Listen Up, Mr. Me Myself and I….

Okay–it’s cold and snowy and I’m old and cranky and in a bad mood. But this is the sort of attitude that just sends me over the edge!

A commenter responding to yesterday’s post about drug testing TANF recipients said, and I quote: “Government has no business in supplying food stamps, or any other of my earnings to those who did not earn it. Period.”

This is a standard meme employed by self-styled libertarians, the folks who like to equate taxation with theft and scorn recipients of social welfare programs as “takers” and “losers.”

I think the rest of us should make a deal with people like Mr. Clueless. Here’s my proposal:

You don’t want your hard-earned money going to the “takers”? Fine. You can keep every penny you earn. But you can’t drive on the streets that we suckers (er..taxpayers) paved. You can’t attend the public schools or universities we support. When trash collection day comes around, we’re going to skip your house, and if a real thief comes for your possessions, the police we support with our tax dollars aren’t going to respond.

If your house catches fire, tough. Hope you have a hose–and a private water supply. When you go to the grocery, you can’t buy any meats and vegetables that have been inspected by  government agencies that our taxes support. If you get sick, don’t expect to be treated by a doctor we educated in a hospital we built.

Go buy all of those services–and the others that we supply and you take as your due–in the private marketplace. If you can.

And if the unthinkable (at least unthinkable to you) happens, and you fall on hard times, you’d better hope for charity, because we’re going to respond with the same human compassion and understanding of social obligation that you’ve displayed.

You see, the real “takers” are the people who unthinkingly accept all the benefits of a social infrastructure, but who whine when they’re asked to pay their fair share.

Comments

And You Thought HJR 3 Was Dumb….

Am I the only resident of the Hoosier state who cannot comprehend the priorities and prejudices–let alone the analytical abilities–of Indiana lawmakers?

It’s bad enough that the most high-profile battle of this session–HJR 3–has given the rest of the country the impression that Hoosiers are 19th Century yahoos determined to buck the headwinds of change. What’s worse is that all the high-profile jockeying to keep GLBT folks in second-class citizenship status has sucked the wind out of everything else going on–obscuring all the other stupid decisions being made at the Statehouse.

One example: HB 1351 which requires the drug testing of TANF recipients. This measure, which will cost taxpayers nearly 1.5 million in fiscal 2016-17 alone — is moving steadily through the General Assembly, despite the fact that in states that have passed such laws , like Florida, courts have held it unconstitutional–and despite the fact that very few abusers were found. (If I had to guess, I’d bet the percentage of drug abusers in the General Assembly is substantially higher than the percentage on welfare. Drugs cost money, and TANF pays $288 per month for a family of three. You try living and buying drugs on that.)

As of March 2013, there were just 26,364 individual Hoosiers receiving TANF.  Of that number, 23,128 were children. So Indiana is proposing to spend a million and a half dollars to test three thousand adults for drug abuse.

Dumb or not, this costly measure of dubious constitutionality and demonstrated ineffectiveness is speeding merrily through the process.  Meanwhile, SB 413, a bill that  would encourage TANF families to accumulate the assets they need to transition off of public assistance [and save taxpayer money], is not expected to go anywhere–despite the fact that other states that have implemented that measure have saved money and helped poor people move toward self-sufficiency.

It’s hard to escape the suspicion that our legislators not only don’t want to help poor folks–they want to punish them for being poor. One reason there are so few adults receiving TANF is that we have already made the process so difficult and demeaning that only 2.9% of impoverished Hoosiers participate.

I guess GLBT folks aren’t the only people Indiana doesn’t want.

Comments

We the People

Readers of this blog know that I’m a broken record when it comes to civics education–and  also know that I am a huge fan of the We the People curriculum used by some (but not nearly enough) high school government teachers. In fact, my only complaint about We the People is that its use is entirely voluntary; when I become Emperor of the Whole World, I plan to make it mandatory…

Anyway, one of the ( distressingly few) things that Indiana does well is field teams in the annual We the People competition. I was honored to be a national judge last year, when Indiana had two teams in the top ten.

This year, Fishers High School won the state competition, and the team is preparing to compete for the national title. Part of that preparation is–you knew this was coming!–raising the money needed for the trip.

I’m pasting in the solicitation I received from one team member, whose justifiably proud  parents are friends of mine. I’m going to send a contribution, and I encourage those of you who are reading this to do the same. This program–and these kids–deserve our wholehearted–whole wallet-ed?– support.

Here’s her email:

Dear Professor Kennedy,
 At Fishers High School I’m part of the “We the People…” competition team, an academic team all about the Constitution and its application. After winning the State Championships held in Indianapolis, the FHS team has officially become Team Indiana as we prepare for the 27th Annual “We the People…” National Finals in Washington D.C. this April.  It has been the greatest experience of my educational career so far and I really want it to continue!  That is why I am asking for your financial support in raising $1200 in the next two weeks so that I can get back to focusing on my studies in an effort to participate in the “We the People…” National finals.

