creature comforts — air conditioning, upper-end sound system, power leather seats, air bags — are either standard or, in the case of a navigation system, optional. With more than 5,000 Chevrolet dealers in the U.S., if something breaks, parts are much easier to find than for such brands as Porsche or Ferrari. (That’s not to say I don’t like Porsches or Ferraris — different strokes for different folks.)
For those who haven’t driven a Corvette, when you’re my height (6-foot-4), the overall effect is something like what driving a luge must be like. The first two generations were more conventional in design, but every Corvette since the C3 (based on the Mako Shark show car) has kind of wrapped around the occupants, which was initially criticized because that prevented the traditional American driver position of resting your left arm on top of the door (with window rolled down, of course), unless you’re tall enough. In every C5 or C6 convertible I’ve sat in at car shows, I look straight at the driver’s-side sun visor, so evidently I have to move the power seat to its lowest possible position to be able to drive the car. The result of that is that getting out requires what I had to do with my mother’s 1985 Chevy Camaro (which she owned when I was half my present age) — put my hand on the ground to brace myself to exit — or do a 90-degree left turn, stick my legs out and then get out legs first, with a limbo motion to clear the roof and stand up. (The current Corvette is about two-thirds of my height, and the seats are a long way down.) Clearly the Corvette is not a car in which to run errands.
If you like driving, this is it. It’s unquestionably a stiff-riding car, but much better than the older versions, and, as noted before, while it flies down the road like few other cars, it also will stop like few other cars. This is hyperbole to say this, but I wonder if anyone really can have a bad day if it begins and ends with a Corvette drive from your home to your office.
The Corvette hangs around GM in large part because it makes money and positive attention for GM. (Not until 1958, five years after it was introduced, did the Corvette make money for GM; in fact, Chevrolet made just 700 Corvettes in 1955.) The Corvette V-8s are found in several other GM cars, including the Pontiac G8 GT, plus several Australian Holdens (also available from Vauxhall in Britain and in the Middle East) and the upcoming Cadillac CTS-V (based on the CTS, a sedan that may be coming out in two-door and station wagon versions) and Chevrolet Camaro, assuming they actually build the Camaro. The Cadillac XLS is a Corvette under the body, although with the Cadillac Northstar engine instead of the Corvette’s.
Part of the reason for the Corvette’s popularity is the V-8 engine found in all but the first two model years. (V-8s sound much like V-twins, which is, I think, one reason for the popularity of the Harley–Davidson motorcycle over its Japanese and European competition.) Even though the first two years of Corvettes had a six-cylinder engine instead of a V-8, it’s almost impossible to imagine a Corvette without a V-8. The Corvette V-8 isn’t even the state of the art in V-8 technology (without getting too technical for non-gearheads), and yet the standard Corvette engine is rated at The 2009 Corvette ZR1, with 638 horsepower, is EPA-rated at 26 highway miles per gallon, 2 miles per gallon better than the 2008 Corvette ZO6, whose owners must make do with a mere 505 horsepower. (You can also save yourself $25,000 and purchase the base model Corvette, which, at 430 horsepower, costs $109.19 per horsepower, a better bargain than the ZO6’s $142.82 per horsepower.)
The ZR1 is supercharged, which is how you can get 638 horsepower and yet 26 mpg if you keep your foot out of it some of the time. (Remember: The most gas is used in acceleration, not at speed.) Future Corvette V-8s are likely to have more advanced engine technology and lower horsepower, but if the next-generation Vettes are lighter, they’ll have the same power-to-weight ratio, and possibly even better gas mileage. (As it is, the base Corvette gets better fuel economy than the four-cylinder Honda S2000 and the six-cylinder Nissan 350Z.) That makes it hard to imagine that any Corvette in the foreseeable future won’t have a V-8.
The Corvette generates interest that far exceeds its annual sales. In its biggest production year, 1979, Chevrolet sold 53,807 Corvettes, and in 2007 Chevy sold 40,561 Corvettes. Motor Trend magazine has a history of Corvette “scoops” (for instance, the breathless late 1973 announcement that there would be two Corvettes, both with rotary engines) that turn out to be way off base, but sell tons of issues on the newsstands anyway. Motor Trend predicted late in 2007 that the next-generation Corvette will arrive in the 2013 model year, one month after it predicted that the next-generation Corvette will arrive in the 2012 model year.
