Brother of slain soldier is right, we do need to remember we are a nation at war (but we need to question policy too)

One can certainly understand the anguish of a man whose brother has just been killed in a war. One such man was quoted in a story over the past day as saying that Americans need to remember that we are a nation at war. I agree, but I also think that as we remember that or take note of it, we also need to decide what we are accomplishing in the decade-long effort in the Middle East, and Afghanistan in particular.

And maybe the reason people don’t act like they realize we are at war is that no outward sacrifice is being called for on the part of the general public. And although one would think our goal would be to have some kind of victory, we have already telegraphed that we eventually plan to quit. If we can quit later with no clear sign of victory, why not quit now? This is not as much a war in the conventional sense as it is a geopolitical police action. With our all-volunteer force when one signs up these days, he or she is essentially signing onto a world police force. Police are on duty forever. The American public is given little choice in the matter. If either Barack Obama wins re-election to the presidency or Mitt Romney is elected (and that seems now to be the choice) there is no clear end in sight to the war. Obama does like to talk about time tables (they are movable), Romney does not like the idea of telegraphing when you plan to quit, and that much I agree with him on. But, Romney also wants to press on, something I am not necessarily in agreement with. Somehow it seems immoral to me to ask people to put their lives on the line for something you go at half-heartedly, always ready to quit. That does not mean I think we should not quit. I think it takes as much guts to fight all-out as to admit the war cannot be won outright or is not worth it. I would not suggest admitting defeat or anything like that, rather, I would think we should re-assess.

There may be other more practical ways to keep our enemies at bay or at least off our shores. We are already in the Vietnam syndrome in that we seem to have miscalculated and would like to get out but we can’t because we must save face and not dishonor those who have died. We also have used the discredited strategy of limited war. War continues to be war and the only practical thing is to fight to win or not to fight at all. It could be that an even more drawn out war of attrition could work in our favor (although doubtful), but it does not seem to be the way we should conduct things, lest we put ourselves in a true state of endless armed conflict, a state of being and an image I don’t think is right for the United States of America.

But yes, we should remember we are a nation at war and demand our president and congress do something to resolve the issue.

(The story I referred to is at: http://news.yahoo.com/brother-ohio-soldier-nation-war-104658229.html )

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What follows is my previous post on pretty much the same subject:

I’m not sure what women not shaving under their arm pits, people drawing welfare, Occupy Wall Street, soldiers denied proper medical care once they get home (who’s to blame there?) while welfare recipients are tended to, and making it a point to thank the people in uniform all have in common but that seemed to be the elements of the conversation on my local radio station which was playing the Glenn Beck Show, being hosted by a guest host possibly. I only listened to a few words before I had to turn it off.

The message seemed to be that women who did not shave their arm pits were just part of the crowd who lives off of welfare, protests, and who shows it is against America by objecting to war and failing to thank the troops.

While listening to the ignorance and hate one should realize that those who run the local radio stations simply play the blather because it is cheap fare and it apparently brings in the revenue — never mind being part of a more civil and intelligent public discourse. But people want their own point of view to be validated or they want someone to do their thinking for them, so the talk show trash on radio is just what it is. Critical thinking and discussion does not do well in the marketplace.

And I am not saying they should be playing Amy Goodwin and Democracy Now; I’ve caught a little of that at times and it may be somewhat more civil but it is propaganda too, just from the far left of the political spectrum.

But before I turned my radio off I heard the tired old diatribe about how people don’t support our soldiers and the wars they fight. It is irritating that the idea of supporting troops (and that can mean different things in different contexts; a government –to include Republicans – who fails to treat returning reservists or National Guardsmen is not supporting the troops) has to be forever linked in the minds of those of the far-right, one-track mindset to national policy. As far as I know most people who may object to wars or military adventures/actions are not specifically or not at all criticizing individual soldiers, but the policy that puts them in harm’s way. Now in instances where there is abuse perpetrated by soldiers (such as the murder of innocents) then, yes, there might be indeed criticism. And there was a school of thought during the Vietnam War that since it turned out to be so obviously wrong and immoral, not to mention impractical, that any one who agreed to fight it (even if conscripted) was committing an immoral act (I do not necessarily agree with that). And some might argue that today (again I do not necessarily agree with that, even though it is all volunteer).

But people who dress differently than what has become the norm among what is considered the general public, or women who do not shave their arm pits, which has been the custom in Europe and even here decades and decades ago (into the past century), and people who get government assistance, and people who would dare question public policy (unless it is the far right questioning legitimate policy promoted by the middle and left) are all linked together in the minds of those incapable of critical thinking or those simply stirring up the masses for political and financial gain.

(I hate to bring Tom Sullivan into all of this. But he is a case study of someone who began as a conservative talk show host who was capable of and willing to engage in somewhat critical thinking in that he would give both sides of an issue, even though always coming down on the right. But he apparently found such was not acceptable in the world of right-wing talk, so he cut it out for the most part. I wrote that previously and he actually emailed me about my comments on that and other things to do with him and did not deny it — and he still occasionally lets his guard down, I think. He’s usually clever enough that it goes over the heads of many of his listeners, but sometimes they object. The rule on the right is to never but never present the other side of the case. That may be true on the far left too.)

I have to make sure to remember to switch the radio off or to music or something when the commercially driven-right wing propaganda is on, which is all the time.

