February 27, 2006
WRTA
 Brown
Shoes Diary
My Meeting With Rick
Rick Geist allowed me to spend a half hour with him on Friday,
February 24. I'm not sure why, but I expected him to be polite,
respectful, and informative. He was all but three of those
things. What follows is as accurate a reconstruction of the interview
that my memory allows. I definitely learned my lesson and will take a
recorder the next time.
After introductions in which he insisted I call him, "Rick," and I
asked that he call me, "John," I quickly complimented him on how
good his staff is at providing constituent service. (I know from
personal experience that they are very helpful.) I also thanked him for
his involvement with the Tour de 'Toona, an event that I think is a good
thing for our area. He informed me that very little taxpayer money goes
into the Tour, "maybe $10,000 out of a budget of $500,000" and that
the taxpayer money is used for the extra police salaries necessary for the
event. I do have to wonder, however, if it's such a small part of the
budget, why can't they get by without any taxpayer money period? And
then I thanked him for his time and willingness to meet with me. I was
determined to be polite and respectful, to be on my best behavior.
The meeting, unfortunately, quickly turned nasty. Rick said I'd be
happy to know that he'll be assisting Penn State in its budget requests and I made the mistake of being honest.
I told him that as an employee of Penn State, I don't appreciate Penn State being on the public dole. There really is no moral nor economic
justification for taking taxpayers' money to give to
Penn State. Rick then asked if I accept my salary from the University and
when I replied in the affirmative (I do earn it, after all), he called me a
prostitute. I didn't say this, but if I am a prostitute would that make
Rick, by his reasoning, a pimp or a john or both?
A quick digression. If I limited myself to work only for companies and
institutions who are NOT getting government subsidies, I wouldn't be working
at all. There just aren't any companies that don't get welfare in one
form or another. So, politicians like Rick Geist have created a world
where I either work at institutions that violate my moral sensibilities or I
don't work at all, which would be a worse choice, in my opinion. But
thank you to all you socialists who have created this world where the choice
to consistently uphold a moral code of conduct is always compromised.
Back to my pimp, I mean, back to Representative Rick. He also said,
with respect to Penn
State, that its subsidized tuition is the reason he got
to go to college in the first place. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been
able to afford it. Maybe so, but aren't there other ways to provide for
deserving people besides welfare? I mean, there certainly is charity in
Pennsylvania and America, isn't there? It's just a question of who is
the better benefactor: private individuals doing it voluntarily or government
doing it by force? I rather resented the insinuation of Rick that
Pennsylvanians would have let him down were they not ordered by the
government. I resent Penn State's requests for taxpayer dollars for the same reason. It's an
insult to the good people of the Commonwealth.
So right away he employed the top two techniques of politicians who are wrong
on the issues and uninterested in discussing them--he calls his opponent
names and tries to get his opponent on the defensive. Except in this case,
I'm just a tax-paying constituent trying to get answers to simple
questions. There was absolutely no call for his hostility and
disrespect.
I assured Rick that I'm not his opponent. I was there for information
only. He said that wasnt true and that I'm an attack dog, who was there
to assail his character. I assure all the readers of this piece that I
was not disrespectful, confrontational, nor accusative--I only asked
questions in as polite a manner as I am capable. For
example, I noted the relatively poor performance of Pennsylvania's economy and particularly poor economic
performance of his district. What does he think accounts for this? His
answer was an aging population. Now, I thought this an interesting
reply because it's not one that can immediately be dismissed. Hoping he
would elaborate, I asked, "It's demographics that is causing the
Commonwealth's poor economy?" At this point he said he would not
stand for me calling him corrupt. Where that came from I have no clue,
but I said I wasn't, I was just asking questions. He said I most
certainly was calling him corrupt, that I have a chip on my shoulder, and he
just preferred I'd leave the office.
I might have understood his testiness if he were in the midst of a difficult
campaign, but this is a guy who has no opponent in the next election and is a
shoe-in for a 15th term. Why the nastiness bordering on paranoia?
I half expected him to pull some steel balls out of his pocket and begin spinning
them in his palm, all the while explaining what happened to the strawberries.
I repeated that I was just asking questions and I didn't understand why he
thought I was calling him corrupt. I hadn't yet asked about the pay
raise, the unvouchered expenses he took, or the vote he cast to raise the
retirement benefits of all state employees, including his own and his
wife's. But maybe the guy can read minds or maybe my body language was
revealing more than I thought. Who knows?
I persisted because there is plenty that I am uniformed about in
Pennsylvania politics and this was my first chance to talk with
one of the main players. I asked why he didn't support making
Pennsylvania a Right-to-Work state. He said he did in the
past. So I asked, "Why don't you still support it?" He
replied that it's not going to go anywhere and to promote that idea would
make him ineffective in his leadership position.
The thought occurred to me that he must have gone to the Bob Jubelirer School
of Leadership. You'll remember last year that Senator Jubelirer said
that he supported the pay raise because other legislators wanted it and as
leader he had to go along with the crowd. These guys in
Harrisburg have a most peculiar notion of what leadership is,
don't you think? They'll lead as soon as they find out where everybody
is going.
