Academics Say the Darnedest Things…

It’s too bad that articles in academic journals are so filled with jargon, because they often contain valuable information, or make important points that get ignored or glossed over, even by other members of the academy.

Case in point, a recent article in Public Administration Review, a very highly-regarded journal focusing on issues of public management. The title ” Governance, Privatization and Systemic Risk in the Disarticulated State” was calculated to make your eyes glaze over, and I will admit I only read it because I know both of the co-authors (one is a SPEA colleague) and know them to be first-rate scholars.

Ignore the wonky title. This is yet another analysis of government’s love-affair with privatization.

The authors apply research on “systemic risk” to the public-private partnerships that have become ever more common over the past quarter-century or so, the networks of for-profit and non-profit organizations increasingly used by public-sector agencies to do government’s work and deliver public services. As they note, such public networks are similar to financial systems: they are complex, interdependent and risky. Furthermore, if and when they fail, that failure has “potentially catastrophic” effects on citizens who depend upon public services.

One of those risks is that an organization in one of these privatized networks will try to benefit at the expense of the others. The article cites several examples: halfway houses in New Jersey were found to have falsified records in order to have high-risk inmates placed in their (understaffed) facilities; in Tucson, Arizona, a downtown development project employed a network of developers and consultants that spent millions of taxpayer dollars and failed to produce anything.

The risk isn’t confined to dishonesty and self-dealing. The Providence Service Corporation is the largest provider of privatized social services in North America. When the 2008 Great Recession hit, investors dumped their stock in the company (it went from $36 per share to less than a dollar). The loss of capital threatened the ability of the company to continue delivering services to 70,000 clients.

After an extensive discussion of the nature and extent of the dangers involved, the authors conclude that, “reliance upon third parties to produce government services is fraught with risk at all levels.”

This analysis joins a growing and steady accumulation of evidence that the wholesale embrace of privatization of public services is too often costly, risky and counter-productive.

The rush to privatize–to offload public responsibilities–is part and parcel of the assault on the whole enterprise of government that has always been part of American political discourse, but which really gained traction during the Reagan Administration. It’s an attitude, rather than a philosophy, and it plays to the very American desire to address messy, complicated realities with simple, bumper-sticker remedies.

As we are learning the hard way, government can’t privatize away its responsibilities, and too often, the effort to do just that ends up making matters worse.

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Dollars and Sense

This morning, I was scheduled to participate in a statehouse rally intended to urge the Governor and General Assembly to exhibit rational behavior, also known as Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. (Of course, this is Indiana, where rational political behavior can be pretty rare.)

The weather required organizers to reschedule, but I’m posting my prepared remarks, which centered on dollars and sense.

___________________

Many of us have just wished our friends and loved ones a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year. In Indiana, those are going to be elusive goals.

According to a report issued in December by the respected Kaiser Family Foundation, Indiana stands to forego17.3 billion dollars between 2013 and 2022 because we are refusing to follow the lead of surrounding states (including those governed by Republicans) and implementing the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

Indiana is refusing to accept the federal dollars that would pay for expansion of Medicaid despite the fact that over half a million Hoosiers have lost employer-sponsored coverage since 2000, and despite the fact that Indiana has seen the nation’s largest loss of health insurance coverage for children. More than eighteen percent of Indiana children have lost coverage since 2000.

Let’s talk dollars and sense.

Under the ACA, the federal government will pay 100% of the costs of expanded Medicaid for the first three years and 90% thereafter. Expansion would actually save Hoosier taxpayers money, since some of those federal dollars would pay for services we currently provide.

Since there is no rational reason to forego billions of dollars and deny a quarter of a million Hoosiers access to affordable coverage, some Indiana officeholders have resorted to deliberately misleading their constituents. One legislator recently sent out a survey seeking “input on legislative topics”.  The Medicaid question read as follows:

 “Currently, one out of six Indiana residents is on Medicaid, or about 1.1 million Hoosiers. Medicaid makes up about 14 percent of the state’s budget. Under the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare), Indiana can expand Medicaid to cover more uninsured Hoosiers at a projected cost to taxpayers of more than $1.4 billion by 2020. This expansion would allow one in four Indiana residents to enroll in the program. Do you support full Medicaid expansion for Indiana under Obamacare guidelines?”

