The WAWG Blog

Rick Perry to Hold Event With Hate Group – Texas Gov. Rick Perry has a long history of using faith as a political weapon to divide voters. But his decision to host a Christians-only prayer event in Houston on August 6 with a vicious hate group is beyond appalling. has asked the American Family Association to organize it. The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified the AFA as a hate group on par with Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church, the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations. Instead of uniting people of faith in prayer for our nation, this event will actually sharpen divisions among Americans along religious and political lines. (Read more about the American Family Association here.) You can sign a letter to Perry about this here.

The Ryan/Republican Economic Plan is a Path to Plutocracy – The following are excerpts from an article that appeared in Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, by by Professor Charles Clark, St. John’s University.

The Ryan/Republican “Path to Prosperity” is not based on a valid understanding of the economy (and its current problems) and its underlying goal seems to be minimizing the size of government and the taxes paid by the rich (neither of which is designed to promote the common good). The Ryan/Republican economic agenda of small government, low tax rates and privatization is all grounded in an 18th Century view of the economy. But, in fact, a 21st Century economy is fundamentally different from its 18th Century ancestor.

As an historian of economic ideas who specialized in 18th Century theories, it looks to me that Ryan and company are applying the constitutional philosophy of “original intent” to economic policy. I expect that the next step will be Medicaid and Medicare reforms that will only fund bleeding and leeches; the military will replace the M4 and M16 with muskets; and mass transit funding will now go for carriages and coaches. The responsibilities of the government have grown since the 18th Century because the need for collective action on the national level has grown. In the 18th Century you didn’t need a health care policy because there wasn’t much that could be done; you didn’t need social security because most people didn’t live that long; you didn’t need much economic policy because most people lived on farms and were mostly self-sufficient.

Ryan’s budget asserts that reducing social protection will encourage independence and reduce poverty, yet this too is contrary to all experience in capitalist economies over the past 200 years. Countries with lower social spending have higher poverty rates, and, incidentally, have had bigger increases in unemployment during the current economic crisis. More ideology over evidence.

There is no economic evidence that growing the size of the government hurts the economy, at least not in the range of what other rich countries already have (40-60% of GDP, US is under 40%). Rising income inequality is shrinking the middle class and threatening to destabilize our democracy. Ryan’s budget will make all of these problems much worse rather than address them in a realistic fashion. Ryan is providing a path to plutocracy.

Un-Happy Anniversary: How We Got a Mountain of Debt – June 7, 2011, marks the 10-year anniversary of the signing into law of the Bush tax cuts, a day when President George W. Bush helped replace an unprecedented federal budget surplus with a mountain of debt. Here are some highlights, with data from the Economic Policy Institute:

Big debt: Between 2001 and 2010, the Republican/Bush tax cuts added $2.6 trillion to the public debt, 50 percent of the total debt accrued during that time. Over the past 10 years, the country has spent more than $400 billion just servicing the debt created by the cuts.

Supply-side failure: Far from paying for themselves with increased economic activity as promised, the tax cuts have depleted the public treasury. Tax collections have plunged to their lowest share of the economy in 60 years.

No jobs: Between 2002 and 2007, employment increased by less than 1 percent when the economy was supposed to be expanding. Employment growth barely kept pace with population growth. Between the end of 2001, when the country was in a recession, and the peak of the real estate bubble, er, economic expansion in 2007, the US economy performed worse than at any time since the end of World War II.

Rich people benefit: The best-known result of the Bush tax cuts is that virtually all the benefits were conferred upon people who didn’t need them at all and who didn’t use the money to, say, create more jobs or pay their workers better. Median weekly earnings fell more than 2 percent between 2001 and 2007. Meanwhile, people making over $3 million a year, who account for just 0.1 percent of taxpayers, got an average tax cut of $520,000, more than 450 times what the average middle-income family received.

Entitlements for trust-fund slackers: For a party that likes to talk about the virtues of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, personal responsibility and entrepreneurship, the Bush tax cuts were like an entitlement program for the already entitled. You’d be hard pressed to find a better way to create a lazy leisure class than by eliminating the estate tax. But that’s what Republicans did when they reduced and then phased out the estate tax, ensuring that the country would be plagued by people like this guy for decades to come.

For a graphic view of the dramatic change in wealth inequality fueled in part by the Bush tax cuts, check out these amazing charts.

Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner Lied About Inappropriate Photo on Twitter – Representative Anthony D. Weiner (D – NY) is now admitting that, “The picture was of me, I sent it,” he told a room full of reporters in Manhattan.

