Late last year, author and intellectual, Sam Harris, appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and stated that “We have to be able to criticize bad ideas, and Islam is the Mother lode of bad ideas.” Unfortunately it seems the irony of his statement is completely lost on Mr. Harris.
Whether you believe his words to be "gross", "racist" and "ugly" or if you feel this is just a statement of fact, the question Harris has really never answered is what makes Islam the pinnacle of bad ideas? Few would argue that currently Islam doesn't possess the largest contingent of extremists; however, it seems like a stretch to blame the religion for this as Harris does.
There's no doubt that media outlets have pulled verses out of the Quran in an attempt to "prove" that the Muslim holy book is the source of this evil, but are quotes from a religious book really enough to indict an entire religion? With this in mind, listed below is a mix of verses from the Quran as well as the Bible. Is it obvious which book is the mother lode of bad ideas and which one is the religion of peace?
1) But that whoever would not seek the Lord... should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.
2) “As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help.”
3) Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death.
4) If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death.
5) "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent."
6) "Men are in charge of women."
7) All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense.
8) Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death.
9) ‘For if a woman is not veiled, let her hair be cut off; but if it is a shame to a woman to have her hair cut off, let her be veiled.’
10) Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments (veil); this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble.
11) A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death.
12) "If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives."
13) "Do you commit immorality while you are seeing? Do you indeed approach men with desire instead of women? Rather, you are a people behaving ignorantly."
14) "Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and tell all those who heard him to lay their hands on his head. Then let the entire community stone him to death.”
15) "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children.”
16) And when the forbidden months have passed, kill the idolaters wherever you find them and take them prisoners, and beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush.
17) If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins. I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted.
18) "If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity."
The reality is nearly all religions have at one time or another been a haven for violence and extremists and used their holy book as justification for their actions. The problem with Islam right now is not the Quran, but the number of people who interpret the Quran in a way that allows them to rationalize the killing of others as doing the Lord’s work. As Fareed Zakaria has stated, "There is a cancer of extremism within Islam today" that needs to be addressed; however, condemning an entire religion which contains hundreds of millions of peaceful devotees is certainly a bad idea that is worth criticizing.
1)B, 2)Q, 3)B, 4)B, 5)B, 6)Q, 7)B, 8)B, 9)B, 10)Q, 11)B, 12)B, 13)Q, 14)B, 15)B, 16)Q, 17)B, 18)B.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Friday, April 17, 2015
Proposal 1 proves Republican incompetence
In two weeks Michigan voters will be asked to decide the fate of proposal 1 which would raise the states sales tax to help fund roads. Polls show that at this point Michigan residents are solidly against this proposal despite support from the governor and every major newspaper editorial board in the state.
As with any legislation there are obviously a number of issues that turn off various groups of voters. For example raising the sales tax is a regressive tax that will increase the burden on the poor. Do we really want to fund public roads on the backs of the working poor? The proposal is also based on a percentage which means when the economy is doing well the state will have plenty of money however as soon as the economy hits another bump in the road, legislators will again be looking for ways to pinch pennies. Shouldn't we find a solution that not only functions in the ideal situation but also when the state is struggling? Additionally proposal 1 changes the way in which taxes are collected at the pump allowing the legislature to avoid the voter approved constitutional amendment that requires a certain percentage of this money ends up in public education. Given that the governor already admitted that he and this legislature "cut k-12 education" spending can we really trust that this workaround isn't just another way to reallocate important education funds?
In spite of these and other problems with proposal 1 there are certainly things to like. It increases funding to improve Michigan's crumbling infrastructure which studies say could save Michigan families as much as $1,000 per year. The proposal also includes changes to the earned income tax credit that will benefit working class Michigan residents as well as an additional influx of money for public education.
While these are all important components to consider when making a decision regarding how to vote on proposal 1 they all pale in comparison to the one really damming issue at play in this special election - the reality that were it not for the cowardice of elected officials this trip to the polls would be completely unnecessary. The fact that the people voters tasked with making the tough decisions are so afraid of losing their jobs that they would put the desires of a fringe "no new taxes" group ahead of the needs of their constituents suggests that the real problem here is not road or education funding but a complete and total failure of leadership.
Polls show Michigan voters top two spending priorities are infrastructure and education yet currently Michigan spends less per capita on bridges and roads than any other state in the nation and this legislature has overseen a $648 cut to the per pupil foundation allowance.
Instead of focusing on voters preferences these legislators proved just how beholden they are to corporations by issuing a nearly two billion dollar tax cut to businesses while raising taxes on almost 50% of Michigan residents. Obviously most Michiganders would support these changes if it lead to massive economic improvement however studies show that the vast majority of jobs created over the past few years are not due to any actions by the Michigan legislature. In fact, even organizations that the governor cited in his bid for reelection said “Snyder’s overhaul has not yet prompted as much job growth”, and “his tax overhaul being hard on working families and seniors”.
Having said that a recent LinkedIn poll found that the top two drivers of economic development are having an educated work force and a well maintained infrastructure, while tax climate came in a distant fourth behind Access to Affordable energy. Additionally a survey of corporate executives found that the top consideration for where to locate was access to good roads while the previous number one concern was the availability of skilled labor. The data also show that the Republican legislative priorities of tax rates, job training, and "right to work" were all lower concerns when it came to finding a business location.
These findings suggest that if the Republican's goal was to make Michigan a more competitive state improving infrastructure and education not tax cuts and divisive "right to work" legislation should have been the legislature’s first order of business. This failure to understand the motives of corporations is perhaps why even with all of the efforts the governor and his Republican legislative counterparts claim to be putting in to make Michigan more attractive to business, Michigan still ranks as the 26th best state to do business.
The reality is that like refusing to vote for a tax increase, the legislative priorities of these elected officials has clearly been self preservation by enrich top contributors and ignoring constituents and best practices.
Of course failing to honor the will of the people is hardly a new thing for this legislature. When voters decided to eliminate the Emergency Manager Law, legislative Republicans quickly wrote a new law and tacked on some additional taxpayer dollars so they could call it a budgetary item which makes it referendum proof moving forward. This means whether voters like this law or not they are stuck with it. Similarly many of these same legislators have also been attempting to restrict a woman's right to an abortion as well as standing against same sex marriage despite polls that show opposition to these positions.
This astounding hypocrisy illustrates just how spineless these legislators are. They clearly don't trust voters to make the right decisions yet they would rather look incompetent than be seen as a Republican that supports a tax increase.
Making matters worse is the fact that this special election will cost the taxpayers around $10 million. That is $10 million that could have been used to fix a few roads near you. That is $10 million that could have improved the education for thousands of kids. That is $10 million that could have made the tax burden a little less overwhelming for Michigan's working poor. That is $10 million that this legislature squandered because they were too scared or self absorbed to do their job.
With all due respect to the many editorials written that find just enough to like about this legislation to ask Michiganders to vote yes, this vote is way bigger than simply properly funding roads and education. This vote sends the legislature a message about what voters will tolerate. As the old business saying goes, "If I have to do your job, I don't need you". Well, this legislature has proven over and over again that the needs of Michigan resident place a distant second to retaining their seat. Vote no on proposal 1 and tell the Michigan legislature that they either do their job or we will find someone else who will because this sort of continued ineptitude is completely unacceptable.
As with any legislation there are obviously a number of issues that turn off various groups of voters. For example raising the sales tax is a regressive tax that will increase the burden on the poor. Do we really want to fund public roads on the backs of the working poor? The proposal is also based on a percentage which means when the economy is doing well the state will have plenty of money however as soon as the economy hits another bump in the road, legislators will again be looking for ways to pinch pennies. Shouldn't we find a solution that not only functions in the ideal situation but also when the state is struggling? Additionally proposal 1 changes the way in which taxes are collected at the pump allowing the legislature to avoid the voter approved constitutional amendment that requires a certain percentage of this money ends up in public education. Given that the governor already admitted that he and this legislature "cut k-12 education" spending can we really trust that this workaround isn't just another way to reallocate important education funds?
In spite of these and other problems with proposal 1 there are certainly things to like. It increases funding to improve Michigan's crumbling infrastructure which studies say could save Michigan families as much as $1,000 per year. The proposal also includes changes to the earned income tax credit that will benefit working class Michigan residents as well as an additional influx of money for public education.
While these are all important components to consider when making a decision regarding how to vote on proposal 1 they all pale in comparison to the one really damming issue at play in this special election - the reality that were it not for the cowardice of elected officials this trip to the polls would be completely unnecessary. The fact that the people voters tasked with making the tough decisions are so afraid of losing their jobs that they would put the desires of a fringe "no new taxes" group ahead of the needs of their constituents suggests that the real problem here is not road or education funding but a complete and total failure of leadership.
Polls show Michigan voters top two spending priorities are infrastructure and education yet currently Michigan spends less per capita on bridges and roads than any other state in the nation and this legislature has overseen a $648 cut to the per pupil foundation allowance.
Instead of focusing on voters preferences these legislators proved just how beholden they are to corporations by issuing a nearly two billion dollar tax cut to businesses while raising taxes on almost 50% of Michigan residents. Obviously most Michiganders would support these changes if it lead to massive economic improvement however studies show that the vast majority of jobs created over the past few years are not due to any actions by the Michigan legislature. In fact, even organizations that the governor cited in his bid for reelection said “Snyder’s overhaul has not yet prompted as much job growth”, and “his tax overhaul being hard on working families and seniors”.
Having said that a recent LinkedIn poll found that the top two drivers of economic development are having an educated work force and a well maintained infrastructure, while tax climate came in a distant fourth behind Access to Affordable energy. Additionally a survey of corporate executives found that the top consideration for where to locate was access to good roads while the previous number one concern was the availability of skilled labor. The data also show that the Republican legislative priorities of tax rates, job training, and "right to work" were all lower concerns when it came to finding a business location.
These findings suggest that if the Republican's goal was to make Michigan a more competitive state improving infrastructure and education not tax cuts and divisive "right to work" legislation should have been the legislature’s first order of business. This failure to understand the motives of corporations is perhaps why even with all of the efforts the governor and his Republican legislative counterparts claim to be putting in to make Michigan more attractive to business, Michigan still ranks as the 26th best state to do business.
The reality is that like refusing to vote for a tax increase, the legislative priorities of these elected officials has clearly been self preservation by enrich top contributors and ignoring constituents and best practices.
Of course failing to honor the will of the people is hardly a new thing for this legislature. When voters decided to eliminate the Emergency Manager Law, legislative Republicans quickly wrote a new law and tacked on some additional taxpayer dollars so they could call it a budgetary item which makes it referendum proof moving forward. This means whether voters like this law or not they are stuck with it. Similarly many of these same legislators have also been attempting to restrict a woman's right to an abortion as well as standing against same sex marriage despite polls that show opposition to these positions.
This astounding hypocrisy illustrates just how spineless these legislators are. They clearly don't trust voters to make the right decisions yet they would rather look incompetent than be seen as a Republican that supports a tax increase.
Making matters worse is the fact that this special election will cost the taxpayers around $10 million. That is $10 million that could have been used to fix a few roads near you. That is $10 million that could have improved the education for thousands of kids. That is $10 million that could have made the tax burden a little less overwhelming for Michigan's working poor. That is $10 million that this legislature squandered because they were too scared or self absorbed to do their job.
With all due respect to the many editorials written that find just enough to like about this legislation to ask Michiganders to vote yes, this vote is way bigger than simply properly funding roads and education. This vote sends the legislature a message about what voters will tolerate. As the old business saying goes, "If I have to do your job, I don't need you". Well, this legislature has proven over and over again that the needs of Michigan resident place a distant second to retaining their seat. Vote no on proposal 1 and tell the Michigan legislature that they either do their job or we will find someone else who will because this sort of continued ineptitude is completely unacceptable.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Education reformers are so gullible
Education reformers believe the public education system in America is broken. Despite having a long list of reasons for these failures, they have yet to find a way to turn their conjecture into successful reform. Charter schools, merit pay, ending tenure, fewer union teachers, teacher evaluations, and teach for America are some of the more popular ideas that haven't actually improved outcomes.
The problem is, each of these ideas assumes teachers are the issue. They aren't properly motivated, censured, cultivated, or eliminated. Unfortunately for reformers these tend to be fallacies based on the media's obsession with a few bad apples. For example the bad teachers meme has become so prevalent that even school districts are convinced it is an issue yet when these districts made a concerted effort to identify educators that needed to be removed they found that only 1.5% were actually ineffective.
If a 1.5% ineffective rate is an epidemic that requires a complete overhaul of the public education system it should be noted that 5% of doctors accounted for 54% of malpractice payouts. From the beginning of the century 23% of military veterans who were discharged received a less than honorable discharge. And according to the Harvard Business Review, 40% of CEO's fail in their first 18 months. Where is the public outrage and legislative action to correct these issues?
While it is certainly true that having good teachers is important, teachers are only part of the equation. The reform movement seems completely uninterested in legislation that makes parents and students more accountable for the child's performance. They aren't addressing the inequalities in resources or safety that impact a student’s ability to learn. And they don't seem very concerned about data that show, when adjusted for poverty, the U.S. already has the best education in the world at every level.
Reformers also tend to be very concerned about the amount of money being spent to educate children today. This too seems hypocritical, given that over the past two decades education spending has only increased by 25% more than inflation which is far smaller than increases in defense spending, health care, college tuition, and CEO wages. This suggests public education is hardly the biggest boondoggle in America, yet many of the people who act like education spending is out of control will be the first to defend the never ending rise in funding for some of these other areas.
Given the concern for improving education and saving money, the latest fad for the reformers is very perplexing. Whether you call it virtual schools, online education or cyber schools, the next great thing in education reform is letting kids take classes over the internet. While there are certainly benefits to children learning from home for both the child and the teacher, the process relies on self-directed learning which studies have shown lower educational outcomes in college students.
Based on these results, it comes as no surprise that the data from across the country shows that children who take these online classes preform worse on standardized tests than traditional schools. It's possible the issues are in execution, but it's also possible that this sort of self-directed learning only works for a small portion of students who are already motivated to learn.
Of course, the data also shows that virtual schools cost less than traditional schools. This would seem to fit with reformers concerns of ever increasing education spending; however, currently tax payers see none of the benefits of these savings since these cyber schools receive the same per pupil funding as their brick and mortar counterparts despite the fact that these schools cost less to operate.
Unfortunately this is the real trend in education reform these days. Corporations are looking at ways to monetize America's children while simultaneously undercutting the power of their greatest potential adversaries.
Sure charter schools were a good start to bilking the public out of millions of dollars under the guise of "education reform", but online schools are the golden goose of for-profit education. Of course, any good corporation knows that one of the fastest ways to boost profits is to lower the wages of employees. This means finding excuses to fire well compensated teachers, offering lower starting salaries with the carrot of earning more for meeting unobtainable goals, and hiring under-qualified educators with only weeks of training who will work for less and only stick around for a few years should absolutely be part of any corporate takeover of education.
The only other obstacle to turning what used to be seen as a civic duty into a fortune 500 company are teachers unions. Having an organization that acts as a balance to corporate greed and works to make sure the needs of children and the people entrusted with their education are represented is clearly an issue for increasing profits. Luckily for these companies, there are enough people who have bought the education reform message hook, line and sinker and enough money to buy legislative compliance that changes have reached the top levels of government. And they have done this despite the fact that education reform has met neither goal of improving educational outcomes or saving money.
The thing voters need to ask themselves is, who do they believe has the best interests of their child in mind more - the person who interacts with them every day and is part of their local community or the corporate CEO 500 miles away who answers to an unelected board and investors. Because right now, the only ones really benefiting from the litany of education reform sweeping the nation are the corporations.
