Sens. Susan Collins and Joseph I. Lieberman should be proud of brokering the deal to trash the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law that discriminated against gays in the military.
It did not take long for them to disgrace themselves by bullying the people of Washington, D.C., when they threatened to slash school funding if city leaders refuse to revive a school voucher program.
Just another cynical reminder that Congress can impose pet policies on their host city that they cannot do to any other city. The Constitution in Article I, Section 8, authorizes Congress “To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States.”
Washington has been allowed limited self-government since 1973, but is still under the thumb of Congress. D.C. residents have no voting representation in either the House or the Senate and could not even vote for president until 1961. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton represents Washington in the House in an advisory capacity.
Lieberman and Collins convened a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Feb. 16, 2011, when they scolded D.C. politicos in declaring that they are prioritizing the renewal of the voucher program, called the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, The Washington Post reported.
“I think the extra funds that come to D.C….will be in serious jeopardy if the opportunity funding is not in this three-part program of public and charter schools,” said Lieberman, an independent representing Connecticut; he is a former Democrat normally allied with the Democratic party.
Added Collins, a Maine Republican, “I believe unless there is a three-sector approach, the money for D.C. public schools and D.C. charter schools will be in jeopardy.”
Lieberman, who chairs the committee, has joined with Collins to sponsor legislation to revive the voucher program for new enrollees. In the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Speaker John A. Boehner said he is proposing similar legislation which will mean an extra $2.3 million for 2011 and $20 million over the next five years, according to the Post.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s attitude toward this kind of measure was made clear two years earlier during a previous voucher dust-up, as quoted in The Los Angeles Times: “How would the rest of the states feel if we suddenly determined what was going to happen in those states with regard to vouchers, school choice and charter schools?”
At the time, scandal-scarred Republican Sen. John Ensign (both he and Reid are from Nevada) said on behalf of vouchers, “What we are talking about here is kids ahead of the special-interest groups.”
Congress voted to raise spending on D.C. public and charter schools in 2004 as part of a pact to enact a $14 million voucher program allotting $7,500 to families who wish to enroll their children in private school, according to the Post. The White House suspended the program in 2009, but students participating in the program as of 2010 are permitted to retain their yearly vouchers through graduation.
Finally, the House voted in favor of vouchers in D.C. on March 30, 2011, but now must go before the Senate.
Two Washingtonians earlier expressed their fury in the Post. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate for D.C., said during a hearing in the House in February 2011: “The inescapable conclusion is that the Republicans believe they can indulge their personal and ideological preferences with impunity here in the District.”
Marc Osgoode Smith’s letter to the editor was published Feb. 19; he is co-chair of the Local School Advisory Board of the Capitol Hill Cluster School. He wrote, “Sens. Lieberman…and Collins threaten to impose financial penalties on more than 45,000 D.C. Public Schools students over a $14 million political hot potato.
“And perhaps more disturbing, The Post’s editorial board actually endorses this exercise in extortion,” he continued. “Even my fourth-grader and kindergartner would know the inherent unfairness and cynicism of tying their educational aspirations to an issue in which they have neither a stake nor a voice.
“Congress wants vouchers? Why not just appropriate the money to the U.S. Education Department and have it administer the program? It is, after all, a federal initiative. But to threaten education funding for 45,000 children - not to mention a reform effort the senators ostensibly support - over an issue that they themselves have the power to resolve? That’s just childish.”
What’s important is less the merits of school vouchers than the gall of anyone exploiting their power to dictate policy to another jurisdiction. The 600,000 citizens of Washington are Americans like all members of Congress. Of course, many relocated from other communities around the nation.
It stands to reason that the framers of the Constitution simply wanted property they could control to operate a functioning government - not to subjugate Washington residents as England’s King George III subjugated them. There can be little doubt that the framers would have supported adjustments in this arrangement if they knew it would lead to this situation.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Political death and taxes
While teachers and police officers face the loss of their jobs, an alternative exists in various states - tax hikes, especially on the wealthy and business interests.
A number of governors refuse to even entertain the idea or they have reduced business taxes. Some governors, though, have taken steps to raise taxes. Among them, California Gov. Jerry Brown is going about it ever so gingerly.
Republican governors surprise nobody with their aversion to taxes, but New Yorkers have reason to wonder why their new governor, Andrew Cuomo, opposes the extension of the personal income tax surcharge for those who make more than $200,000 each year. The tax, which generates up to $5 billion in revenues, expires at the end of the year.
After all, Cuomo is a liberal Democrat who, like his father, Mario Cuomo, has long been concerned about vulnerable citizens.
The tax alternative demonstrates how political figures are too afraid to place some issues on the table, discuss the pros and cons in a sensible manner and permit their constituents to offer their feedback.
Critics of taxation have presented their positions in such an intimidating manner that many politicians are afraid to challenge them. Why should they be?
Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy is challenging this mindset. He is taking some delicate steps that are sure to be unpopular, but he is acting in a balanced manner. Yes, he has proposed cutting services, but he has also urged raising selected taxes.
He is treating Connecticut’s 3.5 million citizens like grown-ups. They can figure out that no easy way is available, and they should recognize that Malloy is attempting to be fair and evenhanded.
Malloy wants to close his state’s $3.2 billion gap in its $19.7 billion budget by partly reducing $1 billion on state employees and $758 million in state services, according a New York Times editorial.
However, the editorial states: “He is proposing an increase in the personal income tax to 5.5 percent from 5 percent for residents making more than $50,000 a year and to 6.7 percent from 6.5 percent for individuals making more than $500,000 a year.”
The Times put it best in endorsing Malloy’s course of action: “Unlike his neighbors, he recognizes that budgets cannot be balanced fairly in the short term, or at all in the long term, without having new money coming in.”
To partially fill a deficit of up to $15 billion, Illinois’s legislature narrowly voted on Jan. 12, 2011, to raise the personal income tax rate to 5 pecent, from 3 percent, for four years, The Washington Post reported. Corporate income taxes will also increase.
“It’s important for their state government not to be a fiscal basket case,” Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, said to reporters. His office added that the higher taxes are expected to generate $6.5 billion each year. Democrats voted for the tax increases and no Republicans voted for them.
GOP Rep. Roger Eddy said, “We’re saying to the people of Illinois, ’For eight years we’ve overspent, now we’re going to make it your problem.’ We’re making up for our mistakes on your back.”
Brown of California is carefully preparing to seek voter approval for $12 billion in surcharges of sales, personal and vehicle registration taxes to reduce nearly half the state’s $26.6 deficit, according to the New York Times. His first obstacle is to convince two-thirds of the legislature to set a special election on taxes in June 2011, and then persuade voters to approve it. Taxes have historically been a charged issue there.
He is coordinating the campaign with labor groups which have polled citizens and run focus groups that signaled considerable but not intractable opposition to tax hikes. Brown’s aides have studied past strategy for a successful tax referendum and believe it is crucial for the tax question to be seen as having bipartisan backing, the Times reported.
In addition, Democrats intend to tie the surcharges to education and public safety and make the case that this election will balance the budget once for all.
State Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat, told a Times reporter, “Most of the surveys we review say essentially the same thing: If the people believe that this is a fair solution and that it actually has the real possibility of putting the fiscal crisis behind us, that they will support it. People want us to get on with it.”
Republican governors do not see it this way, of course. Chris Christie in New Jersey has at his disposal the chance to impose an increase to the state’s cheap gas tax and revive a tax for millionaires. Scott Walker of Wisconsin created a $137 million deficit by reducing business taxes. Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett refuses to endorse a tax on natural gas drilling, a widespread practice in northern Pennsylvania.
Cuomo’s stand on taxes is maddening, but we can speculate. This was a campaign promise and certainly he fears being attacked if he breaks a campaign promise.
Perhaps he made this promise to avoid handing his opponent an issue that he would need to defend. Yes, a profile in courage.
Now that he is governor, Cuomo must work with a split legislature - an Assembly controlled by Democrats and a Senate run by Republicans. Senate leaders would surely balk at any hint of a tax extension on the rich or an increase. Cuomo has enough difficulty obtaining cooperation from the Senate on most other issues, and he cannot afford another fight.