And it is troubling that Mitt Romney, a highly intelligent man (hell he speaks fluent French) has felt he needs to pander to the ignorant masses to get his party’s nod to be GOP candidate for president.

P.s.

This endless war thing: Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are equally guilty and spend more time blaming each other for it than trying to figure out how to reform our policies so we are not constantly mired in conflicts that are so costly in human lives and to our economy.

A third party is needed and we need to indeed vote all the current slate on both sides out. Extreme yes. But we are facing extreme circumstances. But beyond that people have to pay more attention to public affairs and critical thinking is in order here.

P.s. P.s.

And part of the story or back story in all of this is that those with nothing else to do often get involved in protest movements and supposedly the poor, but working people just do what they are told and don’t question. And those who stand to gain from various policies, such as defense contractors, oil interests, and so on, would like to keep it that way.  Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party are at opposite ends of the spectrum and yet in many respects have the same interests, but the Tea Partiers may consider themselves more legitimate in that they consider themselves to be part of the mainstream of working people (whether they are or not and notwithstanding that there is evidence that the original concept of the Tea Party may have been the brain child of monied and vested interests). And the Tea Party no doubt thinks the Occupy movement is nothing but anarchists and maybe socialists/communists. It’s too bad there cannot be an effective movement from the middle, or maybe that is what general elections are all about.

Armed Neighborhood Watch scares me as much as criminals…

The shooting death of a black teenager in Florida brings forth the issues of black people being suspect for just being black or racial profiling, stand your ground gun laws that give citizens wider leeway is shooting people and race relations in general, but it seems to me one of the more pressing issues is self-appointed, armed citizen cops.

The only people who really know or knew what happened in the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida are him (but he is dead) and George Zimmerman, the shooter.

There is a lot of conjecture, much based on racial prejudice and animosity on both sides.

And on the web you can find character assassinations (based on truth or not) on both characters.

The victim was a black teenager and the shooter is described as being of Peruvian and white descent, 29 years or so old.

The truth likely is that there was blame on both sides, although since Martin was reportedly unarmed, the weight falls heavily on Zimmerman. Zimmerman claims he was attacked and was acting in self defense. But some of what has come out so far makes it appear that it was not as simple as that or at least complicated by the fact he may (or not) have provoked the attack.

But what bothers me in all of this is that besides the worst thing, a teenager is shot to death walking down a street, is the idea of vigilantism — a Neighborhood Watch commander, as Zimmerman is described as being, carrying a gun and going after someone. While he claims he was attacked, I believe it has also been established that he took it upon himself to follow young Martin and bug him about what he was doing at night in the neighborhood.

Excuse me. I think Neighborhood Watch people are just supposed to observe and report things to the authorities. In fact, I heard part of a 911 tape and the person representing authority on the other end was telling Zimmerman to stay put and not follow. Zimmerman complained that “they always get away…” and did not follow that instruction.

Supposedly Young Martin was doing nothing more than carrying back snacks from a store to where he was staying. Zimmerman claimed the young man was poking around the area, which in and of itself, depending on what he meant, is not illegal (unless you’re trespassing, I guess), but at night is not a good thing to do — you might get bit by someone’s dog at the least or killed at the most (even if shooting you is not legal).

I won’t even go into the subject of a hoodie, the garment that Martin was wearing, and which some contend led Zimmerman to rightly surmise the young man was up to no good because some so-called “ganstas” wear them, except to say I wear a kind of light sweat jacket with a hood in my work (a kind of hoodie, I guess). Oh, and I am white and I am not a gangsta.

Okay, I will say something more on that. If you dress like a bad guy (or gal) you might be taken for one. But that has nothing to do with whether Zimmerman or anyone else in his position should have shot someone. Again, what bothers me is regular citizens acting like the police or for that matter self-appointed militias. I’m no more afraid of bad guys or big government than I am of so-called citizens committees (or I guess Neighborhood Watch in the Zimmerman manner) or militias.

As far as the Stand Your Ground doctrine that allows citizens to use deadly force in some jurisdictions, to include Florida, and in some situations, I think the burden has to weigh somewhat heavier on the shooter and should only hold in clear self-defense situations, if not we have a shooting free for all with a lot of innocent victims.

P.s.

But in cases where there is an intruder into or onto someone’s private domain (to include inside and outside) and such person can show that he or she logically feared for his or her life, I think that should be seriously considered in exonerating the shooter — but of course that has nothing to do with the Trayvon Martin case.

Are corporate taxes really too high in U.S.? and, you could pay lower taxes in Oklahoma, but you’d have to live in Oklahoma…

Time and time again I hear the claim from the pro-business or conservative set that corporate taxes in the U.S. are uncompetitively high and that is why the U.S. is at a competitive disadvantage and furthermore that taxes in California are sky high and that is why the Golden State is seen as unfriendly to business and therefore that is why California government is in such dire economic straits.

The notion that corporate taxes are higher in the U.S. than in other industrialized nations is virtually accepted as a truism among the conservative/pro-business set.

I really don’t feel I know the facts in this and I can find no easy way to get the answer.

At first reading, all I get from Wikipedia is that comparing corporate tax rates among nations is difficult because of the complexity of tax laws.

While I hear the constant refrain from Republicans on the radio that corporate taxes are too high and are higher here in the U.S. than other industrial nations, I just heard an admittedly left (or Democratic) – leaning “expert” claim that corporate tax rates in the U.S. are lower than many of the other industrialized nations — who to believe???

