Voting on the Word of God

My husband and I attended a “Straight for Equality” event sponsored by PFLAG yesterday. PFLAG–for those who don’t know the acronym–stands for Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays; the organization has 350+ chapters in the US and abroad.  “Straight for Equality” is an advocacy campaign the national organization has just launched.

The President of the national board this year is one Rabbi Horowitz, who actually was the assistant Rabbi at Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation back in the 1970s. He was an entertaining speaker, if a bit long-winded (a common “clerical error”). As he made his pitch for taking the “Straight for Equality” campaign into faith communities, he said something that struck me as both totally new and–upon reflection–self-evidently true.

He said the word of God is subject to vote.

Think about it: The way congregations read their holy books is inescapably influenced by the culture the congregants inhabit. It wasn’t so long ago that most Christian denominations read the bible to require racial segregation and the subordination of women. Some still do, but the vast majority no longer interpret the text in that way. The culture changed, and so did religious people’s understanding of God’s commandments.

When I was researching God and Country, my book about the unrecognized religious roots of contemporary policy preferences, I quickly recognized that even our most fundamentalist contemporary Christians, those who insist the bible is the literal word of God and thus unchanging (God presumably also handled the various translations), hold beliefs that would be shocking heresies to fundamentalists who lived 100 years ago.

We are all creatures of our times. We share the sensibilities of our cultures no matter how stubbornly we resist, and we bring those sensibilities to our interpretations of religious texts.

When enough members of a congregation recognize both the humanity of gay people and the justice of their claim to equality, those members’ attitudes–their “votes”– change doctrine. We’ve seen plenty of examples, as one denomination after another reinterprets rules that previously kept gays from being ordained or married. That process will inevitably continue, no matter how hysterically some try to fight it.

I had always thought of this as the process of social change. The Rabbi calls it “voting on God’s word.”

However we think about it, it reflects the reality that we humans create gods in our own image–which is a good reason to get serious about self-improvement.

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Different Worlds

One of my husband’s favorite stories about his college years concerns a wealthy fraternity brother who, upon learning of the pregnancy of another  member’s wife, congratulated him and asked him whether the happy couple had hired a governess yet.

A couple of days ago, Mitt Romney spoke to a group of college students worried about student loan interest rates. Among other bits of advice, he encouraged those of an entrepreneurial bent to take the plunge and start businesses. How? “Borrow the capital from your parents at a favorable interest rate.”

And while they are at it, perhaps they can borrow a bit extra to pay the governess…

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Allen and Joe

After he called members of Congress’ Progressive Caucus “Communists,” several commentators compared Congressman Allen West to Joe McCarthy.

It’s a bad comparison.

McCarthy’s charges were dishonest at best, paranoid at worst, and he did a lot of damage to a lot of of people and to the country as a whole. But give him credit for one thing–he did know what a communist was.

West, on the other hand, is a loon and an embarrassment even by the standards of today’s Tea Party GOP. (Google him if you are unfamiliar with his delusional worldview.) I doubt he could define “communist” if his life depended on it. His latest paranoid rant is worth mentioning only because it is a slightly exaggerated example of a much more common–and worrisome–aspect of what passes for political discourse these days.

Increasingly, Americans use words as epithets, rather than to communicate ideas. Terms like “liberal” “evangelical” “socialist” “fascist” and the like are thrown around by people who clearly have no idea what those labels mean. The result is that we no longer have arguments between people who hold different points of view, we have tantrums. As a colleague of mine noted a few months ago, after one  disheartening episode of political pique, when a serious legislator suggests a course of action, he won’t be countered with reasons why that proposal is flawed, but with the functional equivalent of “you’re a poopy-head!”

In a sane world, people like Allen West would be medicated, not elected to Congress.

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The Bullies’ Pulpit

A few statistics:
  • 9 out of 10 LGBT students experience harassment at school, and LGBT teens are bullied 2 to 3 times as much as straight teens.
  • More than 1/3 of LGBT kids have attempted suicide.
  • LGBT kids are 4 times as likely to attempt suicide than are their straight peers.
  • For every lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth who is bullied, four straight students who are perceived to be gay or lesbian are bullied.

