S.M.A.R.T.

Anyone who has ever attended an off-sight planning retreat basically knows what that acronym means:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

You may not be able to recite those words by heart, but you know what they mean. Basically, when setting goals, you must be able to understand them, measure them and attain them.  That’s why most off-sight retreats fail, wasting billions of dollars a year and immeasurable hours.

And, that’s what just happened in Annapolis this week with President George W Bush’s last push for lasting Middle East peace.

The big takeaway: We’ll commit to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of 2008?  Huh? 

You mean we tied up traffic and overburdened Annapolis police and residents for this? If this were the result of any retreat I was associated with, heads would roll. This is not a strategic plan; this is a wish list for Santa Claus.

This is what we waited seven years for? I know, this was doomed from the start. Heck, 49 countries attended, including from Senegal, but Iraq declined!? What chance do we have for Middle East peace if we can’t get the country we just liberated and are funding and are protecting to join in on a peace conference?

And, the leaders of the U.S, Israel, and P.A. Authority combined couldn’t win one election combined. So what power do they have?

People criticize President Bill Clinton for literally looking at each street in Jerusalem in the 1990s to try and create a peace plan. At least he was engaged and had a team in place to put together a smart S.M.A.R.T. agreement. It worked with Jordan; had the dramatic tragedy of the Rabin assassination not occurred, who knows?

Instead, today we have a dumb plan that wasted everyone’s time and has zero chance for success.

OK, you know it’s bad when third-rate despots are taunting us. Sure it hurts when a guy like Osama bin Ladin hides in a cave and makes videos criticizing the U.S. Even with the most sophisticated technology and most advanced army in the history of the world, we can’t find this guy hiding in a cave for six years. What’s up with that?

Now, the dynamic duo of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are taking potshots at us during an OPEC meeting, at what is usually a staid conference about supply-and-demand of oil.

This year, a year when Canada’s dollar became on par with the U.S., it created fodder against the perennial sole superpower.

Chavez said about America, “The dollar is in free fall, everyone should be worried about it. The fall of the dollar is not the fall of the dollar—it’s the fall of the American empire.”

Ouch. This coming from a guy who runs a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map.

To add further insult, Chávez claimed that oil prices would rise to $200 a barrel if the U.S. were “crazy enough” to strike at Iran. Later, Ahmadinejad said, “The U.S. dollar has no economic value.”

These two powerless men can say these things about the U.S., and we’re powerless to do anything about it. They have us over a barrel—an oil barrel, that is.

Again, the most technologically-advanced country on earth should be able to figure out how to get from point A to point B without pouring liquid that builds up Chavez’s and Ahmadinejad’s economies.

Shame on President Bush, who for six years promised to fight a war on terror but in the end, because he’s in bed with the oil industry, has left us more vulnerable to these fascists and weaker financially to the whims of oil-based inflation.

Wow! I got great feedback – pro and con, and on-line and in conversation—on my last blog about boosting the Maryland gas tax to raise much needed funds for our state’s infrastructure. I suggested ways to find expense cuts as well. The purpose was not only to close the budget gap, but to help fight terrorism.

This week I heard Richard Foltin, legislative director and counsel for the American Jewish Committee’s Office of Government and International Affair, speak at the Associated.

His message: the importance of reducing oil consumption.

His premise: the greater the demand for oil on the global market, the more money flows in the coffers of terrorist states.

How can Maryland help? We should raise the state tax on gasoline by another 10 cents per gallon. That will help Israel and the United States fight terrorism because oil consumption will decline, lower the price of oil, and reduce revenue for Iran and Saudi Arabia. Not sure we need to do this. Well, in addition to the environmental gain, consider this: Soon we’ll have spent $1.6 trillion or $16,000 per family on the failed War in Iraq, which started in part because of our oil dependence.

What will this do to working class Marylanders? If the average person drives 15,000 miles per year and gets 20 miles per gallon, a 10-cent hike would cost them $75 a year.  It’s yet another burden, but we have to take dramatic moves to lower our gas addiction.

Recently I also met with business and civic leaders who gathered to discuss the budget situation with State Comptroller Peter Franchot. One, a state Republican close to former Gov. Robert Ehrlich, told me that Maryland hasn’t raised its gas tax in a decade, but costs go up every year to maintain our roads and our mass transit system.

We need this additional tax – up from 23 to 33 cents per gallon – to encourage buyers to purchase more efficient cars and to take public transportation. That will reduce our oil dependence and properly fund our state. An important by product will be keeping the U.S. and Israel safer as terrorist nations take in less revenue. Then they can’t continue to support terror.

Don’t think of it as a gas tax; it’s War Against Terror fee.

Maryland seems to be in a bit of a financial challenge – one that affects all Marylanders, including the Jewish communities of Baltimore and suburban Washington. Over the years, the Jewish communities have become increasingly dependent on state dollars to help provide services from drug counseling to programming for the developmentally disabled to creating infrastructure to support our institutions.

Jews not only care about themselves; we have a commandment to make the world a better place. That means helping out the sick, elderly, and those can’t help themselves. It also means providing support for our civic and cultural institutions that make Baltimore/Washington so special, from the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to the Weinberg Building at Catholic at Mercy Medical Center, historically a Catholic hospital.

That’s why a sound solution to our budget crisis is so important. We need a balanced budget, as required by law. But while we must ensure that Marylanders aren’t overtaxed, we cannot let funding for crucial programs be cut.

Gov. Martin O’Malley needs to sharpen his pencil and rid the state of legacy costs that are out of date. In fact the Governor isn’t giving out copies of the budget during the special session, which means lawmakers can only look at new taxes and not spending cuts. That’s a huge mistake.

Some new taxes are needed – not on sales and income. Those taxes will only force wealthy Marylanders to establish residences elsewhere and hurt local retailers. Instead, we need to raise the gas tax to pay for roads, bridges and mass transit. That would force people to use less gas, which helps the environment and takes money from terrorist nations.

The Jewish community is filled with leaders and it’s imperative that we show leadership to protect Jewish interests and the well-being of all Marylanders.

My husband & I have eaten at the Sunday brunch a few times with my husband’s large family. We were treated well, the food was good & plentyful. We are very satisfied with this restaurant.