Government

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society usually makes about $1 million in profits from the Philadelphia Flower Show. But not this year. The 2013 show actually fell short about $1.2 million, not an unprecedented event in its 184-year history but a short-term disaster for the many urban "greening" programs it supports. PHS president Drew Becher is now scrambling to cut costs - and to raise $1 million for programs and $200,000 for Flower Show expenses from PHS members and an insurance policy.

IF MOST OF US shrugged when sequestration kicked in on Friday morning, chalk it up to the cry-wolf Congress that already took us to the so-called fiscal cliff before retreating. But this time, it's real, and the random hacking cuts that the government is now forcing on itself - $1.2 trillion over 10 years - is the equivalent of using a chain saw to cure a hangnail rather than a more-thoughtful surgery. The cuts won't be fairly distributed - the chain saw will be lopping limbs from defense, immigration, education, housing, and disaster and emergency relief.

CENTRAL planning by the Washington elite, elected and appointed, determined that Chrysler, owned by shareholders, investors and banks, should be forced into bankruptcy. The new owners would become 55 percent the United Auto Workers, 35 percent a foreign auto company, 10 percent we the taxpayers, along with another 5-10 billion tax dollars in addition to the $8 billion lost in the bankruptcy. In essence, Washington decided that it would force property to be transferred from one owner and given to another, along with a bunch of our tax dollars.

Ronald Reagan got a lot of mileage out of his continual talk of our need for less government. After six years of government under Reagan, our government somhow got bigger than ever. That doesn't mean the Reaganisti haven't called off the federales who were harassing your local industrialist for putting poison in your drinking water. It doesn't mean they haven't made headway in building the character of the poor by denying them federal help. What it means is that the Reagan administration, behind the genial Charlie McCarthy figure of the president, has built up the government in other ways.

Here in the land of political lunches, tour-bus traffic jams and skyscraping monuments is where two Montgomery County senior citizens debated on Capitol Hill whether to cut the nation's defense or increase taxes. On Tuesday, Estelle Goodman, 80, of Wyncote, and Alfred Webb, 76, of Plymouth Meeting, tried to balance the federal budget for 1989. They had three hours. They failed. It was OK, though. The point of the task was to teach Goodman and Webb, along with 171 other senior citizens, the difficulty inherent in deciding how to spend 226 million people's money.

It must get confusing in the IT department at the Associated Press: Are you talking about the hackers who hacked our Twitter account or the Justice Department hackers who hacked our phones? Monday, the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department had secretly obtained two months of records of phone conversations by its reporters. Meanwhile, the Washington Post revealed that the IRS's targeting of conservative groups was more widespread than first reported. Someone at the IRS also leaked information about conservative groups to ProPublica.

The time is now for us the people to take charge of our own destinies, to take, if you will, responsibility for our own lives - all of the people, now, before things descend too far out of hand. Our taking the responsibility is, after all, what this thing called democracy was intended to be about. My source for this notion is our Declaration of Independence. Just to remind you, that pivotal document states " . . . all men are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights . . . that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (or of property)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani officials struck a deal late Thursday with a fiery Muslim cleric to end four days of antigovernment protests by thousands of his supporters that largely paralyzed the capital and put intense pressure on the government. The demonstration came at a time when the government is facing challenges on several fronts, including from the country's top court. The Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the prime minister earlier in the week in connection with a corruption case, but the government's anticorruption chief refused to act Thursday, citing a lack of evidence.

Thirty students from Cherry Hill schools got a taste of government yesterday at the municipal building. They met with key city officials.

I agree on the part of President Reagan's first inaugural address in which he said, "Government is the problem. " His appeal has been as the champion of the individual against big institutions, the promise of liberty against the oppression of government. I state this in response to the Sept. 28 Review & Opinion article by Sidney Blumenthal, "Rehnquist's ideology favors government authority. " Christopher Seese Philadelphia.