 
On the team, I am part of the Unit 5 division which focuses on the Bill of Rights and when, if ever, limitations of rights are justified.  I knew “We the People…”  was going to be a rigorous class, especially during my senior year, but that it also had potential for great rewards.  Throughout this season we have been busy researching, writing, and reaching out to local lawmakers, attorneys, and constitutional scholars to help with our studies. Our team is being recognized on the floor of the Indiana General Assembly and congratulated by the Governor of Indiana in February. I want to represent my family, school, and state to the best of my ability.  That’s why I need financial support from people like you that greatly value education.  If you are ready to make a tax deductible donation right now, simply click here http://www.gofundme.com/6emck8 to donate in five minutes!
 
In order to be a part of this once in a lifetime experience, I need to raise $1200. Please help me by sponsoring a portion of my trip. Any contribution you could make would bring me that much closer to this experience and get me back to studying that much sooner.  All donations are tax deductible and you will be sent a letter promptly from my school for your tax records.
There are two options for you to use to contribute:
1.  Click on the link here http://www.gofundme.com/6emck8 to contribute via check or credit card in as little as 5 minutes online
2.  Mail a check made out to FHS We the People team and mail it to the following address:
                Fishers High School
c/o Liz Paternoster
13000 Promise Road
Fishers, IN 46038
 – Be sure to include my name in the memo line of the check so my teacher knows to put it towards my trip.
– Also, consider asking your employer if they participate in a matching program.  This could double your donation!
 
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or want to hear more about this really great learning opportunity.  You can also email my teacher and coach at [email protected]. Thank you for your consideration!
Sincerely,
Halley Rose Meslin
Comments

It’s a Lose-Lose

We all know about “win-win” situations. My husband recently pointed me to an article that epitomizes its opposite: a true “lose-lose.”

Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other silicon valley companies are heavily lobbying Congress to expand visas for foreign tech workers.

Over the objections of labour groups, these companies and their allies, including banks, IBM, Pfizer, and General Electric, have persuaded the US Senate to increase the yearly H-1B visas from 65,000 to 110,000, and as high as 300,000 under certain conditions. Foreign workers trained in science, technology and engineering are preferred to their US counterparts because, in the words of economist Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute, they are indentured “people who could not switch employers to improve their wages or working conditions…. Too many are paid at wages below the average for their occupation and location: over half of all H-1B guest workers [there are already 500,000 such workers] are certified for wages in the bottom quarter of the wage scale”.

Of course, bringing more workers from abroad reduces the opportunities available to America’s young scientists and engineers, many of whom, according to the article, are ” trying to find jobs commensurate with their skills.” Right now, out of the nine million Americans who have degrees in a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) field, only three million have a job in their speciality.

Narrowing the job market for young Americans is one “lose.” The other is the brain drain on the countries from which we are importing talent.

 While the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is stressing the need for developing countries to build up their “human capital”, back in the US, the corporate powers-that-be and their political allies are undermining this tenet of US foreign economic policy.

If “human capital” means anything in the poorer areas of Africa, South America and Asia, it means civil engineers, scientists, physicians, nurses, computer and communications specialists, logistical experts, architects and entrepreneurs. They all are in short supply in these regions that have already lost so many skilled people to the West.

So let me see if I have this right: Congress has acted to reduce the options available to American young people at the same time government agencies have been encouraging them to major in STEM disciplines, in order to steal needed human capital from poor countries that desperately need to keep that talent.

In a perfect world–at least my perfect world–a more equal global economy would be characterized by open borders like those in the EU, and young people would be free to take their talents wherever they wanted. We don’t have that world, however, and this cynical policy sure won’t usher it in.

Do any of the people we elect to Congress think about what they’re doing?

Comments

Alternate Realities

There’s an old song lyric that begins “Two different worlds..we live in two different worlds.” At the end of the song, the lovers turn those “two different worlds” into one.

In politics these days, Republicans and Democrats also live in different worlds–but they show little or no interest in merging them, or finding common ground.

Take the issue of personal responsibility, for example. (Invoking the importance of encouraging individual responsibility is the GOP’s standard reason for opposing virtually all government social programs.)

Here’s my question: how do Republicans who want to reduce the size of government until it is “small enough to drown in a bathtub” propose that citizens “take responsibility” for things like the recent West Virginia chemical spill? How, precisely, are individuals supposed to assume responsibility for things like the purity of their drinking water, or for the air they breathe, or the safety of the food they purchase and consume?

Even Republicans who concede that government has a role to play in these matters, however, will insist that individuals are personally responsible for their own economic status.

If you believe that poor people are poor because they don’t work hard (and rich people are rich because they do)– a belief shared by most Republicans, according to a recent poll– do you also blame poor people for failing to take “personal responsibility” for a lack of available jobs? What additional “personal responsibility” should be exhibited by the millions of working poor–the folks working 40 or more hours a week at jobs that don’t pay them enough to get by?

Today’s Republicans and Democrats do live in two different worlds. The Republican world is tantalizingly simple: a place where virtue is rewarded with success in the best Calvinist tradition–a world where those who work hard, attend church and marry someone of the opposite gender will prosper.

Democrats and Independents occupy a messier reality, where luck and privilege explain the gap between the haves and have nots more often than diligence and talent, and where simple explanations–however comforting– rarely tell the whole story.

In the Republican reality, government is unnecessary; in the reality inhabited by everyone else, it’s essential.

Comments