During a press conference, Weiner admitted to lying and to having at least six additional, questionable online behaviors.

With Loser Pays, Texans Kiss More of Their Rights Goodbye – If you’re wronged by a giant corporation, you may have only one option: Hire a lawyer on contingency and exercise your constitutional right to sue. Sometimes your lawyer will be overmatched and lose. Losing doesn’t necessarily mean you had a bad case: Corporations can generally afford to outspend you, so they hire firms with a thousand lawyers to bury your solo practitioner in paper. But even that option will soon be gone because of the “loser pays” legislation.

So even though you’ve spent 2 weeks in the hospital because some fast food chain fed you a cheeseburger with bacon, lettuce and mouse, you still lost. With loser pays in place, in addition to a mouthful of rodent and a gut full of Salmonellosis, you’ve got to pay the tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees the multi-billion dollar chain incurred defending your meritorious lawsuit. (On the other hand, if you win, you don’t get your legal bills paid. See how that works?)

The loser pays system about to be enacted by Texas is also called the English Rule. It was considered and rejected by the founding fathers because it’s biased against ordinary citizens.

Watch George Washington explain the concept to Rick Perry.

Regards,

Jim

Late on Monday night, a Texas House committee took testimony on a massive school voucher bill that would siphon billions of tax dollars away from already cash-strapped public schools to pay for tuition at private and religious schools. This legislation was crafted as a proposed amendment (that never made it to the House floor) to budget legislation during the regular legislative session, but state Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, has re-filed it in the current special session as HB 33.

HB 33 doesn’t specifically mention vouchers, instead calling the scheme a “Taxpayer Savings Grant Program.” But make no mistake — this is a voucher program through and through. And not only is it huge (open to nearly every public school student in the state), it apparently would also force the state to be more generous in its per-student funding for private schools than it is for public schools.

David Thompson, spokesman for the Texas Association of School Administrators, Texas Association of School Boards and the Texas School Alliance explained the voucher would be equal to 60 percent of the average state and local spending per-student expenditure in a year. Problem is, the state on average doesn’t pay 60 percent of that cost – local districts carry a bigger share.

“What this bill proposes to do is create a voucher with no accountability that is hundreds of dollars more on average than what the state has just proposed to spend on public school students.”

Yes, that’s right. According to Thompson, the bill would actually have the state of Texas (not counting local or federal funds) pay more for a student to attend a private school than a public school. Here’s the math (courtesy of Mr. Thompson):

Under the just-adopted HB1, the average state expenditure under the Foundation School Program for the coming biennium will be $2,922 per weighted student. Under HB33, the proposed voucher would be $3,971 per weighted student, for a difference of $1,049 per weighted student more for the voucher than for a student in the public schools.

More details can be found here, by Dr. Ed Fuller, associate director of Research for the University Council of Educational Administration.

Please call your state rep now and tell him/her you oppose HB 33.

You can call your state rep on Texas AFT’s toll-free line: 1-888-836-8368.

Don’t know for sure who represents you in the Texas House? No problem. You can find out quickly here.

Regards,

Jim

Republicans Give Bonuses to Staffs While Urging Fiscal Restraint For Others – Six anti-spending House Republicans from the Greater Houston area handed their congressional staffs generous bonuses – some exceeding $4,000 – at the end of 2010 when the GOP was pressing for steep cuts in federal spending.

The Republicans’ payouts contrasted with Houston’s three House Democrats who said they did not provide holiday-season bonuses because they preferred providing consistent monthly paychecks or had rejected bonuses because of the nation’s economic ills.

Payroll data compiled by LegiStorm, an independent organization that tracks congressional finances, showed the six Republicans paid an average salary of $55,713 in 2010 and added in an average bonus of $3,097 to boost the total average salary to $58,810. Democrats paid an average salary of $54,375 with no bonus, leaving the average Democratic staffer earning $4,435 less than a colleague on the GOP staff.

Rick Perry vs. The Bible – Texas Gov. Rick Perry has invited the nation’s 49 other governors to join him at “a day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our troubled nation.” The big event is scheduled for Reliant Stadium in Houston.

Perry seems to have forgotten about what The Bible (Matthew 6) says:

Take heed that you do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when you do your alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But when you do alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does: That your alms may be in secret: and your Father which sees in secret himself shall reward you openly. And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father which sees in secret shall reward you openly.

Republican Views Education as an Entitlement That Needs to be Cut – Last week, Republican Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston called the school finance proposal “a true cut in an entitlement.” Note the use of that dirty word — entitlement — as if public education is some kind of welfare, not the underpinning of democracy envisioned by Thomas Jefferson.