Despite statistics like these, and despite a spate of recent headlines about episodes where tormenting behaviors have pushed GLBT youth to suicide, the Indiana General Assembly has refused to pass the sort of anti-bullying legislation that is law elsewhere; our intrepid legislators have expressed concern that anti-bullying measures might infringe the “free speech rights” of the students who disapprove of classmates they perceive to be gay. That such disapproval tends to take the form of persistent physical and verbal abuse evidently does not merit equivalent concern.

If you are a gay teen in Indianapolis, and you are coming to terms with your sexuality in an environment that not only doesn’t protect you, but does protect the bullies who make your life miserable, you don’t have a lot of options. If your parents aren’t accepting, your situation is even worse. Most of us remember how hard it was just being a teenager, let alone a teenager facing mocking, marginalization and other evidence of social disapproval.

The Indiana Youth Group has been a godsend to so many of those teens. It has provided a “safe place”–an environment in which troubled and/or angry and/or depressed young people can get counseling, make friends, and feel valued.  The 15-year-old girl who was cutting herself because the physical pain made the psychic pain easier to bear; the 13-year boy who was already raiding the family’s liquor cabinet in an effort to blot out classmates taunts; the self-destructive 16-year old boy who rarely spoke–as well as less damaged children who simply yearned for a non-judgmental environment–find their way to IYG. For twenty-five years, the organization has been a safe haven for children who are hurting as a result of thoughtless cruelty and intentional homophobia.

Our Indiana legislators couldn’t find it in their hearts to pass a law that would protect these vulnerable children against bullying in our schools. They also couldn’t find time in their busy legislative schedules to address a number of important issues facing the state. But at least twenty of them managed to find the time to do a little bullying of their own.

Their mean-spirited effort to pass a law that would keep IYG from participating in the State’s specialty license plate program failed–due largely to a grass-roots outcry joined by news media around the state. But these lawmakers weren’t willing to let the matter die. They wrote to the Department of Motor Vehicles, claiming that IYG and two other organizations had “breached their contracts” by giving a small number of plates to donors–a practice that was evidently fairly widespread, and a “breach” that legislators and the BMV had previously ignored.

When you are a state agency, and you get a letter signed by twenty of the people who control your funding, you listen. So IYG’s participation in the specialty plate program has been suspended, and the bullies in the General Assembly have achieved by stealth what they couldn’t manage in the light of day.

It’s worth considering what it is that they have achieved.

Their “victory” has kept license plates with the legend “IYG” off the road.  In their fevered imaginations, such plates would have signaled “acceptance” of the existence and equal civil status of gay people, and thus hastened the decline of Western Civilization As We’ve Known It.

Their “victory” has also kept IYG from participating in a fundraising program, proceeds of which would have supported a staff position. Fewer hurting children will be served if they can’t replace those funds. (But they are gay hurting children, so they don’t matter.)

Studies show that bullies have a quite distinctive mental make-up—what psychiatrists call a hostile attributional bias, a kind of paranoia characterized by attributing hostile intentions to others. The trouble is, bullies perceive provocation where it does not exist. (Think of the persistent accusations from homophobes about the nefarious “gay agenda” or their more recent insistence that groups like IYG are “targeting” children.) Those imaginary provocations are used to justify their aggressive behavior. Bullies pick on people and act aggressively because they process social information inaccurately. Unfortunately, real people get hurt in the process.

If there is one thing we have learned from this distasteful, embarrassing display it is that we’ve elected at least twenty bullies to the Indiana General Assembly. No wonder they wouldn’t pass anti-bullying legislation.

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Privatization, Local Edition

I was recently asked to speak to a study committee of the local League of Women Voters about privatization on the local level.

