Fortunately, enough Democrats in Congress finally agreed that approving an $858 billion package that extends tax cuts was the best action to help prop up the still-struggling economy. Had they not acted, an across-the-board tax hike would have gone into effect Jan. 1, hampering an already slow recovery.
The deal also includes $57 billion to extended unemployment insurance for another 13 months, which Democrats wanted, and provides a one-year payroll tax cut for most American workers, which could boost the economy. Given the entrenched high unemployment, we thought the compromise was reasonable. A big middle-class tax hike next year could have been devastating.
“This is real money that’s going to make a real difference in people’s lives,” President Obama said Friday. “As soon as I sign this legislation, 2 million Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own will know with certainty that they won’t lose their unemployment insurance.”
However, since the compromise plan doesn’t balance the tax cuts or welfare benefits with cuts in government spending, the package only adds to the mushrooming national debt. Congress already has blown off the president’s bipartisan debt commission, but 2011 needs to be the year true leaders emerge who are willing to take on the national debt and deficit. Even though now is not the time for big tax hikes, it is the time to begin addressing the budget’s structural problems and the long-term impacts of this looming national crisis.
A Kentucky fried conundrum. For two years now, Denver city officials have been mulling over changes in the backyard chicken permitting process, an inexplicably long time for what should be a simple issue.
They ought to streamline the unnecessarily complicated permitting process, but keep a modicum of front-end regulation in place to ensure protections for residents who rightfully have concerns about their clucking neighbors. The delay has resulted in an effort by the backyard chicken people, a fervent group, to put a chicken question on the ballot. It would allow residents to have as many as six hens without any sort of permit.
That’s too dramatic a change for a city as urbanized as Denver, where houses often sit right next to property lines. Because the city has failed to respond quickly enough to the request to streamline permitting, the issue is poised to go to voters. The council ought to have taken this on in an orderly fashion, holding public hearings and crafting a change that serves constituents who want to have the farm animals and protects those who live nearby.
Now, the law might be changed via ballot in a measure that almost assuredly will be written to serve the interests of prospective chicken owners. That’s nothing to crow about.
A just ending to a not-so-funny joke. Kudos to the Denver Department of Public Works for firing two parking enforcement officers who betrayed the public trust and misused city time. In August, Joshua Miscles returned to his car to find Eric Madril giving him a ticket for not displaying a license plate on the front of his truck. Miscles had the plate in the front window. An angry Miscles called Madril a “meter maid” and told him “to get a real job.” Even though Miss Manners would frown on Miscles’ comments, Madril’s response went way over the line. He asked co-worker John Culhane to write Miscles a false ticket for parking in a handicapped spot, which Miscles hadn’t done, and mail it so late that it ran up a tab of $300. A Denver magistrate finally discovered the deception and notified Public Works. At first, Culhane was merely suspended for two days and Madril wasn’t even disciplined. Their dismissals send a strong message to other enforcement agents about those types of stunts. Kudos also goes out to 9News for exposing the sordid deal.
How much charity is enough, PUC? When the Colorado Public Utilities Commission approved the proposed merger between Qwest and CenturyLink last week, the three-person commission went one step too far. The board actually required the combined companies to keep their charitable contributions for the next three years at a certain level. While charity is one of the reasons we like having companies headquartered in Denver, we don’t think how much they give ought to be the PUC’s business.
And a tip of our cap to . . . businessman Tom Gamel, whose generosity has provided for gifts for hundreds of students at Cole Arts and Science Academy and at St. Rose of Lima Catholic School. Both schools serve largely low-income and minority students.
Short Takes is compiled by Denver Post editorial writers and expresses the view of the newspaper’s editorial board.