Final reason: He is a governor. He runs the third largest state in the union. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was once governor of New York. If Barack Obama is elected to a second term, there will be an open vacancy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2016. Cuomo is probably ambitious. People in the heartland, including the swing states, are not typically amenable to tax hikes. Need I spell out where this is leading?
It is a disservice to the public that many politicians fear even being open to the prospect of tax increases. Certainly, taxation has been excessive in many areas, but in other instances a tax increase can be a reasonable alternative.
Even President Obama was willing to revive higher tax rates for the rich, but Republicans in the Senate blocked it last December.
As an unwritten law, this pattern of evading tax talk should be wiped clean from the unwritten slate.
A number of governors refuse to even entertain the idea or they have reduced business taxes. Some governors, though, have taken steps to raise taxes. Among them, California Gov. Jerry Brown is going about it ever so gingerly.
Republican governors surprise nobody with their aversion to taxes, but New Yorkers have reason to wonder why their new governor, Andrew Cuomo, opposes the extension of the personal income tax surcharge for those who make more than $200,000 each year. The tax, which generates up to $5 billion in revenues, expires at the end of the year.
After all, Cuomo is a liberal Democrat who, like his father, Mario Cuomo, has long been concerned about vulnerable citizens.
The tax alternative demonstrates how political figures are too afraid to place some issues on the table, discuss the pros and cons in a sensible manner and permit their constituents to offer their feedback.
Critics of taxation have presented their positions in such an intimidating manner that many politicians are afraid to challenge them. Why should they be?
Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy is challenging this mindset. He is taking some delicate steps that are sure to be unpopular, but he is acting in a balanced manner. Yes, he has proposed cutting services, but he has also urged raising selected taxes.
He is treating Connecticut’s 3.5 million citizens like grown-ups. They can figure out that no easy way is available, and they should recognize that Malloy is attempting to be fair and evenhanded.
Malloy wants to close his state’s $3.2 billion gap in its $19.7 billion budget by partly reducing $1 billion on state employees and $758 million in state services, according a New York Times editorial.
However, the editorial states: “He is proposing an increase in the personal income tax to 5.5 percent from 5 percent for residents making more than $50,000 a year and to 6.7 percent from 6.5 percent for individuals making more than $500,000 a year.”
The Times put it best in endorsing Malloy’s course of action: “Unlike his neighbors, he recognizes that budgets cannot be balanced fairly in the short term, or at all in the long term, without having new money coming in.”
To partially fill a deficit of up to $15 billion, Illinois’s legislature narrowly voted on Jan. 12, 2011, to raise the personal income tax rate to 5 pecent, from 3 percent, for four years, The Washington Post reported. Corporate income taxes will also increase.
“It’s important for their state government not to be a fiscal basket case,” Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, said to reporters. His office added that the higher taxes are expected to generate $6.5 billion each year. Democrats voted for the tax increases and no Republicans voted for them.
GOP Rep. Roger Eddy said, “We’re saying to the people of Illinois, ’For eight years we’ve overspent, now we’re going to make it your problem.’ We’re making up for our mistakes on your back.”
Brown of California is carefully preparing to seek voter approval for $12 billion in surcharges of sales, personal and vehicle registration taxes to reduce nearly half the state’s $26.6 deficit, according to the New York Times. His first obstacle is to convince two-thirds of the legislature to set a special election on taxes in June 2011, and then persuade voters to approve it. Taxes have historically been a charged issue there.
He is coordinating the campaign with labor groups which have polled citizens and run focus groups that signaled considerable but not intractable opposition to tax hikes. Brown’s aides have studied past strategy for a successful tax referendum and believe it is crucial for the tax question to be seen as having bipartisan backing, the Times reported.
In addition, Democrats intend to tie the surcharges to education and public safety and make the case that this election will balance the budget once for all.
State Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat, told a Times reporter, “Most of the surveys we review say essentially the same thing: If the people believe that this is a fair solution and that it actually has the real possibility of putting the fiscal crisis behind us, that they will support it. People want us to get on with it.”
Republican governors do not see it this way, of course. Chris Christie in New Jersey has at his disposal the chance to impose an increase to the state’s cheap gas tax and revive a tax for millionaires. Scott Walker of Wisconsin created a $137 million deficit by reducing business taxes. Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett refuses to endorse a tax on natural gas drilling, a widespread practice in northern Pennsylvania.
Cuomo’s stand on taxes is maddening, but we can speculate. This was a campaign promise and certainly he fears being attacked if he breaks a campaign promise.
Perhaps he made this promise to avoid handing his opponent an issue that he would need to defend. Yes, a profile in courage.
Now that he is governor, Cuomo must work with a split legislature - an Assembly controlled by Democrats and a Senate run by Republicans. Senate leaders would surely balk at any hint of a tax extension on the rich or an increase. Cuomo has enough difficulty obtaining cooperation from the Senate on most other issues, and he cannot afford another fight.
Final reason: He is a governor. He runs the third largest state in the union. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was once governor of New York. If Barack Obama is elected to a second term, there will be an open vacancy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2016. Cuomo is probably ambitious. People in the heartland, including the swing states, are not typically amenable to tax hikes. Need I spell out where this is leading?
It is a disservice to the public that many politicians fear even being open to the prospect of tax increases. Certainly, taxation has been excessive in many areas, but in other instances a tax increase can be a reasonable alternative.
Even President Obama was willing to revive higher tax rates for the rich, but Republicans in the Senate blocked it last December.
As an unwritten law, this pattern of evading tax talk should be wiped clean from the unwritten slate.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
A tsunami of lunacy
‘The nation is in an historic fiscal crisis, and it is imperative that the Congress roll back spending in virtually every area - including NOAA - so that we can help our economy (get) back on track’
- Jennifer Hing, GOP congressional spokeswoman
If a tsunami smashes Hawaii or California without adequate warning, there may be no economy left in these states that are readily recognized as vital economic engines.
So let’s be clear: A tsunami can snuff out thousands of lives, wreck cities or worse and trigger nuclear plant disasters. To revive the economy, a majority of the House of Representatives - now under Republican control - slashed $126 million during February 2011 from the National Weather Service, the agency which operates the Pacific Tsunami Warming Center in Hawaii, which in turn issued warnings minutes after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami which decimated much of Japan.
Makes perfect sense…to a gang of imbeciles.
Now we know that the tea partiers are insane. They ignore safety concerns as they persist in their mission of eliminating $61 billion in expenses. The House passed a bill slashing $61 billion, but the Democratic-controlled Senate has so far ignored the legislation.
A union representative, quoted by the Associated Press, said the proposal could lead to furloughs and rolling closures of weather service offices, which could impair the center’s ability to issue warnings comparable to those issued on March 11. “People could die,” said Barry Hirshorn, Pacific region chairman of the National Weather Service Employees Organization.
The weather service cuts are part of $454 million in reductions for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Both of Hawaii’s senators and a House member, all Democrats, asserted the need for the warning system, AP reported.
“This disaster displays the need to keep the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center fully funded and operational,” said Sen. Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I hope my Republican colleagues in the House are now aware that there was a horrific earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific.”
Sen. Daniel Akaka added, “The warning center provided critical information to public safety officials for an effective response to the tsunami. The House-passed bill that attempts to slash the warning center’s budget is shortsighted and puts our nation’s security at risk.”
Hing, spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, insisted that House members understand that critical lifesaving and safety programs are maintained, according to AP. She said that funds for a network of buoys to detect tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean will be retained.
She added that Republican leaders will cooperate with the White House and NOAA officials “to ensure that vital programs such as these receive adequate funding.”
It would be devastating if Hawaii and California were struck by a tsunami without an opportunity to minimize the damage. Hawaii is a tourist mecca and California is our largest state, the home of countless, innovative industries.
One would think the Republicans would be anxious to preserve that part of our economy.
- Jennifer Hing, GOP congressional spokeswoman
If a tsunami smashes Hawaii or California without adequate warning, there may be no economy left in these states that are readily recognized as vital economic engines.
So let’s be clear: A tsunami can snuff out thousands of lives, wreck cities or worse and trigger nuclear plant disasters. To revive the economy, a majority of the House of Representatives - now under Republican control - slashed $126 million during February 2011 from the National Weather Service, the agency which operates the Pacific Tsunami Warming Center in Hawaii, which in turn issued warnings minutes after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami which decimated much of Japan.