This school finance bill is a tipping point for the Texas public education system. If the state’s obligation to local schools is no longer carved in statute, public education funding becomes vulnerable to last-minute budget balancing by 10 lawmakers on a conference committee. If they decide to trim a couple of billion from education, the other 171 members of the Legislature have little voice.

(But for Republicans, education is only deserved by those who can afford it. – JLV)

Big Bank Forecloses on Homeowner Who Didn’t Even Have a Mortgage, But … – You’ve heard before about banks unjustly foreclosing on homeowners. In this case in Florida, Bank of America apparently tried to foreclose on a homeowner who’d paid cash for their house. A court found the homeowners had never had a mortgage and ordered BofA to pay their legal fees. When the bank didn’t pay after five months, the homeowners’ attorney initiated foreclosure proceedings against the bank. Sheriff’s deputies, movers, and the homeowners’ attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller’s drawers. After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.

Republican Prefers Bad Public Policy if it Makes for a Good Slogan – In the 1970s, people earning more than $200,000 a year faced a top rate of 70 percent. But the top rate is now half that and tax collections have fallen to their lowest level as a share of the economy in 60 years. Major tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 also contributed to the decline in revenue — and helped drive up budget deficits.

Recently, three sane Republican U.S. senators (Tom Coburn, Mike Crapo and Saxby Chambliss) banded together in support of higher tax revenue as a means of balancing the federal budget. Even with drastic spending cuts, they concluded, Washington could not vanquish its soaring $14.3 trillion debt without additional income. Such reasoning was common in the GOP circa 1963, when Republicans denounced tax cuts proposed by President John F. Kennedy as a road to red ink and rampant inflation. But today’s GOP adheres to a “no new taxes” orthodoxy that has proved far more powerful than the desire to balance the budget.

Republican strategist Grover G. Norquist, who invented the pledge not to raise taxes, says protecting tax breaks must be done, even if Republicans view it as bad public policy. That’s right, they view bad public policy as god as long as it makes for a good slogan that helps win elections.

What Can We Learn From The Bad Deeds?
The idea of bringing everyone together and making sure that everybody is contributing, everybody is responsible, but everybody also looks out for one another has traditionally been the idea at the heart of America. But not for conservatives [without conscience].

For conservatives, a capitalist environment does not “engineer,” but “liberates” through competition, a zero-sum competition in which one individual does better only at the expense of another.

Many people make up their political minds, not because they know much about what’s going on, but because they know too little. These folks will line up with whatever clown and circus act comes to town as the sideshow barker shouts “I’ve got mine; you get yours,” and “Show ME the money!”

So learn everything you can about what is going on and why it is happening, then educate others.

Regards,

Jim

Republicans Continue Their Attack on Public Education in Texas – Rep. Rob Eissler, Republican of The Woodlands, is trying to pass his package of bad policy ideas in piecemeal fashion during the special session that began May 31. His own HB 18 reprises his attempt to turn the 22-to-1 class-size cap per classroom in grades K-4 into a meaningless district-wide average. Under his bill, districts also would be able just to post a notice that they have exceeded the new limit on their Web site, dispensing with the current requirement of individual notice to parents of children affected.)

HB 19 by Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, Republican of Killeen, would deprive educators of a hearing in front of an impartial, independent hearing examiner when faced with a mid-contract termination of their employment because of a declaration of “financial exigency” by their school district. The bill actually goes further, altering the non-renewal process for all educators on term contracts. School districts, instead of hearing contested non-renewal cases themselves, could hire outside attorneys to conduct non-renewal hearings with lesser procedural safeguards than under current law.

HB 20 by Rep. Dan Huberty, Republican of Humble, would change the deadline for notice of non-renewal to 15 days before the last day of instruction in a school year. Current law requires 45 days advance notice. Huberty, Eissler, and other Republicans on the committee brushed aside testimony that showed there’s good reason for the current 45-day requirement, which gives teachers time to find alternative employment if they are non-renewed and serves districts’ needs as well. By giving most teachers an early assurance of continued employment, this law helps assure districts of a stable workforce for the coming year and eliminates anxiety and distraction for teachers during crucial spring months of the school year.

HB 21 by Rep. Mark Shelton, Republican of Fort Worth, would permanently take away seniority-based protection in layoff situations for teachers whose districts have chosen to give them continuing contracts as an incentive to stay with the district. The legislature by this action would adversely change the terms of these experienced teachers’ contract after the fact. This is a clear invitation to focus layoffs on a district’s most senior and highly paid teachers. As Texas AFT and other witnesses noted, legal precedent indicates any such attempt at retroactively changing an important feature of existing continuing contracts on the basis of new legislation would be overturned by Texas courts. But the majority on this committee was hell-bent on doing it anyway.

