Political Chowder's NUMBER OF THE WEEK - Sponsored by www.no-deal.org

SEPTEMBER 2, 2007
NUMBER OF THE WEEK
4
Source: The Economist print edition (Aug. 30, 2007)

Revenge begins to seem less sweet
Aug 30th 2007 | BOULDER, COLORADO AND HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS

Americans are losing their appetite for the death penalty. Texas is the exception

Capital punishment is hardly controversial in Texas. Nearly three-quarters of Texans approve of it. In June the governor signed a law that would make some people who rape children eligible for it. But Texas is special. It now accounts for nearly half of all executions in America, of which there have been over 1,000 since 1976. During the six years in which George Bush was governor, the state put 152 people to death. No other governor in America's recent history except his successor, Rick Perry, has overseen so many executions.

Elsewhere, the death penalty is increasingly controversial. The questions of whether and how to impose it are primarily for the states, not the federal government, but Mr Bush's attorney-general, Alberto Gonzales, who resigned this week, tried to have more Americans executed. He failed, and any successor who wants to arrest the abolitionist trend is likely also to be frustrated. Since 2000, 12 out of 50 states have suspended the death penalty. Three of those ( Tennessee, Florida and Missouri ) have this year reversed that suspension and one (New Jersey) has moved towards formal abolition.

For a few years in the 1970s, America joined most other rich countries in revoking the death penalty. This was not done by passing a law. Rather, the Supreme Court decided, in 1972, that capital punishment was unconstitutional, since it broke the ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment. In 1976 a slightly different set of justices reversed the court's ruling and handed the issue back to the states.

Since then, the states have gone their own ways (see map). Twelve have no death penalty on their statute books. Of the 38 that do, some apply it often, some never. Texas has executed 401 people since 1976, the entire north-eastern region only four. By and large, the way the penalty is applied mirrors local preferences.

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www.no-deal.org
THIS WEEK'S NUMBER: 0

Did you know that Verizon has paid ZERO property taxes in NH for its outside plant network (poles, conduit, manholes, cable)? Every other regulated utility in this State pays property taxes on their outside plant network. Verizon demanded this tax subsidy (at the expense of local property owners, school budgets and municipalities) because Verizon claimed that it "needed" to reinvest the tax savings into the outside plant network, to improve and to continue to provide the best telecom service in the nation.

Instead, Verizon, one of the largest communication companies in the world, has failed to maintain its NH infrastructure and is now looking to sell this network (that we have already paid for) to a small highly leveraged North Carolina company called Fairpoint Communication. Sadly, after all these years of tax avoidance, Verizon will reimburse the State and our communities nothing and dump the failure on a company incapable of making necessary improvements. READ the response from the NH Consumer Advocates expert when asked about the threat to NH consumers.

Does the proposed transaction raise other overarching concerns?

A: Yes. Consumers' interests are being held hostage to this transaction: regulatory attention is being diverted away from pressing issues (such as unacceptable service quality and long-standing pole attachment issues). The Commission has been investigating Verizon NH's service quality for several years now, but its attention and resources have been diverted to the FairPoint transaction.

Meanwhile Verizon NH continues to flout the Commission's service quality standards and has fallen woefully behind in pole repairs and replacement while it focuses on selling off its Northern New England operations.

My testimony demonstrates, among other things, that:
The transaction poses serious risks to consumers, not just financially, but also serious managerial and operational risks.

There are many, many more issues that need to be examined. This is just a snippet of what's wrong with this deal. For more in depth details, please go on-line to www.no-deal.org. This is a bad deal for consumers, tax payers, rate payers, our communities and for the economic growth of New Hampshire.