The state of Alabama is now in the business of taking money from its citizens and then dangling that money out in front of fat people like we’re running a game show.

For the second year in a row, the state Department of Public Health is sponsoring a weight-loss contest to help nudge Alabamians toward longer, healthier lives.

The rules of Scale Back Alabama are simple: Form a team of four friends or co-workers, get weighed at any Huntsville Hospital wellness center in early January, and start losing. Anyone who sheds 10 pounds or more during the 10-week competition is entered into a drawing for up to $1,000 cash.   

I wonder what Jefferson, Madison, etc. would think if they knew that state governments in this country had fallen to this level?  Running game shows with tax dollars to encourage moderation.  Tsk, tsk, tsk.

I have a better idea.  How about we just put the participants on a treadmill and dangle a $100 bill in front of them like the proverbial carrot.

Last year’s contest was modeled after “The Biggest Loser” TV show and rewarded the team with the highest percentage of weight loss. The 8,400 people who completed the program dropped a total of 78,472 pounds - an average of 9.34 pounds per person.

Despite those successes, Miriam Gaines, the state health department’s nutrition director, said the emphasis on percentage weight loss may have encouraged some contestants to try crash diets and other risky things in an attempt to drop as many pounds as possible.

Gee Miriam, ya think!  Who would have guessed that some poor, fat people might crash diet to get $1,000?

Remember this next year when you hear about the critical state of our General Fund.  You’ll be told we don’t have money for this or that. but it didn’t stop the state from giving some of it away in a lose the fat competition.

From the AP:

Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It’s expanding by about $1.4 billion a day — or nearly $1 million a minute.

What’s that mean to you?

It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.

There is a presidential candidate who actually has a unique plan to reign in debt.  It’s called decreased government spending.

All those FEMA trailers bought with our tax dollars are just sitting unused in Hope, Arkansas.  The total cost of the 18,000 trailers and mobile homes cost us $424 million dollars.  That includes $4.5 million just to lay out 140 acres of gravel to park all the trailers on.

Government at its best.

Here’s a sobering thought: Hundreds of bottles of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, some of it almost 100 years old, may be unceremoniously poured down a drain because authorities suspect it was being sold by someone without a license.

Officials seized 2,400 bottles late last month during warehouse raids in Nashville and Lynchburg, the southern Tennessee town where the whiskey is distilled.

…

Tennessee law requires officials to destroy whiskey that cannot be sold legally in the state, such as bottles designed for sale overseas and those with broken seals.

“We’d pour it out,” said Danielle Elks, executive director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission.

The estimated value of the liquor is $1 million, possibly driven up by the value of the antique bottles, which range from 3-liter bottles to half-pints.

I don’t follow Tennessee politics closely, but I would imagine it is like politics in Alabama and all over the country in one regard: lots of politicians whine about not taking enough taxes out of people’s pockets.  For one of those governments to then destroy $1 million of anything - let alone fine aged whiskey - rather than sell it and put the proceeds into government coffers defies logic.

That is what WAFF called the Huntsville metro jail boondoggle.

Over budget and overdue, the Huntsville-Madison County Metro Jail is now a monument to your tax dollars at waste.

Already Huntsville and Madison County’s new metro jail is projected to cost $40 million over the original budget, $5.7 million of that just in repairs so far.

…

[A] document we found summarizing at least one of those forensic reports is a letter dated March 23, 2006, from CTL group’s vice president, adressed [sic] to Bruce Taylor, projects manager for for the city. The documents reads in part, “Specific concerns regarding the brace and connections and overturning of top most modules were addressed in a letter dated February 22, 2006 to the city of Hunstville [sic]. To date these concerns are unresolved.”

But construction continued, and until June 30, 2006, Dawson was still the builder under contract and Bruce Taylor was still the director of facilities projects, as David Wall remained the owner’s project’s representative.

…

City attorney Pter Joffrion did sit down with us to explain where this project went wrong.

“None of it was the city’s fault, it all occurred on the other side. It’s very clear now that not only were there design deficiencies, but significant construction deficiencies as well. Even a well trained project manager would have missed much of what occurred,” Joffrion said.

Joffrion’s “even a well trained project manager” statement is a frank admission that the city did not have a well trained project manager overseeing the project.  Who dropped the ball by saddling an unqualified manager to run the project?  The buck has to stop somewhere.

As predicted, Commissioner Faye Dyer is going to beat Glenn Watson over the head with this debacle.  She is now calling for an audit of the project.