All four bills were passed immediately, with all Republicans on the committee in support and only Democratic members dissenting. Meanwhile, a separate piece of the failed Eissler legislation from the regular session, attacking state salary standards for educators, will be heard in a different committee on Monday. That bill is HB 17 by Rep. Bill Callegari, Republican of Katy. (For good measure, the same committee will hear a recycled private-school voucher plan that failed in the regular session. The voucher bill is HB 33 by Rep. Sid Miller, Republican of Stephenville.)

The Texas Senate passed implementing legislation to enforce $4 billion in cuts to state aid to school districts on Friday evening. It was a straight party-line vote with all 19 Republicans voting to cut public school funding, and all 12 Democrats against cutting our schools.

Republicans Choose to Hurt Kids’ Education Rather Than Eliminate Tax Exemptions for Corporations and the Rich – As the Texas Senate took up a plan for cutting $4 billion from what public schools would receive under current law, Democrats again fought to add more money to education by eliminating tax exemptions.

Sen Wendy Davis, Fort Worth Democrat, lofted a favorite target for elimination: a break for high-cost gas, which she said would yield $1.2 billion for Texas. Before it was tabled 18-12 (with one present, not voting), Davis said, “By saying ‘no’ to an amendment like this, we are saying to the community of Texas, we are saying to the school children and the schoolteachers of Texas that our priorities are to continue to allow corporate tax exemptions … We are going to prioritize creating and allowing and extending exemptions like this over the interest of funding public education in Texas.”

The Senate by the same vote tabled a modified version of the proposal by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, that would have eliminated what he calls the “high-cost gas loophole” if the price of gas reached $6.50 per mcf for a three-month stretch. Citing figures that indicated this was unlikely to happen, Ellis called it a “very conservative” way to send the message that “we value the education of our chldren above a tax break.”

Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, offered an amendment to reinstate the inheritance tax that was torpedoed 19-12. He said his proposal only would affect 1,000 Texans and while he didn’t have an updated revenue estimate, the last one that was done showed the state could get $236 million.

Private Prisons Profit by Getting Laws Changed So they Can Lock Up More Immigrants – Immigrants are for sale in this country; sold to private prison corporations who are locking them up for obscene profits!

Here are the top 3 things YOU need to know about the Private Prison money scheme:

* The victims: Private prisons don’t care about who they lock up. At a rate of $200 per immigrant a night at their prisons, this is a money making scheme that destroys families and lives.

* The players: CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), The Geo Group and Management and Training corporations—combined these private prisons currently profit more than $5 billion a year.

* The money: These private prisons have spent over $20 million lobbying state legislators to make sure they get state anti-immigrant laws approved and ensure access to more immigrant inmates.
Watch the video.

Republican Florida Governor Signs Law That Makes It Illegal for a Doctor to Discuss Gun Safety – Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a law threatening doctors — including pediatricians — with the loss of their jobs if they talk with families about the risks of a gun in the home or offer advice on gun safety. The Florida law subjects doctors to possible sanctions, including fines and even loss of their license, just for discussing life-saving firearm safety with a patient if the doctor’s comments are later found to be “not relevant” or “unnecessarily harassing.” Over 40% of gun-owning households with children store their guns unlocked, and in one quarter of these homes the guns stored loaded.

This law blocks doctors from fulfilling their obligations to promote health. Politicians taking orders from the gun lobby have no business telling doctors and patients what they are permitted to discuss in the privacy of a doctor’s office.

Remember when?
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer-funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses and paid no taxes? Me neither.
— C. J. Farley, President, Bay Area New Democrats

Regards,

Jim

Republican Priorities: On With the Destruction! – Right now, there are a lot of American without jobs. And a lot of those with jobs get low pay and no benefits.

But quick! Medicare might start having funding problems in 2025 and Social Security might go into the red in 2040. Republicans tell us that those are obviously the problems we should be dealing with right this second. And we should deal with them by cutting spending on a bunch of other programs because, um, um, um……I forget. But I know there’s a reason. My TV keeps telling me there is. It’s something about the rest of the world forcing us to screw the poor and destroy our economy today in order to save it tomorrow. So let’s get on with the destruction!