Also I just heard on the radio (well recently, now) and read an article that claims that far from business unfriendly, California has lower tax rates than even Texas, which seems to hold the claim among the conservative/business set that it is the most friendly to business state  — of course I do not know the accuracy of this article, interestingly enough, written by a chamber of commerce,  and that has to be difficult because chamber hacks must always slant articles to claim that taxes are too high, unless it is in their own territory and they are trying to attract businesses.

I also read that California offers a number of tax breaks to businesses, despite the actual tax rate. So businesses that know how to take advantage of such incentives or to game the system put themselves at an advantage.

And I also heard that despite Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s call to fire a lot of state workers to save money, California — the most populous state in the union — actually has fewer state employees per capita than many other states (but the statistics to back up this claim might be suspect — you have to realize that lobbyists, say for the public employee unions, churn out all kinds of propaganda and contact news outlets suggesting good story ideas).

Unfortunately those seeking the truth in all of this are at the mercy of those who under the guise of providing information actually provide one-sided propaganda — whose statistics do you want to believe? Objective analyses are not so easy to come by. The press has been weakened in this regard by falling profits of major old-time reliable news outlets and the pressure to produce more copy with fewer staff members and to not waste time on all that investigative stuff. Thank heavens that some outlets, such as the LA Times, are still at it, finding out such things as the inflated city manager and other top employee salaries in the city of Bell and other communities.

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Add 1:

And now  I read a news story that reminds me that not only City of Bell managerial staff were raking in the dough, so were four elected and part-time city councilmen, to the tune of $100,000 per year each. The city manager was essentially paying himself close to $800,000 per year, plus it was estimated he netted some $1.5 million from illegally created contracts. In fact city officials are charged with misappropriating $5.5 million from the city where one in six people live in poverty — all this according to an Associated Press story.

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(Belying to an extent my assertion of the lack of media watchdogs are those fact check or keeping-them-honest features you see from time to time — I hope that instant research is accurate.)

And here’s another point:

If you live and work and/or run a business in California, you might get by with cheaper taxes in, say, Oklahoma. But you would have to live and work in Oklahoma (no offense intended to Oklahoma).

Few people like taxes, but they are necessary in order to have a government and government is necessary in order to prevent chaos. While we may say some taxes are too high, we may actually be objecting to how they are being used. As long as the taxes are being used for a legitimate public purpose, it seems to me that it is wrong to simply call them unjust (although they still might be too high). But if they are really being used literally to line the pockets of public officials, such as was exposed in the Southern California community of Bell, then of course they are unjust. But other than that, the reason taxes are what they are is the result of policy made by elected representatives put into office by the vote of the people. It is not necessarily the government that is the enemy, it may be the majority of the people who indirectly gave their sanction to the policies government carries out by voting those who voted in the policies in the first place, or by being too busy, such as Meg Whitman claimed to be, to pay attention in the first place.

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Add 2:

As an afterthought, I now realize that I should have mentioned that regardless of tax rates in the U.S. we always hear those stories about various major multi-billion corporations paying zero taxes, due to tax loopholes. So really the term tax rate becomes nearly meaningless.

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 P.s.

I try not be anti-business, for even though I do not own a business, I know that most of us earn our living thanks to business. Then I hear this caller on a right-wing radio talk show say that he runs a small business in California and that he does not think taxes are the problem. What is the problem? Employees in California have too many rights. It’s a challenge for me to be pro-business — but I try.

Unemployment insurance is needed, but it can be a drag too…

As I post this, I see that it looks like the Democrats are going to be able to overcome Republican resistance to an extension in unemployment benefits — and yes I know, the conservatives claim they are not against the extension, they just want it paid for — that is what they say.

There was a time when you were out of work, when your usual occupation dried up, you went to doing something else — most anything. Of course, most anything did not necessarily pay enough to keep you and yours in the lifestyle to which you had grown accustomed — but that was the way it was. Then federal and state-run unemployment insurance came into being. You still did not make the money you made at your regular job but you did not have the expense and trouble of trying to work at something that did not pay enough and kept you from getting back into your regular line of work — and sometimes there really was, or in the present tense, really is no work.

Most of the time, a requirement to draw unemployment insurance is that you actively conduct a search for work. There are exceptions to this. Over the years it became a practice by seasonal workers to apply for unemployment benefits out of season. That, on the face of it, seems kind of strange in that one knows from the get go whether an occupation is seasonal and so should not expect to get paid for being out of work when he or she knew that would be the case.

(I need to insert here that a lot of people I have heard justify being on unemployment with the comment “I paid into it.” As far as I understand it, though, such is not the case. Employees do not pay into the government unemployment programs, but employers do.)

But in any case, unemployment officials have accepted the practice of paying out benefits to seasonal workers and not requiring them to seek employment, but instead wait till the season starts up again. This is of course amounts to a government subsidy for seasonal employment.

I don’t know all the details of unemployment insurance, but from time to time, over the years, congress has voted to give the program extensions so people on unemployment can receive payments beyond the normal time limit.

Republicans, possibly more out of politics than real concern, or maybe not, are balking at an unemployment extension, with some being so bold as to charge that it simply discourages people from looking for work. Others say they would be willing to vote for the extension if corresponding cuts can be made in other programs to offset the increased cost to avoid piling on to the already astronomical national debt with more borrowing. And that’s not a bad argument. However, one wonders if those same people thought about cutting government programs in order to justify the Bush tax cuts for the rich. A well known political tactic of the neo-conservative movement is to fight social programs by simply “starving the beast” via tax cuts, rather than risk political capital by opposing popular programs, socialist though they may be.