Makes perfect sense…to a gang of imbeciles.
Now we know that the tea partiers are insane. They ignore safety concerns as they persist in their mission of eliminating $61 billion in expenses. The House passed a bill slashing $61 billion, but the Democratic-controlled Senate has so far ignored the legislation.
A union representative, quoted by the Associated Press, said the proposal could lead to furloughs and rolling closures of weather service offices, which could impair the center’s ability to issue warnings comparable to those issued on March 11. “People could die,” said Barry Hirshorn, Pacific region chairman of the National Weather Service Employees Organization.
The weather service cuts are part of $454 million in reductions for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Both of Hawaii’s senators and a House member, all Democrats, asserted the need for the warning system, AP reported.
“This disaster displays the need to keep the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center fully funded and operational,” said Sen. Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I hope my Republican colleagues in the House are now aware that there was a horrific earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific.”
Sen. Daniel Akaka added, “The warning center provided critical information to public safety officials for an effective response to the tsunami. The House-passed bill that attempts to slash the warning center’s budget is shortsighted and puts our nation’s security at risk.”
Hing, spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, insisted that House members understand that critical lifesaving and safety programs are maintained, according to AP. She said that funds for a network of buoys to detect tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean will be retained.
She added that Republican leaders will cooperate with the White House and NOAA officials “to ensure that vital programs such as these receive adequate funding.”
It would be devastating if Hawaii and California were struck by a tsunami without an opportunity to minimize the damage. Hawaii is a tourist mecca and California is our largest state, the home of countless, innovative industries.
One would think the Republicans would be anxious to preserve that part of our economy.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Violating laws they swear to uphold
‘We highly doubt a Dane County judge has the authority to tell the Legislature how to carry out its constitutional duty’
- Joint statement from Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald
That’s funny. A Dane County judge did just that. Obviously, Ma Fitzgerald failed to teach her boys (they’re brothers) to accurately interpret events.
This was one of two recent instances in which elected officeholders in Florida and Wisconsin - who take an oath to uphold the law - had no qualms about violating the law.
The Wisconsin flap, the better known of the two episodes, focused on how the Republican-controlled Senate provided two hours notice before meeting on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, to vote for the infamous bill to cripple union bargaining rights. The Assembly approved the bill on Thursday and GOP Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law on Friday.
Dane County District Attorney Ismail Ozanne subsequently filed a lawsuit alleging that a special legislative committee meeting to amend its anti-collective bargaining bill was held without providing 24 hours notice, a violation of the state open meetings law, according to the Associated Press. Madison, the state capital, is located in Dane County.
Attorneys for the state claimed that under Senate rules notice posted on a bulletin board two hours prior to the committee session was adequate,
Dane County District Judge Maryann Sumi did not buy the state’s argument and on Friday, March 18, proceeded “to tell the Legislature how to carry out its constitutional duty.”
She ruled in favor of a temporary restraining order, saying, as quoted in The New York Times, “It’s (openness) not a minor detail. We here in Wisconsin own our government.”
The Fitzgeralds said the state will appeal Sumi’s order, adding, “We fully expect an appeals court will find that the Legislature followed the law perfectly and likely find that today’s ruling was a significant overreach,” according to AP.
Republicans still have the alternative of undergoing the process again by providing 24 hours notice.
Southward, Gov. Rick Scott irked fellow Florida Republicans by going his own way on some issues. Scott may have violated the law by selling two state jets without legislative permission, which violates the state constitution, the Times reports.
Scott could well have experience violating the law. He headed Columbia/HCA, the nation’s largest hospital chain. An FBI’s inquiry resulted in $1.7 billion in criminal and civil penalties for Medicare fraud. He resigned in the middle of this in 1997.
Scott sold the jets because he uses his own plane and wanted to conclude the sale quickly, the Times reported.
The sale of the jets sounds as if Scott acted in a good cause, to save Florida money. However, he still should have followed the law.
Wisconsin’s Republican senators were not acting in a good cause. They sought to severely limit collective bargaining and proceeded in a manner to limit public participation.
Of course, many political figures have broken the law in far more blatant ways. Both Democrats and Republicans have been prosecuted for bribery and related crimes. Both Obama and the most recent President Bush undertook military actions against foreign countries where they were not authorized by Congress to do so. The military under Bush bombed Syria near the Iraq border and under Obama attacked Pakistan. Richard Nixon was pardoned by Gerald Ford without ever being charged with a crime.
They all set a horrible example for the rest of us when they skirt the law. In Florida and Wisconsin, should we anticipate worse from them?
- Joint statement from Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald
That’s funny. A Dane County judge did just that. Obviously, Ma Fitzgerald failed to teach her boys (they’re brothers) to accurately interpret events.
This was one of two recent instances in which elected officeholders in Florida and Wisconsin - who take an oath to uphold the law - had no qualms about violating the law.
The Wisconsin flap, the better known of the two episodes, focused on how the Republican-controlled Senate provided two hours notice before meeting on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, to vote for the infamous bill to cripple union bargaining rights. The Assembly approved the bill on Thursday and GOP Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law on Friday.
Dane County District Attorney Ismail Ozanne subsequently filed a lawsuit alleging that a special legislative committee meeting to amend its anti-collective bargaining bill was held without providing 24 hours notice, a violation of the state open meetings law, according to the Associated Press. Madison, the state capital, is located in Dane County.
Attorneys for the state claimed that under Senate rules notice posted on a bulletin board two hours prior to the committee session was adequate,
Dane County District Judge Maryann Sumi did not buy the state’s argument and on Friday, March 18, proceeded “to tell the Legislature how to carry out its constitutional duty.”
She ruled in favor of a temporary restraining order, saying, as quoted in The New York Times, “It’s (openness) not a minor detail. We here in Wisconsin own our government.”
The Fitzgeralds said the state will appeal Sumi’s order, adding, “We fully expect an appeals court will find that the Legislature followed the law perfectly and likely find that today’s ruling was a significant overreach,” according to AP.
Republicans still have the alternative of undergoing the process again by providing 24 hours notice.
Southward, Gov. Rick Scott irked fellow Florida Republicans by going his own way on some issues. Scott may have violated the law by selling two state jets without legislative permission, which violates the state constitution, the Times reports.
Scott could well have experience violating the law. He headed Columbia/HCA, the nation’s largest hospital chain. An FBI’s inquiry resulted in $1.7 billion in criminal and civil penalties for Medicare fraud. He resigned in the middle of this in 1997.
Scott sold the jets because he uses his own plane and wanted to conclude the sale quickly, the Times reported.
The sale of the jets sounds as if Scott acted in a good cause, to save Florida money. However, he still should have followed the law.
Wisconsin’s Republican senators were not acting in a good cause. They sought to severely limit collective bargaining and proceeded in a manner to limit public participation.
Of course, many political figures have broken the law in far more blatant ways. Both Democrats and Republicans have been prosecuted for bribery and related crimes. Both Obama and the most recent President Bush undertook military actions against foreign countries where they were not authorized by Congress to do so. The military under Bush bombed Syria near the Iraq border and under Obama attacked Pakistan. Richard Nixon was pardoned by Gerald Ford without ever being charged with a crime.
They all set a horrible example for the rest of us when they skirt the law. In Florida and Wisconsin, should we anticipate worse from them?
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Pa. budget
‘If government is here to share the taxpayer’s wealth then everyone needs to share in the sacrifice’
- Tom Corbett, governor of Pennsylvania, March 8, from Philadelphia Inquirer
‘Too many of the sacrifices are weighted toward people on the lowest end of the economic scale or the middle class’
- Daylin Leach, state senator, March 8, from Inquirer
The tea party tsunami finally struck Pennsylvania. I live less than two miles from the state line, which means my closest choice to relocate is New Jersey, Chris Christie’s state.
“Everyone” who must sacrifice covers Pennsylvania’s public schoolchildren, college students and their parents and America’s favorite new scapegoat…drum roll, please…all of the state’s public school teachers. The Philadelphia Daily News March 9 cover headline said it all: “We’re getting drilled.”
Between the two governors, what a race to the bottom.
