September 2, 2010 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) |

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By Jeremy P. Jacobs

Another week, another batch of polls from the conservative American Action Network that show Democratic House incumbents in trouble. This week, the group focused on 10 districts in the West.

The group surveyed 400 voters in each of the following districts: AZ-01, AZ 05, AZ-08, CA-11, CA-47, CO-03, CO-04, NM-01, NV-03 and OR-05. There was a margin of error of +/-4.9% in each individual poll.

When the Ayres, McHenry and Assoc. surveys — which were conducted at end of August — are combined, only 37 percent of respondents say their Dem incumbent deserves re-election while 52 percent say it’s time for someone else. By a three-to-one margin, respondents said the country is on the wrong track. Pres. Obama is viewed unfavorably in in these districts by 51% of respondents.

Now, before we get into each poll, it’s worth keeping in mind that this is a poll conducted for a conservative organization. And Dems have pushed back against American Action Forum’s previous surveys, saying that — among other things — questions about health care and other issues are asked before the ballot test, potentially skewing the results.

Here’s a cheat sheet to the results: Republicans lead in AZ-01, AZ-05, CO-03 and CO-04. The poll shows deadlock in AZ-08, CA-11, CA-47 and NV-03. Dems are leading in NM-01 and OR-05.

A couple findings buried in the polls jump out. In some of these districts (AZ-01, CO-03, CA-11, NV-03), 70% or more say the country is on the wrong track.

In AZ-08, Tea Party candidate Jesse Kelly (R) is in a dead heat with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) — 46% to 46%. Kelly knocked off establishment candidate Jonathan Paton in the GOP primary last week.

There is one Dem shining star: Rep. Martin Heinrich in NM-01. Heinrich leads Jon Barela (R) 49% to 42%. There are also signs that this district is firmly in Dem control, at least for now. A Dem leads on the generic ballot test here 40% to 36% — a rarity in these polls. Obama is also viewed favorably by 52% of respondents in this district.

Check out a breakdown of the races after the jump. You can get the full polling data here.

AZ 01
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D): 41%
Paul Gosar (R): 47%

AZ 05
Rep. Harry Mitchell (D): 44%
David Schweikert (R): 50%

AZ 08
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D): 46%
Jesse Kelly (R): 46%

CA 11
Rep. Jerry McNerney (D): 44%
David Harmer (R): 45%

CA 47
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D): 45%
Van Tran (R): 43%

CO 03
Rep. John Salazar (D): 43%
Scott Tipton (R): 51%

CO 04
Rep. Betsey Markey (D): 39%
Cory Gardner (R): 50%

NM 01
Rep. Martin Heinrich (D): 49%
Jon Barela (R): 42%

NV 03
Rep. Dina Titus (D): 45%
Joe Heck (R): 48%

OR 05
Rep. Kurt Schrader (D): 44%
Scott Bruun (R): 36%

Downtown Hotel Hell 

Phoenix built one and they didn’t come

by Dave Devine

While Tucson leaders ponder the wisdom of building a Sheraton convention center hotel, Phoenix opened one in October 2008. But its occupancy rates have fallen significantly short of expectations.

In 2005 the consulting firm HVS International prepared a market study for the proposed Phoenix hotel. It predicted in the first nine months of operation there would be 60-percent occupancy, increasing to 63 percent the following year.

Reality was quite different. For 2009, according to a City of Phoenix financial report, the hotel had a 49.4-percent occupancy rate.

Phoenix’s finance director, Jeff Dewitt, says the underperforming hotel presents some financial challenges.

The city committed non-general fund taxes to cover any shortfall in operating proceeds to pay a portion of the hotel’s construction bonds. Despite that, earlier this year, Standard and Poors changed the rating on these bonds from stable to negative.

Dewitt says hotel revenues will cover 2010 construction debt service and believes they’ll be sufficient for 2011. After that, he admits, it’s questionable.

Stating he didn’t work on the Phoenix market study and can’t comment on it, Thomas Hazinski of HVS does say, “There’s one obvious fact—(the report) was completed before the financial crisis.”

Hazinski did help prepare a recent HVS analysis for the proposed $202 million Tucson convention center hotel. It anticipates an initial occupancy rate of 55 percent, rising to 67 percent within two years and then stabilizing at 69 percent.

These figures, Hazinski acknowledges, are based upon an economic recovery. “If that doesn’t happen,” he says, “in Tucson the projections won’t be met.”