Personally, I wonder why we do not have a slightly less arcane system of unemployment insurance that simply pays you decent compensation, albeit not your normal salary, for a long period of time, but with the requirement that you conduct an active work search in everything and anything you may be qualified or capable of doing. In addition, it might be appropriate to allow, but not require, an employee contribution to unemployment insurance that would qualify the unemployed worker for additional coverage.

And those who insist that cuts in other areas of spending are needed for extending jobless benefits may well be correct, but they ought to have the guts to suggest where they would cut.

Unemployment insurance is needed for stability in society and the economy. I’m not at all sure that having the government subsidize seasonal employment via unemployment insurance is such a great idea, though. Seasonal workers should plan to work at something else in the off season. Many long years ago I worked for a time in a wood re- manufacturing plant and in the winter some of the log truck drivers would work in the mill. I don’t know if they were required to by the employer and/or unemployment officials.

There is a segment in the business community that has nothing but disdain for unemployment insurance, and don’t even mention minimum wage. They want to see workers have to accept whatever they are given and be happy with it. I don’t agree with that hard approach, but it does seem that it would be somewhat more practical for people to accept that there is a certain supply and demand rule going in labor and sometimes there is an over supply and an under demand and that can mean lower wages for a time. And sometimes one has to move on to something new. To some extent unemployment payments create an artificial system that seems to encourage people to be idle rather than to move on. Eventually most have to move on and the delay does not help them.

In addition it is not fair for part of society to constantly have to carry the other part, and a large idle population puts a crimp on the overall economy.

Mixed in with all of this is the supply of illegal foreign labor that depresses wages and working conditions and competes with citizens in need of work.

I don’t know if I have ever brought this up, but one of my bright ideas has been to create a government labor pool made up of those who cannot find work in the private sector. This labor pool would be available for various public works projects, such as litter cleanup, park projects, and various things that do not usually get done due to budget constraints or priorities. A labor pool would provide the unemployed with something productive to do and at the same time might be an encouragement to go out and find a better job or become an entrepreneur. Okay, I admit, that is probably basically what FDR did — maybe I just mean an updated version of something like the 1930s  CCC that might be a permanent part of the system.

To those who do not need unemployment insurance because they are skillful in something that is in demand and because they have made wise life decisions, I say go ahead and pat yourself on the back and encourage a young person to do the same, that is get skillful and make wise life decisions. At the same time, don’t be too smug — financial calamities can happen to anyone (can you say CANCER?).

Over-generous retirement benefits bankrupting local governments…

State and local governments, municipalities large and small, are facing near or actual bankruptcy, and besides or adding to the problem of the current Great Recession, a major culprit is over-generous retirement benefits. In some cases, as I understand it, they are eating up as much as 70 percent of the budgets.

Once upon a time, it is said, public employees were not paid as much as ones in the private sector, but a draw was job security and those retirement benefits. And when times were good, oh did local governments and the states (in many cases) go crazy with the retirement benefits.

In San Francisco, I heard on a radio talk show, some employees retire with 90 percent of their regular salary. And in many cases in that city, employees did not even have to contribute to their retirement. There is a move afoot via a proposed ballot measure to change that. The move is to force employees to contribute and/or contribute more.

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ADD 1: I don’t live in the big city. Up where I live at the northern end of  the Sacramento Valley, my hometown city council is asking some of its non-union employees to start paying 50 percent of their retirement contributions and may eventually demand that they pay all or make their own arrangements.

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(I’m not going to get into the specific issue of allowing police and fire personnel to retire early, 20 years, because of the special risks and possible health problems on their jobs. There is room for debate on that, but I think that gets off the general subject.)

Also, studies show that in most cases, government employees most everywhere make more than in the private sector.

If I had any sense — which I have never been accused of — I would have settled down in the small town in which I attended high school and got a job with local government. The pay is better than in the private sector and the retirement is better.

Having once been a newspaper reporter covering county government, I’ll give you a clue as to why county employees are treated so well. They are a tremendous voting block. Elected county supervisors who want to hold their own cushy positions often feel it necessary to curry favor with the employee unions.

I know elected county supervisors in the area where I live do a tremendous amount of work — that is they spend a lot of hours with county issues — and the pay for their positions varies from county to county. But it is extra pay, and it is often as much as many of their own constituents make at their regular jobs. And all these elected board members have their own businesses or employment. And there is no actual legal requirement they do anything, other than show up for meetings — but of course most of them spend a lot of hours at the task nonetheless.

But back to paid government employees (as opposed to elected officials), for my part, I think government employees should be paid well, but not above their closest counterparts in private industry. But they should have job security to the greatest extent possible.

And right now I’ll interject a thought here. I just read that President Obama wants to supply special federal aid for some local government employees, such as teachers and policemen and firemen, to head off layoffs due to the recession. I’m not sure that is such a good idea, at least not without a requirement that local governments agree to put up some matching funds. It’s about time local governments took more responsibility with the dollars they spend. It’s also about time local voters started to realize how much things really cost and make prudent decisions rather than pass the costs on to taxpayers elsewhere. That does not mean there should not be some type of federal aid or revenue sharing, but it needs to require some major commitment from local taxpayers first. Otherwise, what is the use of local government?