“I wonder if Gov. Corbett’s announcement of cuts to education is really a method to reduce the intelligence level of Pennsylvania voters in order to assure Republicans’ reelection,” wrote David Plasket of suburban Willow Grove in a letter published by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Plasket’s words carry more irony than he may realize. Corbett spent a year as a public-school teacher before entering law school and Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley has extensive education credentials. In their campaign Web site, Cawley touted his work as a Bucks County commissioner to expand Bucks County Community College “by opening a Lower Bucks Campus and expanding the Upper Bucks Campus.” He was also a member of a local school board, in Bristol Township, and was a trustee at the county college and a trustee at Temple University, from which he graduated.
Temple is one of four state-related related universities and 14 state-owned universities that will collectively lose $625 million - half their subsidies - under the $27.3 billion budget Corbett proposed on March 8 to reduce the state‘s $4 billion deficit, according to the Inquirer.
Corbett also proposed slashing $1 billion from public school subsidies from the current $8.9 billion school budget which is bound to bring about tax hikes, elimination of programs and/or teacher layoffs in school districts throughout Pennsylvania. The governor also plans to eliminate 1,500 state jobs, 500 through layoffs; cut optional Medicaid benefits to the poor and $150 million in Medicaid benefits to hospitals; and urges school boards to freeze teacher salaries.
In a move comparable to his fellow Republican governor in Wisconsin, Scott Walker, The Daily News reported that Corbett seeks to revive business-tax cuts and refuses to resort to taxes or fees on natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale upstate by companies which make hundreds of millions of dollars. These companies are required to pay levies in 14 other states.
The News’ John Baer pointed out that Corbett - “in a remarkable coincidence” - received $835,720 from oil-and-natural gas interests when he ran for governor in 2010.
“We will grow as an economy, as a commonwealth, as a people,” Corbett declared in his budget address. “If you tax less, people will see the point in earning more. If you regulate more sensibly, businesses will be able to maneuver in the turns of tight economics.”
Philadelphians like myself are about to personally experience a drastic example of how state government starves the city that feeds it. Philadelphia supplies 10 percent of the state sales tax revenues to the state. Philadelphia and its four suburban counties comprise 31 percent of the population. The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metropolitan areas together comprise just about half the state’s population of 12.6 million, yet they will be hardest hit.
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh each could probably be self-sufficient, especially if combined with their suburbs, should they separate from Pennsylvania. How would central Pennsylvanians, the Republicans’ most dependable voters, keep state government from collapsing in the event of secession?
Philadelphia schools are expected to lose $100 million, or 10 percent of the public schools reduction. Two of Pennsylvania’s largest universities stand to lose excessive amounts, Temple University in Philadelphia and the University of Pittsburgh. Two of Penn State University’s campuses are located in Philadelphia’s suburbs and Lincoln University is in Chester County outside Philadelphia. State College, population 38,000, will take a comparable hit as home to Penn State’s main campus.
In a March 12 letter to the Inquirer, the heads of four affected universities wrote, “Gov. Corbett said repeatedly in his budget address that job creation is the key to turning around Pennsylvania’s economy…Temple, Penn State, Pitt and Lincoln University not only provide high-quality, affordable education for 150,000 Pennsylvanians, they are economic engines for our state.
“Together, our institutions employ more than 68,000 people, with a combined annual annual economic impact of $30 billion. Cutting funding by more than 50 percent, as Corbett proposes, will wreak havoc on these numbers. If building Pennsylvania is all about jobs, then our schools are worth the commonwealth’s investment.”
“I hate to see state government using public education as a whipping post,” said Superintendent Lawrence Mussoline of the Downingtown Area School District in Chester County, as quoted in the Inquirer.
“I feel like the trust of the citizens will be broken,” added Upper Darby Superintendent Louis DeVlieger, whose district would lose $3 million in state aid, bringing its deficit up to $12 million. “We’re either going to drive them out of town with the tax increases, which we’re not going to do, or to drive them out of town by not offering the programs they’ve been accustomed to.”
The budget will not be final until after the House of Representatives and the Senate review it and take a vote, and their response promises to be helpful to Corbett. Republicans control both chambers.
To pile it on, Rep. Scott W. Boyd of Lancaster, a Republican, introduced a bill that would allow teacher layoffs to eliminate deficits and be based on merit, not seniority, the Inquirer reported. Teacher unions get radioactive over proposals to ignore seniority when terminating teachers.
Corbett and other Republicans plan to introduce school vouchers, which will drain more state money from the public schools.
In an analysis published in the News, Ben Waxman accused Corbett of “three big lies” - only three? - in the proposed budget. He first challenged the governor’s claim that overspending is the cause of the deficit. “The state budget deficit wasn’t caused by extravagant spending; it was caused by a sudden drop in revenues due to the national recession,” he wrote. “The programs he’s cutting might not be luxuries after all.”
He identified the second lie as misuse of federal stimulus funds. “The governor believes spending the one-time funds on operating expenses was a gimmick that undermined the state’s fiscal stability,” he wrote. “Pennsylvania spent stimulus funds exactly how it was supposed to. The direct relief to states was meant to provide a temporary cushion for government coffers hurt by lagging tax revenue.”
Corbett falsely contends that the $186 million hike for state prisons “is due to criminals, not poor policy,” Waxman writes. “Pennsylvania’s prison population has grown by 500 percent since 1980 despite few changes in crime patterns. According to the state Commission on Sentencing, a bipartisan panel created by the legislature, the huge jump is due mostly to mandatory sentences for petty drug crimes. Throwing the book at minor offenders is a policy choice made by state lawmakers.”
Beyond Waxman’s analysis, Corbett states: “This budget sorts the must-haves from the nice-to-haves.”
“Hospital care is a must-have, not a nice-to-have, for all Pennsylvanians, retorted Carolyn F. Scanlan, president and chief executive of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania in the Inquirer.
Scanlon was griping about Corbett’s plan to cut Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals by $150 million. Advocates contend that this will lead to the loss of $183 million in federal matching funds.
The governor says of taxes: “The people paying them - the sales clerks and millwrights, the farmers, the moms and pops who run the corner stores - ask them if a tax hike ever seems modest…”
Do these millwrights, farmers, etc. own stock in the gas-drilling corporations? Critics have only urged taxing the corporations drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale.
State Sen. Daylin Leach, a Democrat representing portions of Montgomery County outside Philadelphia, told the Inquirer, “He talked about how we all have to make sacrifices, but then he excluded whole sections of the population. What sacrifice does an energy executive make? What sacrifice does someone making $1 million a year have to make?”
“The big winners are corporations with out-of-state addresses,” added Eric Epstein, who founded the activist group Rock the Capital, according to the Inquirer.
Corbett is at his most disingenuous when he exploits California Gov. Jerry Brown’s response to his state’s massive deficit: “Even in California, Gov. Jerry Brown proposed to cut take-home pay for state employees by 8 to 10 percent. His own words were: ‘We have no choice,’ and that California must ‘return to fiscal responsibility and get our state on the road to economic recovery and job growth.’ It’s no different here.”
My governor neglects to mention that Brown is also organizing an initiative to raise taxes as one means of closing California’s funding gap.
- Tom Corbett, governor of Pennsylvania, March 8, from Philadelphia Inquirer
‘Too many of the sacrifices are weighted toward people on the lowest end of the economic scale or the middle class’
- Daylin Leach, state senator, March 8, from Inquirer
The tea party tsunami finally struck Pennsylvania. I live less than two miles from the state line, which means my closest choice to relocate is New Jersey, Chris Christie’s state.
“Everyone” who must sacrifice covers Pennsylvania’s public schoolchildren, college students and their parents and America’s favorite new scapegoat…drum roll, please…all of the state’s public school teachers. The Philadelphia Daily News March 9 cover headline said it all: “We’re getting drilled.”
Between the two governors, what a race to the bottom.
“I wonder if Gov. Corbett’s announcement of cuts to education is really a method to reduce the intelligence level of Pennsylvania voters in order to assure Republicans’ reelection,” wrote David Plasket of suburban Willow Grove in a letter published by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Plasket’s words carry more irony than he may realize. Corbett spent a year as a public-school teacher before entering law school and Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley has extensive education credentials. In their campaign Web site, Cawley touted his work as a Bucks County commissioner to expand Bucks County Community College “by opening a Lower Bucks Campus and expanding the Upper Bucks Campus.” He was also a member of a local school board, in Bristol Township, and was a trustee at the county college and a trustee at Temple University, from which he graduated.
