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A challenge to BIAW’s Tom McCabe

by — ,

It has been suggested to me that it was wrong to accuse the Building Industry Association of Washington’s Tom McCabe of smoking crack, especially without giving him the opportunity to put the pipe down long enough to defend himself. So in the spirit of full and fair civic discourse I hereby challenge McCabe to a public debate in which we can discuss any or all of the following subjects:

A.) His bizarre assertion that environmentalists are the direct and sole cause of the the Great Recession;

B.) The BIAW’s even bizarrer assertion that environmentalism has its ideological roots in Naziism, and that the DOE’s storm water regulations are the moral equivalent of the Holocaust;

C.) The BIAW’s even more bizarrer Initiative 1082, that in the name of reform would actually increase workers compensation costs for the bulk of its own members; or

D.) Tom McCabe’s obvious and debilitating addiction to crack.

You and your lovely if potty-mouthed spokeswoman Erin Shannon know how to reach me Tom, so drop me an email and we’ll set up a time and place.

Comments

  3. 3

    I would love to see a debate between you and Barney Rubble, I mean Tom McCabe. (sorry about that crack) The debate is a good idea for a fundraiser. He who makes the best cracks wins.

  4. 4

    Frogg, in the previous thread on this basically laid waste to BIAW et al. I can’t wait to see this debate and offer this for your background info, Goldy:

    Boomers drive shift toward urban living
    “…The unexpected revival of a number of cities, from Rockville to Sacramento, stands in contrast to plunging home prices in the suburbs. “America is catching on to this trend,” said Peter Calthorpe, who co-founded the Congress for the New Urbanism in 1993 to create alternatives to the conventional suburb.

    He says the previous model was based on the assumption that the United States could prop up the single-family home in a distant location by keeping the cost of oil and mortgages low. But that era is over. “The true cost of transportation and housing is going to start to surface,” he warns.

    [snip]

    But today, aging boomers are growing out of the suburbs and their children have not yet grown into them — and may never do so to the extent their parents did. This demographic shift, more than anything else, is driving consumer demand for compact, walkable neighborhoods, Chung said.

    [snip]

    The housing crash changed all that. Size and value were decoupled as prices fell farthest fastest in the far-flung suburbs, said Stan Humphries, chief economist at real estate website Zillow.com.

    Now citizens with real estate savvy are honing in on the cities. Unlike the suburbs, and despite the downturn, homes closer to downtowns tended to retain their value, according to a 2008 Zillow report which analyzed the change in value for 1.65 million homes between the first quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008.

    [snip]

    “In one of the worst economies in a generation, people have actively chosen to raise their own taxes to support public transportation,” said Jason Jordan, the director of the Center for Transportation Excellence, which supports ballot initiatives that fund transportation.

    [snip]

    If anything signals smart growth’s newly mainstream status, it’s the embrace of Salt Lake City, Utah, said Christopher Leinberger, a developer and Brookings Institution fellow. “It’s a Republican state. It’s a Mormon state. It’s fallen in love with blueprint planning,” Leinberger said.

    Two-thirds of the residents in the two-county region surrounding Salt Lake City voted to raise $2.5 billion for more miles of commuter and light rail track by hiking their sales tax, said Chamber of Commerce spokesman Marty Carpenter. “70 miles in 70 years!” is the rallying cry.

    Salt Lake City itself will receive another $5 billion. A la Rockville, the Mormon Church is replacing two indoor malls with a walkable housing and retail complex.

    Atlanta, Georgia; Boise, Idaho; Minneapolis, Minnesota and others have invited Salt Lake City officials to speak, said Natalie Gochnour, the chamber’s chief economist. “They want to know how in a conservative environment like Utah you pass ballot initiatives,” she said…”

    The McMansion building, sprawl and split construction industry as we know it is dead. It isn’t coming back. McCabe and the BIAW are a relic of the psychology of previous investment and its days are numbered.

  5. 5

    It would behoove thee to realize that one cannot engage in battles of wit, with unarmed individuals.