Those projections are critical to local taxpayers because they might be on the line to pick up at least some of the construction costs of the hotel.

If the Tucson Sheraton doesn’t perform as anticipated, the shortfall in revenue to pay for construction bonds might have to be paid by severely budget-challenged City Hall. That is not a prospect Councilwoman Regina Romero endorses.

To avert that scenario, on July 13 she sent City Manager Mike Letcher a memorandum. It was also published as a guest editorial in the Arizona Daily Star.

In her memo, Romero writes that she favors the hotel project but calls for lowering the city’s risk by requiring greater financial participation from Sheraton and Garfield Traub, the firm managing construction. As of last week, Romero hadn’t received an official response to her suggestions.

Regardless, Romero believes Letcher has been clear in his public statements about the proposal.

“He won’t get the city into a situation,” Romero suggests, “where the city’s general fund is on the line.

“The hotel has to be able to support itself,” Romero continues. Additional financial assistance “needs to be pledged from others before it gets to the general fund. If that doesn’t happen, (the city manager) won’t recommend it and I can’t approve something that won’t be a success.”

Alan Willenbrock is skeptical of the Tucson hotel being as successful as the HVS study portrays. He recently stepped down from the Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District Board, the appointed body that, with the City Council, will decide the hotel’s fate.

Willenbrock calls the HVS study “very sloppy” and believes the information provided “is not consistent with the evidence.”

Pointing out that the HVS report shows an average length of stay for Tucson convention goers twice as long as that in Phoenix and several other cities, Willenbrock contends the explanations given for this discrepancy haven’t been satisfactory.

“I’m not for or against the hotel,” Willenbrock continues, “but I am against misleading taxpayers toward expectations not likely to be realized. I can create a strong case why the hotel is likely to be less successful than the consultants say.”

If that happens, Willenbrock thinks paying for the hotel’s construction bonds “will likely require significant (city) general fund subsidies.”

Heywood Sanders, a professor at the University of Texas-San Antonio and a frequent critic of the convention industry, spoke to the City Council in July. He believes the message Tucson leaders should take from the less-than-anticipated Phoenix hotel occupancy rate is simple.

“Projections,” Sanders says of convention center hotel studies, “often aren’t realized.”

Another assumption made in the Phoenix HVS analysis, Sanders stresses, is that the recent enormous expansion of that city’s convention facilities would bring many more customers to downtown hotels. That, he says, hasn’t happened.

Addressing a major contention of Tucson hotel proponents—that the facility is needed to spur downtown revitalization—Sanders observes, “It’s much the same argument made in every city in the country. … The problem is, the more places that do it, the more competition there is. The result is what happened in Phoenix. You don’t see much increase in business.”

David Pittman works for the Arizona Builders Alliance, an organization representing about 150 construction companies. He cites job creation and economic stimulus as two reasons he supports building the hotel.

Since the height of the building boom in 2006, Pittman points out, Pima County has lost almost 14,000 construction jobs, or about one-half its former total.

“There are a lot of good things about the hotel project,” Pittman emphasizes. “I think the city needs the downtown hotel. We have a lot of things going for us and we want to bring people downtown.”

Then Pittman returns to his original theme: “It will put a lot of people back to work who need jobs,” he says of the hotel proposal. “Let’s look on the bright side.”

                Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them..

                Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

                Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes,WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

                You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.

                You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

                You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

                You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

                You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

                One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

                I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

                I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

                Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

                What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating  deficits…..   The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

                The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want.  If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

                It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal  government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to  exist.

                If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

                If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red ..

                If the Army & Marines are in  Iraq  and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan…

                If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

                There are no insoluble government problems.

                Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

                Those 545 people, and they  alone, are responsible.

                They, and they alone, have the power..

                They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

                Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees…

                We should vote all of  them out of office and clean up their mess!

                Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando  Sentinel  Newspaper.