Temple is one of four state-related related universities and 14 state-owned universities that will collectively lose $625 million - half their subsidies - under the $27.3 billion budget Corbett proposed on March 8 to reduce the state‘s $4 billion deficit, according to the Inquirer.
Corbett also proposed slashing $1 billion from public school subsidies from the current $8.9 billion school budget which is bound to bring about tax hikes, elimination of programs and/or teacher layoffs in school districts throughout Pennsylvania. The governor also plans to eliminate 1,500 state jobs, 500 through layoffs; cut optional Medicaid benefits to the poor and $150 million in Medicaid benefits to hospitals; and urges school boards to freeze teacher salaries.
In a move comparable to his fellow Republican governor in Wisconsin, Scott Walker, The Daily News reported that Corbett seeks to revive business-tax cuts and refuses to resort to taxes or fees on natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale upstate by companies which make hundreds of millions of dollars. These companies are required to pay levies in 14 other states.
The News’ John Baer pointed out that Corbett - “in a remarkable coincidence” - received $835,720 from oil-and-natural gas interests when he ran for governor in 2010.
“We will grow as an economy, as a commonwealth, as a people,” Corbett declared in his budget address. “If you tax less, people will see the point in earning more. If you regulate more sensibly, businesses will be able to maneuver in the turns of tight economics.”
Philadelphians like myself are about to personally experience a drastic example of how state government starves the city that feeds it. Philadelphia supplies 10 percent of the state sales tax revenues to the state. Philadelphia and its four suburban counties comprise 31 percent of the population. The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metropolitan areas together comprise just about half the state’s population of 12.6 million, yet they will be hardest hit.
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh each could probably be self-sufficient, especially if combined with their suburbs, should they separate from Pennsylvania. How would central Pennsylvanians, the Republicans’ most dependable voters, keep state government from collapsing in the event of secession?
Philadelphia schools are expected to lose $100 million, or 10 percent of the public schools reduction. Two of Pennsylvania’s largest universities stand to lose excessive amounts, Temple University in Philadelphia and the University of Pittsburgh. Two of Penn State University’s campuses are located in Philadelphia’s suburbs and Lincoln University is in Chester County outside Philadelphia. State College, population 38,000, will take a comparable hit as home to Penn State’s main campus.
In a March 12 letter to the Inquirer, the heads of four affected universities wrote, “Gov. Corbett said repeatedly in his budget address that job creation is the key to turning around Pennsylvania’s economy…Temple, Penn State, Pitt and Lincoln University not only provide high-quality, affordable education for 150,000 Pennsylvanians, they are economic engines for our state.
“Together, our institutions employ more than 68,000 people, with a combined annual annual economic impact of $30 billion. Cutting funding by more than 50 percent, as Corbett proposes, will wreak havoc on these numbers. If building Pennsylvania is all about jobs, then our schools are worth the commonwealth’s investment.”
“I hate to see state government using public education as a whipping post,” said Superintendent Lawrence Mussoline of the Downingtown Area School District in Chester County, as quoted in the Inquirer.
“I feel like the trust of the citizens will be broken,” added Upper Darby Superintendent Louis DeVlieger, whose district would lose $3 million in state aid, bringing its deficit up to $12 million. “We’re either going to drive them out of town with the tax increases, which we’re not going to do, or to drive them out of town by not offering the programs they’ve been accustomed to.”
The budget will not be final until after the House of Representatives and the Senate review it and take a vote, and their response promises to be helpful to Corbett. Republicans control both chambers.
To pile it on, Rep. Scott W. Boyd of Lancaster, a Republican, introduced a bill that would allow teacher layoffs to eliminate deficits and be based on merit, not seniority, the Inquirer reported. Teacher unions get radioactive over proposals to ignore seniority when terminating teachers.
Corbett and other Republicans plan to introduce school vouchers, which will drain more state money from the public schools.
In an analysis published in the News, Ben Waxman accused Corbett of “three big lies” - only three? - in the proposed budget. He first challenged the governor’s claim that overspending is the cause of the deficit. “The state budget deficit wasn’t caused by extravagant spending; it was caused by a sudden drop in revenues due to the national recession,” he wrote. “The programs he’s cutting might not be luxuries after all.”
He identified the second lie as misuse of federal stimulus funds. “The governor believes spending the one-time funds on operating expenses was a gimmick that undermined the state’s fiscal stability,” he wrote. “Pennsylvania spent stimulus funds exactly how it was supposed to. The direct relief to states was meant to provide a temporary cushion for government coffers hurt by lagging tax revenue.”
Corbett falsely contends that the $186 million hike for state prisons “is due to criminals, not poor policy,” Waxman writes. “Pennsylvania’s prison population has grown by 500 percent since 1980 despite few changes in crime patterns. According to the state Commission on Sentencing, a bipartisan panel created by the legislature, the huge jump is due mostly to mandatory sentences for petty drug crimes. Throwing the book at minor offenders is a policy choice made by state lawmakers.”
Beyond Waxman’s analysis, Corbett states: “This budget sorts the must-haves from the nice-to-haves.”
“Hospital care is a must-have, not a nice-to-have, for all Pennsylvanians, retorted Carolyn F. Scanlan, president and chief executive of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania in the Inquirer.
Scanlon was griping about Corbett’s plan to cut Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals by $150 million. Advocates contend that this will lead to the loss of $183 million in federal matching funds.
The governor says of taxes: “The people paying them - the sales clerks and millwrights, the farmers, the moms and pops who run the corner stores - ask them if a tax hike ever seems modest…”
Do these millwrights, farmers, etc. own stock in the gas-drilling corporations? Critics have only urged taxing the corporations drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale.
State Sen. Daylin Leach, a Democrat representing portions of Montgomery County outside Philadelphia, told the Inquirer, “He talked about how we all have to make sacrifices, but then he excluded whole sections of the population. What sacrifice does an energy executive make? What sacrifice does someone making $1 million a year have to make?”
“The big winners are corporations with out-of-state addresses,” added Eric Epstein, who founded the activist group Rock the Capital, according to the Inquirer.
Corbett is at his most disingenuous when he exploits California Gov. Jerry Brown’s response to his state’s massive deficit: “Even in California, Gov. Jerry Brown proposed to cut take-home pay for state employees by 8 to 10 percent. His own words were: ‘We have no choice,’ and that California must ‘return to fiscal responsibility and get our state on the road to economic recovery and job growth.’ It’s no different here.”
My governor neglects to mention that Brown is also organizing an initiative to raise taxes as one means of closing California’s funding gap.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Amend the amendment process
Many women would no doubt agree that Harry Burn, as a member of the male species, was good for something.
Burn singlehandedly gave women the right to vote. As a legislator in Tennessee, Burn had been voting against suffrage for women when the 19th Amendment came before that state’s Senate and House of Representatives for a ratification vote. On Aug. 18, 1920, the 24-year-old Burn recognized that his anti-suffrage vote in the House would keep it tied 48-48. He decided to obey his mom, who had urged him to support the right of women to vote.
Tennessee was almost the final hope for suffragists. Eight state legislatures had already voted down ratification, and the governors of Vermont and Connecticut - which have since elected female governors - would not even authorize a vote in their respective legislatures. Tennessee’s legislature was the last of 36 states to ratify the 19th Amendment, which became law on Aug. 26. All American women were allowed to vote in the 1920 presidential election.
The 72-year struggle to grant women the right to vote is a fascinating story, which makes one wonder if there could have been an easier way. James Wilson, the first delegate to the Constitutional Convention to speak publicly in favor of the Constitution, assured fellow Pennsylvanians at the State House on Oct. 6, 1787, that serious problems with the Constitution can be resolved later through the amendment process, according to Professor Pauline Maier’s book, “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788.”
Wilson did not seem to mention that the framers of the Constitution prohibited a simple majority of members of Congress, the people or the states from amending the Constitution. They raised the bar so high that the most reasonable measures could be rejected. Article V requires the approval of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states to enact an amendment.
