Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Renewable Energy, Meet the New NIMBYs
Solar and Wind-Power Proposals Draw Opposition From Residents Fearing Visual Blight; a Dilemma for Some Environmentalists
By JEFFREY BALL
Technology changes, but human nature doesn't. Environmentally friendly energy projects are running into the same cries of "not in my backyard" that stymied a previous generation of alternative-power efforts.
Even as Americans tell pollsters they are eager for alternatives to fossil fuel, some are fighting proposals for solar and wind projects and for the thousands of miles of transmission lines that would be needed to carry the cleaner energy to market. The protests echo grass-roots opposition that has blocked nuclear plants and energy-producing trash incinerators for decades.
The new backlash is fueled by worries that renewable-energy projects would occupy vast amounts of land to produce significant amounts of power. Either renewable projects would have to be centralized and sprawling, covering many square miles apiece, or they would need to be distributed in pieces across millions of rooftops and lawns.
Renewable-energy projects would reduce pollution and combat climate change. The trade-off is that many more people would have to see wind turbines, solar panels and other energy infrastructure near their homes in order to diminish the need for coal mines and other fossil-fuel facilities.
"Anywhere I walked on this property, we'd be able to view them and we'd be able to hear them," says Tina FitzGerald, who lives with her family on a 12-acre Vermont farm near where a developer has proposed erecting five wind turbines, each about 400 feet tall. "There should be a place for these -- someplace that isn't going to impact families quite so much."
In California, which is considering a goal of producing a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, some residents are fighting proposals to build vast solar-energy plants in the Mojave Desert, one of the most remote and reliably sunny spots in the U.S. Up and down the East Coast, meanwhile, residents are opposing plans for wind farms, fearing they will mar views and lower property values.
Americans aren't alone in their skittishness. In the U.K., which also aims to generate about one-third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, local opposition is holding up proposed wind projects. Resistance in Ontario led the Canadian province to pass legislation in May establishing a framework for locating renewable-energy sites; local opponents will be able to challenge projects on environmental or safety grounds, but not for aesthetic reasons.
In a report late last year, the Paris-based International Energy Agency cited "not in my backyard" sentiment as among the top five threats to the growth of renewable energy worldwide.
The U.S. has to make a tough choice, says Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank that supports giving the federal government more authority to push renewable-energy projects forward. That will be necessary, he says, to curb the country's dependence on foreign oil and its greenhouse-gas emissions. "You have to ask yourself: At what point do priority national interests need to override local goals?"
The clash over whether it is more important to produce nonpolluting domestic energy or to protect environmentally valuable places poses a dilemma for some longtime activists.
Calvin French, a 72-year-old retired high school English teacher, has belonged to the Sierra Club all his adult life. Leaders of the environmental group are working with California officials to help pick sites for big renewable-energy transmission lines as a way to combat climate change. But many club members, including Mr. French, want to protect their favorite places.
His battlefield is the Carrizo Plain, a 460-square-mile swath of grassland about 115 miles north of Los Angeles that is traversed by the San Andreas Fault.
The parched, rugged expanse is home to species including the endangered kit fox and the antelope-like pronghorn. It also is one of the most alluring spots for solar panels in the nation's most populous state. There is prolific sunlight. Much of the land has been subdivided into farms, meaning that acreage no longer can be defended as untouched. And there is a high-voltage line nearby, with capacity to carry solar power to the public.
Amid local opposition, county and state officials for months have been mulling three big solar-energy projects that together would amount to some of the biggest solar arrays in the world.
"Big things like global warming" are difficult to understand, says Mr. French. "But you can go out into a beautiful place and say, 'This needs to be protected.' That's easy to understand."
Around the world, countries that have rolled out fossil-fuel alternatives most aggressively have used heavy-handed government action to address such sentiment. France, for example, now produces about 80% of its electricity from nuclear energy. But France's national government manages the country's nuclear-construction program, and it has pushed ahead for decades despite sometimes-heated public protests.
Lawmakers in the U.S. Congress now are fighting over how much power the federal government should have in getting energy projects built. Many renewable-energy proponents say a massive network of new transmission wires would have to be built to bring large supplies of renewable power to population centers. A Senate committee passed a bill in June that would give the federal government authority to decide where to put new power lines if states, which now make those decisions, move too slowly.