At some point in the interview, I asked Rick where I could find his voting
record. After all, there's virtually nothing on his website on how he
has voted on legislation and tax increases. He assured me that it is
readily available on-line as is everybody's voting record in Harrisburg. Now he may be right, but I told him I spent
a lot of time trying unsuccessfully to find that information and that a very
knowledgeable and active political person in our area has informed me that
the voting records of legislators are nearly impossible to find. They
are certainly not in one location for easy reference for voters. I even
mentioned to Rick the trouble Allison Schroeder of Channel 10 news had to go
through to get simple information on the expenses of legislators. Rick
told me all this information is easily available and though he did not know
the weblink off hand, he would email it to me. I'll let WRTA listeners
and WRTA.com readers know if he does.
Somewhere past the halfway point in the in the interview, he asked me, with
obvious contempt, what I thought "representative government" was
all about. It finally got through to me that he wasn't interested in
answering my questions and was going to continue to attack me. I
replied that before we can talk about "representative government"
we need to address what government is. And government, I told him and
it's about time somebody did, is an institution whose only legitimate purpose
is to protect people's property. His comment on that remark, and I
quote verbatim, "Well, it does a lousy job of that."
Hallelujah!!! Rick and John agree on something. And further
agreement: Representative Rick assured me that the Pennsylvania legislature would pass a law for protection
against eminent domain abuse by the end of the current session. If this
happens, I will happily applaud Rick and his colleagues.
My appointment to see Rick was for 9:30, but it didn't begin until 9:45. At 10:15 one of his staff informed him that his 10 o'clock appointment was waiting. I know a cue when I
hear one. Still, I had a number of questions to ask because instead of
addressing my questions he chose to be combative rather than
informative. I wanted to ask about his position on HR 177--a resolution
addressing "political correctness" in our academic institutions.
(See
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/column/mikeadams/2006/02/22/187524.html
for the most recent examples at Penn State. It's a very funny read even if it does shame my
profession.) I wanted to know what he's doing to reduce taxes. He
did say at one point that there is a pot of money in Harrisburg and he sees his job as bringing as much of that
pot home as he can. I thought I heard a pig squealing in the background.
I did suggest at this comment that I thought he had a duty to put the
interests of the Commonwealth above those of his district. He replied
by saying that one of his top priorities is balancing the state's budget, so
I made another suggestion: we just shut government down altogether.
Voila! In a single move the budget is balanced in perpetuity, his top
priority is achieved, and the producers and workers in the state can live in
peace.
Well, I had to ask him about the Sovereign Bank legislation. [See my WRTA
letter to editor at
http://www.wrtanews.com/artman/publish/article_3766.shtml] He said that
a hedge fund was interfering with the bank's operations. I asked him if
he thought hedge funds were evil. He said that they ruin
companies. Now, I happen to know a thing or two about hedge funds and,
in fact, Penn State's Smeal College of Business has its own hedge fund. It turns
out they're just like any other capitalists--they make investments, they try
to make those investments efficient and profitable, and if they're
successful, they get rich and the economy where they invested is
improved. But Rick, who I think has an associates degree in engineering
from Penn State, apparently graduated without ever learning that lesson. I
wonder if the University can rescind his diploma the same way he and his
buddies in Harrisburg rescinded the property rights of Pennsylvania's investors?
I asked Rick if he was on board when Act 36 passed back in 1990
"saving" the Armstrong Corporation. He said proudly that he
was. I asked if he was aware of the economic damage to the state due to
that legislation. He said he had never seen a study done on it.
There actually have been several peer-reviewed studies on Act 36 published in
the very best finance and economics journals. I handed Rick a copy of
my WRTA essay, "Rendell's War on Pennsylvania's Economy," and asked that he read it and
told him that I referenced one of the studies in the essay. What I
should have asked was whether or not he had voted for the "Just Say
No" law, which effectively repealed the destructive Act 36. I'm
guessing he did, which means he was in favor of the act before he was against
it; just as he was in favor of Right-to-Work before he was against
that. John Kerry has nothing on our Rick.
In any case, here's a thought: Rick, how about putting shareholders' property
rights into that eminent domain legislation you're promising? That's a
great idea. Potential investors in Pennsylvania's economy would love to know their investments
aren't going to be stolen any longer by our government.
To give you an idea of how difficult it is to ask Rick a simple question, he
refused to admit there was any conflict of interest in his voting for a 25%
increase in the retirement pensions of state employees, including his own and
his wife's. I agreed with him that his vote may have been the right
thing to do, but there still was, by definition, a conflict of
interest. He insisted there wasn't. How could there not be?
He insisted there wasn't.
The most exasperating part of the interview was asking about the pay
raise. He claimed it was done constitutionally and he said all the
courts back him on this. He also insisted that taking unvouchered
expenses in anticipation of the pay raise was proper. So I asked,
"Why did you return the money?" (I've been told he has
returned the unvouchered expenses.) His answer was extremely
unclear--something about he gave the money to his church before he had
actually taken it from the taxpayers. I pressed him to clarify, but he
was indignant with me on this point and refused to clarify anything.
Finally, he ushered me out of the office. As he shook my hand (I shook
his out of gratitude for his time and respect for his office--I'm guessing he
shook mine out of habit), he insisted that he's never ducked the media.
I'm not going to argue with that, but he sure cried like a baby with my
questions and I'm not even part of the media, except in the weakest sense
possible. Rick's parting comments to me were that he works very hard
for his constituents, routinely putting in 60 to 80 hour weeks. I'm
sure he's honest on this point; after all, you can't vote on pay raises at 2:00 AM if you're not busy the rest of the day. But
I came away believing if he and his buddies in Harrisburg worked a lot less
hard and put in a lot fewer hours, the people of Pennsylvania would be a lot
better off. Especially those in his district.
Contact John D McGinnis
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