Article V reads in full: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and forth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”
Defenders of the Constitution in its current form - counting the 27 amendments - would contend that this uphill process ensures that only worthy amendments will become the law of the land. It also ensures that the will of the majority is thwarted and that minorities can be denied basic rights.
Any proposed amendment, no matter how beneficial, can easily be blocked on the basis of parochial interests by one-third plus one of members of the House or the Senate or, if it gets past Congress, stopped short in one-fourth plus one of the state legislatures.
It is ironic that women in America traditionally outnumber men yet could not vote until 1920.
A New York Times account dated June 5, 1919, reported that women have clamored for the right to vote since the American Revolution. The Seneca Falls, N.Y., women’s rights convention in 1848 was the first major suffrage demonstration.
Movement leader Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 when she made a test vote at the polls and was arrested. She refused to pay her fine, but was never jailed.
Anthony drafted the proposed federal amendment in 1878 and a California senator introduced the amendment in the Senate.
The amendment reads: “Section 1 - The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex; Section 2 - Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.”
The Times account adds: “In 1878 the vote was 16 yeas to 34 nays; in 1914 it failed by 11 votes, in 1918 it failed by two votes, and on Feb. 10, 1919, it failed by one vote. It has been voted on three times in the House. It failed there in 1915 by 78 votes. In 1918 it passed the House with one vote to spare. On May 21, 1919, it passed the House with 14 votes more than the necessary two-thirds.”
The Times story continues, “Foreign countries or divisons of countries in which women have suffrage are: Isle of Man, granted 1881; New Zealand, 1893; Australia, 1902; Finland, 1906; Norway, 1907; Iceland, 1913; Denmark, 1915; Russia, 1917; Canada, Austria, England, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Scotland and Wales, 1918; Holland and Sweden, 1919.”
The final drive to achieve congressional support paralleled Woodrow Wilson’s administration. When Wilson was inaugurated president in 1913, Alice Paul from Mt. Laurel, N.J., led a march of 8,000 participants in Washington. Through the years before Congress finally acted, Paul and the National Women’s Party picketed the White House, staged large suffrage marches and demonstrations, and spent time in jail, wrote Jone Johnson Lewis in About.com/Women’s History.
“A family legend is that my grandmother was one of a number of women who chained themselves to a courthouse door in Minneapolis during this period,” Johnson wrote.
Johnson recounted that the work of women who were employed in factories to support America’s role in World War I inspired the President Wilson to finally endorse the women’s right to vote. He said in a Sept. 18, 1918, speech: “We have made partners of the women in this war. Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and to a partnership of right?”
So finally the showdown arrived in Tennessee as both supporters and opponents lobbied the legislature. The Senate passed the amendment and in the House it all boiled down to Harry Burn, then 24 years old. He broke the tie in favor of the amendment after his mother, Febb Ensminger Burn, sent him a telegram, which read in part: “Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage!“
In a biographical sketch, Brown was quoted to say years after the vote: “I had always believed that women had an inherent right to vote. It was a logical attitude from my standpoint. My mother was a college woman, a student of national and international affairs who took an interest in all public issues. She could not vote. Yet the tenant farmers on our farm, some of whom were illiterate, could vote. On that roll call, confronted with the fact that I was going to go on record for time and eternity on the merits of the question, I had to vote for ratification.”
Johnson recalled that Charlotte Woodward was the only woman who attended the convention of 1848 who was alive in 1920 when she was finally eligible to vote, but evidently she was too ill to go out to vote.
Had the amendment process been simpler…
Burn singlehandedly gave women the right to vote. As a legislator in Tennessee, Burn had been voting against suffrage for women when the 19th Amendment came before that state’s Senate and House of Representatives for a ratification vote. On Aug. 18, 1920, the 24-year-old Burn recognized that his anti-suffrage vote in the House would keep it tied 48-48. He decided to obey his mom, who had urged him to support the right of women to vote.
Tennessee was almost the final hope for suffragists. Eight state legislatures had already voted down ratification, and the governors of Vermont and Connecticut - which have since elected female governors - would not even authorize a vote in their respective legislatures. Tennessee’s legislature was the last of 36 states to ratify the 19th Amendment, which became law on Aug. 26. All American women were allowed to vote in the 1920 presidential election.
The 72-year struggle to grant women the right to vote is a fascinating story, which makes one wonder if there could have been an easier way. James Wilson, the first delegate to the Constitutional Convention to speak publicly in favor of the Constitution, assured fellow Pennsylvanians at the State House on Oct. 6, 1787, that serious problems with the Constitution can be resolved later through the amendment process, according to Professor Pauline Maier’s book, “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788.”
Wilson did not seem to mention that the framers of the Constitution prohibited a simple majority of members of Congress, the people or the states from amending the Constitution. They raised the bar so high that the most reasonable measures could be rejected. Article V requires the approval of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states to enact an amendment.
Article V reads in full: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and forth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”
Defenders of the Constitution in its current form - counting the 27 amendments - would contend that this uphill process ensures that only worthy amendments will become the law of the land. It also ensures that the will of the majority is thwarted and that minorities can be denied basic rights.
Any proposed amendment, no matter how beneficial, can easily be blocked on the basis of parochial interests by one-third plus one of members of the House or the Senate or, if it gets past Congress, stopped short in one-fourth plus one of the state legislatures.
It is ironic that women in America traditionally outnumber men yet could not vote until 1920.
A New York Times account dated June 5, 1919, reported that women have clamored for the right to vote since the American Revolution. The Seneca Falls, N.Y., women’s rights convention in 1848 was the first major suffrage demonstration.
Movement leader Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 when she made a test vote at the polls and was arrested. She refused to pay her fine, but was never jailed.
Anthony drafted the proposed federal amendment in 1878 and a California senator introduced the amendment in the Senate.
The amendment reads: “Section 1 - The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex; Section 2 - Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.”
The Times account adds: “In 1878 the vote was 16 yeas to 34 nays; in 1914 it failed by 11 votes, in 1918 it failed by two votes, and on Feb. 10, 1919, it failed by one vote. It has been voted on three times in the House. It failed there in 1915 by 78 votes. In 1918 it passed the House with one vote to spare. On May 21, 1919, it passed the House with 14 votes more than the necessary two-thirds.”
The Times story continues, “Foreign countries or divisons of countries in which women have suffrage are: Isle of Man, granted 1881; New Zealand, 1893; Australia, 1902; Finland, 1906; Norway, 1907; Iceland, 1913; Denmark, 1915; Russia, 1917; Canada, Austria, England, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Scotland and Wales, 1918; Holland and Sweden, 1919.”
The final drive to achieve congressional support paralleled Woodrow Wilson’s administration. When Wilson was inaugurated president in 1913, Alice Paul from Mt. Laurel, N.J., led a march of 8,000 participants in Washington. Through the years before Congress finally acted, Paul and the National Women’s Party picketed the White House, staged large suffrage marches and demonstrations, and spent time in jail, wrote Jone Johnson Lewis in About.com/Women’s History.
“A family legend is that my grandmother was one of a number of women who chained themselves to a courthouse door in Minneapolis during this period,” Johnson wrote.
Johnson recounted that the work of women who were employed in factories to support America’s role in World War I inspired the President Wilson to finally endorse the women’s right to vote. He said in a Sept. 18, 1918, speech: “We have made partners of the women in this war. Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and to a partnership of right?”
So finally the showdown arrived in Tennessee as both supporters and opponents lobbied the legislature. The Senate passed the amendment and in the House it all boiled down to Harry Burn, then 24 years old. He broke the tie in favor of the amendment after his mother, Febb Ensminger Burn, sent him a telegram, which read in part: “Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage!“
In a biographical sketch, Brown was quoted to say years after the vote: “I had always believed that women had an inherent right to vote. It was a logical attitude from my standpoint. My mother was a college woman, a student of national and international affairs who took an interest in all public issues. She could not vote. Yet the tenant farmers on our farm, some of whom were illiterate, could vote. On that roll call, confronted with the fact that I was going to go on record for time and eternity on the merits of the question, I had to vote for ratification.”
Johnson recalled that Charlotte Woodward was the only woman who attended the convention of 1848 who was alive in 1920 when she was finally eligible to vote, but evidently she was too ill to go out to vote.