The drive for more federal control has the support of many executives in the electric industry, who say the new transmission lines should be available for energy from all sources, including fossil fuel. But there is plenty of opposition to giving Washington that power. Some lawmakers from densely populated states don't want big new transmission lines running through their land. Many state utility regulators also object to an increased federal push.
Caught in the middle are states where renewable energy suddenly is big business. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal likens his state's wind boom to the coal rush that hit Wyoming three decades ago in the wake of an energy shock.
At a wind-energy conference in Wyoming last month, Gov. Freudenthal, a Democrat, delivered a stern warning to wind-turbine developers, telling them to make sure their projects don't harm a small bird called the sage grouse.
"What I have is an obsession with making sure that the economy of this state continues to function, and it won't if that bird gets listed," according to his office's transcript of his remarks.
Anything that nudges the sage grouse toward the federal government's list of endangered species, he explained, would trigger land-use restrictions that would jeopardize Wyoming's main economic engine: the production of coal, oil and natural gas. "Generally in this state, we support economic development," he told the wind developers. But "when all of a sudden it ends up in our backyard, our view changes a lot."
Jeffrey Ball responds to reader questions at WSJ.com/Currents.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, Page A13
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Dying for Affordable Health Care - the Uninsured Speak*
21 August 2009
by: Ed Pilkington | Visit article original @ The Guardian UK
In a week of claim and counter-claim about the merits of healthcare provision in the US and UK, Ed Pilkington travelled to Quindaro, Kansas, to see how the poorest survive.
In the furious debate gripping America over the future of its health system, one voice has been lost amid the shouting. It is that of a distinguished gynaecologist, aged 67, called Dr Joseph Manley.
For 35 years Manley had a thriving health clinic in Kansas. He lived in the most affluent neighbourhood of Kansas City and treated himself to a new Porsche every year. But this is not a story about doctors' remuneration and their lavish lifestyles.
In the late 1980s he began to have trouble with his own health. He had involuntary muscle movements and difficulty swallowing. Fellow doctors failed to diagnose him, some guessing wrongly that he had post-traumatic stress from having served in the airforce in Vietnam.
Eventually his lack of motor control interfered with his work to the degree that he was forced to give up his practice. He fell instantly into a catch 22 that he had earlier seen entrap many of his own patients: no work, no health insurance, no treatment.
He remained uninsured and largely untreated for his progressively severe condition for the following 11 years. Blood tests that could have diagnosed him correctly were not done because he couldn't afford the $200. Having lost his practice, he lost his mansion on the hill and now lives in a one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs. His Porsches have made way for bangers. Many times this erstwhile pillar of the medical establishment had to go without food in order to pay for basic medicines. In 2000 Manley finally found the help he needed, at a clinic in Kansas City that acts as a rare safety net for uninsured people. He was swiftly diagnosed with Huntington's disease, a degenerative genetic illness, and now receives regular medical attention through the clinic.
So how does he feel about the way the debate in the US has come to be dominated by Republican-inspired attacks on Britain's NHS and other "socialised" health services which give people the treatment they need even if they cannot afford to pay for it?
"I find that repulsive and an absolutely bone-headed way to go," he says. "When I started out practising I certainly didn't expect this would happen. I thought the system would take care of everybody."
Over the last month President Obama's attempts to live up to his election promise to extend healthcare to all Americans has stalled in the face of a sustained rightwing guerrilla attack. Opponents of Obama's reforms have succeeded in distracting attention from Manley and the 46 million other medically uninsured, swinging the focus instead on to the "evils" of publicly funded healthcare. The fear tactics were epitomised by Sarah Palin's wholly inaccurate claim that the reforms would set up "death panels" that would force euthanasia on to older people.
Such scaremongering has dismayed and infuriated Sharon Lee, the doctor who now treats Manley in Kansas City. "I'm very angry, very angry," she says. "Many of the people I treat have already been in front of a death panel and have lost - a death panel controlled by insurance companies. I see people dying at least monthly because we have been unable to get them what they needed."
Lee's clinic, Family Health Care, is a refuge of last resort. It picks up the pieces of lives left shattered by a health system that has failed them, and tries to glue them back together. It exists largely outside the parameters of formal health provision, raising funds through donations and paying all its 50 staff - Lee included - a flat rate of just $12 an hour.