Some members of the Madison County Commission are beginning to play hardball with the city of Huntsville over the money pit masquerading as a half built jail.  Commissioners Bob Harrison and Faye Dyer are suggesting the city may have breached their agreement.  Commission chairman Mike Gillespie, who called the numerous problems with the project “hiccups,” said there are “legitimate concerns.”  Dyer has even stated that it may be best to tear down what is there and start over.  She may be right, but I don’t foresee the city council following through and taking even more heat.

Commissioner Mo Brooks put the scale of the $40 million cost overrun into perspective:

“People don’t realize what $40 million will buy you,” said Commissioner Brooks. “It’s a new high school. It’s a half dozen overpasses on the Parkway with matching federal money.”

The project creates an interesting backdrop for the race for Dyer’s seat on the commission.  Her biggest competitor is Glenn Watson, who is currently president of the Huntsville City Council.  Dyer can effectively use this boondoggle against Watson since his position on the city council has given him some degree of oversight.  Since the jail will not be completed ever before the election, Dyer can periodically lob verbal bombs toward Huntsville until votes are cast - with each one implicating Watson to some extent.

George Bush is a bigger spender than LBJ.

When adjusted for inflation, discretionary spending — or budget items that Congress and the president can control, including defense and domestic programs, but not entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare — shot up at an average annual rate of 5.3 percent during Bush’s first six years, Slivinski calculates.

That tops the 4.6 percent annual rate Johnson logged during his 1963-69 presidency. By these standards, Ronald Reagan was a tightwad; discretionary spending grew by only 1.9 percent a year on his watch.

Without including entitlements Bush is worse than LBJ.  Yikes.  But Bush made that problem worse as well.

Then there was the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit — the biggest single expansion in the program’s history — whose 10-year costs are estimated at more than $700 billion. 

I know that most Republicans still pledge loyalty to W, but face it - the man is not a conservative.  Blame Congress for reckless spending all you want, but Bush was the enabler who could have put the kibosh on it at any time.  But he wasn’t merely complicit, he was an active part of the problem.

Headline: Bush raps Democrats on spending bills

President Bush admonished Congress on Monday for failing to send him a single spending bill yet, and warned lawmakers to trim their plans or face rejection.

“You’re fixin’ to see what they call a fiscal showdown in Washington,” Bush told a friendly audience in this northwest Arkansas community.

…

“Congress needs to be responsible with your money and they need to pass these appropriations bills — one at a time,” Bush said, roaming the stage. “And then we can work together to see whether or not they make fiscal sense for the United States.”

Pardon me Mr. Bush, but you’re failure to show such discipline while your fellow Republicans were in control of Congress contributed to them not being in control of Congress.  Of course, you did have to give them everything they demanded so that you could buy their support for your unpopular war policy.  It’s a little too late to find religion now.

From the Mobile Press-Register’s Political Skinny:

Last Monday, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby announced via news release that he had reintroduced a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget. On Thursday, in a separate release, he heralded his work to add $1 billion to NASA’s fiscal 2008 budget on top of what the Bush administration has requested.

“Unfortunately, my balanced budget amendment has not yet been added to the Constitution,” Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, said in a statement Friday after the Press-Register inquired about the apparent contradiction. Without such a provision, he said, “I have to work within a budget landscape that calls for tough decisions about spending priorities. I have a responsibility to support and advocate for projects that are good for our nation and Alabama. The people of Alabama elected me to represent their interests in Washington and I will continue to work diligently to do so every day.” 

Do as I say, not as I do!

Apparently U.S. Representatives are allowed 18 paid staff members.  Sounds like more than enough to me.  But Artur Davis just couldn’t manage to get by with 18.  So he managed to get one paid for not by him, not by a Democrat organization, not even by the federal government.  He got an Alabama two year college employee “on loan” to work in his office.

The article also mentions that the employee in question, Gina Bailey McKell, worked in both Bob Riley’s and Don Siegelman’s offices while on the two year college payroll.  I can *almost* understand that since she at least is still working for a state agency.  It still smacks of a publicly funded institution using their money not for the intended purpose of instructing students, but rather using it to extract more from our wallets.  But having an employee on the payroll of a state entity working for a federal office holder is absurd and patently unjustifiable.  It doesn’t serve the interests of the state and most certainly doesn’t serve the interests of the two year college system - unless she was a de facto lobbyist, which the schools shouldn’t be engaged in to begin with.  Her salary?  Over $76,000 a year.

Maybe Davis should hire some better staffers so that he can get by with the allotted number.  Of course, he does have to restrict his pool of candidates to Democrats, which makes it a bit more difficult, though not impossible, to find hard workers.  Too many pro-union folks who demand guaranteed breaks and balk at working a minute over forty hours.