But back to these over-lavish pensions, which can be found in burgs large and small. There is a limit to what the public can afford. Government should not go into deficit spending to pay its workers. A private company could not do this and survive (And I know someone will say something to the effect that the law does not even allow their local government to deficit spend, but the states and federal governments do, and much of that cost is from having to bail out local governments).

And while it is apparently quite legal, I feel that it should not be legal for public employees, local or state or federal, to strike. To do so is to defy the popularly-elected government. While I was never a fan of Ronald Reagan and don’t look back at him as being one of our great presidents (I’d have to re-assess his terms in my own mind), I do think he was right to can the striking air traffic controllers. It’s one thing to conduct a job action against a private employer, but quite another to threaten the safety and security of the nation’s citizens. And even a strike by federal custodians (not to pick on them — just an example) would be a challenge to the day-to-day function of the government, so I do not believe government employees should be able to strike anymore than I would support the right of, say, our soldiers, to strike. But that’s why I think there does have to be special civil service protections (as long as they are reasonable) for government employees.

But again, public employment is not private employment.

Public employment should offer reasonable wages and above all job security and in return public employees should be required to serve the public or let someone else do the job.

But it is partly the fault of the voters for not being alert to what their elected governing boards do, and it is certainly the fault of elected officials who let retirement benefits get out of hand.

As I understand it, when the economy was better the retirement costs were not as burdensome. In some cases the funds were self-sustaining with their money invested in the market. But now that things are not as good, the costs of agreed-to retirement benefits still have to be met. With already-existing contracts or agreements, perhaps not much can be done, unless parties are willing to re-negotiate. But one exception is if a government entity goes bankrupt — then, as I understand it, things can get ugly indeed. All parties can lose out. Some employee unions should think of this.

Going forward, government entities need to be more prudent when it comes to wage scales and retirement benefits. And if at all possible, over-generous existing benefit structures should be scaled back.

I don’t necessarily blame public employees for taking what they can get, but they should also remember that there is a real danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

P.s.

The editor of the first newspaper I worked for wrote an editorial one day about the high cost of public employee raises. That evening when he arrived home he found his wife crying. She worked in a county office and was told she would not be getting a raise. Her boss read the newspaper.

Power to the people by way of local government and taxing decisions…

They’re laying off or cutting back on the positions for firemen, policemen, and teachers in jurisdictions all over the United States. Cities and states are facing mounting budget deficits.

The conundrum or dilemma is that people want services (although they may not agree with each other at what level) but they do not want their taxes raised (too much waste already, they say).

Add to this all, the Great Recession, the great economic crisis of our time, and there almost seems to be no resolution.

But as to the Great Recession, that will probably cure itself to a degree — the normal business cycle, we’re so far down the only way to go is up, and so on.

As to how to pay for public services, that is another problem.

Now the libertarians have an answer. You pay for everything yourself and if you can’t afford it, tough. But even ultra conservatives have a hard time with that one when it comes right down to it. As I have always understood it, true libertarians don’t even believe in publicly funded police and fire departments.

In some rural areas already people do and have for years had to pay a direct tax or fee for fire protection (not in the state of California where I live, though, as far as I know — I could be wrong on that).

Libertarians don’t see much benefit to police because as they see it, police spend most of their time showing up to crime scenes after the fact. They would rather pay for their own security protection or their own gun, I suppose.

But what is on my mind is not libertarian ideology — I just got off track a little.

My idea is that it seems strange to me when people complain, for instance, that their schools are laying off teachers because of a lack of funding. I wonder if it ever occurred to them that they themselves, the local citizens, could do something. They could raise their own taxes and earmark them for their schools.

However, raising taxes is about the most politically unpopular thing to do. No one but no one wants to pay higher taxes, well except maybe Bill Clinton or Warren Buffet, but they don’t count.

And certainly I personally am no proponent of higher taxes on anything.

But the only way to get things is to pay for them (it’s just a matter of who pays).

Once upon a time, local citizens paid for their own schools through property taxes (and some of the revenue still comes from that source). But over the years schools got bigger and the education system got a lot more complex. In addition, it was noticed that there was an inequity between areas where people had relatively high incomes and those areas that were impoverished. Equal access to education was being denied to students who through not fault of their own lived in poor areas. And that‘s when the state and federal governments stepped in.

And this funding from higher levels of government who have a larger source from which to draw tax revenue and who oversee the interests of whole states and all of the United States applied to a lot more things than schools.

That certainly was a boon to local jurisdictions — more money. But it came with a price. That price was loss of control. If you get money from far away, the far away bureaucracy wants to have control over how that money is spent, and for good reason — it’s the prudent way of acting with the taxpayers’ money.

And there is the problem of practical budgeting and making those tough decisions on what services are needed and at what level and whether the revenue can be raised to sustain it all. When the money comes from elsewhere both bad decisions are made and sometimes no decisions are made because local jurisdictions may not have a choice because of state and federal regulations.

A closely related aspect of what I have been referring to, revenue sharing (money from the federal government distributed to the states and to smaller local jurisdictions and from the states on down likewise), is unfunded state and federal mandates.

