Happy Hanukkah, Al Tuner

MoonHowler

Elena has obligations and so I thought I would be a good Christian and do her Hanukkah post for her since tonight is the first night.  Then I remembered.  This was going to be tough since I know very little about this Jewish festival of lights.  Then I started thinking about other friends and one person stuck in my mind–A man named Al Tuner.  Danny.

I first  knew Danny online, probably about 14 years ago. We all became real  friends eventually since we lived in Northern Virginia.   He was a decent sort, once you got past his gruffness.   Danny loved trains.  I don’t mean sorta liked trains, Danny LOVED trains and he went by the moniker Al Tuner.  Some of you might have known him.  Al Tuner was a play on words for one of his favorite places, Horseshoe Curve in Altoona, PA.  Al worked for Amtrak at the time and he would stop in Altoona as often as he could get by with.

I lost track of Danny and several years ago I made the sad discovery  he was deceased.  He had had  some fatal illness.  I think  of Danny every Hanukkah however, and always have, ever since I cyberly spent that first Hanukkah with him online.  It seems that Danny had a train menorah.  He told me all about it. Unlike the one I am posting, his was lots of different colors. He described it in detail.  It was one of his prized possessions.  Danny must have been lonely.  He talked for hours about his train menorah and his dad, who had been dead for a while.  It was a very reflective night for my friend.  By the end of that conversation, I felt like I knew more  train menorahs than I ever thought possible.

I also knew more about Hanukka also, seen through the eyes of another.  I can’t tell you about the religious significance but I came away knowing a lot more about families and about a son’s relationship with his father and how a train menorah was simply the manifestation of something much deeper.  I hope Danny had his train menorah buried with him.

If there is anything to the notion that the dead live on in our souls, then Al Tuner certainly got in mine that night.  I thank him for sharing his feelings and for telling me what was important to him.  I wish him many more train rides around Horseshoe Curve.  Danny lives on in our hearts and minds and every time I hear a train, I think of Danny. 

 

Danny, like the song says, long may you run.

Danny’s website of short articles about trains, he calls muses.

http://www.on-track-on-line.com/musemenu.shtml

 

McDonnell targets VRS and higher education for money infusion

MoonHowler

Governor McDonald has targetted 2 critical areas for huge cash infusions:  VRS and higher education.  The governor plans to pump over 2.2 Billion into the state pension plan.  He also intends to spend over $200 million over the next two years in higher education.  Both areas are quickly approaching critical mass of not being able to do what they are intended to do.

According to hamptonroads.com:

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s announcements this week that he intends to pour $2.2 billion into the state pension system and boost spending for higher education by $200 million over the next two years are remarkable in two respects.

First, each implicitly acknowledges what nearly everyone in Virginia has long known but pretended isn’t true: The state’s failure to keep up with its obligations has reached a tipping point.

That much has been clear on any number of issues, perhaps none more than on transportation, which McDonnell has begun addressing through debt and public-private partnerships that ensure costly tolls on primary routes in South Hampton Roads.

But a study released earlier this week by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission underscored the bleak future of the Virginia Retirement System and the thousands of state workers counting on it.

The report explained the pension system’s condition as a consequence of multiple factors: the state’s pattern of contributing less each year than recommended, the economic downturn, increasing numbers of retirees and fewer workers taking their place. Analysts have calculated VRS is underfunded by nearly $20 billion.

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Is McDonnell raising taxes?

MoonHowler

From the Richmond Times Dispatch:

Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday unveiled a two-year, $84.9 billion spending plan that balances increases in transportation, higher education and the state’s pension system with $882 million in targeted reductions largely to Medicaid and public education funding. The proposed budget for July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2014, contains no tax increases but raises certain fees, including $10 million worth from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

If fees are increased at the DMV, doesn’t that really constitute a tax increase, by another name? 

Additionally, if items like Medicaid and public education get shortchanged, doesn’t that simply make local governments more strapped for much needed cash?  The real estate market has not rebounded all that much which is where the taxes come from in most localities.  There is also a movement under way to do away with the BPOL tax. 

Somehow politicians need to accept that we are not all that stupid.  We know that neither PWC nor Virginia can print money.  We know that a certain amount of money is needed for schools and for medicaid.  If the buck stops here, we either do without cops and other public safety services or we have 40 kids in a classroom. 

How do you cut back on Medicaid?  Where do you start?  Do you disqualify people?  I don’t know the answers.  It just seems that we are playing a shell game.  The fed cuts what it gives to the states.  The state cuts what it gives to the localities.  The localities have things they must do like provide medicaid, education money and public safety.  So we move it around. 

This is like the song, Where have all the Flowers Gone.  Gone to Flowers everyone.  McDonnell is on Fox News bragging that he has a surplus.  Not really.  How about that money owed to VRS that has not yet been repaid?  How about what is being shorted the localities?  How about the increased fees?  Just because we don’t call it a tax, is it still a tax?  Yup. 

I don’t really care.  I noticed a huge hit since the last time I renewed my license.  I expected it.  But lets call it what it is.  It’s a tax increase called a fee.