Had the amendment process been simpler…
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Virginia's turn to lose federal largess
Philadelphia, recognized as America’s premier city in 1787, served a countless number of historic roles during our first quarter-century when Virginia’s Fairfax County was just farmland.
Congress met in the easternmost meeting room of Independence Hall from 1790 until 1800, when our nation’s capital was moved to Washington, D.C., creating an entirely new metropolitan area.
Fairfax County’s population was 13,000 then, but after two centuries 1 million people now live there and is ranked as the nation’s second richest county in a Forbes magazine survey.
Fairfax owes its wealth to Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles and other populous communities which plow their tax revenues into the federal treasury.
The federal government has built facilities in northern Virginia, most notably the Pentagon. Two heavily traversed airports are located in northern Virginia and thousands of federal employees live there.
Now Fairfax County and Virginia generally are threatened by the Department of Defense’s planned slashing of private military contractors and shutdown of a base in Norfolk.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last August 2011 proposed three years of 10 percent cuts to military contracting.
Virginia received $35 billion in defense contracts that provided 530,000 contracting and associated jobs in fiscal 2008; 70 percent of that money went to northern Virginia, said Stephen Fuller, director of the Center of Regional Analysis at George Mason University, according to The Washington Post.
A heavy proportion of those contracting firms are located in Fairfax County. I recall visiting Tysons Corner more than two decades ago, which was a heavily congested area. With growing development in northern Virginia since then, imagine what it must be like now.
“Virginia is more vulnerable to this kind of policy shift than any other state,” Fuller said. “Defense spending was our strength during the downturn. It kept unemployment lower here than in most other states. It kept the economy from crashing as far as other states’. It’s also our Achilles’ heel.
“It’s (contractor cuts) going to disproportionately affect Northern Virginia,” he added.
Sharon Bulova, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors told the Post that Gates’ decision “would definitely have an impact…I wouldn’t say this would halt our recovery, but it’s not going to help.”
Gates has also proposed disbanding the U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, which employs 2,800 military and civilian personnel along with 3,300 contractors, most in southeastern Virginia.
Virginia politicians of both parties have been up in arms over these planned cuts, but is the federal government obligated to maintain these contracts and the installations for the sake of Virginia’s economy?
The government felt no obligation when it closed down the country’s first naval shipyard in 1995, taking 7,000 jobs with it. The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard originated at Front Street along the Delaware River in 1776 and later moved downriver to the edge of South Philadelphia. The shipyard and other military installations in and around Norfolk went untouched.
Philadelphia’s Frankford Arsenal, where small-arms ammunition was designed and developed, closed in 1977.
Philadelphia and other populous communities and states have not only bolstered northern Virginia and the Norfolk area but other states. Some states, particularly northeastern and West Coast states, provide more money to the federal government than they get back in return.
The Public Policy Institute of New York, Inc. prepared a chart that catalogues these numbers state by state from 2001. It was specifically aimed at comparing New York state with the other 49. California paid $264 billion and got $206 billion back, creating a $58 billion deficit, and New York paid $166 billion while receiving $127 billion, the deficit being $39.6 billion.
As states adjacent to Washington, Virginia saw a nearly 50 percent surplus in 2001, spending $52.8 billion and receiving $74.8 billion, and Maryland paid nearly $42 billion while getting back almost $51 billion.
Pennsylvania came out ahead $1.8 billion after spending $83 billion. Except for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, much of Pennsylvania’s population is scattered over a massive area consisting of small cities and rural areas.
Most states that significantly benefit are the smaller ones, especially in the South and the West. Alaska, ranked 47th in population, received $2.4 billion above its $4.2 billion output to the feds, and Kentucky - represented in the Senate by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and tea partier Rand Paul - drew $6.7 billion above its tax expenditures $20.5 billion.
The institute issued a statement with the chart which reads: “The federal government’s tax revenues in each state are heavily influenced by the relative wealth of the state. Because New York is relatively wealthier than most other states, it sends proportionately more tax dollars to Washington than almost any other state. Some federal spending programs, such as Medicaid, are also influenced by the relative wealth of states.”
A similar study was conducted each year by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to address, as a press release from 2000 states, “the ongoing concern about whether states receive a ‘fair share’ of federal spending or pay more than their ‘fair share’ in taxes.
“From a national perspective, the Kennedy School researchers find significant differences in the way the federal budget affects individual states. Most striking is that the 10 states with the largest deficits have remained virtually unchanged for the past eight years.
“These 10 states, all but two of which are in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions, had a combined outflow of about $93 billion in FY 1999 - up from $87 billion in FY 1998. Connecticut once again had the distinction of having the largest deficit in the nation, nearly $2,800 per person.
“The states with large surpluses are less concentrated than the states with large deficits, but there is a noticeable geographic pattern toward the south. New Mexico led the nation with a per capita surplus of nearly $4,000, and a total of 10 states had surpluses that exceeded $2,000 per person.”
Soon, Virginians will be dealt an unluckier hand than that to which they have been accustomed.
Congress met in the easternmost meeting room of Independence Hall from 1790 until 1800, when our nation’s capital was moved to Washington, D.C., creating an entirely new metropolitan area.
Fairfax County’s population was 13,000 then, but after two centuries 1 million people now live there and is ranked as the nation’s second richest county in a Forbes magazine survey.
Fairfax owes its wealth to Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles and other populous communities which plow their tax revenues into the federal treasury.
The federal government has built facilities in northern Virginia, most notably the Pentagon. Two heavily traversed airports are located in northern Virginia and thousands of federal employees live there.
Now Fairfax County and Virginia generally are threatened by the Department of Defense’s planned slashing of private military contractors and shutdown of a base in Norfolk.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last August 2011 proposed three years of 10 percent cuts to military contracting.
Virginia received $35 billion in defense contracts that provided 530,000 contracting and associated jobs in fiscal 2008; 70 percent of that money went to northern Virginia, said Stephen Fuller, director of the Center of Regional Analysis at George Mason University, according to The Washington Post.
A heavy proportion of those contracting firms are located in Fairfax County. I recall visiting Tysons Corner more than two decades ago, which was a heavily congested area. With growing development in northern Virginia since then, imagine what it must be like now.
“Virginia is more vulnerable to this kind of policy shift than any other state,” Fuller said. “Defense spending was our strength during the downturn. It kept unemployment lower here than in most other states. It kept the economy from crashing as far as other states’. It’s also our Achilles’ heel.
“It’s (contractor cuts) going to disproportionately affect Northern Virginia,” he added.
Sharon Bulova, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors told the Post that Gates’ decision “would definitely have an impact…I wouldn’t say this would halt our recovery, but it’s not going to help.”
Gates has also proposed disbanding the U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, which employs 2,800 military and civilian personnel along with 3,300 contractors, most in southeastern Virginia.
Virginia politicians of both parties have been up in arms over these planned cuts, but is the federal government obligated to maintain these contracts and the installations for the sake of Virginia’s economy?
The government felt no obligation when it closed down the country’s first naval shipyard in 1995, taking 7,000 jobs with it. The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard originated at Front Street along the Delaware River in 1776 and later moved downriver to the edge of South Philadelphia. The shipyard and other military installations in and around Norfolk went untouched.
Philadelphia’s Frankford Arsenal, where small-arms ammunition was designed and developed, closed in 1977.
Philadelphia and other populous communities and states have not only bolstered northern Virginia and the Norfolk area but other states. Some states, particularly northeastern and West Coast states, provide more money to the federal government than they get back in return.
The Public Policy Institute of New York, Inc. prepared a chart that catalogues these numbers state by state from 2001. It was specifically aimed at comparing New York state with the other 49. California paid $264 billion and got $206 billion back, creating a $58 billion deficit, and New York paid $166 billion while receiving $127 billion, the deficit being $39.6 billion.
As states adjacent to Washington, Virginia saw a nearly 50 percent surplus in 2001, spending $52.8 billion and receiving $74.8 billion, and Maryland paid nearly $42 billion while getting back almost $51 billion.
Pennsylvania came out ahead $1.8 billion after spending $83 billion. Except for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, much of Pennsylvania’s population is scattered over a massive area consisting of small cities and rural areas.