As I told them, a fair amount of my academic research has focused on privatization–or more accurately, contracting out. Privatization, as Morton Marcus frequently notes, is what Margaret Thatcher did in England: she sold off government-owned enterprises to private sector owners. An example closer to home is Washington State’s decision to auction off its state-run liquor stores, which will be privatized on June 1st. In the US, however, when we use the term privatization, we usually mean the practice of contracting with for-profit and non-profit organizations to provide government services-–a very different thing. In the examples from England and Washington State, an enterprise has become private, and is no longer a concern of government; when we’re talking about contracting-out, however, government retains responsibility for providing the service.

In other words, a service that government is obligated to provide or has decided to provide continues to be paid for with tax dollars, and government remains responsible for ensuring that the work is being done in a manner that’s consistent with the Constitution, the terms of the contract, and (ideally, at least) the public interest.

My research has convinced me of three things: 1) while contracting may be appropriate under some circumstances, it is not the panacea that so many politicians seem to think. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t.  2) the cost savings that are touted by privatization advocates are largely mythical, the result of omitting what it costs government to manage these contracts–or the even greater costs of failing to manage them. And 3) far from shrinking the size of government, as proponents seem to believe, contracting actually expands both the size and scope of government, while at the same time making that expansion less visible and government less accountable.

Recent studies confirm those conclusions.

A few months ago, the Government Accounting Office released the results of its investigation of contracting costs. It found that contracting was often more costly than providing the same services in-house. And I think it is particularly interesting that, during a debate over a proposed federal contracting rule, the number of federal contract workers–people working full-time for the federal government as contract workers rather than federal employees–was estimated at approximately 7.1 million. That’s in contrast to the full-time civilian federal workforce of 2.1 million.  The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 43% of all employees who do the government’s work are employed not by a government agency, but by contractors. (It further estimates that 20% of that 43% are paid “poverty wages.”)

When you add the “shadow” employees who are working under contract for state and local governments, estimates of the total number of contracted government employees run as high as 17 million. It’s impossible to know for certain, because there is very little data available that would allow government agencies to monitor the number of contract workers, and considerable resistance from the business community to the Obama administration’s recent efforts to collect and analyze such information.

The bottom line here is NOT that government should never contract out for services. Contracting is a tool, and like any tool it can be used appropriately or inappropriately.  This is not an “either-or” issue—it’s a “when” and “how” issue.

In my classes, I tell students that there are important “preliminary questions” policymakers need to address before the decision to contract out is made.

  • Is this something government should do at all? Or is the intended activity one that is better left to the private or nonprofit sector? (If we are talking about air quality, I think government needs to do it; if it’s golf courses, I can make case pro or con; if it’s football stadiums, “Houston, I have a problem…”)
  • If the answer to that first question is yes, this is a service government should provide, the next question is: should government provide the service through its own employees, or through a third-party surrogate? Again, there’s a big difference between hiring a company to fill chuckholes and letting a private contractor decide who is eligible for a welfare check.
  • Finally, if the decision is made to contract out, does the responsible government agency have the capacity to adequately structure the contract, ensure that it protects taxpayers, and to vet, monitor and manage the contractor?

As with so many other issues, the devil is in the details. How something is done is every bit as important as whether it is done.

The academic literature documents three major problems associated with contracting. The first is political: contracting can easily become a form of patronage—one variety of what some call “crony capitalism.”  The second is the lack of transparency and accountability that I alluded to earlier. Both have been real problems with the parking meter deal. And the third, which has been the subject of a great deal of research and concern by nonprofit scholars, is the “hollowing out” of both government and the not-for-profit organizations that are such an important part of civil society–a troubling reduction of institutional memory and capacity.

Okay—enough of that brief romp through the background of the issue. Let’s look at how those concerns play out in four local examples: the parking meter giveaway (my characterization probably gives you a clue to my assessment of the merits of THAT deal); the Water Company sale; the Toll Road “lease” (please note air quotes); and the Welfare Intake contract.

First, the one that absolutely fries me—the parking meter deal.

In one of his campaign debates with Melina Kennedy (no relation!) Mayor Ballard defended his record in part by pointing with pride to the privatization of parking meters. As I blogged at the time, “Excuse me? Let’s deconstruct that. We are supposed to re-elect Ballard in gratitude for his decision to give away control of our parking infrastructure and over 60% of the fees we would otherwise earn for the next fifty years?”