A substantial component of Corvette fans want Vettes to be more exotic, with, for instance, a mid-engine layout. (Most cars are, of course, front-engine, while a few, including the old Volkswagen Beetle and Porsche 911, are rear-engine; a mid-engine car has the engine mounted generally between the axles, usually in front of the rear axle.) A mid-engine layout seems unlikely because, for one thing, that would take the Corvette’s price well beyond $100,000, which doesn’t really fit into GM’s product portfolio. What’s more likely is that, as now, Chevy will make two versions — a “mainstream” version and a more exotic version with, for instance, lightweight materials and all-wheel drive, for perhaps twice the price of the base model.
Not everyone understands the appeal of Corvettes. (John McCain does; his first new car was a new 1958 Corvette. Former presidential candidate Joe Biden got a 1967 Corvette as a graduation present, and he still has it.) Think of Corvettes as a demonstration of what American free enterprise can do, even with federal government regulations, pressures from rising oil prices, and those nags who can’t grasp why someone might need more horsepower than the nag thinks you need. The Corvette’s overseas competition costs significantly more money, and that was even before the recent sinking dollar. American business has put together the best performing car for the money on the planet, and that’s something worth celebrating — say, on National Corvette Day June 30, celebrating the day the first Corvette drove off the assembly line in St. Louis. That would be three days after June 27, Drive Your Corvette to Work Day.
(And for those of you who think after Thursday’s weather that arks might be a better idea than Corvettes: You can buy a Corvette boat — specifically, a Malibu Corvette Sport-V Limited Edition, a boat with a Corvette engine and many Corvette trim parts. The reverse was the case in the early 1990s, when Mercury Marine’s Mercruiser division produced the LT-5 V-8 for the Corvette ZR1.)
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The short list of birthdays starts with Roy Clark:
Dave Edmunds:
Keyboardist Matt Reid of Berlin:
Samantha Fox:
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I will be on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Joy Cardin program Friday at 8 a.m.
Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network can be heard on WHA (970 AM) in Madison, WLBL (930 AM) in Auburndale, WHID (88.1 FM) in Green Bay, WHWC (88.3 FM) in Menomonie, WRFW (88.7 FM) in River Falls, WEPS (88.9 FM) in Elgin, Ill. (or is that Baja Wisconsin?), WHAA (89.1 FM) in Adams, WHBM (90.3 FM) in Park Falls, WHLA (90.3 FM) in La Crosse, WRST (90.3 FM) in Oshkosh, WHAD (90.7 FM) in Delafield, W215AQ (90.9 FM) in Middleton, KUWS (91.3 FM) in Superior, WHHI (91.3 FM) in Highland, WSHS (91.7 FM) in Sheboygan, WHDI (91.9 FM) in Sister Bay, WLBL (91.9 FM) in Wausau, W275AF (102.9 FM) in Ashland, W300BM (107.9 FM) in Madison, and of course online at www.wpr.org.
My foil Friday will be Ed Garvey, who was announced on this website (happy birthday Monday, Ed) as being the former executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. That would be a surprise to Marvin Miller or Donald Fehr, who actually headed up the MLBPA; Garvey headed the National Football League Players Association during its first strike in 1974.
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A tweet from Jim Pethokoukis Tuesday:
Got an interesting hint today that there might be a surprise candidate in the GOP field. As Drudge says, developing …I would be a surprise candidate in the GOP field, wouldn’t I? I’m sure there’s a place in the GOP field for a libertarian/conservative journalist whose sole run for office was a school board loss, and whose other political experience was four years on the City of Ripon Plan Commission.
I have done this sort of thing before, back in 2008, when I “ran” for governor. At the time, I couldn’t actually run because, independent of all the other obstacles, running for office was contrary to the code of ethics of my employer. That problem having resolved itself, I am free to join Messrs. Huckabee, Romney, Paul, Johnson, et al. (Or, for that matter, join whoever plans to run in the Libertarian Party; for that matter, I might try to win the GOP and Libertarian nominations, which seems appropriate for someone who gets two 100 scores on the World’s Smallest Political Quiz.)
There have to be, I imagine, a fair number of perks involved with being president — Air Force One at your beck and call (to, for instance, make surprise visits to the troops), getting to go to Super Bowls and other big events, the ability to host cool events (say, Chicago concerts, dog shows and your children’s Scouting campouts) on the White House lawn, instant credibility every time you open your mouth, etc. We could switch our church for four or eight years to the National Cathedral, conveniently the same religion as ours. (How many families have had this Sunday morning commandment from parent to child(ren): “The motorcade is leaving for church! Get going!”) Being the first president to have facial hair since William Howard Taft would be something on which the media could obsess. (“Katie, do you prefer the winter beard or the non-winter goatee look?”)