Councilman William Greenlee hopes not to get burnt Thursday when his indoor-tanning bill comes up for a vote. Citing what he called "a preponderance of evidence" that indoor tanning greatly raises one's risk of developing skin cancer, Greenlee has introduced a bill that would restrict minors from using indoor-tanning facilities in Philadelphia without parental permission. The measure would also prohibit those younger than 14 from using commercial tanning beds and other ultraviolet-emitting equipment without a doctor's permission.

By Melissa Chea-Annan Chilling remarks about press freedom in Liberia have led to a standoff between the government and the media. At a ceremony on May 3 marking World Press Freedom Day, Othello Daniel Warrick, the chief security aide to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, referred to journalists as "terrorists. " The threatening remarks by Warrick, the head of Liberia's presidential guard, the Executive Protection Service (EPS), also included a vow to arrest journalists if they continue to report negative stories on the president and her administration.

It must get confusing in the IT department at the Associated Press: Are you talking about the hackers who hacked our Twitter account or the Justice Department hackers who hacked our phones? Monday, the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department had secretly obtained two months of records of phone conversations by its reporters. Meanwhile, the Washington Post revealed that the IRS's targeting of conservative groups was more widespread than first reported. Someone at the IRS also leaked information about conservative groups to ProPublica.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Nawaz Sharif, who twice served as Pakistan's prime minister in the 1990s, has decisively garnered enough seats in Parliament to give him an unprecedented third term in the post, analysts said Sunday, as election results continued to pile up in favor of the industrialist's center-right party. "He will not have any problem in forming the new government; that is very clear," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political expert in Lahore, long the stronghold of Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N.

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex. - James Madison Federalist 48 But under today's regulatory state, the legislature, although still a source of much mischief, is not the principal threat to liberty. Suppose a federal executive department flagrantly abused its regulatory powers to suppress truthful speech that annoys the government. If you assume the Supreme Court would rectify this assault on the First Amendment's core protection, you would be mistaken.

HERE ARE three things the Obama administration has done that you probably didn't know about: Ever struggle with those accordion-style rubber sleeves on nozzles at the gas station? The sleeve - technically a "vapor recovery nozzle" - was required by the Environmental Protection Agency to keep gasoline vapors from leaking into the air. But most cars and trucks now have technology that does the job better, so last year, the EPA abolished the nozzle requirement. Because each sleeve-equipped nozzle can cost as much as $300, the change will save gas stations thousands of dollars.

THERE'S SOME semigood news and the usual bad news regarding needed reforms in Pennsylvania government and politics. As we end the first quarter of 2013, let's review. Keep in mind that in the Land of Low Expectations anything approaching progress deserves notation. Yes, there is still reluctance to run to the light after the darkness is shown. Take, for example, criminal charges filed last month in a huge, costly "pay-to-play" scandal involving the Pennsylvania Turnpike. If you missed it, shrugged and already forgot about it, state Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced charges stemming from evidence that pike contracts routinely were rigged in favor of campaign donors and those giving graft to pike officials.

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Saturday that a detained American allegedly tried to "topple" its government and would soon be put on trial, a potential complication as Washington tries to ease tensions stemming from Pyongyang's recent weapons tests and threats of nuclear attack. Kenneth Bae, a tour operator from Washington state, is the sixth American detained by the North since 2009, but he faces more serious charges than the others. The North used several previous cases as bargaining chips with the United States, drawing rescue-mission visits from former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

ROME - Center-left leader Enrico Letta forged a new Italian government Saturday in a coalition with former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservatives, an unusual alliance of bitter rivals that broke a two-month political stalemate from inconclusive elections in the recession-mired country. The daunting achievement was pulled off by Letta, who will be sworn in as prime minister along with the cabinet Sunday. Letta, 46, is a moderate with a reputation as a political bridge-builder.

LATELY AND ironically, I'm wondering whether good government is bad for governing. I say lately because of that gun vote in Washington last week and coming votes in Harrisburg on transportation. I say ironically because I'm a drum major for good (or at least better) government. But a piece in the Washington Post last Friday caught my attention. Headlined "How the ban on earmarks killed the gun bill," it strongly suggests that the 2011 moratorium on earmarks - those delightful goodies Congress handed out to make things happen - stopped stuff from getting done.