Poverty Line
Lee has just opened an outpost of her clinic in the outlying neighbourhood of Quindaro, an area of boarded-up houses and deserted factories where work is hard to find and crack plentiful and a per capita income is $11,025. A third of the population is below the federally defined poverty line.
And yet the local health department has decided the only health centre in the area will be closed by the end of this year and moved 30 blocks west to a much more prosperous part of the city where income levels are five times higher. Before long, one of the poorest areas of Kansas - of America - will be left without a single doctor, with only Lee's voluntary services to fall back on.
Even that is academic. Many of the residents of Quindaro were unable to see a doctor in any case - because they were uninsured. In Kansas, anyone who is able-bodied but unemployed is not eligible for government-backed health insurance as is anyone earning more than 39% of federal poverty levels. That leaves a huge army of jobless and low-income working families who are left in limbo. "It's the working poor who are most at disadvantage," Lee says.
As a result, she sees the same pattern repeating itself over and over. People with no insurance avoid seeking medical help for fear of the bills that follow, until it is too late. "When people come in they are already very, very sick. They have avoided seeing the doctor thinking that something may clear up, hoping they may be getting better."
Beth Gabaree, who came in to see Lee for the first time this morning, has experiences that sound extreme but are in fact quite typical. She has diabetes and a heart condition. Until two years ago they were controlled through ongoing treatment paid for by her husband's work-based health insurance. But he was in a motorbike crash that pulverised his right leg and put him out of work.
That Catch 22 again: no work, no insurance, no treatment. Except in this case it was Beth who went without treatment, in order to put her husband's dire needs first. He receives ongoing specialist care that costs them $500 a go, leaving nothing for her. So she stopped seeing a doctor, and effectively began self-medicating. She cut down from two different insulin drugs to regulate her diabetes to one, and restricted her heart drugs. "I do what I think I need to do to keep four steps out of hospital. I know that's not the right thing, but I can't justify seeing the doctor when my family's already in money trouble."
The problem is that she hasn't kept herself four steps out of hospital. Her health deteriorated and earlier this year she became bedridden. Even then, it took her family several days to persuade her to go to the emergency room because she didn't want to incur the hospital costs. "It was hard enough without that," she says.
After an initial consultation, Lee has now booked Gabaree for a new round of tests for her diabetes and is arranging for free medication. "It's wonderful," Gabaree says. "I'm so blessed. I didn't know you could get this sort of help."
That she sees basic healthcare as a blessing, not as a right, speaks volumes about attitudes among the mass of the working poor. Also revealing is the fact that Gabaree has absolutely no idea about the debate raging across America. She hasn't even heard of Obama's push for health reform, nor the Republican efforts to prevent it. "I don't watch much television," she says.
That provides Palin et al with a massive advantage: the 46 million people who would most benefit from Obama's plans are also among the least educated and informed, and thus the least able to make political waves. All of which leaves Lee fearful about the prospects for change. She has, after all, been here before - in 1993 when Hillary Clinton's pitch to overhaul the health system foundered. That attempt ended up doing more harm than good from Lee's perspective. Many of her most important donors stopped funding the centre because they assumed that the White House was fixing the problems. After the Clinton reforms crashed, brought down by the same rightwing assault that Obama is now enduring, it took many months for the centre's funds to regain their pre-1993 levels.
Recession
Lee fears history could be repeating itself. This time round there is the recession more unemployed equals more uninsured people who come knocking on the door of Family Health Care. Last year Lee and one other doctor between them dealt with 14,000 visits, and the numbers are rising daily. All of which leaves Lee part despairing, part determined to fight even harder for the bare minimum of human dignity. The frustration is that every day she must beg and plead with other health providers for simple treatments for her patients. "It drives me crazy with frustration," she says.
She rattles off a litany of horror stories. There was the man who walked into the clinic with a brain tumour. It took Lee three months to get him an MRI scan and another two to get an appointment with a neurosurgeon. Or the patient whose nerves in his neck were pushed against his spinal cord so that he lost use of both arms; by the time Lee found a way of getting him an MRI he was so sick he had to be operated on immediately. Or the woman who had such heavy periods she would wind up in ER every three months requiring a blood transfusion. What she really needed was a hysterectomy. "It took us almost a year to beg hospitals until she finally did get a hysterectomy," Lee says.