    This man is a clown. He really has no formal education beyond high school (presuming he even went to high school), and he really has no understanding or desire to understand anything not conceptualized by his own, rather limited thought processes.

    I choose not to debate: Birthers, Tenthers, Flat Earthers, and anyone who claims to believe the world is only 6000 years old. Simply because their minds are already made up, and they would never even attempt to try to think outside of their small little world. It is literally impossible to convince them of anything, no matter how elementary the topic.

    They’re just crazy, and stupid, and obtuse. There really is no point. This man is of the same mindset. Nothing could dissuade him from his alcohol and crank fueled logic patterns. He’s what psychologists call a “dumbfuck”.

    Stupid is, as stupid does, and you can’t fix stupid.

  8. 8

    @4

    Add Knoxville TN to the list of revived cities. Knoxville was revived by the work of bike friendly, eco-friendly, moderate Republican, Bill Haslam.

  9. 9

    B.) The BIAW’s even bizarrer assertion that environmentalism has its ideological roots in Naziism

    Environmentalism has its roots in American Conservatism! Folks like Teddy Roosevelt (R) and Gifford Pinchot (R) were the founders. I don’t know how Aldo Leopold voted, but he doesn’t strike me as one of the more leftist folks of his day (B. 1886). Aldo Leopold sure as hell wasn’t a Nazi. And hell, a couple of the founders of Earth First were Republicans!

  10. 10

    @2 Erin’s huh?

    My first thought when I read Goldy’s bullet point D is whose crack is McCabe addicted to?

  11. 11

    All the way around there is a change coming in terms of energy, transportation, health, and housing that has a broad base of support. Recently, the Senate Banking Committee voted 12-10 in favor of the Livable Communities Act, legislation that would bolster the Obama administration’s initiatives to link together transportation, housing, economic development, and environmental policy. Some of the strongest backing for the bill has come from AARP. http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010.....committee/

  14. 14

    Michael @ 9: It was shortly before I came out here to the Seattle area, but as I understand it both Republican and Democratic politicians and influential citizens teemed up to clean up Lake Washington, Lake Union, and Elliot Bay. They tore down government and agency borders and jurisdictions to do so.

    A friend of mine, who was a Republican and an Evangelical Christian, likened it to being a good steward of the land with which God had blessed us.

    Whatever happened to those Republicans? You could argue with them about the appropriate level and nature of tax and spending, but they didn’t try to pull the kind of ridiculous stunts Republicans do today.

  16. 16

    I remember when Bawney Fwank, you know, the chairman of the fanny and freddy, said there was NO housing bubble….and that it wouldnt be a problem…do YOU remember?

    here is in his own lispy words:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qKYfqALE

    Freddie and Fannie were told to lower underwriting standards for homebuyers which caused a supply problem as buyers who would otherwise never qualify for a loan due to income and credit problems were suddenly able to buy

    you fucking idiot progressives forced fanny and freddie to make loans to people who werent qualified…end of story fuckers…YOU OWN this debacle we are in.

    HAHAHHHHHHAHAHAH

  19. 19

    @16
    Boy you assholes just can’t admit that simple greed from mortgage brokers, to the entire financial services industry, to the ratings agencies is responsible.

    Nevermind that trying to blame the problem on Democrats supposedly forcing anyone who issued mortgages to give them to unqualified borrowers (even though this is a blatant lie) doesn’t explain why there were similar housing/mortgage bubbles all over the world in places like Ireland, the UK, Spain, etc.

    Oh and people in upper income brackets have a higher mortgage default rate than those in lower income brackets. Yep, thats right, it is the “rich” who are walking away from their underwater properties not working stiffs.

  20. 20

    @14

    I wish I knew what happened to those old Republicans! When I see someone that might be in that mould I try to give them a shout out, see #8.

    That cleanup took place before Globalized Everything an I suspect the fact that we still had a commercial fishery in Puget Sound and that most of the fish were eaten right here played a role.

  21. 21

    @20
    That was back when Republicans by and large acted like adults rather than a bunch of spoiled 2 year olds.

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