Contract Discipline

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Amtrak is in the hole to the tune of $140 million in maintenance costs for its current fleet of trains because the contractor Amtrak hired to build and deliver uprated replacement trains is having trouble with testing requirements and production defects and so is nearly three years late on delivery.

Amtrak is also losing even more revenue in anticipated ticket sales from the new, larger trains that were supposed to enter service in 2021. And the railroad is missing out on other revenue because some older Acela units have been pulled from service to be cannibalized for spare parts.

One way for our government to deal with such things is with fixed price contracts, under which the contractor gets a sum of money and must satisfy the production requirements of the contract within that sum. These contracts, though, don’t make the contractee whole from the contractor’s failure.

Here’s another way: write into the contract that the contractor is responsible for the contractee’s maintenance and other costs attributable to the contractor’s failure to meet deadlines. Such a move would make future contractors, e.g., France-based Alstom in the Amtrak case, responsible for Amtrak’s $140 million, and more, inflicted on it by Alstom’s failure to perform. If no contractor is willing to incur that risk, that contractor need have no business from the government at all.

New FBI Headquarters

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The FBI wants a new headquarters building, and the GSA has identified the new location for it, in Greenbelt, MD. The FBI had wanted Springfield, VA, and they’ve raised ethics concerns over the GSA’s site selection process. Those concerns, however real, are in the rumble seat compared to the problem either site presented: both are far too deep inside the DC bubble. One is just 11 miles southwest of Capitol Hill, and the other is just 12 miles northeast of Capitol Hill.

Better locations would have been well outside that bubble, out where us ordinary Americans, us folks with whom the FBI is supposed to be interacting and protecting, live. Places like McPherson, KS, or Broken Bow, NE, or Calvin, OK. Places in our heartland.

There’s more to this, too.

At the [J Edgar] Hoover Building, officials have quick access to prosecutors in the Justice Department’s headquarters across Pennsylvania Avenue.

That’s fine. DoJ headquarters needs to be moved out of the DC bubble, too, for the betterment of our nation. Whichever of those heartland towns (or another like them) gets the FBI headquarters (were my wish to be favorably answered), DoJ HQ should be relocated to another of those towns.

If you don’t know where the towns are without consulting a map, that’s the point.

Here’s a Thought

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(No comments from the peanut gallery.)

Time is rapidly decreasing to get a budget passed in time to prevent a Federal government partial shutdown. There are those who fear that, and many of those distort the situation by claiming that it would be a total shutdown and one that would push all grandmas and grandpas off the Social Security cliff and deny wages for our soldiers. The hysteria is strong in those, but let’s take it seriously for a moment.

Here’s a solution. Assume Congressman Andrew Clyde (R, GA) is correct in his prediction that the House will finish passing all 12 of its appropriation bills by the supposed deadline of 17 November. To the extent the shutdown hysteria needs to be taken seriously, there will need to be an extension/additional Continuing Resolution in order to give the Senate time to deal with the appropriations bills, the House-Senate Conference that will be necessary to resolve any differences, and that CR. I’m eliding here the idea that Senators themselves need no funding in order to do their jobs and work these bills. They can work for free for the time being.

If the Senators, led by Progressive-Democrat Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY), but really only 60 of the 100 are needed, are serious, they’ll need under Senate rules only about a week to consider and pass or vote down an appropriation bill. Since Senators all are very proud of their ability to “walk and chew gum,” as they love so quaintly to put it, they can consider all of the appropriations simultaneously and in parallel with their handling of the CR. This is especially true given the size of each Senator’s staff and the size of the Senate-as-a-whole’s staff.

It should take only a day for the Conference Committee to resolve any differences, and an additional day for the respective houses to pass or reject the Committee’s recommendations.

Thus: pass a CR containing spending at the latest pre-Wuhan Virus Situation level, good for nine days. That’s sufficient time for the Senate to act on the CR and the appropriations bills.

And pass no further CRs. Full stop. If the Senate as a whole chooses to reject any of the House bills, or the CR, the Senate—Republicans as well as Progressive-Democrats, depending on how the Republicans vote—will have demonstrated that they’re more interested in their political games than they are in the weal of their constituents and of our nation at large. They should be left, with apologies to Hosea, to reap the whirlwind: it hath no budget; the funds shall yield no meal.

A Sanctuary State Governor Doesn’t Like Being Called on to Deliver Sanctuary

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Massachusetts’ Progressive-Democrat Governor Maura Healey is upset that so many…persons…are accepting her invitation, via her State’s determined sanctuary status, to come on in. The State’s right to shelter housing requirement is just fine. Until it isn’t.

[T]he governor of the “right-to-shelter” state is suggesting there are “a lot” of other places in the US migrants should be sent.

Sure. But there are only sanctuary States and cities for illegal aliens to go to. And Massachusetts is one of them.

There are a lot of places in the country where people can go once they cross into the United States[.]

You bet. And folks who come into our nation legally go there promptly, and they don’t contribute to overwhelming their destination’s facilities. As for the illegal aliens, once they cross into the United States, there are three primary places to which they can, or should, go: one is to border detention facilities, where they should be processed for immediate deportation. Another is to jail in the jurisdiction in which they’re caught, where they can be processed for prompt deportation. The third place is to sanctuary jurisdictions—like Healey’s Massachusetts in the present case—that make themselves accessories to the crime of illegal entry into our nation, and those sanctuary places can suffer the fiscal, if not legal, consequences of their aiding and abetting.

Dangerous Settlement

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Bob Updegrove, a Virginia-based photographer, has settled his case against the State of Virginia and its Virginia Values Act, which barred “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, public and private employment, public accommodations, and access to credit. The Act includes denying folks their right to demur on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Citing the recent 303 Creative LLC v Elenis Supreme Court case, Updegrove’s case was ultimately dismissed by both parties in appeals court on the agreement that he would not be forced to take part in same-sex weddings.

Agreement. Settlements start out being dangerous, since they’re binding only on the parties to the litigation, and they depend on the agreeing parties adhering to their agreements. In the Updegrove case, the settlement does not prevent the State from enforcing its Act against other photographers, other graphic designers, or anyone else who objects to something based on their own religious beliefs.

Worse, it depends on Virginia’s AG, Jason Miyares’, word. Which he immediately exposed as questionable:

“As Attorney General, my highest duty is to the federal Constitution. I am pleased that with the settlement, the law is upheld at no cost to the taxpayers and Mr Updegrove’s First Amendment rights are preserved,” he added.
The attorney general, however, still maintains the authority to enforce the Virginia Values Act, including against Updegrove, based on conduct outside the complaint.

Updegrove’s First Amendment rights are not circumscribed by the bounds of this specific case. His rights extend throughout his life, yet Miyares has just committed to attempting to cut short those rights whenever he can find something outside this settlement on which to do so.

Better would have been to force the matter through the courts and get Virginia’s Act itself cut short on the basis of the Supreme’s 303 Creative LLC v Elenis ruling.