Great Expectations

Tom Ferrick Jr.'s got two nice contributions to the Great Expectations project this week.

You can start off by listening in on his latest podcast, featuring Mary Tracy. She is the president of SCRUB, an organization that aims to fight blight and billboards. Check out his full series of podcasts here.

Or, take a look at this Sunday's column, which compares the campaign-spending habits of the mayoral candidates to those of the City Council and judicial candidates. Guess which group is still stuck in the 1800s ...
Read all of Tom's Great Expectations columns here.

The comments section awaits your responses.

The two candidates for mayor held a joint news conference the other day to slap down Mayor Street for proposing an end to the (slow, torturous) decline in the business gross receipts tax.

Democrat Michael Nutter and Republican Al Taubenberger said that no way, no how would they allow the pace of tax reductions slow down.

What made the story newsworthy is that the Democratic and Republican rivals shared a podium and a point of view, but it's not really surprising. Do you expect candidates for public office to call a news conference to support tax increases?

Besides, nobody -- and I do mean nobody -- loses points for taking a whack at the (terminally unpopular) John Street. The guy can't even buy an iPhone without getting bad press.

But, this little mid-summer mini-event does highlight what will turn out to be the defining dilemma of the city and its next mayor over the next five years. It hinges on this question: How do you balance the demand for lower taxes (in the name of making the city more competitive when it comes to jobs and business climate) and the demand for city services?

The short answer is: it is impossible. You cannot reduce taxes -- and thus reduce revenue -- without affecting city services. As the Street people like to point out, since 2000 the city has foregone about $1.2 billion in tax revenue by committing to a program of gradual reduction in the wage tax and business taxes.

The tension between the two mandates has buffeted the current administration. Remember when the mayor tried to call a halt to the reductions -- and Nutter fought him off ? This latest Street move on the gross receipts tax is another example.

To oversimplify, Street is service oriented (or, if you prefer, spending oriented). Nutter and Taubenberger are tax-cut oriented.

President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's 30-month jail term reminds me of a line from a former colleague.

You recall the old adage that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged.

Well, after Spiro Agnew cut his deal with prosecutors, all the while complaining about how they were persecuting him, my friend turned to me and said:

You know what a liberal is, don't you? A conservative who's been indicted.

In Bush's defense, maybe this is what he meant when he talked about compassionate conservatism.

-- Tom Ferrick

The blog has been getting hit with hundreds of spam comments, and so I've turned on the registration process. Now, when you go to post a comment, you'll be asked to become a registered user with Type Key. It's easy to create an account, which you then activate via email.

One of the goals of this blog is to foster an open community discussion. I hope you'll take the few minutes to register and continue participating. By screening out the ad posts, we'll keep the comments area focused on our ever-growing dialogue on the city's future.

Thanks for understanding.

You know the old saying: it ain't over 'til it's over.

Well, it's over. The May Primary election, I mean.

Last week, I picked up the official, certified vote in the mayor's race and present it to you below. Of course, everyone knows that Michael Nutter won the Democratic nomination, but the returns that told us that on election night are unofficial -- so-called "flash returns."

The official count takes place in the weeks following the primary. It used to be done by hand. Now, with electronic voting, the "black boxes" in each voting machine are removed and fed into a computer, which reads the totals recorded.

The official vote did settle one (less than burning issue) -- who came in 3rd: Chaka Fattah or Bob Brady. The answer: Brady won third by a 173-vote margin over Fattah.

Here is the chart:

Why am I not surprised about the stealth amendment added to a bill in the state House on
Tuesday that takes a whack at the city's new campaign finance law?

The amendment -- would eliminate the new requirement that candidates and campaign committees file electronic copies of their regular spending reports with the city's ethics board. It passeed 200-1.

In turn, the board posts these returns on its web site and makes it easier for citizens to find out who is spending and giving to political campaigns. Until this year, committees and candidates had to file only on paper and only with either the state or city elections bureaus. If you wanted to see copies, you had to visit their offices.