It's time for reformers to take a page out of their own playbook and honestly evaluate the effectiveness of their ideas. If they did, they would realize that the only thing truly broken about public education is education reform. Unfortunately too many of these people aren't educated enough to recognize they're being duped.
The problem is, each of these ideas assumes teachers are the issue. They aren't properly motivated, censured, cultivated, or eliminated. Unfortunately for reformers these tend to be fallacies based on the media's obsession with a few bad apples. For example the bad teachers meme has become so prevalent that even school districts are convinced it is an issue yet when these districts made a concerted effort to identify educators that needed to be removed they found that only 1.5% were actually ineffective.
If a 1.5% ineffective rate is an epidemic that requires a complete overhaul of the public education system it should be noted that 5% of doctors accounted for 54% of malpractice payouts. From the beginning of the century 23% of military veterans who were discharged received a less than honorable discharge. And according to the Harvard Business Review, 40% of CEO's fail in their first 18 months. Where is the public outrage and legislative action to correct these issues?
While it is certainly true that having good teachers is important, teachers are only part of the equation. The reform movement seems completely uninterested in legislation that makes parents and students more accountable for the child's performance. They aren't addressing the inequalities in resources or safety that impact a student’s ability to learn. And they don't seem very concerned about data that show, when adjusted for poverty, the U.S. already has the best education in the world at every level.
Reformers also tend to be very concerned about the amount of money being spent to educate children today. This too seems hypocritical, given that over the past two decades education spending has only increased by 25% more than inflation which is far smaller than increases in defense spending, health care, college tuition, and CEO wages. This suggests public education is hardly the biggest boondoggle in America, yet many of the people who act like education spending is out of control will be the first to defend the never ending rise in funding for some of these other areas.
Given the concern for improving education and saving money, the latest fad for the reformers is very perplexing. Whether you call it virtual schools, online education or cyber schools, the next great thing in education reform is letting kids take classes over the internet. While there are certainly benefits to children learning from home for both the child and the teacher, the process relies on self-directed learning which studies have shown lower educational outcomes in college students.
Based on these results, it comes as no surprise that the data from across the country shows that children who take these online classes preform worse on standardized tests than traditional schools. It's possible the issues are in execution, but it's also possible that this sort of self-directed learning only works for a small portion of students who are already motivated to learn.
Of course, the data also shows that virtual schools cost less than traditional schools. This would seem to fit with reformers concerns of ever increasing education spending; however, currently tax payers see none of the benefits of these savings since these cyber schools receive the same per pupil funding as their brick and mortar counterparts despite the fact that these schools cost less to operate.
Unfortunately this is the real trend in education reform these days. Corporations are looking at ways to monetize America's children while simultaneously undercutting the power of their greatest potential adversaries.
Sure charter schools were a good start to bilking the public out of millions of dollars under the guise of "education reform", but online schools are the golden goose of for-profit education. Of course, any good corporation knows that one of the fastest ways to boost profits is to lower the wages of employees. This means finding excuses to fire well compensated teachers, offering lower starting salaries with the carrot of earning more for meeting unobtainable goals, and hiring under-qualified educators with only weeks of training who will work for less and only stick around for a few years should absolutely be part of any corporate takeover of education.
The only other obstacle to turning what used to be seen as a civic duty into a fortune 500 company are teachers unions. Having an organization that acts as a balance to corporate greed and works to make sure the needs of children and the people entrusted with their education are represented is clearly an issue for increasing profits. Luckily for these companies, there are enough people who have bought the education reform message hook, line and sinker and enough money to buy legislative compliance that changes have reached the top levels of government. And they have done this despite the fact that education reform has met neither goal of improving educational outcomes or saving money.
The thing voters need to ask themselves is, who do they believe has the best interests of their child in mind more - the person who interacts with them every day and is part of their local community or the corporate CEO 500 miles away who answers to an unelected board and investors. Because right now, the only ones really benefiting from the litany of education reform sweeping the nation are the corporations.
It's time for reformers to take a page out of their own playbook and honestly evaluate the effectiveness of their ideas. If they did, they would realize that the only thing truly broken about public education is education reform. Unfortunately too many of these people aren't educated enough to recognize they're being duped.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Christian paranoia makes for awful legislation
Christians across the country are paranoid. In their mind there is an unmitigated war on Christianity where Christians are becoming the most ostracized group in America.
Essentially Christian oppression has become the white conservative version of playing the race card and conservative media darling Todd Starnes is the Al Sharpton of this movement. No offense is to insignificant for Starnes to fan the flames of imaginary outraged.
- Student gets reprimanded for adding "god bless America" to the morning announcements without permission and it's proof of Christians being marginalized.
- Say the pledge of allegiance in multiple languages to honor America's immigrant history and again its proof of Christians being marginalized.
For people like Starnes it is a matter of religious freedom for Christians to espouse their beliefs whenever and wherever they please. However if Muslims or Atheists were to do the exact same thing it would show how the liberal public education system is instituting Sharia law and indoctrinating students to hate Jesus. The cognitive dissociation required to make such contradictory arguments is astounding.
Of course guys like Starnes are easy to dismiss as media trolls looking to make a buck by pandering to the irrational fears of low information voters. The real problem is the wave of legislators across the nation who are peddling hate under the guise of religious rights.
In Michigan for example the legislature recently took up two different religious freedom bills. One would allow adoption agencies to deny service to people in the LGBT community. The other would allow for the denial of housing, refusal of service, or rejection of employment due to a citizen's religious beliefs.
The adoption bill seems destined to fail a constitutionally test since previous decisions regarding the separation of church and state have shown that these protections are for things that are secular in nature. Allowing a religious based adoption agency to receive state funding while denying service to people solely based on the organizations religious beliefs appears to violate the Supreme Courts previous rulings.
Perhaps more concerning than the potential constitutionality of this legislation is the idea that an organization acting as an intermediary has more rights than the children there are tasked with helping. If the kids don't mind having same sex parents then the religious objections of the adoption agency are completely immaterial. Do these organizations get to deny adoptions to individuals who have been divorced? Can they turn away adults who take contraception? Is being obese a rational religious exception? If an applicant had an abortion previously can they be rejected? These are all sins or against the religious teachings of these organizations - does that mean they are protected too?
But if legislators and these entities are really concerned about the well being of these children than maybe they should support legislation that prevents some of the thousands of mistreatments that occur at the hands of adoptive and foster parent each year. Does anyone really think protecting the religious rights of an organization should be a higher priority for Michigan than preventing harm to children?
Data also show that kids who are forced into foster care are more likely to be homeless, incarcerated, and unemployed. Is letting a same sex couple love and raise a child really worse than the alternative? Should children really have to suffer because of an organization’s religious objections?
The selfishness required to place the religious freedom of an organization above the good of children seems extraordinarily un-Christian.
As far as allowing people to deny services, housing, or employment based on faith is concerned, so far the courts have ruled against such arguments. If you want to discriminate against any particular group then all you need to do is become a member’s only entity. Churches can refuse to marry same sex couples because you must be a member to receive service. If you don't want any women at your private golf club there is nothing the government can do to prevent you from implementing such a policy. But if you want all the benefits of dealing with the public you forfeit your ability to operate outside of government regulations. The baker can refuse to include speech they find offensive on a cake but they can't refuse to provide cake based on who you are as a person.
Having said that if enacted these laws are likely to hurt the people they are designed to protect. A florist may refuse to provide flowers for a Catholic wedding since the Catholic Church has shown to protect pedophiles. A photographer could deny services to white customers because they only serve blacks. An atheist DJ could decline the opportunity to work with Christians because they have a conscious objection to their beliefs. And as soon as the shoe is on the other foot you can guarantee that Todd Starnes will be outraged and pretend that when these laws are used against Christians it is an abomination that requires government intervention.
The good news is that while this legislation may be popular among a small group of people the general trend shows that American's are increasingly against this sort of discrimination. This means like slavery, interracial marriage, and women's equality before it those who are using the bible as justification for their prejudice against the LGBT community will soon find themselves on the wrong side of history as well as the law.
In the end the constitution already protects everyone's religious freedom. If the courts have decided your brand of Christianity isn't covered by this historical document it doesn't mean there is a war against Christianity. It means you're using your religion to hide the fact that you're an intolerant bigot.
Essentially Christian oppression has become the white conservative version of playing the race card and conservative media darling Todd Starnes is the Al Sharpton of this movement. No offense is to insignificant for Starnes to fan the flames of imaginary outraged.
- Student gets reprimanded for adding "god bless America" to the morning announcements without permission and it's proof of Christians being marginalized.
- Say the pledge of allegiance in multiple languages to honor America's immigrant history and again its proof of Christians being marginalized.
For people like Starnes it is a matter of religious freedom for Christians to espouse their beliefs whenever and wherever they please. However if Muslims or Atheists were to do the exact same thing it would show how the liberal public education system is instituting Sharia law and indoctrinating students to hate Jesus. The cognitive dissociation required to make such contradictory arguments is astounding.
Of course guys like Starnes are easy to dismiss as media trolls looking to make a buck by pandering to the irrational fears of low information voters. The real problem is the wave of legislators across the nation who are peddling hate under the guise of religious rights.
In Michigan for example the legislature recently took up two different religious freedom bills. One would allow adoption agencies to deny service to people in the LGBT community. The other would allow for the denial of housing, refusal of service, or rejection of employment due to a citizen's religious beliefs.
The adoption bill seems destined to fail a constitutionally test since previous decisions regarding the separation of church and state have shown that these protections are for things that are secular in nature. Allowing a religious based adoption agency to receive state funding while denying service to people solely based on the organizations religious beliefs appears to violate the Supreme Courts previous rulings.
Perhaps more concerning than the potential constitutionality of this legislation is the idea that an organization acting as an intermediary has more rights than the children there are tasked with helping. If the kids don't mind having same sex parents then the religious objections of the adoption agency are completely immaterial. Do these organizations get to deny adoptions to individuals who have been divorced? Can they turn away adults who take contraception? Is being obese a rational religious exception? If an applicant had an abortion previously can they be rejected? These are all sins or against the religious teachings of these organizations - does that mean they are protected too?
But if legislators and these entities are really concerned about the well being of these children than maybe they should support legislation that prevents some of the thousands of mistreatments that occur at the hands of adoptive and foster parent each year. Does anyone really think protecting the religious rights of an organization should be a higher priority for Michigan than preventing harm to children?
Data also show that kids who are forced into foster care are more likely to be homeless, incarcerated, and unemployed. Is letting a same sex couple love and raise a child really worse than the alternative? Should children really have to suffer because of an organization’s religious objections?
The selfishness required to place the religious freedom of an organization above the good of children seems extraordinarily un-Christian.
As far as allowing people to deny services, housing, or employment based on faith is concerned, so far the courts have ruled against such arguments. If you want to discriminate against any particular group then all you need to do is become a member’s only entity. Churches can refuse to marry same sex couples because you must be a member to receive service. If you don't want any women at your private golf club there is nothing the government can do to prevent you from implementing such a policy. But if you want all the benefits of dealing with the public you forfeit your ability to operate outside of government regulations. The baker can refuse to include speech they find offensive on a cake but they can't refuse to provide cake based on who you are as a person.
Having said that if enacted these laws are likely to hurt the people they are designed to protect. A florist may refuse to provide flowers for a Catholic wedding since the Catholic Church has shown to protect pedophiles. A photographer could deny services to white customers because they only serve blacks. An atheist DJ could decline the opportunity to work with Christians because they have a conscious objection to their beliefs. And as soon as the shoe is on the other foot you can guarantee that Todd Starnes will be outraged and pretend that when these laws are used against Christians it is an abomination that requires government intervention.
The good news is that while this legislation may be popular among a small group of people the general trend shows that American's are increasingly against this sort of discrimination. This means like slavery, interracial marriage, and women's equality before it those who are using the bible as justification for their prejudice against the LGBT community will soon find themselves on the wrong side of history as well as the law.
In the end the constitution already protects everyone's religious freedom. If the courts have decided your brand of Christianity isn't covered by this historical document it doesn't mean there is a war against Christianity. It means you're using your religion to hide the fact that you're an intolerant bigot.
Friday, March 20, 2015
America needs labor unions
Speaker of the House John Boehner website says "Helping to build a stronger, healthier economy for all Americans is priority number one for House Republicans". He also is one of a small but growing number of Republicans that admit income inequality is a huge obstacle to reaching this goal. Unfortunately Boehner has failed to offer any solutions to this problem beyond the standard "blame Obama" rhetoric.
Luckily for Republicans like Boehner the party's policy from decades ago offers a simply solution to the U.S. income inequality problem. In extolling the virtues of former President Eisenhower's first term in office the GOP platform stated "The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration." In fact, labor unions were so integral to America's success President Eisenhower also said "Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America."
Despite the Republican's change of heart the value of unions to the success of the U.S. economy remains the same today. A report from the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development finds that that income inequality cost the U.S. economy 6 to 7 percentage points of growth during the first 10 years of this century. Considering that studies have found a direct correlation between the number of people in labor unions and the distribution of wealth it becomes clear that if the Republicans goal is to build a stronger, healthier economy for all Americans then continuing to add obstacles to organizing is the wrong approach.
Data show that in 2013 corporations profit as a percentage of gross domestic product hit record highs passing the record that was set just a year earlier. If trickledown theory, championed by Republicans, were ever to work then now would be the time since never before has then been so much available to trickle down. Unfortunately instead of sharing this wealth with the laborers who "create the wealth" the numbers show that the vast majority of the gains end up in the pockets of CEO's and shareholders.
Of course the problem isn't that Republicans are necessarily against collective bargaining or letting the workers get a greater piece of the pie. The problem is that they have latched on to every negative union stereotype they have ever heard of and created a union caricature that is antiquated and inaccurate. For example many believe that union bosses earn outrageous sums of money with some of the highest paid earning a little over 10 times the average union member salary. Yet of the companies that comprise Standard & Poor's top 250 the lowest ratio for CEO to employee wage is 173.
It's certainly possible that union heads bring home too much money but it is totally disingenuous to pretend that earning 10 times as much as the average worker is an atrocity while supporting companies who pay their top brass as much as 1,795 times what the average worker makes. The reality is that regardless of whether the organization is a union or a corporation the money the people at the top earn results in less money for the average worker.
These people also pretend that unions have an inordinate amount of influence in politics despite the data that show corporations outspent unions 15 to 1 in the most recent Presidential election cycle.
Some people suggest union members would be better off negotiating their wages independently as though each individual has the tools and power to strike a better deal than they could get as a union member. This is a mighty peculiar argument given that nearly all corporations use the power their size affords them to gain an advantage every day. Would Wal-Mart be able to offer the deals they currently do if they only owned one small store?
Corporations also hire experts to handle nearly every facet of business. Could the CEO also do the job of the accountant, the corporate lawyer, or the salesman? Sure, but they probably aren't as good as the people who have trained for these jobs. Similarly union members have experts in negotiation represent them which are why union members get a greater share of profits and have better benefits than their non union counterparts.
There are also people who believe unions go out of their way to protect bad members. Obviously unions would like to have as many members as possible but in a closed shop situation where is the incentive to retain the worst workers? The guy that is hired to replace the fired union member will automatically be enrolled in the union so there is no benefit in holding onto bad members. This is however an issue in so called "right to work" (RTW) states since the replacement employee may or may not join the union. This uncertainty may lead the unions to be slightly more protective of underperforming employees - making this a self fulfilling prophecy for RTW advocates.
Having said that what the unions are doing in these situations is representing the rights of the employee. The union isn't asked to be judge and jury; they are tasked with making the best case for the employee. To ask the unions to arbitrarily side with the company - against their members - suggests these people believe the corporation and their dismissal process to be infallible despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
In the end there are very few people who profit from diminished union membership. Unfortunately for the vast majority of those who oppose unions they are not in the group that enjoys the monetary benefits from low unionism.