Most states that significantly benefit are the smaller ones, especially in the South and the West. Alaska, ranked 47th in population, received $2.4 billion above its $4.2 billion output to the feds, and Kentucky - represented in the Senate by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and tea partier Rand Paul - drew $6.7 billion above its tax expenditures $20.5 billion.
The institute issued a statement with the chart which reads: “The federal government’s tax revenues in each state are heavily influenced by the relative wealth of the state. Because New York is relatively wealthier than most other states, it sends proportionately more tax dollars to Washington than almost any other state. Some federal spending programs, such as Medicaid, are also influenced by the relative wealth of states.”
A similar study was conducted each year by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to address, as a press release from 2000 states, “the ongoing concern about whether states receive a ‘fair share’ of federal spending or pay more than their ‘fair share’ in taxes.
“From a national perspective, the Kennedy School researchers find significant differences in the way the federal budget affects individual states. Most striking is that the 10 states with the largest deficits have remained virtually unchanged for the past eight years.
“These 10 states, all but two of which are in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions, had a combined outflow of about $93 billion in FY 1999 - up from $87 billion in FY 1998. Connecticut once again had the distinction of having the largest deficit in the nation, nearly $2,800 per person.
“The states with large surpluses are less concentrated than the states with large deficits, but there is a noticeable geographic pattern toward the south. New Mexico led the nation with a per capita surplus of nearly $4,000, and a total of 10 states had surpluses that exceeded $2,000 per person.”
Soon, Virginians will be dealt an unluckier hand than that to which they have been accustomed.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Military missteps on DADT, sexual abuse
Someone proclaimed that the military is no democracy. It only defends democracy.
The military must operate in a strict, disciplined manner to succeed in its mission, but it can follow our basic laws. In one situation, the military has repeatedly violated the Constitution at a heavy cost of skills and money by forcing out 3,660 service members because of their sexual orientation, and violated fundamental criminal laws by facilitating sexual abuse of more than a dozen current and former service members.
A federal class-action lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, Feb. 15, by military veterans and active-duty service members who accuse the Department of Defense of permitting a military culture that fails to prevent rape and sexual assault or respond properly to allegations of sexual abuse, according to The New York Times. Two men and 15 women who brought the suit are seeking monetary damages and changes in the military’s judicial system regarding these issues.
The suit claims that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, “ran institutions in which perpetrators were promoted and where military personnel openly mocked and flouted the modest Congressionally mandated institutional reforms,” adding that they failed “to take reasonable steps to prevent plaintiffs from being repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted and sexually harassed by federal military personnel.”
Plaintiffs recounted one rape case in Iraq and another in Korea.
Former Army Sgt. Myla Haider said at a Feb. 15 news conference: “It is an atmosphere of zero accountability in leadership, period…Soldiers in general who make any type of complaint in the military are subject to retaliation and have no means of defending themselves.”
Anvradha Bhagwati, a former Marine captain and executive director of the Service Women’s Action Center, urged that the new system to upgrade accountability and provide other means for filing complaints.
One element is fundamental. Rape or any form of sexual assault is a serious crime, punishable by long prison terms. Anyone in a position of authority who refuses to investigate an accusation or even protects the alleged abuser has also committed a crime.
Probably what should be done if a crime of sexual assault is alleged to have occurred on a stateside military base is refer the case to the local civilian prosecutor. Outside the United States, whether in Germany or Iraq, the alleged perpetrator could be flown back to the states and turned over to the local prosecutor in the county where their home base is located.
Nearly as shameful was the military’s drive to expel homosexuals from its ranks. The military was so aggressive that it spent $193.3 million to replace 3,660 troops under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law from fiscal 2004 to 2009, according to a federal audit reported in The Washington Post.
These figures are contained in a report released on Jan. 20, 2011, by the Government Accountability Office that was requested by Rep. Susan Davis, a California Democrat, who last year chaired a House Armed Services panel on military personnel. She backed elimination of the law.
“Clearly this was the right thing to do,” said Davis in a statement. “No longer will American taxpayers continue to pay to throw out patriotic service members who want only to serve their country.”
This was understatement even for a decent, well-intentioned public servant. Disgraceful more aptly describes this activity.
Simultaneously, the very government that speaks for us violated the constitutional rights of 3,660 Americans and wasted $193.3 million of our tax revenues.
Where is it written that an American citizen cannot serve in the military because of their sexual orientation? They have every right to do so as long as they adhere to the rules and perform their duties to the best of their abilities.
I thought of how costly this must be a few years ago when I read about service members at a foreign-language school in Monterey, Calif., being discharged from the service. Bear in mind that we were paying for their education up to this point.
The GAO reported that recruiting and training replacement troops cost $185 million and administrative expenses amounted to $7.7 million. Each separation cost an average of $52,800.
The study noted that 39 percent of the discharged troops held infantry or security roles or had important foreign-language skills.
The Post article points out that the $193.3 million “is a fraction of the Pentagon’s more than $600 billion annual budget.”
That $193.3 million could plug many a city or school district deficit.
The military must operate in a strict, disciplined manner to succeed in its mission, but it can follow our basic laws. In one situation, the military has repeatedly violated the Constitution at a heavy cost of skills and money by forcing out 3,660 service members because of their sexual orientation, and violated fundamental criminal laws by facilitating sexual abuse of more than a dozen current and former service members.
A federal class-action lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, Feb. 15, by military veterans and active-duty service members who accuse the Department of Defense of permitting a military culture that fails to prevent rape and sexual assault or respond properly to allegations of sexual abuse, according to The New York Times. Two men and 15 women who brought the suit are seeking monetary damages and changes in the military’s judicial system regarding these issues.
The suit claims that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, “ran institutions in which perpetrators were promoted and where military personnel openly mocked and flouted the modest Congressionally mandated institutional reforms,” adding that they failed “to take reasonable steps to prevent plaintiffs from being repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted and sexually harassed by federal military personnel.”
Plaintiffs recounted one rape case in Iraq and another in Korea.
Former Army Sgt. Myla Haider said at a Feb. 15 news conference: “It is an atmosphere of zero accountability in leadership, period…Soldiers in general who make any type of complaint in the military are subject to retaliation and have no means of defending themselves.”
Anvradha Bhagwati, a former Marine captain and executive director of the Service Women’s Action Center, urged that the new system to upgrade accountability and provide other means for filing complaints.
One element is fundamental. Rape or any form of sexual assault is a serious crime, punishable by long prison terms. Anyone in a position of authority who refuses to investigate an accusation or even protects the alleged abuser has also committed a crime.
Probably what should be done if a crime of sexual assault is alleged to have occurred on a stateside military base is refer the case to the local civilian prosecutor. Outside the United States, whether in Germany or Iraq, the alleged perpetrator could be flown back to the states and turned over to the local prosecutor in the county where their home base is located.
Nearly as shameful was the military’s drive to expel homosexuals from its ranks. The military was so aggressive that it spent $193.3 million to replace 3,660 troops under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law from fiscal 2004 to 2009, according to a federal audit reported in The Washington Post.
These figures are contained in a report released on Jan. 20, 2011, by the Government Accountability Office that was requested by Rep. Susan Davis, a California Democrat, who last year chaired a House Armed Services panel on military personnel. She backed elimination of the law.
“Clearly this was the right thing to do,” said Davis in a statement. “No longer will American taxpayers continue to pay to throw out patriotic service members who want only to serve their country.”
This was understatement even for a decent, well-intentioned public servant. Disgraceful more aptly describes this activity.
Simultaneously, the very government that speaks for us violated the constitutional rights of 3,660 Americans and wasted $193.3 million of our tax revenues.
Where is it written that an American citizen cannot serve in the military because of their sexual orientation? They have every right to do so as long as they adhere to the rules and perform their duties to the best of their abilities.
I thought of how costly this must be a few years ago when I read about service members at a foreign-language school in Monterey, Calif., being discharged from the service. Bear in mind that we were paying for their education up to this point.
The GAO reported that recruiting and training replacement troops cost $185 million and administrative expenses amounted to $7.7 million. Each separation cost an average of $52,800.
The study noted that 39 percent of the discharged troops held infantry or security roles or had important foreign-language skills.
The Post article points out that the $193.3 million “is a fraction of the Pentagon’s more than $600 billion annual budget.”
That $193.3 million could plug many a city or school district deficit.
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