Finances aside, the ability of the city to control its meters may seem inconsequential. It isn’t. My husband spent six years as the Director of Metropolitan Development, and he will tell you that decisions about parking and parking lane management are a significant element in all sorts of development decisions; for one, the ability to “bag” meters without penalty during downtown construction is a cost-control measure important to developers and others. It has been estimated that the city’s deal–which requires compensating ACS when more than a certain number of meters are bagged–added over a million dollars to the costs of the Cultural Trail. And most of the trail had already been built. Furthermore, until now, the City has never entered into any agreement for so long a period—for good reason. Think about what Indianapolis looked like just 20 years ago, let alone 50. It is impossible to know what our civic needs will be in 2070.

Then there’s the issue of money. When many of us protested the decision to contract away the lion’s share of parking revenues that would otherwise flow to the city, we were told that we needed the “expertise” of ACS–that the city couldn’t finance and manage its meters without the help of a sophisticated mega-corporation. (Evidently, the disastrous experiences of cities like Chicago that had entered into similar deals were considered irrelevant.) I never understood why we could not bond for the new meter technology, and keep the parking revenues for ourselves. With all due respect, managing meters is not rocket science.

The Ballard Administration begged to differ. Ballard insisted that it was necessary to trade away city control over our parking infrastructure and the lion’s share of the money those meters will generate for the next fifty years in order to get competent, experienced management. I thought then that was a bad deal, and a recent article in the Indianapolis Star is evidence that it may be a worse deal than I originally thought: according to the Star, the city’s share of parking revenue generated in 2011 was just under $1.4 million, or 30 percent—considerably less than the City’s original projection of $2.1 million. (And that original projection was what led many of us to conclude that it was a bad deal.) Worse, the city didn’t end up seeing even that amount, because the vendor subtracted $286,000 to compensate for times the city bagged metered spaces, often for RebuildIndy road construction work.

I always thought this was bad policy and a bad business deal, but I did assume the private vendor would at least provide competent management. Evidently, I was naive.

Last semester, in my Media and Policy class, a student raised the issue of how poorly local media had covered the administration’s privatization of both the water company and parking meters. That led another student to complain that she had received a ticket despite having fed the meter the proper amount–and was helpless to prove her payment since the “state of the art” meters don’t dispense receipts.

It turned out that–out of the 23 students in class–no fewer than 8 of them had experienced similar problems. Several had attempted to complain–complaints that, as one put it, were “blown off.” One student who had paid with a credit card was told the only way she could get a refund was to bring in her Visa bill. Another reported that her credit card was charged twice; when she tried to get the improper extra charge removed, the response was “how do we know you didn’t park twice?” Subsequent to that classroom discussion, local blogger Paul Ogden has reported having a similar experience. His comment was telling; as he said, “I’m sure these problems will keep the city from renewing the contract when it terminates—in 2070!” Point taken: among other assets, we also contracted away accountability.

Until the most recent story, the local press had pretty uncritically repeated the administration’s claim that the parking meters are “netting” additional revenues since they were privatized.  For example, an IBJ story repeated a City claim that total revenue from meter operations had grown over the same quarter the previous year. According to the administration spokespersons quoted in that story, the city’s share of parking revenue totaled $498,273, compared with $108,265 from meter operations from March through June a year ago—a whopping 360-percent increase. Pretty good, right?

As the more recent Star article reported, those numbers weren’t quite the whole story, but even if they had proved accurate, the spin was very misleading, because it ignored a couple of rather inconvenient facts. (1) the hours of required meter use were increased from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM every night and ACS added a day to the week (it used to be Mon.-Fri., now it is Mon-Sat.); and (2) the hourly rates were increased in Broad Ripple and most of downtown.  These changes would have generated substantially more revenue whether it was ACS or the City that had increased hours and raised rates–and if we hadn’t privatized the meters, the City would be able to keep all of the increased revenues after making a relatively modest investment in new meter technology. Instead, we get 30%, less deduction for bagged meters.