The authors of the amendment stepped forward yesterday (Thursday) and claimed it was a harmless measure, designed to help mom-and-pop ward political committees who find it onerous to meet the new filing requirement.

State Reps. Rosita Youngblood and John Sabatina Jr. said they acted after getting complaints from ward committee treasurers. "It's a hardship upon them," Youngblood told Bob Warner of the Daily News. Sabatina said: "My concern is the little old guy who has to go downtown to two-finger type his contributors."

Let's do a reality check here:

First, Youngblood and Sabatina aren't exactly neutral observers. Both are Democratic ward leaders -- Youngblood in the 13th, Sabatina in the 56th.

Second, mom-and-pop image aside, ward committees take in and spend thousands in a year. In the spring primary, for instance, I estimate $2 million was funneled to ward organizations by Democratic candidates, most of it for street money to pay committee people for election day work.

Third, the bill comes just five years after a state grand jury, investigating ward committees in Philadelphia, issued a report that criticized ward leaders for failing to file reports, keep receipts, and for discrepencies in reporting that indicated that some leaders were pocketing money handed over by candidates. Three ward leaders and the head of the local black ministers group were indicted in the scandal. The grand jury said the system of taking cash and lack of reporting was "abhorrent."

But, as Fred Voigt, then head of the Committee of Seventy, noted it is hard to get ward leaders to clean up their act.

"Once [the investigation] ends, there's a tendency to relapse back into the old game," Voigt said."

What happened this week lin Harrisburg smells like a relapse to me. And it stinks.

-- Tom Ferrick

Today's Daily News cover story drives home the point that Republican mayoral nominee Al Taubenberger has, shall we say, a snowball's chance of winning in the fall.

This observation falls under the "canine sinks chompers into human" category of news story.
The Republican may not have a chance to win in a Philadelphia mayoral race? Shocker.

But beneath the foregone conclusion of a Michael Nutter win, some interesting stories will play out.

It often happens that candidates far ahead in the polls do not deign to appear in debates or other forums with their competitors. Why share the spotlight?

I don't expect that to be the case this fall. I expect Michael Nutter to go out of his way to make joint appearances with Al Taubenberger, to embrace a full televised debate schedule, if one should be offered.

Here's why: Nutter is in an unusual position, with unusual promise and risk.
Not since Ed Rendell in 1995 has a Democrat been assured of victory and head the lead time to develop themes of governance, a team of deputies and an agenda for governing. The last time a newcomer to the office had such an opportunity? Perhaps Wilson Goode in 1983?

Nutter can lay a lot of groundwork between now and his inauguration in January - and that's mostly a benefit to him.

But a key question is how will he deal with the many people who will try to use the same time period to press their wishes and agenda items on him, looking for promises and commitments.

This is why the existence of Al Taubenberger could be a great boon to Nutter.

It could give him some breathing and thinking room.

When it comes to his dealings with Republicans in the legislature, Ed Rendell has tried reasonable. He had tried schmooze. He has tried (always, Eddie, always) deal making.

This year, he tried something new -- at least for Harrisburg.

He tried his Crazy Eddie routine.

And it worked.

Faced with a Senate Republican caucus infused with anti-pay grab, anti-tax, anti-just about everything senators, Rendell let loose with a state budget proposal that was, to say the least, ambitious and expansionist.

Like Leo Bloom in The Producers, the governor wanted everything he ever dreamed of -- and asked the stunned Republicans to make it happen. Sell the turnpike. Increase the sales tax. Spend millions for laptops for schools. Tax excess oil company profits. Create a $500 million Jonas Salk fund for bio-tech development. A statewide smoking ban. Money for full-day kindergarten. Oh, and don't forget $800 million for the Pennsylvania Convention Center, for a new hockey arena for the Pittsburgh Penguins. And at the last minute, an $100 million tax break for film companies that make movies in Pa.

It was crazy -- especially to ask for new and higher taxes when the state was ending the year with a $650 million surplus. Go figure.

The governor who was re-elected (with 61 percent of the vote) to do something had to confront a legislature elected to do nothing. No pay grabs. No new taxes. No more wasteful government programs. No. No. No.