These are the stories, the broken lives, that have been obscured by the fury generated by the Republican rump. Unless Obama finds a way to regain the political initiative, to remind Americans that only nine months ago they voted overwhelmingly for change, then the future of millions appears bleak.
"Here's what I'd like to ask Palin," Lee says. "People without health insurance are dying, here in America, right now. So I'd like to ask her: how does that fit into your vision of good and evil, Sarah Palin?"
Obama's Plan: Health of the Nation
What is Obama trying to do?
The goal is to increase access to healthcare by regulating costs. His plan would guarantee all citizens eligibility for care, but the government is not proposing a "single-payer system", like the NHS. Instead, private health insurers would continue to operate under new rules that would lower premiums and remove loopholes that allow them to avoid paying for treatment when it is most needed. Per person, healthcare costs are higher in the US than in any other country, and have been rising faster than the level of inflation. The quality of care is less of an issue - although citizens with solid insurance may be frustrated by the paperwork and costs associated with the current system, they have fewer complaints about their doctors and hospitals.
Who's opposing Obama's plan?
Those who fear the government would introduce congressional "death panels" to make end-of-life decisions for the elderly. The insurance industry is worried about their bottom lines. Members of Congress and voters on the left and right are concerned about the future tax burden. Many Americans also object to any increase in government involvement in their personal lives.
How can healthcare costs get so out of hand?
Many insurance plans do not cover "pre-existing conditions", so it can be difficult for people who have a chronic ailment to secure cover. Loopholes allow insurers to refuse reimbursement even if the policyholder did not know they had a particular condition when they took out insurance. "Lifetime caps" allow insurers to set a maximum amount of cover.
Who are the uninsured?
Up to 46 million Americans are uninsured, because they are unemployed, or their employer does not provide cover, or because they do not qualify for existing government-funded healthcare. People 65 and older can qualify for Medicare, the poor can qualify for Medicaid, veterans and members of the military can qualify for Veterans Health Administration and Tricare and children can be covered under a programme called SCHIP. Those overlooked by the system include the young just entering the workforce, the self-employed, the unemployed and people who work for small businesses.
*Occassionaly when I'm verging on overwhelmed with work, items about issues which I have considered writing but not yet have had the opportunity, pop up under someone else's name. As Mr. Pilkington of The Guardian expressed many of my concerns, I am choosing to share his insights with you.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
General Motors, Good Business, Republicans and the State Budget
A couple of big stories this weekend were the continued failure of California’s elected officials to reach a deal on the state’s budget and the emergence of a “new” General Motors from it’s government-forced Chapter 11 reorganization.
In each case, layman and analyst alike were bewildered by a culture that had grown so completely isolated from how things work in the “real world.” California’s Governor and Legislature are like GM managment of six months ago, flying hat in hand to Washington in corporate jets when they should have traveled in hybrids.
Unfortunately, there is little chance that the federal government will take over California, force it to reorganize it’s outdated business model and shed billions of dollars of debt by selling off underperforming assets as it did with GM. However, California’s leaders could learn a great deal from the GM experience.
For years, decades even, there have been warnings that the state, like GM, has been operating under an outmoded and untenable business model. Top management in both cases isolated itself in a cocoon of illusion hung from a framework of false assumptions.
GM executives assumed consumers would buy pick-up trucks and SUV’s forever. Management refused to support policies that would have helped contain the cost of production. They made concessions to workers that were unsustainable in lean times. The company ignored market trends while holding out false hope that the market would somehow turn around and bail them out, even as they hemorrhaged billions of dollars.
Operating under it’s outdated business model, the erstwhile automobile giant suffered a four-decade decline in market share. Over just the last decade, GM lost more than 75% of its market value. A few months ago, it reached the point at which it consumed more money than it brought in by making and selling cars.
As with GM, the state of California has become cash-flow-negative. The business model by which the state once operated is no longer sustainable. Costs must be brought under control and the books need to be balanced. In business, cost control is necessary in good times in order to survive in hard times. State leaders must do the same.