These usually come about when someone decides “there oughta be a law”.  Legislators wanting to garner votes for their next re-election fall all over themselves to pass laws, and wouldn’t you know it? Those laws usually result in some type of new agency or expanded role for an existing agency and reams of paperwork for local entities to keep track of and new mandates from on high, such as how many jailers there must be to staff the county jail or how many teachers there must be in relationship to the number of students, and so on.

If the funding was derived closer to where the service was provided and if local jurisdictions had more control, sensible and prudent decisions could be made.

But that is not how it goes and any move toward pay for what you want directly is seen as too libertarian and impractical.

I don’t know how our new federal health care law fits into all of this, and I am certainly a proponent of some type of universal health care, that is universal access, so even people who actually can’t afford all the medical costs do not have to suffer, but I note the news that Canada with its vaunted universal or government-run system is facing a funding crisis.　

As we in the U.S. expand our social safety net for health, will we face a funding crisis? Republicans and others who resisted and still resist the new health care law will answer sarcastically: DUH, YA THINK?

Personally, I think there are some things that have to be funded at the federal level (and sometimes the state level) because both everyone needs them and only the higher levels of government with their broader tax base have the ability to pay for them.

But we really need to reassess the roles of the different levels of government and we really need to get more power back to local government — power to the people, if you will.

But along with that power should come a new sense of fiscal responsibility and a willingness to truly make tough decisions and ride herd on waste in government, the too convenient excuse those who would refuse to raise taxes even if clearly needed , as in “there’s too much waste in government”.

Drill baby drill as long as it does not affect me, some may think…

So the first oil-soaked bird has been spotted in the on-going Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. Already the pungent odor of oil permeates the air of New Orleans — as if the hapless city needs more problems after Katrina and the Great Recession.

The whole fishery of the Gulf Coast, plus the valuable wetlands that both contribute to the ecosystem upon which all living things, including man, depend, as well as serve as a backstop against hurricanes, as well as the beaches and perhaps the shipping of the Mississippi River and Gulf area may be in grave danger.

I know one should not exaggerate or jump to conclusions, but when do we as a society draw the line and realize that as much as we need energy in the form of oil, we don’t want to destroy our nest called Earth in the process? I also realize that over time a lot of these environmental mishaps, both man caused and nature caused, heal themselves. But is it all worth the cost and will we eventually reach the point of no return? Have we almost done that now?

I imagine this has silenced the drill baby drill folks for the time — but I’m sure they’ll come up with some excuse as to why we have to despoil the Earth and ruin other peoples’ livelihoods (Louisiana fisherman for example, and Alaskan fisherman some time ago from the Exxon Valdez).

Yes BP will certainly have to pay for this one, but really we are all paying the price, and I for one think the price is too high.

There are safer ways to get oil, and we need to move towards other sources of energy anyway, but will never do it until something forces us to, but by the time we get there, it could be too late.

And when you drive your gas guzzler as your God-given right and enjoy nature do you still think to yourself: drill baby drill — just somewhere else where it does not affect me?

But the economic effects and the environmental effects of such disasters have dire implications for us all whether we realize it or not.

And while my non record of church attendance may make me the wrong person to ask this question, I nonetheless ask: Does God want us to treat what he created this way?

P.s.

I know that accidents happen and I assume that BP went to great lengths to prevent this very thing, but the point may be that it is nearly impossible to prevent such disasters in offshore drilling. And again, is it really worth the price? I think not.

No Saturday mail? What to do with the Postal Service — not really sure…

With word that the U.S. Postal Service might eliminate Saturday delivery, part of me says that maybe the now quasi-governmental entity may have outlived its usefulness, but part of me says we need it.

The problem I see is that our society depends upon a system in which citizens can be assured of having a means of personal and business and legal communication.

I recall the term “post roads” in the history of colonial America. Roads were built between towns for the primary purpose of delivering mail.

The Constitution provides for the federal government to run the postal system.

Back some time ago we moved from a pure government agency, the U.S. Post Office, to the Postal Service, which was to run almost like a private company, with the thought that it would be more efficient and cost effective. That has not necessarily happened.

The Postal Service faces competition from private companies, such as Fed-Ex and UPS, and there is nothing wrong with that if they can provide quicker and more cost efficient service, that is until you come up with, say legal requirements for communication that might be put upon a citizen, or even the ability to communicate with family.

I don’t like the idea of being forced to deal with a private money-making outfit for something that is essential to life. For example, if I am required by law to send some type of communication, say, my tax forms, I don’t want to be subjected to the whim of private enterprise, who can charge me anything and itself decide the delivery schedules.

My argument is probably breaking down here, because for one thing, that is what the Postal Service already does, raise rates and cut down on service (although it has to get government approval). A wholly private entity is probably more likely to be attune to customer needs or demands.

But it just seems to me that society ought to have an official way to be able to communicate and be able to run that system itself. Private businesses will always be available when we want special service.

Let me quote a letter from one Charles Amundson to the San Francisco Chronicle:

“The federal government’s two major responsibilities are defending the nation and delivering the mail.

“No one insists that the Defense Department break even. So why are so many people insisting the Postal Service do so?”

While I am not necessarily in agreement with the federal government priority ranking he suggests, I agree with the general message there. Why does a government service have to make money? I mean that’s why it is a government service — it provides us with something outside the normal market system, because it is something we all must have, rather than just a choice on the open market.

But the problem the Postal Service faces is that it continues to operate in the red and try to be half private and half public. So if faces the pressure of servicing the public at a level that meets everyone’s demand but cannot simply raise rates at the rate to match the demand.