There is no doubt that unions need to make some changes to address the image problem they currently have but to some extent that case if very easy to make. Lower union membership leads to higher income inequality which is bad for the economy. Unions are democratic capitalist organizations. If you don't like the way they are being run become a member and vote for change. After all Republicans have spent decades asserting that using government to pick the winners is losers is something only socialist would do.
The reality is unions are the greatest tool at most workers disposal for rebuilding the middle class. Advocating for the elimination of this tool is the epitome of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Luckily for Republicans like Boehner the party's policy from decades ago offers a simply solution to the U.S. income inequality problem. In extolling the virtues of former President Eisenhower's first term in office the GOP platform stated "The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration." In fact, labor unions were so integral to America's success President Eisenhower also said "Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America."
Despite the Republican's change of heart the value of unions to the success of the U.S. economy remains the same today. A report from the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development finds that that income inequality cost the U.S. economy 6 to 7 percentage points of growth during the first 10 years of this century. Considering that studies have found a direct correlation between the number of people in labor unions and the distribution of wealth it becomes clear that if the Republicans goal is to build a stronger, healthier economy for all Americans then continuing to add obstacles to organizing is the wrong approach.
Data show that in 2013 corporations profit as a percentage of gross domestic product hit record highs passing the record that was set just a year earlier. If trickledown theory, championed by Republicans, were ever to work then now would be the time since never before has then been so much available to trickle down. Unfortunately instead of sharing this wealth with the laborers who "create the wealth" the numbers show that the vast majority of the gains end up in the pockets of CEO's and shareholders.
Of course the problem isn't that Republicans are necessarily against collective bargaining or letting the workers get a greater piece of the pie. The problem is that they have latched on to every negative union stereotype they have ever heard of and created a union caricature that is antiquated and inaccurate. For example many believe that union bosses earn outrageous sums of money with some of the highest paid earning a little over 10 times the average union member salary. Yet of the companies that comprise Standard & Poor's top 250 the lowest ratio for CEO to employee wage is 173.
It's certainly possible that union heads bring home too much money but it is totally disingenuous to pretend that earning 10 times as much as the average worker is an atrocity while supporting companies who pay their top brass as much as 1,795 times what the average worker makes. The reality is that regardless of whether the organization is a union or a corporation the money the people at the top earn results in less money for the average worker.
These people also pretend that unions have an inordinate amount of influence in politics despite the data that show corporations outspent unions 15 to 1 in the most recent Presidential election cycle.
Some people suggest union members would be better off negotiating their wages independently as though each individual has the tools and power to strike a better deal than they could get as a union member. This is a mighty peculiar argument given that nearly all corporations use the power their size affords them to gain an advantage every day. Would Wal-Mart be able to offer the deals they currently do if they only owned one small store?
Corporations also hire experts to handle nearly every facet of business. Could the CEO also do the job of the accountant, the corporate lawyer, or the salesman? Sure, but they probably aren't as good as the people who have trained for these jobs. Similarly union members have experts in negotiation represent them which are why union members get a greater share of profits and have better benefits than their non union counterparts.
There are also people who believe unions go out of their way to protect bad members. Obviously unions would like to have as many members as possible but in a closed shop situation where is the incentive to retain the worst workers? The guy that is hired to replace the fired union member will automatically be enrolled in the union so there is no benefit in holding onto bad members. This is however an issue in so called "right to work" (RTW) states since the replacement employee may or may not join the union. This uncertainty may lead the unions to be slightly more protective of underperforming employees - making this a self fulfilling prophecy for RTW advocates.
Having said that what the unions are doing in these situations is representing the rights of the employee. The union isn't asked to be judge and jury; they are tasked with making the best case for the employee. To ask the unions to arbitrarily side with the company - against their members - suggests these people believe the corporation and their dismissal process to be infallible despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
In the end there are very few people who profit from diminished union membership. Unfortunately for the vast majority of those who oppose unions they are not in the group that enjoys the monetary benefits from low unionism.
There is no doubt that unions need to make some changes to address the image problem they currently have but to some extent that case if very easy to make. Lower union membership leads to higher income inequality which is bad for the economy. Unions are democratic capitalist organizations. If you don't like the way they are being run become a member and vote for change. After all Republicans have spent decades asserting that using government to pick the winners is losers is something only socialist would do.
The reality is unions are the greatest tool at most workers disposal for rebuilding the middle class. Advocating for the elimination of this tool is the epitome of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Monday, March 16, 2015
The white persons guide to eliminating racism
The conservative media has turned denying racism into a cottage industry. They say things like "the only people perpetuating racism are people like this gentleman from NAACP", "to drive African-Americans to the polls, the race card is now being played", "We have a black president, we have black senators... I don’t think there’s racism.", and "we don't have racism in America anymore".
The report regarding the systemic racism in Ferguson as well as a litany of other incidents over the past few years suggest racism is far from over in the U.S. With that in mind white America should consider the following statement from Thomas Sowell: “When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” Well, the truth is data show if you are white you are probably racist. You may not be overtly racist but you are racist nonetheless.
Luckily conservative whites have spent an awful lot of time recently telling other races and cultures how they can go about fixing their issues so there is already a guide for white people to follow to help with their racist tendencies.
For example many conservative pundits obsessed over the idea that black leaders were ignoring problems in their communities to focus on systemic inequality in the justice system leading to the deaths of a disproportionately high number of African America's at the hands of law enforcement.
Bill O'Reilly even went as far as to offer up a couple "solutions" to fix what ails the African American community. The first gem was to suggest that "you’ve got to stop young black women from having babies out of wedlock".
Forgetting for a second that socioeconomic status not skin color is the greatest predictor of women having children out of wedlock it seems that if we were to apply O'Reilly's principles equally to both whites and blacks then to end racism we need to stop single whites from having children. After all if being unattached and black means your children are destined to be criminals then children of unwed white mothers will similarly have no choice but to be racist. It's just common sense.
The second completely not racist solution from O'Reilly was "you have to demand discipline in your public schools" because everyone knows that black students are inherently more disruptive than white students. If that wasn't the case then it would mean the reason black students are three times as likely to be suspended and expelled is racism.
Again, following the O'Reilly logic, we also need to demand discipline for whites in public schools since the education system has clearly failed these students. Some whites will claim that students are already being racially indoctrinated in Comrade Obama's public school system but if the conservative media has taught us anything it’s that reality doesn't matter when it comes to discussion about race. If it did then the fact that scores of black leaders were discussing the high rates of crimes in their communities, long before it became a conservative racist denial tactic, would have killed a key media talking point before it started.
Of course African American's aren't the only group that conservative whites have advice for. Following any violence by individuals or groups who are associated with Islam the conservative media outrage machine goes into overdrive. Muslims who interpret their holy book completely differently than the violent extremists are told they must denounce the actions of these people simply because the name of their faith is the same. It is also suggested that these people learn how to assimilate into a society that may be different than the way of life they are used to.
Obviously if these recommendations are good for Muslims then they should also be good for whites. Instead of making excuses for racists and their ignorant actions and statements all whites should denounce them. After all if you are white then you have something in common with racist whites. Essentially you are racist by proxy unless you excoriate white racists.
The same is true for assimilation. Clearly these racists are having trouble assimilating into a world where non-white people are afforded all the same freedoms and rights as their Caucasian countrymen. If whites followed Sean Hannity's rules for Muslims and eliminated all ‘no-go zones’ that deter or prevent non whites from certain places and activities, remove all religious paraphernalia from hotels, and prevent the government from representing any one religion then these racists would assimilate into the American melting pot and racism would completely disappear.
The good news is that conservative pundits have no shortage of spurious solutions that they could support to fix white America's racism problem. The bad news is that the arrogance that allows these people to pontificate on topics they are ill-informed to solve is the same arrogance that lets them dismiss even the most scientific data as invalid. If only these conservatives were as enthusiastic about addressing their own faults as they are pointing out the defect of others.
The report regarding the systemic racism in Ferguson as well as a litany of other incidents over the past few years suggest racism is far from over in the U.S. With that in mind white America should consider the following statement from Thomas Sowell: “When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.” Well, the truth is data show if you are white you are probably racist. You may not be overtly racist but you are racist nonetheless.
Luckily conservative whites have spent an awful lot of time recently telling other races and cultures how they can go about fixing their issues so there is already a guide for white people to follow to help with their racist tendencies.
For example many conservative pundits obsessed over the idea that black leaders were ignoring problems in their communities to focus on systemic inequality in the justice system leading to the deaths of a disproportionately high number of African America's at the hands of law enforcement.
Bill O'Reilly even went as far as to offer up a couple "solutions" to fix what ails the African American community. The first gem was to suggest that "you’ve got to stop young black women from having babies out of wedlock".
Forgetting for a second that socioeconomic status not skin color is the greatest predictor of women having children out of wedlock it seems that if we were to apply O'Reilly's principles equally to both whites and blacks then to end racism we need to stop single whites from having children. After all if being unattached and black means your children are destined to be criminals then children of unwed white mothers will similarly have no choice but to be racist. It's just common sense.
The second completely not racist solution from O'Reilly was "you have to demand discipline in your public schools" because everyone knows that black students are inherently more disruptive than white students. If that wasn't the case then it would mean the reason black students are three times as likely to be suspended and expelled is racism.
Again, following the O'Reilly logic, we also need to demand discipline for whites in public schools since the education system has clearly failed these students. Some whites will claim that students are already being racially indoctrinated in Comrade Obama's public school system but if the conservative media has taught us anything it’s that reality doesn't matter when it comes to discussion about race. If it did then the fact that scores of black leaders were discussing the high rates of crimes in their communities, long before it became a conservative racist denial tactic, would have killed a key media talking point before it started.
Of course African American's aren't the only group that conservative whites have advice for. Following any violence by individuals or groups who are associated with Islam the conservative media outrage machine goes into overdrive. Muslims who interpret their holy book completely differently than the violent extremists are told they must denounce the actions of these people simply because the name of their faith is the same. It is also suggested that these people learn how to assimilate into a society that may be different than the way of life they are used to.
Obviously if these recommendations are good for Muslims then they should also be good for whites. Instead of making excuses for racists and their ignorant actions and statements all whites should denounce them. After all if you are white then you have something in common with racist whites. Essentially you are racist by proxy unless you excoriate white racists.
The same is true for assimilation. Clearly these racists are having trouble assimilating into a world where non-white people are afforded all the same freedoms and rights as their Caucasian countrymen. If whites followed Sean Hannity's rules for Muslims and eliminated all ‘no-go zones’ that deter or prevent non whites from certain places and activities, remove all religious paraphernalia from hotels, and prevent the government from representing any one religion then these racists would assimilate into the American melting pot and racism would completely disappear.
The good news is that conservative pundits have no shortage of spurious solutions that they could support to fix white America's racism problem. The bad news is that the arrogance that allows these people to pontificate on topics they are ill-informed to solve is the same arrogance that lets them dismiss even the most scientific data as invalid. If only these conservatives were as enthusiastic about addressing their own faults as they are pointing out the defect of others.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Federal tax code unfair to the super rich
This past week the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) chaired by Republican Paul Ryan released a document titled 'Fairness in Tax Policy". Not surprisingly conservative pundits like Forbes contributor Robert W. Wood fall all over themselves to misrepresent the information in this document with statements like "The 1% Makes 19% Of All Income, Pays 49% Of All Taxes". The reality is this number is just a projection for 2015 tax returns not the actual data. As Fox News reports the most recent release by the IRS show the top 1% making 19% of the adjusted gross income while paying 35% of the taxes.
Of course this statistic only tells half of the story. Reports show that the top 1% also hold 40% of the wealth. Paying only 35% to control 40% seems like a situation most Americans would gladly accept. This simplistic statistic also misses the fact that federal income tax is only one of many taxes that American's pay. After taking into account all of the other taxes involved the reality is the top 1% actually pay less in taxes as a percentage of income than the next 20%.
Having said that, the supposed purpose of the JCT report is to discuss fairness in tax policy. If this is the case then why would they only touch a few minor tax inequality statistics?
For example is it fair for the top 1% to earn just 19% of the income yet receive 50.6% of the tax breaks?
Is it fair that nearly 20,000 household with income over $500,000 paid zero federal income tax?
Is it fair that someone in the 10% tax bracket that donates $1,000 only gets a credit of $100 while the same donation from someone in the 35% tax bracket gets a credit of $350?
Is it fair that the wealthiest 0.01% earn half of all the capital gains yet pay as little as a 15% tax rate on that income?
Is it fair that the top 20% of households receive 80% of the tax benefit of retirement savings while the bottom 60% only receives 7%?
Is it fair that each year the wealthy enjoy approximately $40 billion in tax breaks thanks to a step up basis rule that allows heirs to receive assets completely free of taxes?
Is it fair that politicians use misleading partial information to push for further tax cuts even though studies show those cuts tend to hurt economic growth?
Is it fair that interest and dividends earned must be reported as income yet capital gains are only realized upon the sale of the asset?
Is it fair that if you lose money in the stock market the government will subsidize your loss but if you lose money in your 401K they won't?
Is it fair that the mortgage interest deduction benefits only a third of American households?
Is it fair that as tax rates have come down over the last half century the top 1% has seen their share of income double?
Is it fair that some people get to consider the bulk of the income they earn for their job as capital gains and pay nearly half the rate those with a similar income?
If the goal of Paul Ryan and the JCT was to find one simple bit sized statistic that would convince low information voters that the super rich are somehow being repressed then using "the top 1% makes 19% of the income but pays 35% of the federal taxes" is the ideal talking point. It's easy to consume and allows Republicans to ignore the litany of benefits the tax code affords certain groups of wealthy Americans.
If, however, the goal was to report on the fairness in tax policy this report is an unmitigated failure.
If fairness is the ultimate objective then the fact that some of the top 1% pay the top tax rate while others pay zero in federal income taxes should obviously be a topic of discussion. If broadening the base is important then fixing the ever increasing income equality problem in the U.S. that causes the widening tax gap should be a top priority. If applying the tax code uniformly to all citizens is a concern then using official reports to mislead the public and advance a partisan agenda is shamefully unpatriotic.
It's certainly possible that the top tax rate in America is too high but the fact that elected officials in charge of tax policy pretend that what the top 1% pays in federal income tax is reasonable proxy for fairness tells you all you need to know about how serious they are about fixing the problem.
Of course this statistic only tells half of the story. Reports show that the top 1% also hold 40% of the wealth. Paying only 35% to control 40% seems like a situation most Americans would gladly accept. This simplistic statistic also misses the fact that federal income tax is only one of many taxes that American's pay. After taking into account all of the other taxes involved the reality is the top 1% actually pay less in taxes as a percentage of income than the next 20%.
Having said that, the supposed purpose of the JCT report is to discuss fairness in tax policy. If this is the case then why would they only touch a few minor tax inequality statistics?
For example is it fair for the top 1% to earn just 19% of the income yet receive 50.6% of the tax breaks?
Is it fair that nearly 20,000 household with income over $500,000 paid zero federal income tax?
Is it fair that someone in the 10% tax bracket that donates $1,000 only gets a credit of $100 while the same donation from someone in the 35% tax bracket gets a credit of $350?
Is it fair that the wealthiest 0.01% earn half of all the capital gains yet pay as little as a 15% tax rate on that income?
Is it fair that the top 20% of households receive 80% of the tax benefit of retirement savings while the bottom 60% only receives 7%?
Is it fair that each year the wealthy enjoy approximately $40 billion in tax breaks thanks to a step up basis rule that allows heirs to receive assets completely free of taxes?
