Mayor Jim’s Weblog

After watching Frontline’s show, Bush’s War, I am longing for good books about the Iraq war.  I read Woodward’s book, “Plan of Attack” but it is a bit outdated.

 Does anyone have any recommendations? 

 If you missed “Bush’s War” on Frontline, it is a must see about how we got into this mess.  You can watch it on line on PBS.  (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/)
 Jim Fiorentini

Friends,

Tomorrow night at the city council I am unveiling my plans for performance oriented government.  Since you are kind enough to read this blog, I thought I would give you a heads up.

Performance measures in government have been quite the rage for the past ten or 15 years, ever since the publication of “Reinventing Government.”  The theory is that by establishing performance measures, you challenge government to always improve and get more efficient.

For example, suppose you set as a performance measure that you want 75% of the potholes filled within 48 hours of the time someone calls them in.  (That, or something like it, will be a standard we will adopt.)

At the end of the year, you then measure how you did, and then try to improve and raise the bar.  Maybe your goal for the next year is to fill 90% within 48 hours.  Maybe your goal for the third year is that you have improved roadway maintenance so that the number of pothole calls have dropped.

The possibilities are endless.  In the fire department, your goal might be to respond to every working fire within 4 minutes.  In police, your goal might be to hold neighborhood meetings, or increase patrols in certain areas.  In the clerk’s office, your goal might be to have a 90% customer satisfaction rate on your customer surveys.  In highway, we will set goals that downtown streets will be swept and cleaned every week, and a goal that 300 new trees will be planted. 

Different communities do this in different ways.  In Baltimore, performance measures are in a separate computer program called “Citistat”.  Somerville and Amesbury have set up Citistat programs.

In other cities, like Cambridge, No. Andover and Chelsea, the performance goals are built into the budget of each department. 

In still other cities, like New York, department goals are posted on the web site where the city gives itself an on-line report card every year.  We are still experimenting and it is not clear which model we will eventually follow. 

The budget crisis we are undergoing is a permanent crisis, not a temporary one.  If we are going to get through this, and we will, we have to find ways to constantly improve government efficiency.  The best way to do that is by instituting government performance standards and then constantly upping the bar.

What standards would you like to see?  How can we improve?

Jim Fiorentini

We all know about Barack Obama’s former pastor endorsing him.  Obama has publicly repudiated his former pastor’s views and called them wrong.

But it seems that Barack Obama is not the only one with some crackpots endorsing him.

John McCain was endorsed by mega church pastor Rev. John Hagee.  Here are just a few of the quotes from Hagee.  McCain has not repudiated Hagee and actively sought his endorsement:

“God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin. From the same interview:

Hagee:” All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that….I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”

Hagee also believes that we should provoke a war with Iran in order to hasten the second coming of Christ, that Harry Potter books are designed to introduce children to the occult and are work of the devil.

Crackpot endorsements for Hillary Clinton:

Clinton is endorsed by number one right wing crackpot Ann Coulter.  Here are some quotes from Coulter, who says she is proud to call herself a “Hillary girl.”  Hillary, when asked about Coulter’s endorsement, said she was happy to have any support and that ’strange bedfellows and all that.”

When talking about the widows whose husbands were killed in the attacks on Sept 11 Ann Coulter said:

“I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”

Ann Counlter on soccer moms:

“Liberal soccer moms are precisely as likely to receive anthrax in the mail as to develop a capacity for linear thinking.”

Ann Coulter on the war in the Middle East:

“I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

Is Obama held to a different standard?  He has publicly repudiated his former pastor’s views.

I think back to when I was a kid, going to Mass every week, with a pastor I strongly disagreed with.  Was I responsible for his views?

What do you think?

Reading President Bush’s speech today to the Economic Club of  New York, I am struck by how much the political parties have changed over the decades.

 It used to be it was quite easy to tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans and economic issues.  Among other differences, the Democrats were the Party that believed in government intervention to solve people’s problems.   When Franklin Roosevelt ran in the 1930’s, he advocated government action to help what he called the “forgotten man.”

 The Republicans were the party of small government, that is was simply not the job of government to change the course of markets, or intervene to help people.   Herbert Hoover stuck to the small government no interference principle, and succeeded in making the Republicans a minority party for half a century.   Ronald Reagan said that government was not the solution, it was the problem.  Remember that?

You might not know this is the same party when you read Bush’s speech today.  His difference with the Democrats, he said, is not whether we should take action, it was how much, when and where.

Contrast the small government, no intervention thoughts of prior Republicans with what Bush said today:

“Fortunately, we recognized the slowdown early and took action.  And it was decisive action, in the form of policies that will spur growth.  We worked with the Congress.  I know that may sound incongruous to you, but I do congratulate the Speaker and Leader Reid, as well as Boehner and Mitch McConnell and Secretary Paulson, for anticipating a problem and passing a robust package quickly.”

Part of their robust package, as they call it, was to send a rebate check to every American taxpayer in the country. Does anyone recall when George McGovern was laughed off the national stage for proposing a tax rebate check for every American? 

Speaking of Mcgovern, whose reputation is as the most liberal person ever nominated for President, his view of abortion was that the States should be free to regulate abortion, exactly the view today of the most conservative Republicans.  Barry Goldwater’s position in the 1960’s was that abortion should be legal.

So I ask you this question, what does it mean to be a Republican or a Democrat today?

Jim Fiorentini