Of course the Postal Serve has also seen declining volume because of e-mail.

I’m kind of stuck on this one. I mean in my own life the U.S. mail has become primarily the way we receive and pay bills and get our junk mail. I seldom — almost never — write a letter.

I tried to do some quick research to see exactly how the Postal Service gets its revenue, but could only find the Wikipedia entry that says it does not get direct government support. Nonetheless, I realize Uncle Sam has to underwrite it.

Yes, it may be time to rethink whether the government needs or should be in the postal business.

One thing retaining some government control does is keep a private entity from becoming a monopoly on our communication — although I realize the kind of communication the Postal Service handles is becoming outdated.

P.s.

The Postal Service wants to provide less service for more money. That is how private business often operates, so maybe it is doing something right.

People may soon beg for health care reform, but first things first…

Health care reform will come when the people really need it and that day may be near. The Wall Street Journal is reporting on its website that for the first time in history more than half the national cost of health care is projected to come out of government programs by next year and the amount paid by private insurance is dwindling as more and more people lose their jobs.

Kind of hard to buy private health insurance when you don’t have a job or unless you are independently wealthy.

So, in my perhaps simplistic way of looking at things this reinforces my now long-held opinion that President Barack Obama needlessly overreached in his bid to revamp the whole health care system.

What will the mass of people, even the tea party folks, do when they can no longer afford private health insurance and/or their insurance at the job plays out because their job played out. Get sick and die, I suppose, and maybe that is the way God meant it to be.

Of course many of the tea party folks clutch onto their Medicare or Medicaid cards already, no doubt. But they don’t like “big giverment” running things.

Personally I would rather see Obama tackle the unemployment problem a little harder. Even some government make-work programs would not hurt. There is always litter to pick up — clean up America! All able-bodied people should sign up for some type of government labor pool to clean the road sides and other such stuff before they get any public assistance benefits. And seasonal industries, such as agricultural harvesting, should not be subsidized by government unemployment checks.

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ADD 1: And that last sentence does not seem to go along with the general thesis of this blog post. Guess it was just on my mind. While I think it is a good idea for government to do what it can to promote employment I think it’s kind of contradictory of those business people and farmers who likely see themselves as stalwarts of free enterprise to actively participate in a scheme that has employees getting government checks for when they are not working at seasonal employment. Whole industries are subsidized in this method by the taxpayer. I’m not an expert in unemployment benefits and I do realize that it is a kind of insurance, hence the name “unemployment insurance”, and employers pay into the fund (a lot of workers think they pay directly into the fund, but I don’t think that is the way it works), but it is a government funded and staffed program nonetheless. In this economy what I seem to have come out against probably is a good idea — we need employment. I should have just excised that sentence. 

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I would like to see Obama do something to wind down these wars we are in if at all possible. We really need to seriously reassess what our objectives are and whether they are attainable. Fighting them over there before they come over here was a nice, if misleading and specious, catch phrase for the previous administration, but we have grownups in charge now — let’s rethink the whole thing.

On the other hand, the armed services do provide employment. We ought to have a larger recruitment effort and expand the military and free up the National Guard to go back to being a home guard available for natural disasters. The National Guard should not have to serve overseas, except in exceptional circumstances. Both the Guard and the regular military should be available for all types of public work here at home, such as fighting forest fires.

I have mixed emotions about the all-voluntary military. On the one hand we probably have the best fighting force we have ever had (not sure, of course, but from all appearances), but on the other hand we have relieved the public of the responsibility  and the need to worry about risking life and limb to fight for our country, so we may be winding up  doing more than fighting for our country, and when we do, I think we go wrong. From what I have read, if there was one thing most of our founders did not want was for this nation to revert to the old world ways of constant battles over territory and wars for wars’ sake.

And if ever the government could play a role in offering incentives — tax breaks, tariffs — to commerce, now seems the time to revive the near moribund United States manufacturing sector. Even the economic eggheads are starting to discover that service cannot stand on its own. It has to service something — and why not a restored and robust American manufacturing sector?

One problem I note from reading a recent story in my local newspaper is that we face the dilemma of bringing ourselves down to third world levels in trying to compete head on with other nations. A case in point is the famed 20-mule team Borax operation in California’s Mojave Desert (remember? Ronald Reagan used to be the host of Death Valley Days, sponsored by Boraxo). Seems the workers there have been locked out in a labor dispute with management. And now management has brought in cheaper workers. It also seems that we have to compete with places like Turkey in the production of Borax (mining) where wages are far less (I forget what, but here workers have been pulling down more than 18 to more than $20 per hour  –not huge, but nothing to sneeze at either for most folks).

While I believe American industry has to try its best to be competitive with other parts of the world, bringing down wages is not a good thing. And you have to ask yourself, do companies who bring down worker wages at the same time reduce management wages?

The answer is that we really don’t want to bring down anyone’s wages, labor or management. That is what threatens our economy today.

But back to where I started this blog. Come on Mr. President, start on the must do first, some of the rest will come in its time — and even though I personally support universal health care, it’s time may not have come — trust me, though, it soon will — very soon. People might even beg for it.

Mass ignorance is the worst enemy of democracy…

One of the biggest problems facing our democracy is mass ignorance. A large portion of our population has little to no understanding of our system of government and our history (I make this judgment based on what I hear on the street and read on things such as those man and woman on the street interviews).