Is it fair that politicians use misleading partial information to push for further tax cuts even though studies show those cuts tend to hurt economic growth?
Is it fair that interest and dividends earned must be reported as income yet capital gains are only realized upon the sale of the asset?
Is it fair that if you lose money in the stock market the government will subsidize your loss but if you lose money in your 401K they won't?
Is it fair that the mortgage interest deduction benefits only a third of American households?
Is it fair that as tax rates have come down over the last half century the top 1% has seen their share of income double?
Is it fair that some people get to consider the bulk of the income they earn for their job as capital gains and pay nearly half the rate those with a similar income?
If the goal of Paul Ryan and the JCT was to find one simple bit sized statistic that would convince low information voters that the super rich are somehow being repressed then using "the top 1% makes 19% of the income but pays 35% of the federal taxes" is the ideal talking point. It's easy to consume and allows Republicans to ignore the litany of benefits the tax code affords certain groups of wealthy Americans.
If, however, the goal was to report on the fairness in tax policy this report is an unmitigated failure.
If fairness is the ultimate objective then the fact that some of the top 1% pay the top tax rate while others pay zero in federal income taxes should obviously be a topic of discussion. If broadening the base is important then fixing the ever increasing income equality problem in the U.S. that causes the widening tax gap should be a top priority. If applying the tax code uniformly to all citizens is a concern then using official reports to mislead the public and advance a partisan agenda is shamefully unpatriotic.
It's certainly possible that the top tax rate in America is too high but the fact that elected officials in charge of tax policy pretend that what the top 1% pays in federal income tax is reasonable proxy for fairness tells you all you need to know about how serious they are about fixing the problem.
Friday, February 27, 2015
The embarrassing truth behind the conservative obsession with Obama's patriotism.
Last week Rudy Giuliani caught some flak for suggesting President Obama doesn't love America. Rather than admit like Giuliani himself did before making the comment that this was a horrible thing to say the fine folks at Fox News have doubled down offering "proof" of how the president just doesn't love America as much as conservatives.
To no one's surprise the man driving this clown car of desperation is Sean Hannity. On his February 25th show Hannity devoted almost eight minutes of Fox News air time to convince viewers that Barack Obama isn't a true patriot.
He starts the piece by showing Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's response to Rudy Giuliani's comments. While Farrakhan's statements are ignorant and offensive comparing Farrakhan to Giuliani is laughable. Giuliani is part of the establishment as is evidenced by his time in office, his bids for congress and president, his speaking engagement at the Republican National Convention, his role as "insider" for Fox News and his place in conservative lore as "America's mayor".
At best Farrakhan is an outsider when it comes to the Democratic establishment however most would consider him a fringe bomb thrower. Suggesting Farrakhan's response to Giuliani somehow represents the vast majority of liberals tells you all you need to know about how seriously Hannity is about this topic.
Of course recognizing how weak such an argument would be Hannity then ran a montage of statements made by the president that supposedly confirm the president's distain for the country he was twice elected to lead. These included comments such as:
"We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."
"The struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."
"There is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."
"Our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint but from our willingness to rush into military adventures."
Never mind the fact that there is plenty of tape showing the president extolling America's "goodness and greatness and generosity and sacrifice for the cause liberty worldwide" and never mind that these are statements of facts not some sort of hate speech the problem here are not the president's words but the conservative's insistence that recognizing our faults and attempting to do better is somehow a negative.
These are the same people who have multiple media outlets dedicated to telling American's just how bad the country is. These are the same people who believe that telling the blunt truth, no matter how hurtful, is the right thing to do. These are the same people who hate the "everyone gets a trophy mentality" because kids need to learn from their failures. Yet somehow every time the president is the one offering the message these people throw all their beliefs out the window and feign outrage.
One wonders if these same conservatives were infuriated when Ronald Reagan said "Many of us are unhappy about our ... diminishing prestige around the globe, about the weakness in our economy and national security that jeopardizes world peace, about our lack of strong, straight-forward leadership." or when he asked questions like "Is our nation stronger and more capable of leading the world toward peace and freedom or is it weaker?", "Are you more confident that our economy will create productive work for our society or are you less confident?", and "Are you convinced that we have earned the respect of the world and our allies, or has America's position across the globe diminished?"
Are these examples that Reagan didn't love America or do they show a man identifying issues that require change?
Of course no critique of Obama's love of country is complete without bringing up Michelle Obama's remark from 2008 stating this was the first time in her adult life she was proud of her country. Despite showing the clip Hannity still seems clueless as to its meaning. There are probably few who think this was a wise choice of words however Hannity's take that Michelle Obama is "not proud of WWII and America beating back fascism and Nazism and imperial Japan? Not proud of walking on the moon?" is mindboggling. Zero of these events happened in Michelle Obama's adult life. They are not covered by her statement. If you are going to skewer her for her words then at least pay attention to the words she is saying.
Beyond that, the irony of using this quote as proof that Barack Obama doesn't love the country while simultaneously defending Giuliani's statement with "he could have used different words" is just outstanding. Both Giuliani and Obama "clarified" their statements within days of making them. For Hannity to pretend one is a deeply held belief while the other is a simple misunderstanding is clear slap in the face to the Fox News "Fair and Balanced" tagline.
Despite the fact that in less than eight minutes Hannity was able to prove himself as morally bankrupt this treasure trove of slanted misinformation isn't even the worst part about the segment. No the worst part is how much it exposes conservatives.
There are no shortage of issues that Sean Hannity and the two prominent Republicans he brought on his show (Bobby Jindal and Darrell Issa) could have discussed yet they chose to wax poetic about their opinion of the president's patriotism.
Hating Barack Obama certainly paid off well in 2014 so it's no surprise that Republicans would look to replicate this success in 2016 but this tactic also tells you how little the Republican party has to offer the country in terms of actual policy. They can't make the economy an issue because most of the president's policies have worked. They've tried for years to tear down the Affordable Care Act however polls show American's don't support the Republican repeal plan. The same is also true of the Republican position on Immigration reform, marriage equality, military spending, abortion, taxing the rich, net neutrality, background checks for guns, climate change, and Medicare vouchers.
The reality is that Republicans really have no other choice than to stoop to character assassination because if they are forced to run on actual ideas in 2016 they would not only lose the White House but Capitol Hill as well.
To no one's surprise the man driving this clown car of desperation is Sean Hannity. On his February 25th show Hannity devoted almost eight minutes of Fox News air time to convince viewers that Barack Obama isn't a true patriot.
He starts the piece by showing Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's response to Rudy Giuliani's comments. While Farrakhan's statements are ignorant and offensive comparing Farrakhan to Giuliani is laughable. Giuliani is part of the establishment as is evidenced by his time in office, his bids for congress and president, his speaking engagement at the Republican National Convention, his role as "insider" for Fox News and his place in conservative lore as "America's mayor".
At best Farrakhan is an outsider when it comes to the Democratic establishment however most would consider him a fringe bomb thrower. Suggesting Farrakhan's response to Giuliani somehow represents the vast majority of liberals tells you all you need to know about how seriously Hannity is about this topic.
Of course recognizing how weak such an argument would be Hannity then ran a montage of statements made by the president that supposedly confirm the president's distain for the country he was twice elected to lead. These included comments such as:
"We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."
"The struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."
"There is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."
"Our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint but from our willingness to rush into military adventures."
Never mind the fact that there is plenty of tape showing the president extolling America's "goodness and greatness and generosity and sacrifice for the cause liberty worldwide" and never mind that these are statements of facts not some sort of hate speech the problem here are not the president's words but the conservative's insistence that recognizing our faults and attempting to do better is somehow a negative.
These are the same people who have multiple media outlets dedicated to telling American's just how bad the country is. These are the same people who believe that telling the blunt truth, no matter how hurtful, is the right thing to do. These are the same people who hate the "everyone gets a trophy mentality" because kids need to learn from their failures. Yet somehow every time the president is the one offering the message these people throw all their beliefs out the window and feign outrage.
One wonders if these same conservatives were infuriated when Ronald Reagan said "Many of us are unhappy about our ... diminishing prestige around the globe, about the weakness in our economy and national security that jeopardizes world peace, about our lack of strong, straight-forward leadership." or when he asked questions like "Is our nation stronger and more capable of leading the world toward peace and freedom or is it weaker?", "Are you more confident that our economy will create productive work for our society or are you less confident?", and "Are you convinced that we have earned the respect of the world and our allies, or has America's position across the globe diminished?"
Are these examples that Reagan didn't love America or do they show a man identifying issues that require change?
Of course no critique of Obama's love of country is complete without bringing up Michelle Obama's remark from 2008 stating this was the first time in her adult life she was proud of her country. Despite showing the clip Hannity still seems clueless as to its meaning. There are probably few who think this was a wise choice of words however Hannity's take that Michelle Obama is "not proud of WWII and America beating back fascism and Nazism and imperial Japan? Not proud of walking on the moon?" is mindboggling. Zero of these events happened in Michelle Obama's adult life. They are not covered by her statement. If you are going to skewer her for her words then at least pay attention to the words she is saying.
Beyond that, the irony of using this quote as proof that Barack Obama doesn't love the country while simultaneously defending Giuliani's statement with "he could have used different words" is just outstanding. Both Giuliani and Obama "clarified" their statements within days of making them. For Hannity to pretend one is a deeply held belief while the other is a simple misunderstanding is clear slap in the face to the Fox News "Fair and Balanced" tagline.
Despite the fact that in less than eight minutes Hannity was able to prove himself as morally bankrupt this treasure trove of slanted misinformation isn't even the worst part about the segment. No the worst part is how much it exposes conservatives.
There are no shortage of issues that Sean Hannity and the two prominent Republicans he brought on his show (Bobby Jindal and Darrell Issa) could have discussed yet they chose to wax poetic about their opinion of the president's patriotism.
Hating Barack Obama certainly paid off well in 2014 so it's no surprise that Republicans would look to replicate this success in 2016 but this tactic also tells you how little the Republican party has to offer the country in terms of actual policy. They can't make the economy an issue because most of the president's policies have worked. They've tried for years to tear down the Affordable Care Act however polls show American's don't support the Republican repeal plan. The same is also true of the Republican position on Immigration reform, marriage equality, military spending, abortion, taxing the rich, net neutrality, background checks for guns, climate change, and Medicare vouchers.
The reality is that Republicans really have no other choice than to stoop to character assassination because if they are forced to run on actual ideas in 2016 they would not only lose the White House but Capitol Hill as well.
Friday, February 13, 2015
Christians to blame for the "War on Christianity"
Some Christians believe that being anti-Christian is the only acceptable form of bigotry left in America. Outside of the absurdity of the vast majority of the claims offered as "proof" of this fallacy the hypocrisy necessary to make such a claim is phenomenal.
For example noted conservative pundit Ann Coulter once stated "liberals always play the victim in order to advance, win advantages and oppress others". While such tactics are hardly exclusive to liberals the supposed "War on Christianity" represents the pinnacle of all self ascribed pity parties.
Christians comprise just over 78% of the U.S. population which is a significantly higher percentage of the population than the "angry atheists" who only account for 1.6%. What are these poor Christians to do when faced with such overwhelming odds against them?
The problem is that Christians have spent so much time pretending to be victims that they have become oblivious to their own indiscretions.
Spurned HGTV stars David and Jason Benham offer and excellent illustration of this point. The brothers took to Fox News to pen an article discussing how they were dropped from the station for standing by their "Biblical beliefs". Of course the problem wasn't that they were against marriage equality. The problem was that they funded and organized an anti-gay rally because ironically they felt that these "militant gay activists" shouldn't be given the opportunity to express their view that there is nothing "demonic", "veil", or "destructive" about being gay.
There are millions of Christians who don't agree with same sex marriage but only a portion of them shamefully resort to using the bible as justification for their hate speech. Of course the Benham brothers are hardly the first high profile personalities to lose their job because of controversial statements. The fact that they are Christians is secondary to the fact that they have aggressively opposed the gay community in the past. Their actions, not their beliefs, cost them their potential television gig.
Having said that they also seem to be very confused about what is discrimination and what is not. In their article they use three examples of instances where they feel a company should be allowed to deny someone service.
"My brother and I are perfectly okay with a gay owned t-shirt company refusing to make t-shirts that say, “Homosexuality is sin.” And we’re fine with a Jewish baker refusing to cater an event on the Sabbath. And we’d certainly agree with the gun range owner refusing to let self-identifying ISIS members practice shooting at his facility."
First it should be noted that a self identifying ISIS member would be arrested not refused service. However it should be noted that a public gun range would need to be able to show that there is a "legitimate business reason" to deny anyone service.
Second the Jewish baker isn't discriminating when they decide to refuse to cater on the Sabbath. They are simply setting their hours of operation and those hours apply to all customers equally. The discrimination occurs when you don't treat all groups equally.
Finally, the T-Shirt company is already protected from making shirts that require them to including wording they find offensive. That is the companies right of free speech. The T-Shirt company in this case is not refusing the customer service based on who they are they have decide not to produce a product they find offensive. This is why the public cake baker cannot deny service to the gay couple but they can refuse to make a cake that includes words they find objectionable. Denying service based on the person is not the same as denying service based on the content of the service. It may seem like a minor difference however it is very important distinction that the Benham brothers don't appear to understand.
Beyond this propensity for misunderstanding the legal requirements of a business that serves the public, there are others who believe that Christians are ostracized at far greater rates than any other segment of the population. One imagines there are plenty of Muslims, LGBT individuals, and African and Latino Americans that find this suggestion laughable but even the Atheists that are supposedly repressing Christians face as many if not more harassment in the U.S. today. Polls on American attitudes towards various segments of the population as well as other data show that the bias against Atheists is actually one of the most acceptable forms of discrimination.
Todd Starnes, for example, has become the media's resident raconteur of anti-Christian fables and regularly elicits anger towards non-Christians by providing half of the story. His faux outrage includes stories like 'Why did Disney block God?', 'Town told to keep Christ out of Christmas parade', 'Students opposed to LGBT agenda shamed in classroom', and 'Student reprimanded for saying “God Bless America”'. Conspicuously absent from Starnes' list of concerns are stories like 'Christian Professor Gets Fired for 'Trying on Atheism', 'Indiana Teacher Allegedly Fired For Being An Atheist', 'Atheists Are Banned From Holding Public Office In Seven US States', 'Atheist Student Gets Death Threats Over Prayer Banner' and 'Student Forced to Stand For Pledge of Allegiance'. If Starnes is such a religious rights crusader he should be equally infuriated at stories of discrimination against non-Christians.
The question people like Starnes should really ask themselves is: if non-Christians should be tolerant of Christian symbols and references in public spaces then why shouldn't Christian's be tolerant of public spaces being void of all religious paraphernalia. After all who does it hurt if the areas owned by everyone are free from all religious trappings?
The reality is that all non-Christians are asking for is equal treatment. These continued battles are simply a reaction to religious overreach that the courts have declared illegal. If Christians just stopped advocating for public religious observations the so called anti-Christian behavior would all but disappear. Unfortunately asking these Christian activists to apply the constitutional right of religious freedom equally to all Americans will undoubtedly result in more errant claims of anti-Christianity because Christian victimhood is great for business.
For example noted conservative pundit Ann Coulter once stated "liberals always play the victim in order to advance, win advantages and oppress others". While such tactics are hardly exclusive to liberals the supposed "War on Christianity" represents the pinnacle of all self ascribed pity parties.
Christians comprise just over 78% of the U.S. population which is a significantly higher percentage of the population than the "angry atheists" who only account for 1.6%. What are these poor Christians to do when faced with such overwhelming odds against them?