The question clearly–and dishonestly–implies that Indiana taxpayers would foot the bill for expansion. (Of course, he might get an answer he doesn’t want if he explained that new federal dollars would cover the costs.)

The question we need to ask our Senators and Representatives is pretty simple: Why are you refusing to allow the federal government to pay the entire cost of expanded coverage for three years and 90% thereafter—especially when those dollars you are rejecting would create an estimated 30,000 Hoosier jobs and, according to health economists, would reduce premiums paid by those of us who do have private insurance?

The only response I’ve heard is weak and highly speculative: the federal government might stop paying the full 90% at some future time. But if the feds cut payments, we could cut services, so that excuse just doesn’t pass the smell test.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Indiana is leaving 17 billion dollars on the table, leaving more of our citizens uninsured, costing Hoosiers who are insured more money, and refusing to cover Indiana’s most vulnerable children simply because our governor and state legislative leaders will oppose anything and everything proposed by this President, no matter how that opposition affects the citizens they were elected to serve.

Here’s a news flash: you don’t have to like this President—and you don’t have to like the Affordable Care Act—in order to accept billions of federal dollars that will save lives and money and create jobs for the people of Indiana.

Thanks to Governor Pence’s refusal to implement  Medicaid expansion, Hoosiers will pay higher state taxes, higher health insurance premiums and higher out-of-pocket expenses. And those costs will fall most heavily on those who can least afford them.

Our politicians may be aiming at President Obama, but the people they are hurting are the Hoosiers who elected them.

 

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Kansas Again

I need to reread “What’s the Matter with Kansas.”

University regents in that state have passed a policy giving university presidents authority to discipline employees, up to termination, for “improper use of social media.”

The action–characterized by an AAUP blogger as “a freakout”–came in the wake of an ill-considered tweet by a tenured Journalism professor. David Guth posted the tweet after September shootings killed 13 people in Washington, D.C. It said, “The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.”

In a later tweet, he apologized by saying “Some interpreted my tweet differently than it was intended,” Guth wrote. “I don’t want anyone’s children hurt. The fact my words were misconstrued is my fault.” Guth said that he was a professional communicator but hadn’t done a good job of explaining his position.

Conservative legislators threatened to vote against university funding if Guth remained on the faculty. Rather than defending the principle of academic freedom, the President responded by relieving Guth of his classroom duties, and the regents responded by issuing the new social media policy.

 “Social media” was defined as including but not being limited to blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. “Improper use” was defined as “indirectly inciting violence or immediate breach of peace; being contrary to the best interests of the university; disclosing without authority any confidential student information, protected health care information, personnel records, personal financial information or confidential research data; or impairing discipline by superiors or harmony among co-workers, having a detrimental impact on close working relationships for which personal loyalty and confidence are necessary, impeding the performance of the speaker’s official duties, interfering with the regular operation of the university, or otherwise adversely affecting the university’s ability to efficiently provide services.”

“Contrary to the best interests of the University”? “Impairing harmony?” In whose opinion? Can we spell “vague and overbroad”?

A group of University Distinguished Professors from Kansas State has called for the immediate repeal of the amendment, pointing out that social media have become valued venues for the dissemination of research, and reminding the regents that  “The free and open exchange of ideas is essential to fulfilling the mission of any university.”

Let’s de-construct this sorry episode, shall we?

The whole purpose of a university is to encourage the search for truth. That search requires the broadest possible exploration and exchange of competing ideas–a mission that cannot be achieved if professors can be sanctioned for the expression of unpopular or offensive ideas. The purpose of tenure is not–as too many in and out of the academy seem to think– to provide faculty with job security; it was intended to prevent precisely the sort of retribution for unpopular expression that the Kansas legislature demanded and the University obediently imposed.

Intemperate and ill-conceived expression is the price we pay for protecting freedom of speech and scholarly inquiry from government interference.

We’ve become used to legislative bodies demonstrating a lack of acquaintance with basic American principles, but we might have expected better of the regents.

Of course, it is Kansas…

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Denial Isn’t Just a River in Egypt….

A friend has shared the most recent Newsletter from Micah Clark’s Indiana Family Institute, and the hysteria is getting palpable. An (annotated) excerpt follows.