To the Democrats credit, they have moved in the direction of cost cutting, but they need to do more. What they need to do is project expenses into the future and determine a reasonable and fixed baseline amount as the basis for programmatic decision making. The Democratic leadership must then show political courage by making the tough decisions by making deep cuts and show leadership by bucking special interests.
GM was forced by a bankruptcy judge and the Obama administration to shed brands, models, factories, workers and a bloated management. It has also been made clear by the bankruptcy court and the administration that GM needs to undertake a radical restructuring of it’s entrenched management system to survive.
California needs the political will to reduce programs, cut costs and adopt a sound financial structure that will allow the state to live within it’s means. However, such an approach is predetermined to fail unless the Republic minority will consider revenue enhancements.
In business, one cannot simply look at one side of a balance sheet. The other, equal side of expenses is income. Balancing income and expenses is a basic principal of business. Taking income increases entirely off the table makes no sense from a business perspective. Sacramento Republicans cannot expect to solve the state’s financial problems while ignoring half of the equation that is the basis for any successful enterprise.
An example of Republican intransigence is opposition to an oil extraction tax. California may be the only state in the union, perhaps the world, which literally gives away resources to oil companies. Other oil producing states and nations charge handsomely for the permission to drill for liquid gold. Not one oil company has walked away from an oil field because it’s owner charged it for the opportunity to make money.
A modest oil extraction fee would enrich state coffers by about $1.2 billion dollars a year. California’s Republican legislators argue that such a fee would raise consumer costs. But, their argument falls flat because petroleum product prices are set internationally. Market forces much greater that any fee the state may impose governs oil and gas prices. One would think that members of the political party that prides itself for being “businesses friendly” would understand such a fundamental economic reality.
No credible economist in the world would endorse the Sacramento Republican’s approach to addressing the state’s budget stalemate. Members of the political party that has always argued that government ought to be run more like a business have taken what is essentially an anti-business position concerning the state’s budget.
With a sound financial structure in place, a management approach that includes flattening out the company’s multiple layers of executives and another $50 billion in federal loans available to make it through the year, GM has no excuses left if it continues to struggle in the marketplace.
Meanwhile, in Sacramento, Republicans have placed their anti-tax dogma above sound business practices. They have abdicated not only their leadership responsibilities, but also one of their most popular and successful political positions to satisfy right wing zealots. It is almost unheard of. California Republicans have ceded their “run government like a business” message to anyone willing to be reasonable about taxes.
This is where GM and the Sacramento Republican leadership face the same paradox. How do they go about changing the way they do things when they have not changed the group of people that got them in this mess to start with?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
A Design Flaw In California Government
During the evening rush hour on August 1, 2007 the eight-lane steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed into the river and onto the riverbanks beneath, killing thirteen people and injuring 145. The likely cause of the collapse bridge was determined to be a “catastrophic design flaw.”
California’s existing method of operation is like the I35W bridge prior to that tragic day in 2007. The most recent economic pressure on our state has exposed potentially catastrophic structural flaws in the current form of state governance. It is clear to any objective observer that the state is about to fail – and fail catastrophically – in the foreseeable future. As with the I35W bridge, the result of such a failure will be remembered in terms of it’s impact on human lives. A generation of California’s young people will be deprived of decent childhood development programs, quality educations and affordable, accessible health care.
Both the social and physical infrastructure of California is deficient and continues to degrade. It is no exaggeration to say that the health, welfare and safety of our society are endangered.
“California has become ungovernable” has evolved from an observation to a cliché. A package of initiatives that allegedly would have put a two or three year patch over the state’s structural budget flaw was put on the May 19th ballot by the Governor and legislative leaders. Almost 70% of Californians who bothered to vote cast their ballots against the thinly veiled gimmick. Those who did not vote showed their disapproval, or more likely, disbelief, by not even participating.
The state now stares into a $24.5 billion budget hole. As the Governor and the legislature play more political games, California faces the possibility of literally going broke. This is the same California that once had the 6th highest gross domestic product in the world. It is a sad state of affairs.
With yearly budget shortfalls that result in annual program cuts and elected officials who are either inept or worse, there is a growing movement advocating the revision of California’s Constitution to fix the state’s existing structural failings. To make substantive changes to the Constitution, a Constitutional Convention must be convened. That’s where rational thought meets political reality.