There’s lots more I could say about the parking meter deal—and the none-too-savory reputation of the contractor, ACS—a company that seems very well connected politically. But let me just conclude the parking discussion with what I consider the most egregious part of this particular deal: the vote to approve it.

Leading up to the required City-County Council vote, there was a very intense debate about the merits and terms of that agreement, the unusual length of the lease, the bona fides of ACS as the chosen vendor, and the wisdom of handing over control of the City’s curb lanes to a private contractor. Ultimately, the Council approved the lease by a single vote. The transaction would have failed had the Council President—a lawyer employed by the same firm that represents ACS—recused himself.

Several local legal blogs pointed out that this vote constituted a clear conflict of interest and certainly appeared to be in violation of the applicable Canons of Legal Ethics. The mainstream media ignored it. I found it appalling.

Let’s move on to consider two other local privatization initiatives: the water company and the Toll road. I’m discussing them together, because in my view, at least, they shared an important element of many of these deals: they were motivated by a lack of political will, and what we were really outsourcing was the taxing power.

Let me begin by saying that the fact of the water company sale, which included the sewer system, made a lot of sense. It consolidated management of three utilities, and Citizens Gas is a public trust with the management expertise to run it. There is no compelling policy reason that a city needs to own and operate a utility, and the Water Company was struggling to pay the bonds issued when the Peterson Administration bought it for what critics said then was an inflated price. Furthermore, substantial outlays will be required to bring the water and sewer systems up to basic environmental and safety standards after decades of deferred maintenance, and the Environmental Protection Agency will insist that those repairs be done.

So the real question wasn’t why the city would unload it; it was why Citizens—or any other buyer—would pay a billion-plus dollars for two utilities that—according to the City’s own numbers—were somewhere between four and five billion in the hole.

The simple answer—and my objection to the way this transaction was structured–is that a buyer can “monetize the income stream.” In plain English, that means that Citizens wasn’t buying a bunch of fixed, decaying capital assets. It was buying the right to charge—and increase—water and sewer rates. The right to tax.

Had the city kept the Water Company, it would have had to increase rates. But doing so would incur the wrath of citizens who have made it quite clear that they resent paying for even essential city services. Governor Daniels had showed the way with the sale of the toll road. By selling or “leasing” an asset rather than paying to maintain it, a Mayor or Governor achieves two goals: an immediate infusion of cash, and plausible deniability when rates or tolls go up. In the case of the water company, the city was able to pave streets without raising local property taxes—by shifting the costs to utility ratepayers. That’s smoke and mirrors, and it blurs accountability and transparency. In the case of the Toll Road, Indiana lawmakers who lacked the guts to raise tolls essentially sold a public asset to a private company so that they wouldn’t have to make unpopular decisions. And just as with the parking meters, had the state issued bonds and paid them off out of higher tolls, the public would have kept more of the money.

As I’ve said, there is a copious literature about the pitfalls of privatization. What is curiously lacking in that literature is recognition that in too many situations—like the water company and toll road examples–what we are really outsourcing is a quintessentially governmental power—the taxing power.

Then there’s the state’s failed effort to privatize the welfare intake process. This is precisely the sort of governmental responsibility that should NOT be outsourced. When governments are dealing with vulnerable populations, when the task at hand requires familiarity with federal regulations and the complexities of state and federal programs and compliance, it is entirely foreseeable that efforts by for-profit ventures to conduct those tasks will fail. We are now in the “I told you so” stage of this particular experiment; IBM just won the first stage of a lawsuit against the state that I predict will end up costing us much more than we could have saved. I will note that ACS once again evaded accountability and retained its part of that contract, and that the firm that represents ACS is also representing the Daniels Administration in the litigation against IBM, ACS former partner in that contract.I understand from a colleague that the engagement letter included 7 pages of “conflicts disclosures.” Call me old fashioned, but disclosing a conflict does not magically make it go away.

Contracting out often makes sense. Frequently, however, it’s just patronage by a different name.

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