The 2014 Indiana General Assembly begins next week.   The issue of marriage protection will likely dominate much of the session, as the media seems to want to cover some sort of angle on the issue almost daily. (That pesky media…why would it be covering a major public policy issue? And why is the coverage so sympathetic to the gays?)

Yesterday, I received calls from two legislators from opposite ends of the state. They confirmed for me that the opposition to the marriage amendment is very subjective.  (“Subjective” opposition is clearly illogical and unbiblical.  “Objective” support comes from people who agree with me.)

It is true that liberal activists have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to prevent a vote on the amendment. They have hired 11 lobbyists from large Indianapolis law firms and have 91 field directors in place working up opposition to the amendment and creating the perception that Hoosiers now believe moms and dads are irrelevant, that gender is interchangeable, and marriage can be whatever anyone wants to make it. (Marriage has always been between one man and one woman! Not like in the bible or in all the countries that still recognize plural marriage…)

However, it was this legislator’s belief that this wave of opposition to natural marriage is entirely manufactured and distorted. (There’s a factory out there somewhere, with an assembly line turning out opponents to “natural” marriage!)  He said that he announced early on, months ago, that he would vote for the Amendment again in order to preserve marriage and to allow the people to decide this, not the activists, unelected judges or Hollywood.

I’m not quite sure where Hollywood comes into the Hoosier picture, but let’s ignore that. Let’s also ignore interesting locutions like “natural” marriage. (Hate to point this out, Micah, but no civil marriage is “natural”–the decision of government to acknowledge partnerships for the purpose of allocating legal rights and responsibilities is pretty much a man-made phenomenon.)

The inconvenient truth of the matter is that the “manufactured and distorted” opposition to constitutionalizing second-class citizenship for GLBT folks is neither manufactured nor distorted: it is the very genuine position of capitalists who want to keep Indiana open for business and citizens who believe that it isn’t government’s job to enforce religious doctrine.

Here’s the thing: you keep insisting that “the people should decide.” Actually, the entire premise of the Bill of Rights is that We the People don’t get to vote on other people’s fundamental rights–that’s why the Bill of Rights is called a “counter-majoritarian” document. We don’t get to vote on who is entitled to free speech or freedom of religion or the equal protection of the laws. No one voted on my marriage, or yours.

No one got to vote on whether Adam should have married Eve, and no one should get to vote on whether Adam gets to marry Steve.

But let’s be honest, Micah. What really has your panties in a bunch is your (well-founded) suspicion that even if HJR6 passes the legislature and goes on the ballot, you won’t win. Your time has passed. Deny it as vehemently as you like–sputter about “nature” and “children” and “interchangeable genders” (whatever that means) and “biblical truth” all you want.

You and your theocrats have lost this one.

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No Free Burgers…

If there’s one thing that conservative and liberal economists agree about, it’s that old bromide about there being no free lunch.

That widget you are manufacturing contains raw materials, its construction takes labor, and its distribution and marketing must be paid for. Your facility and utilities cost money.  Those costs–plus some profit–have to be reflected in the price, or you’ll go broke.

You may be able to gain a market advantage by shifting some of your costs to others–we all know of cases where pollution created during production is discharged into the air or water to be paid for by the community at large, rather than by being properly disposed of and the cost of that disposal factored into the product’s sales price–but if it’s a cost of doing business, someone has to pay it.

Market theory assumes that the widget manufacturer will pay all the costs of production,  and then pass those costs on to the ultimate consumer, as part of the price.

Increasingly, however, taxpayers are assuming those costs.

Case in point: we are subsidizing the wages of a quarter of the people who have jobs today. A recent study from UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois found that fully 52% of fast-food workers receive public assistance–mostly Medicaid and food stamps–to the tune of $7 billion dollars a year. (McDonald’s workers alone got $1.2 billion of that.) One Wisconsin Wal-Mart costs taxpayers over a million dollars a year.

The United States now has the highest proportion of low-wage workers in the developed world. And as the report noted, every dollar taxpayers spend subsidizing corporations so they can continue paying their workers poverty wages is a dollar not spent on early childhood programs, or schools, or roads, or any other social good.

We need to have a national conversation about who is paying for that burger.

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