The California Constitution specifies a Constitutional Convention be called by a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature and submitting the question to the voters. Making the unlikely assumption that a majority of voters agree that the Constitutional Convention is a good idea, the legislature is then required to provide for the Convention within six months. “Provide for” includes adequate funding for the operation of the Convention. In 1962, the electorate approved the creation of a California Constitution Revision Commission, which worked on a comprehensive revision of the constitution from 1964 to 1976. There is no chance that a legislature that seems genetically incapable of producing a balanced budget would provide adequate funding to overhaul a system that benefits only the existing interests that gain from a continued stalemate.
The structural dysfunction in Sacramento permeates every aspect of governance and will likely preclude any prospect of the State Legislature acting on a Constitutional Convention or any other meaningful reform. Our elected officials appear to have lost the ability to balance the competing interests of this diverse state. Further, given a status quo that benefits only them, there is no motivation for reform, even when faced with the collapse of government.
Returning to the I35W analogy, it is as if the engineers have inspected the bridge and have determined that failure is imminent. The bolts are rusted through, the gussets are loose and the bridge shudders with each passing vehicle. To close the bridge now and make the necessary repairs will cost money and require a difficult detour. To delay will cost many times more. Unfortunately, those with the obligation to fix things are more occupied with what they can obtain from the last few vehicles that will cross the bridge before it fails than they are with doing what it takes to prevent an entirely avoidable disaster.
Since there is no chance that a Constitutional Convention will be convened or funded as stipulated in the State Constitution, the only possibility of repairing this broken system is to circumvent it. Ironically, it is the often-criticized initiative and referendum process included in the state’s unwieldy constitution that is the most likely avenue for reform it.
Already, an organization called Repair California is working to establish a broad-based grass-roots coalition to create what they claim is a workable initiative and Constitutional Convention process. Let’s hope that the damage is not yet irreparable, because the bridge is beginning to collapse and it’s rush hour for California residents.
---------------------------------------------
Tom Murray contributed to this piece. Tom is a member of the San Luis Obispo Local Agency Formation Commission, a Board Member of SLO GreenBuild and has worked with Crotty Consulting Inc. on a range of issues, including public infrastructure and resource conservation.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Hunger can be a positive motivator ...
News Release: Summer Food Service
Press Release | Rep. Davis’ Commentary |
Current economic woes make Summer Food Service Program more important than ever Program provides nutritious meals to young people throughout the state | The implication suggests that during a recession, parents don’t give their children nutritious food. The reverse may be true. During hard times, many families find it even more important to pull together. Families may economize by choosing to not waste hard earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream, or Twinkies. Perhaps some families will buy more beans and chicken and less sweets. |
School’s out, but the need for children to get nutritious meals doesn’t take a summer break. | Is school the only place a child can get a nutritious meal? Parents have good reason to dispute the idea that their children will not receive a nutritious meal if they are not in a government institution. Who should be the one to pass judgment on what defines a nutritious meal? I represent many fine families in District 19 and I am proud of all of them for doing what is best for their children. |
With the current economic downturn, Missouri’s Summer Food Service Program will be needed more than ever this year, state health officials say. | They are using a “crisis” to create an expansion of a government program. Parents naturally love their children and enjoy caring for their children just as much as ever during an economic downturn. Most parents put their children first, even ahead of themselves no matter what. If parents are laid off, that doesn’t mean they stop feeding their children, at least not any of the parents I know. Laid off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat. |
The program, coordinated by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, provides food during the summer for thousands of low-income Missouri children who rely on the school cafeteria for free or reduced-price meals during the regular school year. | This is not a discussion of how to handle the public orphanage. These are children who have parents already providing meals for their children. This program could have an unintended consequence of diminishing parental involvement. Why have meals at home with your loved ones if you can go to the government soup kitchen and get one for free? This could have the effect of breaking apart more families. |