What little so-called info that does seep in often comes from the ratings-driven right-wing hate mongers, primarily on Clear Channel radio and Fox television. Since so many listeners are ignorant they tend to take all of what is said as gospel. To be sure there can be propaganda from the other end of the political spectrum, but it usually does not seem to be filled with nearly so much hate — a little class envy perhaps. The hate from the far right actually gives true conservatism a bad rep. My idea is that a true conservative is slow to change what seems to be working (for him or her at least) – a cautious person by nature — and does not believe in taking undue risk (unless it’s all your money). But the far right hate mongers are simply opportunists who go for the gut in human emotions and play on the fears and jealously that reside somewhere in the hearts of most humans. The left can use this tactic too and has at times, but has not been nearly as successful with it as the far right crowd has in recent decades.

We still carry the frontier mentality in this nation that carries with it the promise or illusion that as bad as things might be at the present, anyone can strike out on the trail and lift himself up and to change his station in life. You don’t want to vote to tax the rich if you might have a chance of becoming rich. (And by the way, I do not suggest that “taxing the rich” is the way to go. We all have to pay our fair share for this thing to work. While I am not sure it is the way to go, I always wonder if some form of consumption tax might not be better than an income tax.)

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And I have to insert this thought in here: I laugh my head off when the likes of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, both of whom the every-man-for-himself-pull-yourself-up-from your-own-bootstraps crowd usually worships, say they are not taxed enough. They’re not supposed to say that. It really throws the not-quite-as-rich and rich wannabe crowd a curve ball.

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But back to this ignorance thing:

I don’t know what other folks learn in school. Besides English grammar and arithmetic and some science, I learned the basics of history and government and geography in school, and this was all before high school. But somehow so many others either did not or did not pay attention or have some type of collective amnesia.

I once mentored a college journalism student who worked for me as a cub reporter. She was in college and had no idea of basic civics — and she was a journalism major. She did seem to be able, though, and I’m sure if she stuck with it she probably did fine, or better yet maybe she realized that there are more rewarding pursuits out there. The point is that you can go to school and even get a degree and be absolutely ignorant our own history and government (and probably functionally illiterate to boot). I don’t care what field you are in, you are a citizen and you should know about your own nation. How else can we preserve democracy? Ignorant people are easily misled. They can be convinced to support wars that are not in their own interest at the drop of a hat. They can be convinced that they have to save billionaire bankers before they lose more of our money so the bankers can recoup what they lost and lose more of our money.

Related to all of this, I cannot figure out why I have to listen to the British Broadcasting Company or BBC to hear a comprehensive report of world news (with reports based on the point of view where they originate). In order to be good American citizens and citizens of the world we ought to know what is going on outside our borders. It’s not all about us after all. But for some reason it has been an American tradition to be Americacentric. We think if it did not happen here, it did not happen.

This is not a new thing. My father did his masters thesis back in the 1930s on the Latin American Press and noted that while at the time (and now I might add) U.S. newspapers ran little news of Latin America, the Latin American press was full of news about the USA.

And now many of our local newspapers with a deficit of advertising, plummeting circulation, and little resources have drastically cut out news of the outside world, or any real news at all. Commercial broadcast news goes for ratings and fills its time with glitzy reports (more style than susbstance) almost entirely about the American point of view, along with endless feature fluffs.

Our public schools need to push knowledge of history and government and current events much more than they do. They do not need to reach for ways to entertain their students in order to get their attention. It is up to the students to pay attention and up to their parents to make sure they do.

And I know most come from dysfunctional homes because society has been so consumed with consumption and self-gratification that family means little, but that’s another subject in and of itself. All children were  born of parents, nonetheless, as far as I know. Those parents should be responsible.

If we keep our education requirements up for employment and keep public assistance hard to get, the value of education will naturally sink in.

(The excuse makers in public education will say I just have not been in the local schools and do not know what is going on — good or bad. Not true. I raised two children and went to all the back to school nights and encouraged their education. I covered school news — went into classrooms — as a reporter. I served a stint as a substitute teacher. I have attended many, too many, school board meetings. I know what goes on and what does not. Naturally good students progress, despite the system, not quite as good students suffer. Too much money is sucked up by administrators who do not want to rock the boat and call attention to the mess that while not working so well for the students works quite well for their lifestyle.)

Or we can just as a nation go on being ignorant and scratching or heads to figure out why nothing gets done.

P.s.

My grandson is in fourth grade and is studying the early California Spanish missions as I did way back when, so I know history is being taught, to some extent anyway.

I also note that at times the extreme left can be as bad as the reactionary right. I wound up listening to some type of radical left radio station the other night because it was the only radio station I could get on my truck radio that was playing the president’s state of the union speech. I was taken aback when listening after the speech the commentators started going into some kind of diatribe against the American flag and against any use of military, presumably even for self-defense. But this kind of stuff brings little advertising, so it is not nearly as prevalent as the afore-mentioned reactionary and ratings (advertising) driven right wingnut propaganda machine. It’s too bad that reasoned discussion does not seem to produce high ratings on commercial outlets (there is C-Span and NPR, thankfully, although NPR does lean a little left at times). 

You really can’t ensure balanced news presentation and policy discussion while going for ratings. The act of trying to attract viewers (or readers) tends to make one match the message to what the audience is thought to want to hear or read. But again, better education would teach people to be more critical and discerning in their viewing and reading.