Isaac Laquedem

Carlo Piacentini (1896-1976), the Piacentini brothers, and the American dream

When the teenaged Carlo Piacentini stepped off of the S.S. France at New York on August 16, 1913, he was on his way to join his brother Angelo in Portland.  A decade later, working in Portland as a stonemason and laborer, he proposed marriage to Margaret Colistro (1904-1999).  She turned him down because he didn't own his own home.  In 1926 he bought a small house on SE 42nd Avenue north of Division Street, and a month or two later they were married.  They lived there the rest of their lives.  Along the way they had three sons, naming one for family (Carl, in 1928), one for the church (John Baptist, in 1930) and one for the state (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born on his namesake's 52nd birthday, in 1934).  Carlo had little formal education, and wanted more for his children.  He and Margaret sent each to college, and to different parts of the American dream: one in public education, one in business, and one in the professions.  Carl taught in the public schools (universal free public education was one of the forces behind the American dream), becoming a Portland school principal.  John worked his way up to become a Safeway store manager before he was 30, then went into business for himself, starting the Plaid Pantry chain of convenience stores.  (His mother worked there as a bookkeeper well into her 80s.)  Frank went to dental school, earned a graduate degree in orthodontics, and became one of the city's two leading orthodontists as well as a prominent real estate developer.  All three sons also offered themselves to community service: Carl on the school board and Portland planning commission, and as an unsuccessful candidate for the city council; John as an early proponent of Oregon's bottle bill and (more quirkily) as the Republican nominee against Robert B. Duncan for the heavily Democratic seat now held by Earl Blumenauer; and Frank as a board member and volunteer for St. Mary's Academy, St. Vincent Hospital, and the Portland Japanese Garden. 

John Piacentini died in 1988, a few months after he sold the Plaid Pantry chain to a group of venture capitalists.  Carl Piacentini, already ill himself when John died, succumbed a few months later.  This past Tuesday, the legacy of Carlo Piacentini's American dream closed when Frank Piacentini died, ninety-eight years to the day after his father set foot on Ellis Island.

Sign up for this solution to part of the Columbia River Crossing problem

One of the reasons proponents of the Columbia River Crossing project advance for spending the $4 billion is that the existing Interstate Bridges are the only drawbridges between Canada and Mexico.  One way to solve this problem is to replace the bridges. A cheaper way to solve this problem is to add one word to each of two freeway signs.  On the northbound exit sign from Interstate 5 in Tualatin to Interstate 205, add the word "Canada."  On the southbound exit sign from Interstate 5 in Vancouver to Interstate 205, add the word "Mexico."  Problem solved!

The Germans solve the Columbia River Crossing problem

Inspired by a link from Professor Bogdanski showing a water bridge over a river -- a bridge that carries a ship canal over a river -- I have solved the Columbia River Crossing problem.  Pictures of the bridge itself are here, at Amusing Planet.

The problem of the bridges themselves is not that their lanes are narrow -- they aren't -- nor that they don't have enough lanes.  The current bridges have just as many lanes as the freeways to the north and south; they're choke points only because so many entrances feed into them on both sides without enough room for merging.  Besides this problem, the existing bridges pose another problem: they are drawbridges, and they are lifted 425 times a year to make way for river traffic, or just to keep the machinery working.  With more clearance over the water, they would have to be lifted less often, or not at all if they are replaced with fixed bridges.

So far the highway people at ODOT and WSDOT, being highway people, have limited their concrete solutions (sorry) to plans to replace the bridges with a new and higher bridge, in effect, to raise the freeway.  The Magdeburg Water Bridge of Professor Bogdanski's post suggests another and cheaper way to solve this problem.  Instead of raising the bridges, lower the water.

