Governmental Idiot of the Week

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Imagine you are the Tal of governments and you can give one Idiot of the Week plaque to the government figure of your choice.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present Poland's minister of infrastructure, Krzysztof Opawski.

Reason: Trying to introduce a special car tax for each kilometre you drive in your car. Yes, this is going to require a special counter to be installed in your car. Another brilliant idea is collecting passage fees for using bridges and entering city centres in your car. Yeah, this means checkpoints blocking the traffic until you pay and the barrier goes up.

Clearly deserves an IotW.

 

I would've thought that nice fellow who rigged the elections in the Ukraine would deserve the plaque.

 

I should have the IotW plaque cos i never win anything

 

He's a waste of space.

 

Does the Polish discussed have problem with traffic? Singaporean government did this long time ago, but in a more high tech way (a cash card reading device in car, when the car passes certain sensor, it will deduct money), to limit traffic entry into central city and encourage people to use public transportation.

 

My vote is to Paul Martin. I don't know what he's done this week, but he's an idiot...

 

My vote goes for the Rosa Meriläinen a member in the Finnish green party. she went and cried to the press about her pervious drug abuse but then in court she denied it all. Go figure.

 

I second that; She gets brownie points for the skirt incident, but that weed thing is just stupid

 

Thankfully the real political nutcases more often than not shoot themselves in the foot. One should start getting worried when they manage to avoid or if they do blast their foot but no one cares.

 

On general principles, Boris Johnson - MP for Henley-on-Thames, for every week of the year.


In fairness, buffoon may be a slightly better description.

 

The per mile tax really isn't all that innovative. If you think about it, most of us already have one, and least indirectly. Does your gov't charges a tax per liter or gallon of fuel? Bingo, the more miles you drive, the more tax you pay.

By the way, the state of California has been investigating using GPS to track driven miles. Don't be surprised when Proposition XXX comes to a vote to require it be installed on every car.

 

Ummm, Chev, have you ever heard of odometers? Every car I've ever seen has one already, and mileage is reported on our annual car registration form. It would be a very simple matter - over here, at least - to do the math and send a bill. Additionally, in this state every car gets an annual safety inspection. It would be equally easy to incorporate the tax into the fee for that service.

Also, there are some high-speed, limited-access toll roads on this side of the country (take a ticket when you enter, pay the fee when you exit; the automatic reader teekc described can also be used). IF the tolls collected are commensurate with annual maintenance costs, this is an effective way to remove upkeep of that particular highway from the state budget and place it on the people who use it (even occassionally) instead of those who don't.

And most bridges that I've ever used are toll bridges. Same reasoning - have the people who USE them pay for them. Yes, there are traffic backups at rush hour but what else is new?

IMO there are many, many more deserving candidates for Governmental IotW than your guy. Sounds to me like he's simply trying to implement systems that work very well elsewhere in the world.

[ December 03, 2004, 16:06: Message edited by: Rallymama ]

 

@Darkwolf,

Those GPS systems have been discussed in Britain too. I think currently it's been quietly hidden away because of the outcry on privacy rights. The government would be able to know every single move you make.
I expect it to re-surface after Blunket gets his Identity cards pushed through parliament.

 

I would normally advocate the obvious choice of Bush, although giving him the IotW plaque would be far too kind in this case. Seeing as how he has been and will be president from January 2001 through January 2009, even giving him a plaque for Idiot of the Month or Idiot of the Year would be too kind. He's the front runner for Idiot of the Decade.

 

He's a Grammatical Moron candidate as well.

 

Aldeth, I'd have a problem with that. Give it instead to the people who voted him back in, or the Democrats who couldn't field a halfway decent ticket against him, but not to Bush himself. As much as I disagree with many of the courses of action he's pursuing and the advisors he's surrounded himself with, I sincerely don't think the man is truly an idiot, or out for nefarious purposes (with the notable exception of the war in Iraq).

Please don't anyone bombard me with links to his past indiscretions or communications foibles. I won't read 'em.

 

Whenever I read about George W., I see Roger Abbot from the Royal Canadian Air Farce ending his skits with the line "God Help America!"...

 

@ Beren - I think getting rid of Preston Manning was probably more due to the party trying to cut its losses after the CCRAP fiasco. Coming up with that name was a decision truly worthy of an idiot of the week plaque.

 

So they replace one GIotW with another GIotW. No wonder we're still stuck with Martin...