The problem is that Christians have spent so much time pretending to be victims that they have become oblivious to their own indiscretions.
Spurned HGTV stars David and Jason Benham offer and excellent illustration of this point. The brothers took to Fox News to pen an article discussing how they were dropped from the station for standing by their "Biblical beliefs". Of course the problem wasn't that they were against marriage equality. The problem was that they funded and organized an anti-gay rally because ironically they felt that these "militant gay activists" shouldn't be given the opportunity to express their view that there is nothing "demonic", "veil", or "destructive" about being gay.
There are millions of Christians who don't agree with same sex marriage but only a portion of them shamefully resort to using the bible as justification for their hate speech. Of course the Benham brothers are hardly the first high profile personalities to lose their job because of controversial statements. The fact that they are Christians is secondary to the fact that they have aggressively opposed the gay community in the past. Their actions, not their beliefs, cost them their potential television gig.
Having said that they also seem to be very confused about what is discrimination and what is not. In their article they use three examples of instances where they feel a company should be allowed to deny someone service.
"My brother and I are perfectly okay with a gay owned t-shirt company refusing to make t-shirts that say, “Homosexuality is sin.” And we’re fine with a Jewish baker refusing to cater an event on the Sabbath. And we’d certainly agree with the gun range owner refusing to let self-identifying ISIS members practice shooting at his facility."
First it should be noted that a self identifying ISIS member would be arrested not refused service. However it should be noted that a public gun range would need to be able to show that there is a "legitimate business reason" to deny anyone service.
Second the Jewish baker isn't discriminating when they decide to refuse to cater on the Sabbath. They are simply setting their hours of operation and those hours apply to all customers equally. The discrimination occurs when you don't treat all groups equally.
Finally, the T-Shirt company is already protected from making shirts that require them to including wording they find offensive. That is the companies right of free speech. The T-Shirt company in this case is not refusing the customer service based on who they are they have decide not to produce a product they find offensive. This is why the public cake baker cannot deny service to the gay couple but they can refuse to make a cake that includes words they find objectionable. Denying service based on the person is not the same as denying service based on the content of the service. It may seem like a minor difference however it is very important distinction that the Benham brothers don't appear to understand.
Beyond this propensity for misunderstanding the legal requirements of a business that serves the public, there are others who believe that Christians are ostracized at far greater rates than any other segment of the population. One imagines there are plenty of Muslims, LGBT individuals, and African and Latino Americans that find this suggestion laughable but even the Atheists that are supposedly repressing Christians face as many if not more harassment in the U.S. today. Polls on American attitudes towards various segments of the population as well as other data show that the bias against Atheists is actually one of the most acceptable forms of discrimination.
Todd Starnes, for example, has become the media's resident raconteur of anti-Christian fables and regularly elicits anger towards non-Christians by providing half of the story. His faux outrage includes stories like 'Why did Disney block God?', 'Town told to keep Christ out of Christmas parade', 'Students opposed to LGBT agenda shamed in classroom', and 'Student reprimanded for saying “God Bless America”'. Conspicuously absent from Starnes' list of concerns are stories like 'Christian Professor Gets Fired for 'Trying on Atheism', 'Indiana Teacher Allegedly Fired For Being An Atheist', 'Atheists Are Banned From Holding Public Office In Seven US States', 'Atheist Student Gets Death Threats Over Prayer Banner' and 'Student Forced to Stand For Pledge of Allegiance'. If Starnes is such a religious rights crusader he should be equally infuriated at stories of discrimination against non-Christians.
The question people like Starnes should really ask themselves is: if non-Christians should be tolerant of Christian symbols and references in public spaces then why shouldn't Christian's be tolerant of public spaces being void of all religious paraphernalia. After all who does it hurt if the areas owned by everyone are free from all religious trappings?
The reality is that all non-Christians are asking for is equal treatment. These continued battles are simply a reaction to religious overreach that the courts have declared illegal. If Christians just stopped advocating for public religious observations the so called anti-Christian behavior would all but disappear. Unfortunately asking these Christian activists to apply the constitutional right of religious freedom equally to all Americans will undoubtedly result in more errant claims of anti-Christianity because Christian victimhood is great for business.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
How money can fix public education
Noted conservative political activist Star Parker recently penned an article extoling the virtues of legislation being offered at the federal level to let education dollars follow students to schools beyond their local public school. The problem is school choice is just another red herrings that conservatives continue to offer to fix the manufactured "crisis in education".
So while Parker praises the Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Luke Messer for sponsoring what she calls a "courageous proposal" the question becomes what is so courageous about elected officials proposing a bill that pushes a conservative idea that is more than half a century old? Perhaps what she means is that it is courageous for these men to back such a solution when studies find "there seem to be few apparent benefits of school of choice" and "there was no evidence of program effects on math scores".
Of course choice falls in a long line of conservative ideas that don't actually improve education. Ending tenure doesn't increase test scores. Despite what you might have heard schools win 75% of their cases against tenured teachers. In fact data show non-tenured teachers are less likely to lose their job for poor performance than tenured teachers.
Studies show that the majority of charter schools perform at or below the level of their public school counterparts.
Decades of research show that merit pay doesn't improve student perform.
Even though the states with the high teacher union rates get better results than the states with the low rates, conservatives still pretend that unions are somehow ruining public education.
The problem with the conservative agenda regarding public education is that they spend so much time and effort pushing ideas that don't actually improve education that this miss out on things that really do work.
For instance data show that in schools where 20% or less of the students are impoverished the U.S. ranks number one in the world. This suggests that what U.S. schools are doing is working even without choice, charters or a war on teachers. Given that the U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that actually spends less money on poor students than wealthy students perhaps legislators like Ted Cruz should focus on leveling the playing field or providing extra support to underprivileged children.
Studies also show that when students track their own progress there is a sizable increase in their achievement. This should be an idea that conservatives can get behind since it meets their desire for "personal responsibility".
Research finds that incorporating technology in the education process results in "significant gains in student achievement and boost engagement, particularly among students most at risk". Unfortunately many schools struggle to find the funds as per pupil spending has fallen in recent years.
Some analysis indicate that teacher mentoring programs can help new teachers to become better at their job. Given the impact a good teacher can have this additional support is a superior alternative to the fire and replace method conservative politicians have been offering recently.
For a group who is so concerned about how their tax dollars are being spent with regards to public education it is somewhat surprising that they continue to back ideas that have such a low return on investment. If Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Luke Messer were really courageous they would challenge the decades old conservative education reform status quo and support changes that are based on academic success and proven by scholarly research.
Of course the real problem here is not that conservatives aren't aware of how little the policies they champion do for children. It's that all of their reform ideas are politically motivated because helping children is far less important that weakening teachers unions that almost exclusively back Democrats and enriching the for profit education business that mainly donates to Republicans. Take the money out of politics and watch how much smarter politicians become.
So while Parker praises the Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Luke Messer for sponsoring what she calls a "courageous proposal" the question becomes what is so courageous about elected officials proposing a bill that pushes a conservative idea that is more than half a century old? Perhaps what she means is that it is courageous for these men to back such a solution when studies find "there seem to be few apparent benefits of school of choice" and "there was no evidence of program effects on math scores".
Of course choice falls in a long line of conservative ideas that don't actually improve education. Ending tenure doesn't increase test scores. Despite what you might have heard schools win 75% of their cases against tenured teachers. In fact data show non-tenured teachers are less likely to lose their job for poor performance than tenured teachers.
Studies show that the majority of charter schools perform at or below the level of their public school counterparts.
Decades of research show that merit pay doesn't improve student perform.
Even though the states with the high teacher union rates get better results than the states with the low rates, conservatives still pretend that unions are somehow ruining public education.
The problem with the conservative agenda regarding public education is that they spend so much time and effort pushing ideas that don't actually improve education that this miss out on things that really do work.
For instance data show that in schools where 20% or less of the students are impoverished the U.S. ranks number one in the world. This suggests that what U.S. schools are doing is working even without choice, charters or a war on teachers. Given that the U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that actually spends less money on poor students than wealthy students perhaps legislators like Ted Cruz should focus on leveling the playing field or providing extra support to underprivileged children.
Studies also show that when students track their own progress there is a sizable increase in their achievement. This should be an idea that conservatives can get behind since it meets their desire for "personal responsibility".
Research finds that incorporating technology in the education process results in "significant gains in student achievement and boost engagement, particularly among students most at risk". Unfortunately many schools struggle to find the funds as per pupil spending has fallen in recent years.
Some analysis indicate that teacher mentoring programs can help new teachers to become better at their job. Given the impact a good teacher can have this additional support is a superior alternative to the fire and replace method conservative politicians have been offering recently.
For a group who is so concerned about how their tax dollars are being spent with regards to public education it is somewhat surprising that they continue to back ideas that have such a low return on investment. If Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Luke Messer were really courageous they would challenge the decades old conservative education reform status quo and support changes that are based on academic success and proven by scholarly research.
Of course the real problem here is not that conservatives aren't aware of how little the policies they champion do for children. It's that all of their reform ideas are politically motivated because helping children is far less important that weakening teachers unions that almost exclusively back Democrats and enriching the for profit education business that mainly donates to Republicans. Take the money out of politics and watch how much smarter politicians become.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Conservatives abandon values to suppport charter school
Conservatives are always in favor of using free market principles except when the disagree with they outcome of a free market based decision. Case in point: a recent Detroit News editorial titled 'Board wrong to demolish school'.
The issue at hand is the decision by the Saginaw public schools board of education to demolish a school building the district inherited back in 2009 rather than sell it off. Given that the district is working to eliminate a considerable amount of debt selling the building would seem like a good idea however the district has already agreed to sell another property which more than covers their outstanding debt.
The problem is that the organization that bid to purchase the building happens to be a charter school operation. This means that everyone who believes choice and charters are the answer to the manufactured "crisis in education", despite the data that show neither idea actually improves educational outcomes, have come out of the woodworks attempting to shame the district into accepting a deal that might be bad for business.
The hypocritical rhetoric starts with the phrase "competition can be uncomfortable". However true this statement may be the author should also recognize that in a free market, corporations go out of their way to eliminate competition not promote it. If Walmart were moving down the street would they sell their old building to Target? Absolutely not. It would be a stupid business decision.
Of course opponents also presume to know the details of this potential deal when they claim with absolute certainty that turning down this offer "was clearly a bad decision". Not mentioned in the piece is the fact that part of the property the charter school wanted to purchase is currently being rented by Delta College. The article also doesn't bother to consider the value of the property after the building is removed. If the district can sell the land to the college that is currently renting space or another buyer for more than the charter schools offer then then selling low to a potential competitor becomes an even worse decision according to the free market.
Beyond this the article never bothers to question the motives or sincerity of the organization behind the press release that the media has picked up on. The Michigan Association of Public School Academies is a company that makes money off representing charter schools much like a trade union. In their rebuke of the districts decision they assert that the Saginaw school board is keeping "a perfectly good facility out of the hands of another public school — a charter school". Given that the roof of the building collapsed last year and the facility has mold issues it seems like the term "a perfectly good facility" is a bit of an embellishment meant to make the board seem petty and irresponsible.
Having said that, the district still has a few months before it has to do anything regarding the demolition. Perhaps they are just using a free market negotiating tactic to increase the offer from the charter school operators. Walking away from an offer is a textbook method of getting the best deal.
There is also some question as to the value of this particular charter school operator. In the most recent top to bottom rankings, Saginaw schools had two facilities that ranked in the top 98th percentile while the charter school was in the 20th percentile. Perhaps the district just feels this operator doesn't offer a better education to the students most likely to make the switch.
But even more confusing coming from conservatives is the belief that "the Legislature should find a way to force better use of public school buildings". Apparently those outside of the district who did not participate in the negotiations, the school board meetings or the decision making process ride on such a high horse they don't need actual data or information to determine they know what's best for Saginaw residents. Yes, the people who believe in local control are now arguing that the state should force a locally elected board that decided to unanimously reject a charter school offer to accept a potentially bad business deal simply because they received a press release from an organization they support - no questions asked.
It's certainly possible that the best deal for the Saginaw residents is to sell this building to a charter school company but if the conservative media really wants to be mad about something it should be mad at how easily conservatives abandon their core values to argue for a system that benefits corporations far more than students. That or they have to admit that supporting policies that help the rich get richer is really their only core value.
The issue at hand is the decision by the Saginaw public schools board of education to demolish a school building the district inherited back in 2009 rather than sell it off. Given that the district is working to eliminate a considerable amount of debt selling the building would seem like a good idea however the district has already agreed to sell another property which more than covers their outstanding debt.
The problem is that the organization that bid to purchase the building happens to be a charter school operation. This means that everyone who believes choice and charters are the answer to the manufactured "crisis in education", despite the data that show neither idea actually improves educational outcomes, have come out of the woodworks attempting to shame the district into accepting a deal that might be bad for business.
The hypocritical rhetoric starts with the phrase "competition can be uncomfortable". However true this statement may be the author should also recognize that in a free market, corporations go out of their way to eliminate competition not promote it. If Walmart were moving down the street would they sell their old building to Target? Absolutely not. It would be a stupid business decision.
Of course opponents also presume to know the details of this potential deal when they claim with absolute certainty that turning down this offer "was clearly a bad decision". Not mentioned in the piece is the fact that part of the property the charter school wanted to purchase is currently being rented by Delta College. The article also doesn't bother to consider the value of the property after the building is removed. If the district can sell the land to the college that is currently renting space or another buyer for more than the charter schools offer then then selling low to a potential competitor becomes an even worse decision according to the free market.
Beyond this the article never bothers to question the motives or sincerity of the organization behind the press release that the media has picked up on. The Michigan Association of Public School Academies is a company that makes money off representing charter schools much like a trade union. In their rebuke of the districts decision they assert that the Saginaw school board is keeping "a perfectly good facility out of the hands of another public school — a charter school". Given that the roof of the building collapsed last year and the facility has mold issues it seems like the term "a perfectly good facility" is a bit of an embellishment meant to make the board seem petty and irresponsible.
Having said that, the district still has a few months before it has to do anything regarding the demolition. Perhaps they are just using a free market negotiating tactic to increase the offer from the charter school operators. Walking away from an offer is a textbook method of getting the best deal.
There is also some question as to the value of this particular charter school operator. In the most recent top to bottom rankings, Saginaw schools had two facilities that ranked in the top 98th percentile while the charter school was in the 20th percentile. Perhaps the district just feels this operator doesn't offer a better education to the students most likely to make the switch.
But even more confusing coming from conservatives is the belief that "the Legislature should find a way to force better use of public school buildings". Apparently those outside of the district who did not participate in the negotiations, the school board meetings or the decision making process ride on such a high horse they don't need actual data or information to determine they know what's best for Saginaw residents. Yes, the people who believe in local control are now arguing that the state should force a locally elected board that decided to unanimously reject a charter school offer to accept a potentially bad business deal simply because they received a press release from an organization they support - no questions asked.
It's certainly possible that the best deal for the Saginaw residents is to sell this building to a charter school company but if the conservative media really wants to be mad about something it should be mad at how easily conservatives abandon their core values to argue for a system that benefits corporations far more than students. That or they have to admit that supporting policies that help the rich get richer is really their only core value.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Even smart Republicans make stupid arguments against climate change
During the State of the Union President Obama returned to his roots with impassioned talk about some core liberal policies. To no one's surprise, conservatives were not moved. Sean Hannity said the Obama administration "has exhibited an astounding level of tone deafness...and this State of the Union falls into that category". Glenn Beck suggested the president's speech was nothing but a cash grab - "all he’s doing is just raising money for the campaign". And Rush Limbaugh didn't even need to watch the State of the Union to determine that he hated everything the president had to say.