"Huh?"  I think I heard you say, possibly spewing coffee over your keyboard.  No fooling: let's lower the water to provide more clearance.  Here's how:  Build a lock underneath the bridges, with a chamber a little more than twice as long as the longest ship or barge tow that now requires the bridges to be lifted.  Extend the lock, possibly, underneath the railroad bridge.  The lock does not have to cross the entire river, but only the space between two of the bridge supports.  (Fish and small craft can still use the rest of the river without going through the locks.)

Dredge out about another forty feet or so , reinforcing the bridge supports as necessary.  Again, the dredging is just in the lock chamber, not across the entire river.  Barge tows will then be able to enter the lock at one end and wait while the water is pumped out to lower the tow as far as necessary to clear the bridge.  When the water is lowered sufficiently, the barge tow will cross beneath the bridge to the other side.  The lock operator will then raise the water level and open the gates so that the barge tow can proceed upstream or downstream, as the case may be.

The result?  No more bridge lifts, no ridiculous reworking of the ramps, no destruction on Hayden Island.  Light rail, if it should ever go to Vancouver, can use the railroad bridge.

Standard & Poor's cuts its rating on the United States

That's what happens when the government charges $14 trillion on its credit card and doesn't seem to care about how to pay it back.

Isaac for mayor, redivivus

Unwilling to be deterred by the twin handicaps of living outside the city limits and being a fictive personality, I had announced my willingness to serve as Portland's mayor back when Mayor Adams's continued tenure seemed uncertain.  I proposed an eight-point transportation platform:

1.  Replacing the Sellwood Bridge is the highest transportation priority in the City, and we will not contribute toward any other new transportation facilities until the Sellwood Bridge is replaced.  We will help Multnomah County pay to replace the bridge in its current location with a four-lane bridge capable of handling today's level of traffic.  This means that the City will not contribute money toward any new tram, trains, or other toys until we have a new bridge in place. 

2.  The City will not sell its parking meters as a tax shelter, nor will it change them out for even cooler meters until they become actually obsolete.

3.  The City will not build any bike paths that it can't commit to sweep regularly.

4.  NW Lovejoy and Marshall will be returned to one-way operation forthwith.  NW 14th and 16th Avenues will be returned to two-lane operation, with bicyclists encouraged to use NW 18th and 19th in their place.

5.  For those properties in North Macadam / South Waterfront that aren't already under construction, the maximum allowable density will be reduced to the level that the existing street system can support.

6.  Provisions in the zoning code that assume that if you prohibit people from building garages and parking areas, they will cease to own cars, will all be repealed.  The City will understand the difference between owning a car (and needing somewhere at home to park it) and using a car for a trip that could be done on mass transit.

7.  The City will support a tri-county gasoline tax of five cents a gallon, to be allocated among the cities in proportion to their population, which the cities may use only to improve dirt and gravel roads.  The City of Portland will use its share of the tax to curb and pave any unimproved or underimproved street in the City which 50% of the residential property owners want to have improved, and will pay 75% of the cost to improve the street.  Because the City has for so long shorted its most eastern residents, the City will start paving at its eastern border and work its way west, not using any of this fund on streets west of the Willamette until everyone on the east side who wants a paved street has one.  (I'm throwing this in to get Commissioner Leonard's vote.)

8.  The City will redesign and rebuild the intersection of E. Burnside and Sandy Boulevard so that all lanes go in the direction they're pointed in, instead of their current Peter Max-like slaloms.

Point 8 and a portion of point 4 have already come to pass, so unlike the other announced candidates I'm already in the enviable position of having accomplished nearly 20% of my transportation program, without even taking office.  I'll be offering my take on some other city policies in the next few months.  And in the unlikely event that one of the candidates with a physical presence wants some advice, I'm always happy to provide it.

Redistricting doomed David Wu, even before his conduct did

The Knower of All Things has been offering an explanation of the legislature's redistricting plan to his friends, which makes more sense now that David Wu has resigned.  It goes like this:  Oreogn has five House districts.  The Third District (Earl Blumenauer's and the Fourth District (Peter DeFazio's) are solidly Democratic.  The Second District (Greg Walden's) is solidly Republican.  (Both parties like it this way.)

