‘Buckley Made the Winning Side’

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. takes too much comfort from Bill Clinton’s “The era of big government is over” because big government is back and it’s bigger than ever [“Buckley Made the Winning Side,” Opinion, November 25, 2005].

You can see it in subsidies to big agriculture, in both corporate and private welfare, in the numerous attempts at social engineering in the tax code, and in the billions that the government will pay the drug industry to manage the new plan for seniors.

Everybody looks to the government to solve their problems and to help them make money. It is a first resort, not the last. Mr. Buckley may have won every battle, but conservatives lost the war.

BRIAN ESKENAZI
Manhattan

‘Spitzer v. First Amendment’

Attorney General Spitzer’s desire to ban political contributions from people doing business with the state could work out well were it carried to its logical conclusion [“Spitzer v. The First Amendment,” Editorial, November 25, 2005].

For consistency, public employees and their unions would not be permitted to make contributions to the political campaign for any office that is in their direct or indirect chain of command.

Indeed, by Mr. Spitzer’s logic, a public employee should not be permitted to vote in or run in any election where the winner has any say in that employee’s salary, wages, or benefits. Thus, school department employees (including teachers) would be forbidden from supporting candidates or voting in elections for school committee, governor, the state legislature, or any other body that has any say over school department expenditures.

Teachers’ unions would be forbidden from donating to political campaigns even if their members supported those donations. Such ban would extend to votes on budget issues in jurisdictions where citizens vote directly on budget issues.

EDWARD FRIEDMAN
Marblehead, Mass.

‘Apartments Ahead?’

Mayor Bloomberg’s assertion that the Downtown should be a “24 hour community” is not a reason for abandoning the World Trade Center site as a center of commerce [“Apartments Ahead?” Davidson Goldin, Opinion, November 25, 2005].

The old office buildings in the Wall Street neighborhood that no longer meet the standards of modern businesses can be converted to housing, one by one, if there really is sufficient demand for housing (there is already massive construction of new housing under way in Battery Park City, and plans for more by the South Street Seaport).

What we need at ground zero is state-of-the-art office buildings to bring back the high-paying jobs that support not only the neighborhood but also the entire city. Without bringing back the lost jobs, the Downtown will atrophy and end like every other abandoned downtown across the Northeast – no matter how many expensive condos the mayor builds at ground zero.

RICHARD JOFFE
Manhattan

‘Highway Robbery’

Your editorial knocking congestion pricing went off the rails when you dubbed it a fee on drivers [“Highway Robbery,” November 22, 2005].

Congestion pricing is a fee on driving – and not just any old driving but driving where gridlock is worst, when driving’s theft of time from all reaches its maximum.

Which makes congestion pricing an anti-tax seeing as how what it taxes, gridlock, is itself a tax. So what if the spearhead of London’s successful congestion charging scheme is a socialist?

“Red” or not, Mayor Livingstone’s imposition of a toll to drive into London’s center has boosted car and bus speeds by 30%. The inconvenience to drivers “tolled off the roads” is offset many-fold by the added convenience (quicker arrivals) for drivers, passengers, bus riders, etc.

As for your urging that New York instead expand its infrastructure to make driving and parking easier: Isn’t that what’s been tried for the past century? Haven’t we, at staggering expense, constructed bridges, tunnels, parkways, and expressways, and appropriated car lanes from sidewalks, parklands and trolley routes? And hasn’t the result been to metastasize gridlock from a few hot spots to vast swaths of the city?

Isn’t the way out to do with roads what is done in every other sphere of activity – use prices to mesh supply with demand?

CHARLES KOMANOFF
Bridge Tolls Advocacy Project
www.bridgetolls.org
Manhattan

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