Of course these three hardly represent the intellectual wing of the conservative pundit class. Unfortunately even some of the more respected conservative media members still managed to dumb down the conversation. For example, while discussing the presidents statements regarding climate change on Real Time this weekend Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens used two seemingly logical but errant arguments in an attempt to reframe the debate.
A recent survey of peer reviewed articles on climate change showed that only 2 out of 10855 articles believe that humans aren't causing global warming. In response to this Stephens said "consensus should not rule science" because "we think of great scientific discovery as proceeding from people who are willing to break with consensus and that's why we honor people like Galileo". Obviously part of the reason Stephens uses Galileo as an example of a contrarian who revolutionized science is that technology of today makes it very easy to determine that the Earth is round and that the planets rotate around the sun. As such, modern history no longer includes these sorts of great discoveries.
Another problem for Stephens is that fact when there are scientific breakthroughs that gain scientific consensus they are not subsequently disproven. The initial theories on excess CO2 included both global cooling and global warming. What followed was years of scientific research that determined the affects of CO2 on the Earth were indeed an increase in temperature over time and a consensus that humans were responsible for some of this increase. The reality is we are getting close to consensus on climate change not further despite increased spending on research by climate deniers.
Pretending that a few holdouts with no new evidence are on the precipice of a scientific breakthrough simply because it suits you agenda can have dangerous results. Just ask the parents who refused to have their kids vaccinated because one "scientist" claimed to find a link to autism.
Scientific consensus has no political bias. It represents the research and results of hundreds or thousands of scientist which is why even studies like the one mainly funded by the Koch bothers have concluded that climate change is real and caused by humans.
Given that the science and the history of scientific discovery so obviously disputes his thesis Stephens decided if he couldn't shoot holes in climate change using science he would use economics instead. He referenced an economic model put together by some of the worlds brightest minds, known as the Copenhagen Consensus, which ranks the "bang for the buck" of a number of issues facing the international community. The point which Stephens attempts to make is that climate change ranks very low on using this measure.
While it is true that this economic analysis does show reaching the 2 centigrade target is a poor investment, it also indicates that spending on Energy Technology RD&D is a fairly good use of our money. The results suggest we should refocus our efforts to combat climate change on research and development not that we should forgo combating climate change all together.
Having said that, if Stephens supports using return on investment as a basis for political policy he should be prepared to swallow a big helping of medicine that will taste very bad going down for he and many other conservatives.
Behind free trade the number one item on Copenhagen Consensus list is "Women's Access to Reproductive Health". When discussing what this means the reports points out that the "empowerment to control their own fertility is an important pre-condition to achieve all the other targets in this paper". The idea of women being in control of their own fertility has certainly had many conservative detractors in recent years.
Second on the list is making beneficial ownership information public. While this should eliminate some money laundering schemes that conservative may like it would also reduce privacy for individuals and entities and add some government regulations both of which have drawn the ire of Republicans over the past few years.
Third on the list is increasing migration which they have defined in part as reducing the barriers to migration "between low and middle-income countries and high-income countries". Clearly this is something few conservatives have supported since Obama took office.
Of course other organization have done similar economic based political analysis and found that ideas championed by Republicans (Bush income tax cuts, Capital gains tax cuts, and Corporate tax cuts) have a much lower ROI than items like Food Stamps, Unemployment benefits, and Infrastructure Spending.
If Stephens believes that political policy should be dictated by economic analysis it seems many liberals would be more than happy with such a change even if that meant a decreased focus on certain environmental targets since this sort of study bolsters that case for a myriad of other liberal policies.
Perhaps the current solutions to fight climate change aren't very efficient and this money could be allocated better but it is difficult to take this sort of advice seriously from people whose denial of science is second only to that of the Flat Earth Society.
Of course these three hardly represent the intellectual wing of the conservative pundit class. Unfortunately even some of the more respected conservative media members still managed to dumb down the conversation. For example, while discussing the presidents statements regarding climate change on Real Time this weekend Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens used two seemingly logical but errant arguments in an attempt to reframe the debate.
A recent survey of peer reviewed articles on climate change showed that only 2 out of 10855 articles believe that humans aren't causing global warming. In response to this Stephens said "consensus should not rule science" because "we think of great scientific discovery as proceeding from people who are willing to break with consensus and that's why we honor people like Galileo". Obviously part of the reason Stephens uses Galileo as an example of a contrarian who revolutionized science is that technology of today makes it very easy to determine that the Earth is round and that the planets rotate around the sun. As such, modern history no longer includes these sorts of great discoveries.
Another problem for Stephens is that fact when there are scientific breakthroughs that gain scientific consensus they are not subsequently disproven. The initial theories on excess CO2 included both global cooling and global warming. What followed was years of scientific research that determined the affects of CO2 on the Earth were indeed an increase in temperature over time and a consensus that humans were responsible for some of this increase. The reality is we are getting close to consensus on climate change not further despite increased spending on research by climate deniers.
Pretending that a few holdouts with no new evidence are on the precipice of a scientific breakthrough simply because it suits you agenda can have dangerous results. Just ask the parents who refused to have their kids vaccinated because one "scientist" claimed to find a link to autism.
Scientific consensus has no political bias. It represents the research and results of hundreds or thousands of scientist which is why even studies like the one mainly funded by the Koch bothers have concluded that climate change is real and caused by humans.
Given that the science and the history of scientific discovery so obviously disputes his thesis Stephens decided if he couldn't shoot holes in climate change using science he would use economics instead. He referenced an economic model put together by some of the worlds brightest minds, known as the Copenhagen Consensus, which ranks the "bang for the buck" of a number of issues facing the international community. The point which Stephens attempts to make is that climate change ranks very low on using this measure.
While it is true that this economic analysis does show reaching the 2 centigrade target is a poor investment, it also indicates that spending on Energy Technology RD&D is a fairly good use of our money. The results suggest we should refocus our efforts to combat climate change on research and development not that we should forgo combating climate change all together.
Having said that, if Stephens supports using return on investment as a basis for political policy he should be prepared to swallow a big helping of medicine that will taste very bad going down for he and many other conservatives.
Behind free trade the number one item on Copenhagen Consensus list is "Women's Access to Reproductive Health". When discussing what this means the reports points out that the "empowerment to control their own fertility is an important pre-condition to achieve all the other targets in this paper". The idea of women being in control of their own fertility has certainly had many conservative detractors in recent years.
Second on the list is making beneficial ownership information public. While this should eliminate some money laundering schemes that conservative may like it would also reduce privacy for individuals and entities and add some government regulations both of which have drawn the ire of Republicans over the past few years.
Third on the list is increasing migration which they have defined in part as reducing the barriers to migration "between low and middle-income countries and high-income countries". Clearly this is something few conservatives have supported since Obama took office.
Of course other organization have done similar economic based political analysis and found that ideas championed by Republicans (Bush income tax cuts, Capital gains tax cuts, and Corporate tax cuts) have a much lower ROI than items like Food Stamps, Unemployment benefits, and Infrastructure Spending.
If Stephens believes that political policy should be dictated by economic analysis it seems many liberals would be more than happy with such a change even if that meant a decreased focus on certain environmental targets since this sort of study bolsters that case for a myriad of other liberal policies.
Perhaps the current solutions to fight climate change aren't very efficient and this money could be allocated better but it is difficult to take this sort of advice seriously from people whose denial of science is second only to that of the Flat Earth Society.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Political pundits don't understand free speech
The attack on the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo has ignited a number of conversations about free speech. Unfortunately most of the media people who talk about free speech either don't understand it or intentionally mislead their viewers.
In the U.S. the right for a publication to print satire of a public figure has been guaranteed. This means that any U.S. entity that chooses to mock the prophet Muhammad has the right to do so. The question becomes what is in good taste. Would Americans be as accepting of the free speech rights of Charlie Hebdo if they portrayed Jesus Christ as a pedophile or if they mocked the victims of the 9/11 attacks? While satirist are legally able to do these things it would probably be considered offensive by some Americans and any publication that chose to distribute such satire would likely be boycotted - which is covered by the first amendment - or threatened with violence - which is typically not covered.
Clearly free speech is a basic tenant of American life and the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office offers a unique opportunity to discuss its value. Unfortunately many like Eric Bolling of Fox News decided to use this attack to push a biased political ideology. During a January 9th of 'The Five' Bolling went off the deep end of an already crowded pool. Bolling said "The people who at Brandeis University, Rutgers, Harvard, Berkeley, this year alone, who have killed free speech, who have actually had people disinvited to speeches .... align more closely with the terrorists in Paris than they do with the people from Charlie Hebdo."
The reality is that none of the speakers were actually disinvited as Bolling suggests. Some decided to pull out rather than face protesters while others gave their commencement speeches in spite of the uproar. Of course to some extent Fox News has only themselves to blame for the continued protests. Instead of covering every gathering of students that objects to a conservative hero's presence on campus, giving them a platform to be heard, Fox News could simply ignore them. It should also be noted that Fox News had no such issue with Notre Dame students protesting President Obama's commencement speech in 2009.
Regardless of the political affiliation of the speaker the argument that their statements or actions were out of step with the values of the University are the same.
More concerning however, is that Bolling doesn't recognize that protesting these speakers isn't actually a restriction on their freedom of speech in any way. Even if these speakers had actually been uninvited it still would not represent a restriction of free speech. Condoleezza Rice could have given the exact same speech at a sight off campus instead of being forced to endure the confines of a commencement speech. IMF head Christine Lagarde could have posted her commencement speech on social media sites for millions of people to read instead of limiting it to just Smith College graduates and their families. James Franco could have done a talk show tour sharing his thoughts instead of being subject to protesters at UCLA.
It could also be argued that by protesting, these students are actually increasing the speaker’s free speech since various news outlets will cover the controversy and undoubtedly spread the speakers words to a new audience.
Of course if simply deciding not to allow an individual a bully pulpit is an attack on the freedom of speech then Fox News could be cited for impeding the president's rights when they chose not to air his speech regarding the impending executive action on immigration. They could also be sanctioned for allowing a guest to make statements of fact that were untrue since such errant assertions are not covered by the first amendment.
This misunderstanding or misuse of free speech isn't exclusive to conservative pundits. Bill Maher was also the target of protests over his comments on Muslims and the Islamic faith. In defending himself Bill took a page out of the Fox News play book and suggested that any person who attempts to get Rush Limbaugh removed from the airwaves is "just a baby who can't stand to live in a world where you here things that upset you." On this point Maher couldn't be more wrong.
Maher has made a career out of skewering people he disagrees with. He may not have caused celebrities like Lance Armstrong, Paula Deen, and Tiger Woods to lose sponsors but he certainly participated in heightening the profile of their indiscretions making it more likely they would be a target of increased scrutiny which may or may not cost them money. Intentional or not the results could be the same.
The average citizen doesn't have an HBO show with a team of writers where they can finely craft and air their grievances. To make up for this lack of audience these people band together and exercise their own right to free speech by shining a light on people who they find offensive.
Even if this campaign against Rush Limbaugh succeeded, all it will have done is remove some of the monetary value of his speech. It will have done nothing to impact his constitutional right to continue to say the same ignorant or hateful things. Both Rush Limbaugh and his detractors who work to silence him are using the right to free speech. One or both of them may be acting like babies but that has no bearing on the constitutionality of their actions.
Through the years the courts have heard hours upon hours of arguments and decided numerous cases that have defined the right to free speech. At no point has the legal system, entrusted with interpreting the constitution, ever ruled that protesting a commencement speech, calling those with differing views terrorist, or boycotting a political pundit infringes upon anyone's right to free speech. Luckily for these talking heads this faulty vigilantism is protected by the constitution regardless of what you might have heard on TV.
In the U.S. the right for a publication to print satire of a public figure has been guaranteed. This means that any U.S. entity that chooses to mock the prophet Muhammad has the right to do so. The question becomes what is in good taste. Would Americans be as accepting of the free speech rights of Charlie Hebdo if they portrayed Jesus Christ as a pedophile or if they mocked the victims of the 9/11 attacks? While satirist are legally able to do these things it would probably be considered offensive by some Americans and any publication that chose to distribute such satire would likely be boycotted - which is covered by the first amendment - or threatened with violence - which is typically not covered.
Clearly free speech is a basic tenant of American life and the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office offers a unique opportunity to discuss its value. Unfortunately many like Eric Bolling of Fox News decided to use this attack to push a biased political ideology. During a January 9th of 'The Five' Bolling went off the deep end of an already crowded pool. Bolling said "The people who at Brandeis University, Rutgers, Harvard, Berkeley, this year alone, who have killed free speech, who have actually had people disinvited to speeches .... align more closely with the terrorists in Paris than they do with the people from Charlie Hebdo."
The reality is that none of the speakers were actually disinvited as Bolling suggests. Some decided to pull out rather than face protesters while others gave their commencement speeches in spite of the uproar. Of course to some extent Fox News has only themselves to blame for the continued protests. Instead of covering every gathering of students that objects to a conservative hero's presence on campus, giving them a platform to be heard, Fox News could simply ignore them. It should also be noted that Fox News had no such issue with Notre Dame students protesting President Obama's commencement speech in 2009.
Regardless of the political affiliation of the speaker the argument that their statements or actions were out of step with the values of the University are the same.
More concerning however, is that Bolling doesn't recognize that protesting these speakers isn't actually a restriction on their freedom of speech in any way. Even if these speakers had actually been uninvited it still would not represent a restriction of free speech. Condoleezza Rice could have given the exact same speech at a sight off campus instead of being forced to endure the confines of a commencement speech. IMF head Christine Lagarde could have posted her commencement speech on social media sites for millions of people to read instead of limiting it to just Smith College graduates and their families. James Franco could have done a talk show tour sharing his thoughts instead of being subject to protesters at UCLA.
It could also be argued that by protesting, these students are actually increasing the speaker’s free speech since various news outlets will cover the controversy and undoubtedly spread the speakers words to a new audience.
Of course if simply deciding not to allow an individual a bully pulpit is an attack on the freedom of speech then Fox News could be cited for impeding the president's rights when they chose not to air his speech regarding the impending executive action on immigration. They could also be sanctioned for allowing a guest to make statements of fact that were untrue since such errant assertions are not covered by the first amendment.
This misunderstanding or misuse of free speech isn't exclusive to conservative pundits. Bill Maher was also the target of protests over his comments on Muslims and the Islamic faith. In defending himself Bill took a page out of the Fox News play book and suggested that any person who attempts to get Rush Limbaugh removed from the airwaves is "just a baby who can't stand to live in a world where you here things that upset you." On this point Maher couldn't be more wrong.
Maher has made a career out of skewering people he disagrees with. He may not have caused celebrities like Lance Armstrong, Paula Deen, and Tiger Woods to lose sponsors but he certainly participated in heightening the profile of their indiscretions making it more likely they would be a target of increased scrutiny which may or may not cost them money. Intentional or not the results could be the same.
The average citizen doesn't have an HBO show with a team of writers where they can finely craft and air their grievances. To make up for this lack of audience these people band together and exercise their own right to free speech by shining a light on people who they find offensive.
Even if this campaign against Rush Limbaugh succeeded, all it will have done is remove some of the monetary value of his speech. It will have done nothing to impact his constitutional right to continue to say the same ignorant or hateful things. Both Rush Limbaugh and his detractors who work to silence him are using the right to free speech. One or both of them may be acting like babies but that has no bearing on the constitutionality of their actions.
