Anyone can play the game of analyzing the gas pains we?re experiencing ? and come up with fixes. Here are a few practical, impractical, deliberately edgy and/or probably fatuous ones that came to mind. We?d be happy, even eager, to have them challenged and supplanted with some of your own. Who knows, maybe elected officials will take note of our Examiner exchange. Anything?s possible, right?
» Cutting gas taxes is a bad idea. We?ll all continue to use too much gas if gas tax cuts happen.
» More clever marketing and promotion accompanied by more clever operation of mass transit? Package commuter ticketing and family tickets and tickets tied to downtown attractions and ? We could pay for this easily with revenue from legalized slot machines ? maybe?
» Encourage car manufacturers and dealers to sell more hybrid and gas-efficient vehicles to all levels of government that we and their employees buy gas for with our tax dollars.
» Higher gas prices for bigger cars, lower gas prices for smaller cars.
» Moving to all hybrid buses, building on an initiative our governor announced at the end of April.
» Free or reduced-price parking for bicycles, motor scooters and motorcycles with a subsidy to parking lot owners ? offset by slot-machine revenue.
» Free lunch (or early dismissal or test waivers) for kids who walk or ride bikes to school.
» Cheaper toll tickets for smaller cars, more for bigger cars ? offsetting revenue and expense, perhaps.
» More police on bicycles, motor scooters, foot and horseback.
» School bus contracts only awarded to those using or with a firm implementation plan to use hybrid buses ? fast.
» Secure bicycle racks at theaters, museums and aquariums and ticket discounts for those who arrive by bicycle.
Proud Kendel
Stump speech or not, it?s impossible not to be moved by Gov. Robert Ehrlich when he?s talking about our failure to properly school many of our city kids and be moved by his wife, Kendel Ehrlich, when she rises ahead of all others to lead the applause for his passion about our children and educating them. You could see it in her look and the way that she rose to her feet from way across the room; she wasn?t shilling ? at all; she was proud of him and what he was saying and she wanted all of us to know it.
Listen to his words:
“These poor, mostly African-American kids do not have a shot at life. They come from dysfunctional families, dysfunctional neighborhoods. In most cases they can?t catch a break,” Ehrlich said at the annual legislative review for members of Maryland Business For Responsive Government.
“We have to provide them a safe school, a school where they learn, where they actually have a shot in this knowledge economy we like to brag about.”
“You?re sentencing them (and here he?s talking about the legislature which both vetoed state takeover of 11 failing Baltimore schools and declined do anything else) in the interest of short-term political calculation, and I?m not going to stand for it, the people will not stand for it.”
Appreciating readers, advertisers
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We hope you continue to read our news and advertising with the gustoyou?ve exhibited so far, patronize our advertisers and are delighted you can only “Tivo” Examiner news by turning the page and missing some great reading.
If this were an e-mail, I?d insert a smiling face here.
Michael Phelps is president and publisher of The Baltimore Examiner.
