Balancing The Budget: Plastic Bags & More

In our current fledgling economy, cities are being forced to come up with innovative ideas to balance their respective budgets. Bloomberg's current ideas to increase the NYC's revenue is to tax new items such as plastic bags and increase parking ticketing by hiring more meter maids and giving out tickets on any possible violation (even parking too far from the curb) as well as increased meter rates. Now supposedly there are no quotas for tickets but it certainly would seem otherwise. I propose the following idea to balance the NY state budget: broken meters. Brake meters all over the state that just take quarters but don't register any time. Then ticket the people who park there as many don't contest that it was broken, plus you get all the extra quarters from people who decide to park elsewhere. Seriously if I put a quarter in a parking meter and it doesn't register the time, shouldn't I get my money back?! I don't want to get a ticket, only for them to tell me it works fine when contested and I must pay up. It may only be a quarter but it's the principal. To whom must I write a letter to receive my 25 cents refund? I understand that mailing the letter will cost more than the money owed, so perhaps an email would better suited for this request?

First Jewish President: Bloomberg?

Now that Mayor Bloomberg has changed his party affiliation from Republican to unaffiliated the buzz is already starting. The move for the mayor is certainly interesting politically and has many talking about his bid for president. Bloomberg is denying any interest at this point in the oval office. It would be interesting to see 2 mayors: Bloomberg and Giuliani battle it out along with a NY senator, Hillary clinton but perhaps that's too much NY for most people? Being Jewish would do little to help the mayor according to the Guardian:``People thought every Jew in America would run out and vote for Lieberman,'' said Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, interreligious affairs director for the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group based in New York. ``But Jews are fairly sophisticated voters. They don't vote along the lines of, 'I'll vote for the Jew because I am one.' They tend to vote issues. They tend to vote politics.'' Honestly, I think the last thing we need in this country is a Jewish president. There is enough antisemitism out there, a Jewish president wouldn't help that.