It would be refreshing as well for the voters to have the choice of a tell-it-like-it-is candidate. There would be no discussion of where the incumbent was born, because there is enough to criticize about President Obama without catering to the tin-foil-hat set. Most politicians are quote machines anyway, but one goal of mine would be to have someone write a book called Did the President Really Say That?
Getting elected would be relatively simple. Any Republican presidential candidate need only repeat what Ronald Reagan asked in 1980: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? And for those who feel the need to say more, add: Are we better off now than we were four years ago?
I’m sure you’ll be shocked — shocked! — to learn that I plan to be a fiscal conservative, perhaps even more so than anyone else in the GOP field. I would pledge to the voters that the federal budget would be balanced by the end of my first term, or else voters could feel free to not vote for me for a second term. Would that result in severe budget cuts and gnashing and wailing from the left? Duh. Might that result in government shutdowns in a duel with a recalcitrant Congress? That would be more fun than watching the Bears and Vikings both lose.
The thing to do would be to take all of the budget-balancing-through-cuts ideas — everything from the Paul Ryan plan rolling back spending to 2008 levels to eliminating the Education and Energy departments to killing farm price supports to selling off federal assets — and enact all of them. Wasteful spending is all over the federal government, even in areas Republicans won’t touch, like defense. And wasteful defense spending does not make our country safer.
Many years ago, I proposed simultaneous tax, Social Security and health care reform by allowing complete tax-free deductability (which would need to occur in paychecks instead of at the end of the tax year) for savings and investments and health, life and disability insurance. Social Security is not only a Ponzi scheme that would be illegal in the private sector, but a giant ripoff for anyone my age and younger. Either Social Security needs to be replaced, or it will simply collapse of its giant oncoming deficits. And taxes — all taxes — should take no more than 25 percent of anyone’s income.
I would support complete free trade, because free trade is best for consumers. I would (that is, I would work with Congress to enact legislation that would) also eliminate consumer-choice-limiting regulations such as vehicle fuel economy laws (which have served to kill station wagons). I would also support the development of all available forms of domestic energy, including those the present administration thinks are too icky to develop. I would leave many more decisions to lower levels of government that are currently enforced through the federal hammer of eliminating federal aid, such as setting drinking ages. (If you’re old enough to die for your country, you are old enough to drink.)
The reason I went from a 90 years ago to a 100 on the World’s Smallest Political Quiz personal axis is that I have finally decided that the Drug War isn’t working. Good money is being wasted on enforcing marijuana laws and the completely stupid pseudoephedrine laws. (That last sentence was written by my bad sinuses.) I would not go so far to decriminalize the definitely-bad-for-you drugs such as cocaine or heroin, but I have not seen much evidence to convince me that marijuana is either bad or good for you.
I also think neither the federal government nor the White House belongs in as many social debates as both are in now. (You can rest assured that whether I run or not, I will not be voting for Mike Huckabee.) Don’t like what’s on TV? Don’t watch. I would suggest that social conservatives seek to accomplish by personal example what they’d like to accomplish through legislation. (For one thing, if the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto is correct with his Roe v. Wade theory, those who support abortion rights will be outnumbered by those who do not.)
What about foreign policy (something I didn’t discuss much in Marketplace of Ideas since it was usually irrelevant to the issues affecting the readers of Marketplace)? The official policy of the United States government would be to promote personal, political and economic freedom around the world. (I am very pro-immigration, but one way to reduce illegal immigration is for countries on the other side of the border to improve their own selves.) It is interesting to note that the extent to which candidate Obama complained that non-Americans didn’t like the U.S. didn’t affect President Obama’s foreign policy much. (Note as well that we are now in one more war than we were in under Obama’s predecessor.)
To sum up my campaign, I would be about improvement, not change — making things better, not merely different, since change is inevitable, but positive change is not. As an Eagle Scout (as was Gerald Ford), my credo would be to leave things in better condition than I found them.
I’m sure you’ll agree that I have as much chance of being elected president as, well, writing for the May issue of Marketplace.
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The number one British single today in 1966:
Today’s birthdays begin with one-hit wonder Buddy Knox:
Tony Burrows sang for five one-hit wonders:
Derek Leckenby, one of Herman’s Hermits …
… was born the same day as Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Rainbow …
… as was Steve Martin, not known for singing but who did have one hit:
Larry Ferguson, who played keyboards for Hot Chocolate …
… was born the same day as Ty Grimes of Captain Beefheart:
And happy birthday to Mr. Sulu.
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With Tax Day in five days (it’s April 18 this year because April 15 is Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia), the Tax Foundation does a valuable service with its TABOR Calculator — a calculator that compares what state and local spending would have been like with a Taxpayer Bill of Rights instead of our current flood of red ink.