The First District (David Wu's, or a representative to be named later) and the Fifth District (Kurt Schrader's) are swing districts that can go either way.

The 2010 legislature had two big tasks to accomplish in the House redistricting: (1) eliminate the blatant gerrymander that ran the Fifth District from Salem up to the Ross Island Bridge, and (2) remove 36,000 residents from the First District.  The question the Democrats faced was how to do this.  The gerrymander (it's actually shaped rather like a middle finger pointed at the Republican party) had to go to David Wu or Earl Blumenauer, and it's predominantly Democratic.  People had to be moved from Mr. Wu's district to Mr. Schrader's district.  The problem was whether to move a bunch of good Portland Democrats or read coastal Republicans.

As we can now see with hindsight, the state legislature moved some of Mr. Wu's Democrats over to Mr. Blumenauer, who didn't need them, and moved more of them to Mr. Schrader, who does.  The implication of the adopted redistricting plan is that the Democrats in the state legislature were willing to put the First District up for grabs in order to make the Fifth District safer for Mr. Schrader.

So:  Did David Wu jump, or was he pushed?  The state legislature certainly sent him the message that they didn't care if he was re-elected or not.

A Portland public-private partnership expands to Cannon Beach

Is $100/night for a cottage in Cannon Beach fair rent for prominent developer Bradley Malsin to charge a Portland city official?  It seems high to me, but then, my friends invite me to stay free.

The Laquedem First District Send-Congress-A-Message Plan: Write in Kucinich

One consequence of David Wu resigning from Congress is that voters in Oregon's 1st District will get to vote in two special elections to fill his seat.  The first will be a primary, open only to registered Democrats and Republicans, and the second will be a special election between the two primary winners.  (I read Oregon's election laws to bar minor parties from fielding candidates in elections to fill house vacancies; see note at end.)  The winner of the special election will fill the rest of Congressman Wu's term -- that is, will serve in Congress until December 31, 2012 -- and will be succeeded by the winner of the general election of 2012.

Congress has not distinguished itself this session, the game-playing over the debt ceiling being only one of several reasons for the public to lose confidence in that venerable institution.  It struck me that the 1st District voters of both parties have an unusual opportunity to show their displeasure with Congress without compromising their party loyalty.

Here's why.  By the time the special election can be held, only about a year of Congressman Wu's term will remain.  When the winner goes to the District of Columbia, the regular Oregon primary will be less than 6 months away -- not enough time for the power of incumbency to work its magic.  Serious candidates will enter both elections.  Voters can cast "message" votes in the special election and still have qualified candidates from whom to choose in the regular primary.

I propose that voters in the 1st District show their unhappiness at the antics of Congress by writing in Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich on their special primary ballot.  He's served before (albeit without much distinction), he wants to serve again (though he's not sure from which state), and he might even move here, or to our neighbor to the north, just to be able to serve.  A write-in vote for Congressman Kucinich, coming from Oregon's 1st District, can't be taken for anything but a protest vote.

Write in Kucinich, and tell both parties to grow up.

------

Note:  ORS 188.120 governs how Oregon fills vacancies in the United States House.  It provides for the major parties to nominate candidates, but does not allow minor parties to nominate candidates.  It reads:

      188.120 Filling vacancy in election or office of U.S. Representative or Senator. (1) If a vacancy in election or office of Representative in Congress or United States Senator occurs before the 61st day before the general election, the Governor shall call a special election to fill that vacancy. If a vacancy in election or office of United States Senator occurs after the 62nd day before the general election but on or before the general election, and if the term of that office is not regularly filled at that election, the Governor shall call a special election to fill the vacancy as soon as practicable after the general election.

      (2) If a special election to fill the vacancy in election or office of Representative in Congress or United States Senator is called before the 80th day after the vacancy occurs, each major political party shall select its nominee for the office and certify the name of the nominee to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State shall place the name of the nominee on the ballot.