Through the years the courts have heard hours upon hours of arguments and decided numerous cases that have defined the right to free speech. At no point has the legal system, entrusted with interpreting the constitution, ever ruled that protesting a commencement speech, calling those with differing views terrorist, or boycotting a political pundit infringes upon anyone's right to free speech. Luckily for these talking heads this faulty vigilantism is protected by the constitution regardless of what you might have heard on TV.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Murdering more Muslims won't stop Islamic terrorist
Since the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo office that left twelve people dead there has been a considerable amount of coverage by U.S. media. Unfortunately the bulk of this media attention has been errant fear mongering. For example a number of Fox News on air personalities have suggested that Muslims were "silent" regarding condemnation of this attack. Given the volume of Muslim repudiation such ignorant statements say far more about those who make them than those they are attempting to admonish. There are also those like Matt Drudge who brought out the oft used "Obama hesitates to call murders terrorism" meme.
But perhaps the most surprising of the narratives to come out of this senseless violence is the one that people like Greg Gutfeld are making. These people believe that somehow the liberal media are to blame for all Islamic aggression. If only the media had the gravitas to promote reasoned statements like Jeanine Pirro who said "We need to kill them all." Surely radical Muslims would hear such declarations from the media in a country they are at war with and back down.
The reason the liberal media continues to call for tolerance isn't because they think there aren't Muslims that want to kill Americans. It's because the conservative media and the uninformed over react to every attack and condemn Islam as being evil. This fear mongering leads to radicals like Wade Michael Page who killed six innocent Sikh devotees. It leads to arson attempts at an Islamic Center in Tennessee. And it leads to around 160 reported hate crimes against Muslims in America each year.
The liberal media continues to preach understanding because America has a long an inglorious history of violence and unnecessary restrictions against people who aren't like us. Afraid that Japanese Americans would turn on the U.S. the government sanctioned internment camps. Faced with concerns over the potential spread of Communism a government sponsored witch hunt resulted in the imprisonment of a number of Americans. For hundreds of years black Americans have been subjected to both government backed as well as citizen supported mistreatment, attacks and murders. Members the LGBT community have been abused and treated as a threat to so called traditional values for decades. And now Muslims are seen by some as evil, miscreants who are hell bend on spreading sharia law.
Obviously the Islam practiced by radicals is not something the vast majority of Americans - liberal or conservative - are interested in seeing. But to the extent that liberals "defend" Islam it has far more to do with quelling the irrational fear of easily radicalized Americans than it does a support of Islamic ideals.
Of course Islam is hardly the first or only religion to have murderous followers. History is full of religious violence from nearly all faiths. Few if any have a moral high ground to stand on. In Sri Lanka Buddhists have attacked Christian and Muslim minorities. In Central Africa Christian Militias have forced tens of thousands of Muslims to flee. And in the Gaza strip over a thousand Muslim civilians have been killed by Jews in the name of self defense.
Perhaps the biggest problem here is this eye for an eye mentality. When taking claim for the 9/11 attacks Osama Bin Laden said this was in retaliation for the U.S. support for attacks against Muslims in Somalia, the U.S. support for Russian attacks against Muslims in Chechnya, as well as other aggressions against Muslims. It was not an attempt to spread sharia law or destroy Christianity. The same is also true of other terrorist attacks like the Boston bombing, the Fort Hood shooting, the New York car bombing, the underwear bomber, and the Little Rock Recruiting office shooting.
These incidents suggest that the spread of radical Islam has far more to do with the violent nature of the U.S. than how the media handles these attacks. In fact the U.S. is responsible for the deaths of more Muslim civilians than all of the terrorist attacks combined. It should also be noted that since the U.S. that declared a "War on Terror" the prevalence of Islamic terrorist groups has expanded not decreased. It may make us feel better to see the murder of hundreds of thousands of Muslims as defending democracy against evil however this is a dangerously ethnocentric way of looking at things.
Imagine if another country bombed your town, killing many of your friends and family, in an effort to protect themselves from extremist leaders they claim live near you. Would you be willing to accept the deaths of those you love as collateral damage for the greater good or would it radicalize you to respond in kind?
Eliminating radical Islam doesn't always require the U.S. to use military might. Instead we should look to leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who used peaceful methods during the civil rights movement to enact change. The U.S. could support the efforts of Muslims like Malala Yousafzai who is working to destroy radical Islam from the inside by empowering women to get an education so they can think for themselves. After all the Qur'an is a book so being able to read it might go a long way to solving the misinterpretations that act as the basis for many of these terrorist organizations.
Obviously pretending that the benevolent nature of liberals is to blame is far easier than accepting that these attacks could be the response to the U.S. blood lust but the reality is that this eye for an eye mentality hasn't stopped terrorism from spreading. Moving forward we should recognize that we don't let a group like the Westboro Baptist Church serve as the standard bearer for all Christians nor do we accept the KKK or the Black Panthers as prototypical representatives of white and black Americans. With this in mind we shouldn't let Muslim zealots color our view of all Muslims, because how we got to this point is far less important than figuring out a responsible path from here.
But perhaps the most surprising of the narratives to come out of this senseless violence is the one that people like Greg Gutfeld are making. These people believe that somehow the liberal media are to blame for all Islamic aggression. If only the media had the gravitas to promote reasoned statements like Jeanine Pirro who said "We need to kill them all." Surely radical Muslims would hear such declarations from the media in a country they are at war with and back down.
The reason the liberal media continues to call for tolerance isn't because they think there aren't Muslims that want to kill Americans. It's because the conservative media and the uninformed over react to every attack and condemn Islam as being evil. This fear mongering leads to radicals like Wade Michael Page who killed six innocent Sikh devotees. It leads to arson attempts at an Islamic Center in Tennessee. And it leads to around 160 reported hate crimes against Muslims in America each year.
The liberal media continues to preach understanding because America has a long an inglorious history of violence and unnecessary restrictions against people who aren't like us. Afraid that Japanese Americans would turn on the U.S. the government sanctioned internment camps. Faced with concerns over the potential spread of Communism a government sponsored witch hunt resulted in the imprisonment of a number of Americans. For hundreds of years black Americans have been subjected to both government backed as well as citizen supported mistreatment, attacks and murders. Members the LGBT community have been abused and treated as a threat to so called traditional values for decades. And now Muslims are seen by some as evil, miscreants who are hell bend on spreading sharia law.
Obviously the Islam practiced by radicals is not something the vast majority of Americans - liberal or conservative - are interested in seeing. But to the extent that liberals "defend" Islam it has far more to do with quelling the irrational fear of easily radicalized Americans than it does a support of Islamic ideals.
Of course Islam is hardly the first or only religion to have murderous followers. History is full of religious violence from nearly all faiths. Few if any have a moral high ground to stand on. In Sri Lanka Buddhists have attacked Christian and Muslim minorities. In Central Africa Christian Militias have forced tens of thousands of Muslims to flee. And in the Gaza strip over a thousand Muslim civilians have been killed by Jews in the name of self defense.
Perhaps the biggest problem here is this eye for an eye mentality. When taking claim for the 9/11 attacks Osama Bin Laden said this was in retaliation for the U.S. support for attacks against Muslims in Somalia, the U.S. support for Russian attacks against Muslims in Chechnya, as well as other aggressions against Muslims. It was not an attempt to spread sharia law or destroy Christianity. The same is also true of other terrorist attacks like the Boston bombing, the Fort Hood shooting, the New York car bombing, the underwear bomber, and the Little Rock Recruiting office shooting.
These incidents suggest that the spread of radical Islam has far more to do with the violent nature of the U.S. than how the media handles these attacks. In fact the U.S. is responsible for the deaths of more Muslim civilians than all of the terrorist attacks combined. It should also be noted that since the U.S. that declared a "War on Terror" the prevalence of Islamic terrorist groups has expanded not decreased. It may make us feel better to see the murder of hundreds of thousands of Muslims as defending democracy against evil however this is a dangerously ethnocentric way of looking at things.
Imagine if another country bombed your town, killing many of your friends and family, in an effort to protect themselves from extremist leaders they claim live near you. Would you be willing to accept the deaths of those you love as collateral damage for the greater good or would it radicalize you to respond in kind?
Eliminating radical Islam doesn't always require the U.S. to use military might. Instead we should look to leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who used peaceful methods during the civil rights movement to enact change. The U.S. could support the efforts of Muslims like Malala Yousafzai who is working to destroy radical Islam from the inside by empowering women to get an education so they can think for themselves. After all the Qur'an is a book so being able to read it might go a long way to solving the misinterpretations that act as the basis for many of these terrorist organizations.
Obviously pretending that the benevolent nature of liberals is to blame is far easier than accepting that these attacks could be the response to the U.S. blood lust but the reality is that this eye for an eye mentality hasn't stopped terrorism from spreading. Moving forward we should recognize that we don't let a group like the Westboro Baptist Church serve as the standard bearer for all Christians nor do we accept the KKK or the Black Panthers as prototypical representatives of white and black Americans. With this in mind we shouldn't let Muslim zealots color our view of all Muslims, because how we got to this point is far less important than figuring out a responsible path from here.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Michigan Republicans need to stop lying about classroom funding
In response to my December 14th article discussing the impact of then Speaker of Michigan House Jase Bolger's plan to circumvent the voter approved constitutional amendment that required a certain percentage of the sales tax on fuel be used to fund education, now former Director of Communications for the Michigan House Republicans had this response.
“Total school funding has increased by more than $1 billion over the past four years. Citing one single item from the K-12 budget (per-pupil funding amounts) is an inaccurate way to measure funding, unless you want to deliberately mislead people. In addition, per-pupil funding is a very poor measure of how well a school district will perform. When the Highland Park schools collapsed due to horrible mismanagement, they were receiving more than $14,000 per pupil in state and federal funding.” ~ Ari B. Adler, Director of Communications, Michigan House Republicans.
Ironically this is not the first time Adler has used these talking points as a defense. In fact this is a near carbon copy of statements Adler made when disputing claims by the Michigan Education Association early last year.
Beyond the self plagiarism there are a number of other issues with Adler's comment that are well worth further investigation. For example it should be noted that he does not dispute the drop in the per pupil foundation allowance of $648 since Snyder took office. The reason he is forced to return to the same old $1 billion talking point Republicans have been milking for much of the past year is because that is one of the few manipulated numbers that work in their favor.
If they were being honest they would admit that less money is making its way to the classroom under Republican control. To claim more money is being spent on education they include the additional money that is being pumped into the teacher pension system. The problem is that part of that money they are claiming as additional spending is coming out of the pockets of teachers since the percent of their pay that is being funneled into the retirement system has increased over the past few years. It should also be noted that the early retirement, loss of per pupil funding leading to layoffs, and the expansion of charter schools that don't contribute funds all have resulted in more pensioners and fewer teachers contributing. The need for increased pension funding is the result of these Republican policies. Taking credit for fixing the problems you created is hardly something to brag about.
If deliberately misleading people is an issue then Mr. Adler should concede that the $1 billion increase he offers has been just as debunked as the $1 billion cut to education funding that Democrats used.
Of course focusing on Highland Park's per pupil funding is also a very misleading statistic. As Adler stated "citing one single item for the K-12 budget is an inaccurate way to measure funding". Beyond the obvious double standard of then using Highland Park's $14,000 per pupil number as proof of anything, the financial data bulletin where this number comes from doesn't offer an analysis of student performance. If there were an easy correlation then you would expect a school district like Bloomfield Hills, which actually had higher total per pupil funding that Highland Park did, to fail as well. Instead Bloomfield Hills routinely ranks as one of Michigan's highest performing school districts
The truth is there is far more involved in why a district like Bloomfield Hills is successful while Highland Park school district failed than simply reviewing their total per pupil funding.
For instance reports show that wealthy students perform far better in school than poor students. Support from home also makes a big difference. But having good teachers can also have an impact on student outcomes and of the $14,000 per pupil that these school districts received Bloomfield Hills spent nearly $70,000 per teacher to hire the best and brightest while Highland Park spent just under $55,000 per teacher. Conversely Highland Park spends a far greater portion of its funding on things like "added needs" ($2,834 versus $1,250) and adult education ($1,910 versus $0).
The reality is Highland Park schools failed because the needs of their community meant that far few dollars found their way to the classroom than at other school districts. Pretending that the per pupil funding number I quote is deliberately misleading while the Highland Park per pupil number is concrete evidence of the failures of the public education system is an astonishingly hypocritical assertion.
Having said that the reason Adler brings up the Highland Park school district seems to be because he believes that the change from a public school to a charter school has improved student performance. Unfortunately the data show that while some charter schools outperform their public school counterparts a nearly equal amount perform worse. There is also the issue of the numerous charter schools that are doing a much better job of enriching owners and administrators than enriching students.
But perhaps Adler is less concerned about the mediocrity of the average charter school and believes the management team for the Highland Park academy is an exception to the rule. To this point, the Michigan top to bottom ranking does show that as a public institution Highland Park schools ranked in the 8th percentile, however after switching to the Highland Park academy student performance has rocketed all the way up to the 9th percentile. At this rate it should only take around 80 years for Highland Park academy to become one of the state’s best schools.
The truth is, in real dollars the Snyder administration and legislative Republicans have pulled money out of the classroom each of the last four years while reneging on the increases they promised many school districts during their budget deliberations. Highland Park schools was hit with a higher than average $1,000 drop in the per pupil foundation allowance that clearly affected their ability to meet their obligations. These reductions left many other schools scrambling at the start of the new school year to find cuts that would offset the unexpected underfunding.
In the end the fact that people like Ari Adler continue to push the narrative that Michigan Republicans are spending more money on education tells you all you need to know about how devastating this loss of hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the classroom are. Lansing maybe awash with politicians who have convinced themselves they are doing the right thing for education but the closed schools, layoffs, and increased classroom sizes suggest that the group most responsible for horribly mismanaging Michigan's education funding reside in the Michigan Capitol Building.
“Total school funding has increased by more than $1 billion over the past four years. Citing one single item from the K-12 budget (per-pupil funding amounts) is an inaccurate way to measure funding, unless you want to deliberately mislead people. In addition, per-pupil funding is a very poor measure of how well a school district will perform. When the Highland Park schools collapsed due to horrible mismanagement, they were receiving more than $14,000 per pupil in state and federal funding.” ~ Ari B. Adler, Director of Communications, Michigan House Republicans.
Ironically this is not the first time Adler has used these talking points as a defense. In fact this is a near carbon copy of statements Adler made when disputing claims by the Michigan Education Association early last year.
Beyond the self plagiarism there are a number of other issues with Adler's comment that are well worth further investigation. For example it should be noted that he does not dispute the drop in the per pupil foundation allowance of $648 since Snyder took office. The reason he is forced to return to the same old $1 billion talking point Republicans have been milking for much of the past year is because that is one of the few manipulated numbers that work in their favor.
If they were being honest they would admit that less money is making its way to the classroom under Republican control. To claim more money is being spent on education they include the additional money that is being pumped into the teacher pension system. The problem is that part of that money they are claiming as additional spending is coming out of the pockets of teachers since the percent of their pay that is being funneled into the retirement system has increased over the past few years. It should also be noted that the early retirement, loss of per pupil funding leading to layoffs, and the expansion of charter schools that don't contribute funds all have resulted in more pensioners and fewer teachers contributing. The need for increased pension funding is the result of these Republican policies. Taking credit for fixing the problems you created is hardly something to brag about.
If deliberately misleading people is an issue then Mr. Adler should concede that the $1 billion increase he offers has been just as debunked as the $1 billion cut to education funding that Democrats used.
Of course focusing on Highland Park's per pupil funding is also a very misleading statistic. As Adler stated "citing one single item for the K-12 budget is an inaccurate way to measure funding". Beyond the obvious double standard of then using Highland Park's $14,000 per pupil number as proof of anything, the financial data bulletin where this number comes from doesn't offer an analysis of student performance. If there were an easy correlation then you would expect a school district like Bloomfield Hills, which actually had higher total per pupil funding that Highland Park did, to fail as well. Instead Bloomfield Hills routinely ranks as one of Michigan's highest performing school districts
The truth is there is far more involved in why a district like Bloomfield Hills is successful while Highland Park school district failed than simply reviewing their total per pupil funding.