Hundreds of local community organizations throughout the state will offer lunch, as well as breakfast, during the summer months to eligible children. The meals will be served at approximately 700 locations in Missouri, including schools, parks, YMCA facilities, Boys and Girls Clubs, churches and other places where children gather in the summertime. | Who’s buying dinner? Who is getting paid to serve the meal? Churches and other non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer if it is warranted. That is what they did when Louisiana had a hurricane. The estimated expense for all of these “free” meals for 2009 summer months is $9.8 million. The cost of each lunch meal is $3.1825, the cost of each breakfast is $1.8150, and the cost of each supplement is $0.7525. (They call a snack a “supplement”.) (Source: USDA Food and Nutrition Service/ Summer Food Service Program/ Reimbursement Rates for 2009). That money is coming from us. In 2008 this program cost taxpayers ten million dollars. This is also an entitlement program with no cap on how much can be spent. In the early 1900’s the average family paid about $20.00 per person per year for taxes. That left a great deal for our citizens to engage in acts of charity and helping poor neighbors who needed a meal. When churches offer a meal, they can serve the individual with a sense of love and caring for those less fortunate. Government cannot match that. Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another. |
“Children need nutritious food to grow and learn all year long,” said Ann McCormack, chief of the health department’s Bureau of Community Food and Nutrition Assistance. “Thousands of children across Missouri will benefit from the meals provided through the Summer Food Service Program.” | While nobody is disputing the benefits of nutritious food, why the presumption that parents are not providing nutritious food for their children? Even if they are not, who created a new rule that says government must make up for any lack at home? The problem of childhood obesity has been cited as one of the most rapidly growing health problems in America. People who are struggling with lack of food usually do not have an obesity problem. Click here to read about obesity. |
Meals will be served at designated sites to children age 18 and under. Meals also are available to individuals’ age 18 to 21 that are determined by a state or local educational agency to be mentally or physically disabled and who participate during the school year in an established school program for the mentally or physically disabled. | Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals? Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break. |
It really is all about increasing government spending, which means an increase in taxes for us to buy more free lunches and breakfasts. Parents get the same food stamp allotment regardless of how many extra meals are being provided to their children over the summer. This equates to an increase in taxpayer funded food programs.
Parents want to give their children nutritious meals. This is an important part of nurturing their children. We need to give them the benefit of the doubt and not assume most families are pathologically neglectful.
While I have not seen this as a problem in my district, it is entirely possible that this program is designed to address problems that exist in other parts of Missouri. The right way to solve this is with more education. If the problem is that parents do not know how to serve nutritious meals, let’s help them learn how to do that. Additionally, once you start a program, it is virtually impossible to ever stop it. Currently, our public knows how to feed themselves. Once we get this program up and running, if it is ever suspended, I am concerned that people won’t know what to do. If you feed a man a fish, you have fed him for one day. If you teach him how to fish, you have fed him for the rest of his life.
Your thoughts are important to me, so please let me know what you think. You can send me your opinion at cynthia.davis@house.mo.gov.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Don’t Let the State Shut Down On Me
Now that voters resoundingly said "no" to Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to fix California, he has decided to get back at us by slashing $24 billion in program cuts, including the elimination of healthcare for poor children, the elimination of scholarships for poor students to the state's public universities, shutting down 80% of our parks and much more. If the Legislature does not give him what he wants by June 30, he claims that he will simply shut down the state. Perhaps he will also hold his breath until he turns blue.
The Legislature has been reduced to hearing desperate appeals from deserving individuals, groups and organizations. We need healthcare, scholarships, parks and dozens of other vital programs. We realize that there will be cuts, but we should demand that these programs we want be cut less.
Here are a few things the legislature should do immediately to lessen the pain. The Governor will not like them. The out-of-touch, “anti-tax,” Neanderthal Republicans in the Legislature will hate them. Finally, conservative Democrats or, to modify a term from the Republicans, DINOs (Democrats In Name Only), will worry that they may not get re-elected in their right leaning Districts next year.
If most politicians oppose it or are afraid it, it must be a good start on substantive change.
In September 2008 and again in February 2009, the Democratic leadership bought off Republican support for their budget package by offering up tax breaks for certain Republican friendly businesses. These tax breaks allow corporations to share credits with affiliated companies. Next, the corporations were permitted to use losses incurred this year in exchange for rebates on previous year taxes. Finally, multi-state and multinational corporations were allowed to choose which tax formula was applied to them, with the obvious result of reducing most of the taxes the corporations owe in California.