The TABOR calculator computes actual spending vs. spending limited by one of the common spending limits — the inflation rate, inflation plus population growth, inflation plus a percentage, inflation plus population growth plus a percentage, and growth in nominal gross state product.
Data is available since 1977, and that year is instructive because the late ’70s were the last time the state’s per capita income growth exceeded the nation’s. So what would have happened to state spending had state and local governments followed the state Constitution’s dictum that “The blessings of a free government can only be maintained by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles”?
Actual 1977–2009 state and local government spending: $1.09 trillion.
1977–2009 spending limited to gross state product growth: $963.2 billion, 11.63% less than actual spending.
1977–2009 spending limited to inflation plus population growth: $820.8 billion, 24.7% less than actual spending.
1977–2009 spending limited to inflation: $745.5 billion, 31.62% less than actual spending.How about during the last two of the Jim Doyle years, 2007 to 2009 (the last year for which data is available), when Doyle had a Democratic-controlled Legislature for the last year?
Actual 2007–09 state and local government spending: $49.1 billion.
2007–09 spending limited to gross state product growth: $48 billion, 2.24% less than actual spending.
2007–09 spending limited to inflation plus population growth: $48.5 billion, 1.22% less than actual spending.
2007–09 spending limited to inflation: $48.3 billion, 1.63% less than actual spending.It should be noted that the spending levels are underreported because, as noted yesterday, of this state’s heavy amount of state and local government debt. (Debt leads to debt service spending, which leads to future taxes.) Nevertheless, to paraphrase what U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen (R–Illinois) supposedly said, a billion here and a billion there, and you can have much lower tax levels than our fourth highest state and local taxes in the U.S.
Imagine where our state would be if people and businesses had had another $269 billion in their pockets over the past 30 years. Imagine what our business climate would be with, over the past three decades, 25 percent lower taxes. Imagine the budget deliberations in Madison when the usual suspects clamoring for more spending are told that, sorry, the Constitution says spending can increase only 1.22 percent next year, so where would you suggest we cut to accommodate your spending increase request?
When TABOR first came up in Wisconsin (and damn the state GOP for not enacting it into law), I initially thought it made sense to tie government spending to gross state product, which could be termed the state’s ability to pay. I instead believe that spending should be tied to inflation (the increase in the cost of things) plus population growth (which leads to increase in demand for government services), because the function of government is to perform government services, not grow based on the taxpayers’ ability to pay for government services.
I have no doubt that our state’s economy would be better off with TABOR in the state Constitution. Since no facet of our state’s quality of life is attributable to government, I have no doubt our state would be better off with TABOR in the state Constitution.
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>Today’s birthdays begin with Lester Chambers, vocalist for the Chambers Brothers:
The writer of one of the best movie themes of all time, Bill Conti:
Bassist Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane:
Singer and guitarist Lowell George of Little Feat:
Two words: Al Green:
Bassist Riff West of Molly Hatchet:
Bruce Springsteen’s drummer and Conan O’Brien’s first band leader, Max Weinberg:
Blondie’s keyboard player, Jimmy Destri:
One of the Brothers Johnson, Louis:
And finally Lou Bega, and if you play this you won’t get it out of your head all day:
And would you believe: Happy birthday to Maxwell Smart.
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On Sunday (before various weather reporting knocked everything else off the front pages), two Wisconsin newspapers featured stories about the state budget, and crises thereof.
The worse reporting job was done by the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, in a story headlined “Is Wisconsin ‘broke’? Answer is in the eye of the beholder, experts say.” (It pains me to so criticize because I started reading the State Journal when I was 2 years old, according to my parents.) The better, but not quite complete, reporting job was done by The Post~Crescent in Appleton: “Longtime imbalance at core of fiscal mess.”
The State Journal (which used to be Madison’s conservative daily and is now just Madison’s less liberal daily, as if using the term “liberal” to describe The Capital Times is appropriate) appears to have written a story to back its thesis that the state is not broke:Trouble is, many experts say Wisconsin isn’t really broke.
“That is not correct,” said Andrew Reschovsky, a professor of public affairs and applied economics at UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs. “Wisconsin has a range of options other than cutting spending.”
There are a number of ways to judge whether a state’s finances are in order.
Economists often look at a state’s pension funds, and whetherthey have more liabilities to be paid than money saved. They also typically look at the imbalance between the money coming in andmoney going out in any given budget, known as the structural deficit.
Reschovsky is technically correct that Wisconsin has at least some options (“a range” is a matter of personal definition) to fund the giant sucking maw that is state government. The term “broke” or “bankrupt” also depends on your definition. TeachMeFinance.com defines being bankrupt as not having “the financial means to pay their incurred debts as they come due.”