For instance reports show that wealthy students perform far better in school than poor students. Support from home also makes a big difference. But having good teachers can also have an impact on student outcomes and of the $14,000 per pupil that these school districts received Bloomfield Hills spent nearly $70,000 per teacher to hire the best and brightest while Highland Park spent just under $55,000 per teacher. Conversely Highland Park spends a far greater portion of its funding on things like "added needs" ($2,834 versus $1,250) and adult education ($1,910 versus $0).
The reality is Highland Park schools failed because the needs of their community meant that far few dollars found their way to the classroom than at other school districts. Pretending that the per pupil funding number I quote is deliberately misleading while the Highland Park per pupil number is concrete evidence of the failures of the public education system is an astonishingly hypocritical assertion.
Having said that the reason Adler brings up the Highland Park school district seems to be because he believes that the change from a public school to a charter school has improved student performance. Unfortunately the data show that while some charter schools outperform their public school counterparts a nearly equal amount perform worse. There is also the issue of the numerous charter schools that are doing a much better job of enriching owners and administrators than enriching students.
But perhaps Adler is less concerned about the mediocrity of the average charter school and believes the management team for the Highland Park academy is an exception to the rule. To this point, the Michigan top to bottom ranking does show that as a public institution Highland Park schools ranked in the 8th percentile, however after switching to the Highland Park academy student performance has rocketed all the way up to the 9th percentile. At this rate it should only take around 80 years for Highland Park academy to become one of the state’s best schools.
The truth is, in real dollars the Snyder administration and legislative Republicans have pulled money out of the classroom each of the last four years while reneging on the increases they promised many school districts during their budget deliberations. Highland Park schools was hit with a higher than average $1,000 drop in the per pupil foundation allowance that clearly affected their ability to meet their obligations. These reductions left many other schools scrambling at the start of the new school year to find cuts that would offset the unexpected underfunding.
In the end the fact that people like Ari Adler continue to push the narrative that Michigan Republicans are spending more money on education tells you all you need to know about how devastating this loss of hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the classroom are. Lansing maybe awash with politicians who have convinced themselves they are doing the right thing for education but the closed schools, layoffs, and increased classroom sizes suggest that the group most responsible for horribly mismanaging Michigan's education funding reside in the Michigan Capitol Building.
Friday, December 19, 2014
The Christmas spirit is an affront to conservative values
Tis the season for contrived conservative media outrage over the "war on Christmas" while they ironically pretend that Christians are the most derided segment of the U.S. population. Unfortunately this false war obfuscates the real war on conservative values that is currently being waged across the country.
You can see it at your local soup kitchen. It permeates the toy give away down the street. This war even infiltrates the clothes drive being held in your community. On the surface this charitable giving may seem like the right thing to do this holiday season but the reality is this is a nefarious plot being perpetrated by the lame stream media and comrade Obama to turn true patriots into bleeding heart liberals and bring down this once great nation.
This may sound farfetched but consider the important national debates we have had over the past few years.
Back in 2012 Mitt Romney said "I want individuals to have the dignity of work". If you take a close look at these so called charities almost none of them make these men, women and children work for the food, clothing and toys they receive. Everyone knows there is no dignity in receiving something for nothing yet these organizations seem to have succumbed to Obama and his free stuff society mentality.
Of course dignity of work certainly isn't the only area where these organizations have gone horribly off track. Over the past few years there have been numerous discussions and legislative actions aimed at preventing abuse of our treasured systems. These include laws making sure illegal immigrants don't receive benefits as well as voter ID laws. These organizations would be well served to consider implementing similar requirements. Holiday cheer is only meant for those who are here legally and should be limited to one helping per person. Anything less sends the wrong message.
Another area of concern is the personal habits of the people showing up for these handouts. How many of these people are just going to trade in the toys and clothes they receive for drugs? Without a drug testing policy children of poor drug addicts all over the country might end up with a toy or two for Christmas. Worse yet these children could start to think that their parents’ actions have no impact on how the system treats them. If these kids don't take personal responsibility for their parents they really don't deserve these toys do they?
Former presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan stated that "Barack Obama is a drug dealer of welfare;” because Buchanan believes "He (Obama) wants permanent dependency". This is something that many Americans have been concerned about for a long time. We shouldn't have a system that allows people to receive benefits year after year without some sort of work requirement. Yet that is exactly what the charitable organizations do. Shouldn't these people be required to prove they are at least looking for work to participate in these programs that help the less fortunate?
The other question we should be asking is what are the motives of these unconditional handout institutions? Everyone knows that when liberals argue in support of welfare and food stamps they are doing it to keep these poor people poor while simultaneously buying votes. Are these giveaways just a way to proselytize these people in their time of need and tether them to a system of dependence?
If the results of the most recent elections tell us anything it’s that Americans are in full support of the conservative Republican agenda that encourages all of those lazy "takers" to become useful members of society and join the "maker" class. These charities are waging a full frontal assault on traditional American values and need to stop. If they refuse, congress should spend much of the next year symbolically voting to defund these organizations because hypothetically protecting the integrity of this once great nation from the scourge of the down trodden is a 365 day a year job.
You can see it at your local soup kitchen. It permeates the toy give away down the street. This war even infiltrates the clothes drive being held in your community. On the surface this charitable giving may seem like the right thing to do this holiday season but the reality is this is a nefarious plot being perpetrated by the lame stream media and comrade Obama to turn true patriots into bleeding heart liberals and bring down this once great nation.
This may sound farfetched but consider the important national debates we have had over the past few years.
Back in 2012 Mitt Romney said "I want individuals to have the dignity of work". If you take a close look at these so called charities almost none of them make these men, women and children work for the food, clothing and toys they receive. Everyone knows there is no dignity in receiving something for nothing yet these organizations seem to have succumbed to Obama and his free stuff society mentality.
Of course dignity of work certainly isn't the only area where these organizations have gone horribly off track. Over the past few years there have been numerous discussions and legislative actions aimed at preventing abuse of our treasured systems. These include laws making sure illegal immigrants don't receive benefits as well as voter ID laws. These organizations would be well served to consider implementing similar requirements. Holiday cheer is only meant for those who are here legally and should be limited to one helping per person. Anything less sends the wrong message.
Another area of concern is the personal habits of the people showing up for these handouts. How many of these people are just going to trade in the toys and clothes they receive for drugs? Without a drug testing policy children of poor drug addicts all over the country might end up with a toy or two for Christmas. Worse yet these children could start to think that their parents’ actions have no impact on how the system treats them. If these kids don't take personal responsibility for their parents they really don't deserve these toys do they?
Former presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan stated that "Barack Obama is a drug dealer of welfare;” because Buchanan believes "He (Obama) wants permanent dependency". This is something that many Americans have been concerned about for a long time. We shouldn't have a system that allows people to receive benefits year after year without some sort of work requirement. Yet that is exactly what the charitable organizations do. Shouldn't these people be required to prove they are at least looking for work to participate in these programs that help the less fortunate?
The other question we should be asking is what are the motives of these unconditional handout institutions? Everyone knows that when liberals argue in support of welfare and food stamps they are doing it to keep these poor people poor while simultaneously buying votes. Are these giveaways just a way to proselytize these people in their time of need and tether them to a system of dependence?
If the results of the most recent elections tell us anything it’s that Americans are in full support of the conservative Republican agenda that encourages all of those lazy "takers" to become useful members of society and join the "maker" class. These charities are waging a full frontal assault on traditional American values and need to stop. If they refuse, congress should spend much of the next year symbolically voting to defund these organizations because hypothetically protecting the integrity of this once great nation from the scourge of the down trodden is a 365 day a year job.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Republican road funding plan deals another blow to democracy
For more than a decade now the Michigan legislature has failed to properly fund the Department of Transportation which has resulted in a steady decline in the quality of Michigan's roads. The Michigan Senate agreed on bipartisan legislation to address this issue which Governor Rick Snyder supports however Speaker of the House Jase Bolger is concerned that the Senate plan would increase taxes and increasing taxes is something that the Michigan Republican Party doesn't approve of unless you are a retiree, poor, a homeowner or any of the other 50% of Michiganders who have seen their taxes increase under Bolger's watch.
The real problem with Bolger's plan is the shell game required to "generate" the funds for fixing Michigan's roads. Instead of increasing fuel taxes as the Governor had proposed Bolger wants to raid education funding to the tune of $800 million to pay for roads. A spokesman for Speaker Bolger says there is nothing to worry about because the bill also includes wording that suggests education funding can't be reduced. Given that it has taken over a decade of constant decline to get the legislature to find the funds to repair Michigan's roads, trusting the legislature will magically find additional revenue to plug the gaping hole in education spending that this action creates is suspect at best.
Bolger's office also says that increased revenue will cover any potential losses. The only problem is that when the former director of the Michigan House Fiscal Agency - Mitch Bean - examined the real world results of Bolger's plan he found that the biggest loses occurred in the last few years when Michigan was supposedly making its comeback, while one of the few years in which revenue would have actually increased occurred in the middle of the Great Recession. The data suggests Bolger's plan is more wishful thinking than thoroughly vetted economic strategy.
Of course even if you believe Jase Bolger's understanding of economics is better than that of Mitch Bean, it should be noted that relying on increased revenue can have damaging consequences. For example one of the only reasons that Rick Snyder can claim to have increased education spending over his time in office is because of the money he poured into the teacher pension program. Were it not for pervious administration's errant assumptions that the economy would improve because of their efforts these extra contributions to the system would likely have been unnecessary.
Perhaps the economy will continue to improve or perhaps it won't. Jase Bolger doesn't own a crystal ball and wagering education funding on the promise of Republican governance can't be very reassuring to many Michigan parents.
There are also those who believe the government already has enough money and just needs to shift it around. If that is the case why divert money that is dedicated to education to fund the roads only to have to find another budgetary item to cut to make up for the lost education dollars? If you are going to cut the $2 billion Department of Corrections budget to pay for Michigan schools why not just leave school funding alone and increase road spending at the expense of the DOC. Only a person with ulterior motives would make this funding change so convoluted.
Not surprisingly it appears that eliminating the fuel tax that currently funds education is a workaround to Proposal A - the voter approved constitutional amendment that equalized education funding two decades ago. By changing the fuel charge from a tax on consumers to a fee on suppliers this money will no longer be subject to the rules of Proposal A. This is the same kind of subverting the people's wishes that the Republican pulled when the voters repealed the state Emergency Manger Law only to see the Republican legislature implement a new version a few months later that was no longer subject to a voter referendum. Based on the manipulative past of this legislature you can bet this won't be the last time Bolger and his cohorts redefine a sales tax as a "fee" to avoid properly funding Michigan's public schools.
Having said that the entire basis for Bolger's actions demonstrate just how disconnected he is from the average Michigan voter. Polls show that 62% of voters were willing to pay an additional $10 or more per month to repair and upgrade bridges and roads in Michigan while 71% said they would not vote against an elected official for such a tax increase. Voters just don't have the same doomsday view of tax increases that Republicans pretend they do.
Polls also show that while Michigan voters would really like to see more money go towards roads their top priority is education funding. This makes the Bolger plan that much more perplexing especially given the fact that the real per pupil foundation allowance has fallen by $648 under Republican control. Is taking another $475 per student away from public schools just a ploy to put more districts in financial distress so they can be converted to for profit charter schools that big donors love?
The reality is that Jase Bolger has taken a bipartisan bill to improve Michigan's roads that had the support of voters and turned it into something that cuts education funding, vitiates the will of the people, and Governor Snyder has "serious reservations" about - all under the guise of some rigid ideology that the majority of Michigan residents disagree with. But perhaps most concerning is how this legislature continues to use nefarious tactics to avoid the law of the land and spit in the face of the voting public. No wonder Bolger waited until after the elections to bring such a polemic bill to the floor.
The real problem with Bolger's plan is the shell game required to "generate" the funds for fixing Michigan's roads. Instead of increasing fuel taxes as the Governor had proposed Bolger wants to raid education funding to the tune of $800 million to pay for roads. A spokesman for Speaker Bolger says there is nothing to worry about because the bill also includes wording that suggests education funding can't be reduced. Given that it has taken over a decade of constant decline to get the legislature to find the funds to repair Michigan's roads, trusting the legislature will magically find additional revenue to plug the gaping hole in education spending that this action creates is suspect at best.
Bolger's office also says that increased revenue will cover any potential losses. The only problem is that when the former director of the Michigan House Fiscal Agency - Mitch Bean - examined the real world results of Bolger's plan he found that the biggest loses occurred in the last few years when Michigan was supposedly making its comeback, while one of the few years in which revenue would have actually increased occurred in the middle of the Great Recession. The data suggests Bolger's plan is more wishful thinking than thoroughly vetted economic strategy.
Of course even if you believe Jase Bolger's understanding of economics is better than that of Mitch Bean, it should be noted that relying on increased revenue can have damaging consequences. For example one of the only reasons that Rick Snyder can claim to have increased education spending over his time in office is because of the money he poured into the teacher pension program. Were it not for pervious administration's errant assumptions that the economy would improve because of their efforts these extra contributions to the system would likely have been unnecessary.
Perhaps the economy will continue to improve or perhaps it won't. Jase Bolger doesn't own a crystal ball and wagering education funding on the promise of Republican governance can't be very reassuring to many Michigan parents.
There are also those who believe the government already has enough money and just needs to shift it around. If that is the case why divert money that is dedicated to education to fund the roads only to have to find another budgetary item to cut to make up for the lost education dollars? If you are going to cut the $2 billion Department of Corrections budget to pay for Michigan schools why not just leave school funding alone and increase road spending at the expense of the DOC. Only a person with ulterior motives would make this funding change so convoluted.
Not surprisingly it appears that eliminating the fuel tax that currently funds education is a workaround to Proposal A - the voter approved constitutional amendment that equalized education funding two decades ago. By changing the fuel charge from a tax on consumers to a fee on suppliers this money will no longer be subject to the rules of Proposal A. This is the same kind of subverting the people's wishes that the Republican pulled when the voters repealed the state Emergency Manger Law only to see the Republican legislature implement a new version a few months later that was no longer subject to a voter referendum. Based on the manipulative past of this legislature you can bet this won't be the last time Bolger and his cohorts redefine a sales tax as a "fee" to avoid properly funding Michigan's public schools.
Having said that the entire basis for Bolger's actions demonstrate just how disconnected he is from the average Michigan voter. Polls show that 62% of voters were willing to pay an additional $10 or more per month to repair and upgrade bridges and roads in Michigan while 71% said they would not vote against an elected official for such a tax increase. Voters just don't have the same doomsday view of tax increases that Republicans pretend they do.
Polls also show that while Michigan voters would really like to see more money go towards roads their top priority is education funding. This makes the Bolger plan that much more perplexing especially given the fact that the real per pupil foundation allowance has fallen by $648 under Republican control. Is taking another $475 per student away from public schools just a ploy to put more districts in financial distress so they can be converted to for profit charter schools that big donors love?
The reality is that Jase Bolger has taken a bipartisan bill to improve Michigan's roads that had the support of voters and turned it into something that cuts education funding, vitiates the will of the people, and Governor Snyder has "serious reservations" about - all under the guise of some rigid ideology that the majority of Michigan residents disagree with. But perhaps most concerning is how this legislature continues to use nefarious tactics to avoid the law of the land and spit in the face of the voting public. No wonder Bolger waited until after the elections to bring such a polemic bill to the floor.
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