We have near unanimity among the populace and the politicians that we do not want to drill for oil off California’s coast. What some forget is that California has more than a dozen of the United States' largest oil fields, including the Midway-Sunset Oil Field, the second largest oil field in the contiguous United States. However, unlike other oil-producing states, California does not impose an oil extraction fee or tax. Almost all other oil producing states impose some sort of fee or tax on oil extraction, which is then spent on a variety of public services. With oil prices rising rapidly, the state is giving away literally billions of dollars that could pay for any number of public services that other states are using to help weather the economic storm.
The administrative rules that govern the assessment of commercial property in California are archaic. These rules were written for situations that existed before Proposition 13 passed in 1978. They allow companies that own commercial real estate to get around updating property values except under certain, unusual circumstances. Commercial property undervaluation has shifted the burden of property taxes from businesses to homeowners — certainly not what voters had in mind when the voted to enact Proposition 13.
California voters made medicinal marijuana legal in 1996. Today, with a doctor's prescription, Californians are purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars of marijuana for medical purposes. Unfortunately, the state has never gotten around to requiring that sales tax be charged in transactions involving medical marijuana. Other medicines are taxed when sold. Regardless of how one feels about the legality of medicinal marijuana, we should all agree that it is sold and when sold, it should be taxed.
As I have argued previously, the state has a “rainy day” fund of $4.5 billion to be used in an emergency. The Governor and the legislature should agree that the current budget crisis is an emergency and access those reserve funds to help resolve the emergency, save lives and preserve services until the economy gets better or state government begins to get a handle on the crippled budget crisis.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
It’s a Downpour!
When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger argued in favor of multiple statewide ballot propositions on the ballot in May, he often referred to the creation of a “rainy day” fund for times the state needed money due to some unforeseen crisis.
Governor, it’s raining cats and dogs. And, there is a “rainy day” fund.
The ballot argument for Proposition 58 in March 2004 concluded with “… join Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, State Controller Steve Westly, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Taxpayers' Association, and all 80 members of the California State Assembly—both Republicans and Democrats—and support Proposition 58.”
Proposition 58, dubbed the “California Balanced Budget Act," was approved overwhelmingly by 71% of California voters.
The Governor, every member of the state Assembly – both Democrats and Republicans, the state’s Taxpayer Association, other elected officials and voters mandated the creation and implementation of both a mandatory balanced budget as well as a “$8 billion reserve” that “could be used to smooth state spending over the course of an economic cycle” in early 2004.
The state’s independent legislative budget analyst determined that the fiscal impact of the approval and implementation of Proposition 58 could have “a variety of fiscal effects, depending on future budget circumstances and future actions taken by Governors and Legislatures.” For about five years, there has existed a requirement that Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature – both Democrats and Republicans – balance the budget and maintain an $8 billion “rainy day” fund.
Again, according to the ballot argument that the Governor signed, the mandated balanced budget would restrict borrowing money to assure that the state’s credit rating remained strong. However, in March 2009, voters were asked to approve borrowing, among other fiscal tricks, and create a “rainy day” fund that would tide us over in difficult economic times.
It appears that what was supposed to happen in 2004 was recycled by the Governor and the legislature in 2009 to balance a budget that was already required to be balanced. Further, the Governor and the Legislature argued that a “rainy day” reserve fund of about $12 billion be created while an $8 billion reserve was already supposed to be in place.
Of course, it’s no surprise that politicians in Sacramento didn’t do what they were told. However, because the politicians could not agree on a budget for last year and placed the burden of raising taxes and shifting resources onto voters in May, the state is back in the red by more than $24 billion. That means we are back to where we started almost two years ago.
The Proposition 58 mandated balanced budget isn’t balanced and it’s unclear, but appears that the $8 billion “rainy day” fund is only about $4.5 billion. Now, $4.5 billion is nothing to sneeze at, especially when we are looking into the chasm of a $24.3 billion budget gap.
Whether it is $8 billion or $4.5 billion, it’s called a “rainy day” fund for a reason. Although the Governor and the legislature created the crisis and it certainly was foreseeable, it is a crisis nevertheless.
Throw the “rainy day” fund into balancing the budget. Starting at $19.8 billion is a great deal better than $24.3 billion.
In fact, the Governor wants to take about $2 billion away from local governments to fix the hole in the state budget. Allow local governments to keep their $2 billion and state is still $2.5 billion closer to a balanced budget and a budget agreement.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)