Economy
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Marilyn Balcombe puts a soft touch on zoning reform
Read more: Marilyn Balcombe puts a soft touch on zoning reformWe often hear about the struggle between progressives and centrists in the Democratic Party. Among MoCo’s Democrats, the progressives demoralize the police force and reward cover-ups of sexual harassment with severance pay. The centrists focus on policies that get resources to those who need it, such as bus service. That’s not a hard and consistent…
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Montgomery History Lauds 90 Years of “Potomac River Ferries” as MoCo Residents Still Don’t Have a Functional Way to Cross the Potomac, North of Beltway
Read more: Montgomery History Lauds 90 Years of “Potomac River Ferries” as MoCo Residents Still Don’t Have a Functional Way to Cross the Potomac, North of BeltwayYou still can’t cross the Potomac River in your car or bike or moped in any coherent, quick, functional way north of the American Legion Bridge in Montgomery County in 2024. Need to go to Dulles airport? You’ll have to go down to the beltway, fight traffic around it, and then back up, along the…
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Rent Control: The Data Collection Begins
Read more: Rent Control: The Data Collection BeginsIt’s hard to believe that a full year has passed since rent control was passed by the County Council at the behest of Will Jawando and Kristin Mink. On July 18, 2023 I published the first snapshot of the county’s rental market. On October 7, 2023, I published a second snapshot. Since then I’ve been…
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MoCo’s “Boost” UBI-Test Program, Pushed by CM Jawando, is Getting Scaled Back — And We Still Don’t Have a “First Draft” of the Urban Institute’s “Evaluation”
Read more: MoCo’s “Boost” UBI-Test Program, Pushed by CM Jawando, is Getting Scaled Back — And We Still Don’t Have a “First Draft” of the Urban Institute’s “Evaluation”Remember the no-strings “free cash” pilot program started in FY 2023 (calendar year 2022) by the Montgomery County Council? Funded in part by your tax dollars (over $3 million, although part was provided by a private grantor), the pilot program was another attempt by some on the County Council to “be like DC” and hand…
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Jawando, Mink, and Sayles throw cannabis prisoners under the CASA bus
Read more: Jawando, Mink, and Sayles throw cannabis prisoners under the CASA busUnder the Revenue Act of 1862, the Union seized land from Southern landowners, and eventually auctioned those lands to freed slaves. In 1865, General Sherman issued Special Field Orders 15, allowing the confiscation of 400,000 acres of land in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, dividing it into parcels of 40 acres to be settled by…
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Positive News on Licensing
Read more: Positive News on LicensingYou probably know the maxim “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” The earliest instance we have of that maxim is from London’s The Spectator, a daily publication during the years 1711–1712. Just as today’s coffee shops provide free WiFi to bring in customers, so London’s coffee shops shared copies of The Spectator…
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Forcing MoCo’s Poor to Pay for Our Renewable Sensibilities
Read more: Forcing MoCo’s Poor to Pay for Our Renewable SensibilitiesHere at Clean Slate MoCo we are very cautious about discussing issues at the national level. I’m begging an exception for this post, because we have a confluence of policies at the national and local level that can only be considered a war against the poor. In May 2024 President Biden increased the tariff on…
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Child Investment Fund: bigotry now, prosperity never
Read more: Child Investment Fund: bigotry now, prosperity neverOne of the most amazing books I ever read is Poverty and Prosperity by the economist Deepak Lal. In that book, Professor Lal outlines how freeing the economic markets in India and China raised fully one-fourth of the entire world’s population out of crushing poverty and wealth inequality within 40 years. This book is so…
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Council Member Really Wants You to Know: He was Named ‘2024 Legislator of the Year’
Read more: Council Member Really Wants You to Know: He was Named ‘2024 Legislator of the Year’MoCo Councilmember “At Large” Gabe Albornoz (Democrat) really really wants you to know he was named “Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce Legislator of the Year”. So much so that he begins his e-mail to tax-paying constituents about his award… and then continues the whole communication to residents talking about… this award. Here is another excerpt…
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The Takoma Park City Machine – How Takoma Park Uses Tax Dollars to Press Forward an Ideological Agenda to MoCo, Maryland and Beyond
Read more: The Takoma Park City Machine – How Takoma Park Uses Tax Dollars to Press Forward an Ideological Agenda to MoCo, Maryland and BeyondAlways follow the money and the influencers. Oh, and the 501c3s, c4s, etc. The City of Takoma Park’s influence on MoCo government policy has been covered here before but a quick review of the 501c3 non-profit Old Takoma Business Association’s (OTBA) website provides more visual examples of what this tiny town (population 17,500) does with…