Does Wisconsin lack the financial means to pay incurred debts as they become due? Probably not (although read on for a dissenting view). The state has debt refinancing or bonding, assuming the state can find a willing lender. The state can move money out of segregated funds to pay for general fund expenses. (See Doyle, James.) The state can use one-time funds for general fund expenses. (See McCallum, Scott, Tobacco Settlement.) And there’s always the grand state tradition of increasing taxes and/or fees.
The State Journal’s story fails, however, because the State Journal did not interview one single person who does not have a vested interest in state government — as in someone who doesn’t receive his or her paychecks from the state. UW Prof. Andrew Reschovsky is a reliable source whenever a reporter wants a quote from someone who believes this state doesn’t tax or spend enough. UW-Milwaukee Prof. Mordecai Lee is less obviously biased than Reschovsky, at least until he starts using pejorative terms like “Republican broke.”
The story also left unchallenged the assertion by Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) that “Education is your seed corn.” We have great schools in this state (just ask the Wisconsin Education Association Council, right?), we have two two-year college systems, and we have 13 four-year UW universities. And per capita personal income growth in Wisconsin has trailed the national average for more than 30 years. Either education is overrated for one’s personal economics, or we’re not getting our money’s worth from the billions we spend every year on public education from 4K to the UWs.
The Post~Crescent interviewed Todd Berry, executive director of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, who pointed out how bad the state’s structural deficit ($3.6 billion heading into the 2011–13 budget cycle) really is:
“We were less prepared than any other state in the country (to deal with the recession) with the possible exception of Arkansas,” Berry said. “Relative to the size of our economy, we have had the largest or the second largest deficit next to Illinois (for the last five to 10 years). We really looked much worse than the average state.”
Two measures neither story mentioned show that the state’s finances are actually worse than even the Walker administration admits. Wisconsin measures its finances on a cash accounting basis, which seems ludicrous for an enterprise that spends more than $30-billion each fiscal year. Most states measure their finances on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. On a cash basis, as of the end of the 2009–10 fiscal year June 30, the state had a general fund balance of $89.6 million. On a GAAP basis, as of the end of the 2009–10 fiscal year, the state had a general fund deficit of $2.94 billion.
On a GAAP basis, state finances are some of the worst in the country, and that is not hyperbole. In the 2008–09 fiscal year, Wisconsin’s GAAP deficit was $2.71 billion, better than only California, Illinois and New York. (Twelve states had GAAP deficits in 2008–09, according to the WTA.) The state’s GAAP deficit was $479.53 per capita and 1.11 percent of GDP, better than only Illinois. And if you go back to the previous paragraph, you’ll notice that the 2009–10 GAAP deficit is larger than the 2008–09 GAAP deficit.
According to the WTA, between 1999 and 2009 Wisconsin and Illinois were the only two states in the nation to have GAAP deficits in every fiscal year. The next worst was California, Maine and North Carolina, which had GAAP deficits in six of those 11 fiscal years, and 35 states had no GAAP deficits at all in that time. To get the budget in GAAP balance would require cutting more than 8 percent of state spending beyond eliminating the structural deficit.
To quote 1980s infomercials, wait! There’s more! The state’s Unrestricted Net Assets (gross assets minus money owed on those assets) is a negative number, $9.46 billion, better than only seven states in dollar amounts and, at 3.7 percent of GDP, better than only five states. The WTA’s report noted that “this means ‘no funds were available for discretionary purposes,’ such as paying off creditors.” Which would be one definition of “broke,” wouldn’t it?
Neither story also noted what has happened to the state’s bond ratings over the past few years. Governmental debt reached $15.21 billion in 2010. Moody’s Aa2 rating ranks Wisconsin 34th, S&P’s AA+ rating ranks Wisconsin 26th, and Fitch’s AA+ rating ranks Wisconsin 31st. Only Illinois, which has an Aa3 from Moody’s, has a lower bond rating than Wisconsin among Midwestern states.
I have written numerous times that this cannot be placed merely on the doorstep of the Doyle administration or the Legislature that voters voted out left and, well, left Nov. 2. It is, however, on the doorstep of this governor and this Legislature to not only fix the state’s current financial pit, but to make permanent changes in state law (for instance, supermajority tax increase requirements, spending limits on all levels of government, and how about an actual rainy day fund?) so that future governors and Legislatures are prevented from fouling up state finances. Otherwise, Reschovsky and Lee may someday find that the state can’t afford to employ them anymore.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 