      (3) If a special election to fill the vacancy in election or office of Representative in Congress or United States Senator is called after the 79th day after the vacancy occurs, a special primary election shall be conducted by the Secretary of State for the purpose of nominating a candidate of each major political party. A declaration of candidacy or nominating petition may be filed not later than the 10th day following the issuance of the writ of election. [Formerly 249.654; 1985 c.586 §1; 1995 c.607 §60]

Brezhnev's revenge

The prevailing 30-second explanation of how the Cold War ended is that Ronald Reagan led an extensive, and expensive, military buildup in the 1980s, and the Soviet Union spent itself into bankruptcy trying to keep up.  Reagan increased our military spending to 7% of gross domestic product (GDP).  The Soviet Union, with its much smaller economy, had to push its defense spending to 27% of its GDP to keep up.  It collapsed under the resulting debt and the unwillingness of its people to be frozen at 1980 consumption levels while the union's resources were diverted into the war machine.  Leonid Brezhnev and his successors couldn't keep up.

Al-Qaeda spent a few hundred thousand dollars -- certainly less than $1 million -- to prepare for and carry out the attacks of September 11, 2001.  In response the United States has spent more than $1 trillion on war costs (including an eight-year-old war on a nation that had nothing to do with September 11) and is likely to spend another $2 to $3 trillion to pay for the wars and their aftermath.  The Bush Administration's initial estimate of the cost of the Iraq war was $60 billion.

Looked at purely as an economic conflict, al-Qaeda won.  Our direct financial loss of the September 11 attacks was maybe $5 billion of  property loss.  The indirect cost, however, is the $1 trillion (that's $1,000,000,000,000) that we've borrowed, spent, and wasted in response, 200 times the direct loss and 1,000,000 times what al-Qaeda spent to carry out the attacks.  From whatever perch Leonid Brezhnev may now be observing us, he's undoubtedly shaking his head in puzzlement that Osama bin Laden was able to do to the United States with less than $1 million what the Soviet Union couldn't do with $50 billion.

Isaac attempts the politically impossible

This is the best graphic I've found to explain where the federal government raises and spends its money.  It's from the Washington Post and shows, with simple arrows, where the federal revenues come from and where they go.

The big picture is that the government raises $2.57 trillion and spends $3.83 trillion, for a deficit of $1.27 trillion (the totals don't add because of rounding).  Of the $3.83 trillion in expenses, $1.415 trillion (about 36%) is discretionary.  The biggest chunk of the mandatory spending is Social Security ($730 billion, or 19% of expenses), followed by Medicare at $491 billion and Medicaid at $297 billion.

Revenues come mainly from personal income taxes ($1.1 trillion, or 43% of revenues), Social Security and other payroll taxes such as Medicare ($934 billion, or 37% of revenues), and corporate income taxes ($297 billion, or 12% of revenues).  All other revenue sources together are $213 billion, or 8% of revenues.

How, then, to balance the budget, or at least reduce the deficit?  Only three items on the income side are big enough for an increase to be meaningful: personal income tax, corporate income tax, and Social Security tax.  Much as I dislike to say it, it's reasonable for us, and our employers, to pay more in taxes if the result is to get our grandchildren out of hock.  A 20% increase in tax rates isn't out of line and should raise about $200 billion.  We are still a long way below the 91% top rate that afflicted the Eisenhower years.

On the spending side, the obvious target is the defense budget.  The plain truth is that we can't afford to wage three wars.  (I'm not sure that we can afford to wage even one war, a thought that I'll expand on later.)  None of America's nation-enemies have large military machines.  If we can bring our involvement in the current wars to an end, we should be able to reduce the defense budget by half or more, thus whacking $450 to $500 billion off of our expenses.

That reduces the deficit by more than half; for the rest, we can wait for economic recovery to raise overall revenues.