                What you do with this article now that you have read it……… Is up to you.
                This might be funny if it weren’t so  true.
                Be sure to read all the way to the end:
                Tax his land,
                Tax his bed,
                Tax the table,

            At which he’s fed.
            Tax his tractor,

            Tax his mule,
            Teach him taxes
            Are the rule.
            Tax his work,
            Tax his pay,
            He works for peanuts anyway!
            Tax his cow,
            Tax his goat,
            Tax his pants,
            Tax his coat.
            Tax his ties,
            Tax his shirt,
            Tax his work,
            Tax his dirt.
            Tax his tobacco,
            Tax his drink,
            Tax him if he
            Tries to think.
            Tax his cigars,
            Tax his beers,
            If he cries
            Tax his tears.
            Tax his car,
            Tax his gas,
            Find other ways
            To tax his ass.
            Tax all he has
            Then let him know
            That you won’t be done
            Till he has no dough.
            When he screams and hollers;
            Then tax him some more,
            Tax him till
            He’s good and sore.
            Then tax his coffin,
            Tax his grave,
            Tax the sod in
            Which he’s laid…
            Put these words
            Upon his tomb,
            Taxes drove me
            to my doom…’
            When he’s gone,
            Do not relax,
            Its time to apply
            The inheritance tax..
        Accounts Receivable Tax
        Building Permit Tax
        CDL license Tax
        Cigarette Tax
        Corporate Income Tax
        Dog License Tax
        Excise Taxes
        Federal Income Tax
        Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
        Fishing License Tax
        Food License Tax
        Fuel Permit Tax
        Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
        Gross Receipts Tax
        Hunting License Tax
        Inheritance Tax
        Inventory Tax
        IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
        Liquor Tax
        Luxury Taxes
        Marriage License Tax
        Medicare Tax
        Personal Property Tax
        Property Tax
        Real Estate Tax
        Service Charge Tax
        Social Security Tax
        Road Usage Tax
        Recreational Vehicle Tax
        Sales Tax
        School Tax
        State Income Tax
        State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
        Telephone Federal Excise Tax
        Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
        Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
        Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
        Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
        Telephone   State  and Local Tax
        Telephone Usage Charge Tax
        Utility Taxes
        Vehicle License Registration Tax
        Vehicle Sales Tax
        Watercraft Registration Tax
        Well Permit Tax
        Workers Compensation Tax

        
        STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

        What in the hell happened? Can you spell ‘politicians?’

From TIME magazine, a story about the Democrats strategies to cloud up the mid terms.

In a move as predictable as Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, Democrats are using Social Security scare tactics to gain ground before the November election. President Barack Obama is not only tolerating this classic old politics maneuver by his party — he is leading the charge.

Amid a flurry of Democratic Party news releases and press conferences warning voters that Republicans are targeting Social Security for destruction, the President devoted his radio and Internet address last week to commemorating the 75th anniversary of the signing of the law that created the program. He cautioned that “some Republican leaders in Congress don’t seem to have learned any lessons” from the past and are “pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress.” This familiar refrain might indeed help the Democrats limit their midterm losses, but Obama’s involvement shows that on this issue he is putting party before bipartisanship and that he sometimes can be tone-deaf to the human element required to change Washington’s acid culture.
(See pictures of Obama signing the health care bill.)

It is clear why Democrats are raising the specter of Republican

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2012449,00.html?xid=rss-politics-huffpo#ixzz0xs68iO1d

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Something to ponder when you hear about public employee pensions and the state or local government budget.

Federal health care bill keeping job creation on hold
by Byron Schlomach, Ph.D.

The nation’s high unemployment rate has barely fallen this year, in part because many businesses are waiting for the other shoe to drop from federal health care reform.

At this point, business people can only guess at what new employees will cost in the near future. Already, health care benefits constitute almost 8 percent of the total cost of an employee. Though these costs were rising before, they did so predictably.

Now, the Arizona Department of Administration has warned of a previously unexpected 37 percent increase in state employee health care costs due to federal reform. That follows announcements by John Deere and AT&T of unexpected expenses of $150 million and $1 billion, respectively, also due to the federal health care bill.

Michael Fleisher, president of Bogen Communications in New Jersey, recently wrote of an unexpected and extraordinary 28 percent increase in his company’s health insurance premiums. “As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company’s vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes, to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties of this economic environment,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Similarly, Steve Wynn, the hotel-casino magnate, while discussing new ventures in China, told CNBC, “No one in the (U.S.) business community from one coast to another has any idea what’s next…The uncertainty of the business climate in America is frightening, frightening to everybody, and it is delaying a recovery.”

Add the many thousands of regulations yet to be written to the current almost-3,000 pages of health reform legislation. It’s no wonder that entrepreneurs are skittish. The certainty needed to inspire widespread job growth will only return when this “reform” is stopped.

Dr. Byron Schlomach is an economist and the director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Goldwater Institute.