Republicans Plan for Health Care to Cost You More While Democrats Take Action to Bring Costs Down – Most seniors will pay twice as much out of pocket under the proposed Republican voucher system as they do under the current Medicare plan. Some will pay even more than that. Click here to see your state and estimate the cost effects the Republican’s Medicare plan would have on seniors. In Texas, costs under Medicare currently run an average of $6,453 per person per year. Under the Republican voucher system, it would jump to $13,122.

Also:
Private Insurance Companies that administer Medicare “Advantage” Plans were paid on average 14% more than it costs to provide care through the Traditional Medicare Program. Those Over-Payments had drained the Medicare Trust Fund, increased premiums for seniors on Regular Medicare, and cost taxpayers $12 billion per year.
That no longer holds true…

“Advantage” over-payments to Health Insurance Companies were corrected by the Affordable Health Care Act. Democrats have helped lower Medicare costs already and will keep weeding out waste & abuse to keep Medicare strong.

Republicans in Maine Roll-Back Child Labor Laws – The Republican governor of Maine has now signed a bill into law that will roll back some of the protections placed to ensure that businesses protect employees under the age of 18. Governor Paul LePage has signed legislation allowing teens to work up to 50 hours a week, as well as up to 8 hours a day after school. LaPage claims the change in law is “not a big deal.” “Work never hurt anybody.”

Ah, the good ol’ days!

Republicans Lawmakers Do Not Really Support the Troops – Republicans like to fly flags and put “Support the Troops” stickers (made in China) on their vehicles. But, over the years, a wide range of bills to assist recent veterans have been introduced—and Republicans opposed nearly all of them:

…Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) … offered a measure that would offer emergency mortgage relief for members of the armed services. Republicans killed the bill on a party-line vote.

In February, Republicans passed a budget bill that slashed $75 million that would have funded housing vouchers for homeless veterans…

…Even before they were in the majority, Republicans often voted against seemingly simple measures to help out members of the armed services over-stressed by nearly a decade of war.

In June 2009, a vast majority of Republicans voted against providing extra money to active duty members of the military subject to “stop-loss” orders—those who had their enlistments involuntarily extended…

…Republicans also initially opposed a new GI bill to provide a four-year college education to those who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan…

…At the height of the economic crisis, there was a bill in Congress that would have given a tax credit to businesses that hired unemployed veterans, as well as provide a $250 economic relief payment for any disabled veterans who would no doubt have an even harder time finding work amidst a wide recession. Republicans uniformly opposed the bill.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Governor Who Tells People to Sacrifice Took $2,500 Helicopter Ride to Son’s Baseball Game – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s image as a cost-cutter may have started cracking the moment he boarded a state police helicopter to get to his son’s high-school baseball game, leaving New Jersey with a $2,500 bill.

Christie took office in January 2010 pledging to bring fiscal restraint to a state with the fourth-highest public-debt burden in the U.S. at $3,940 per capita, according to a report from Moody’s Investors Service. For fiscal 2012, which starts in July, he has urged “shared sacrifice” under a $29.4 billion spending plan that Democrats say skimps on education and health.

The helicopter ride, plus a trooper-driven arrival at the ballfield with his wife, Mary Pat, before two varsity teams, fans and family, raised questions about the Republican governor’s judgment. Neither the game nor a later meeting he flew to was state business, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch.

“He has been asking everyone else in the state to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and share in the sacrifice of all these budget cuts to education and so forth,” Murray said.

Republicans Release Plan to Start Another Recession – House Republican leaders late last week released a new plan to reduce regulation and taxes. This plan is a rehash of the same unsuccessful plan that led our economy into the Great Recession during the Bush administration. The problem then and now with the top Republican goal of economic policy — to make the top income earners in our society even more incredibly wealthy — is that it undercuts our nation’s prospects for a prosperous future. We’ve been down this road before and it didn’t end well.

So what happened after the massive tax cuts in the early 2000s? The remainder of the decade saw the lowest pace of economic growth of any economic expansion in half a century. From 2000 to 2007 employment and incomes also grew slower than in any other economic expansion in half a century. Income growth was so weak that in 2007, at the end of the 2000s economic expansion, the typical household had income below what it had been in 2000.

The Republican plan to cut and cut taxes didn’t generate strong growth in the past decade, so why would it in this decade? What it will do instead is further strain the American middle class. Another bout of tax cuts for the wealthy will create the conditions for a less-stable economy moving forward and lead to the same slow pace of business investment. If we’ve learned anything from the economic crisis of the past few years, it should be that making the already wealthy even wealthier is not a recipe for stable economic growth.

Today, small business owners say poor sales is more of a problem than regulations, taxes, inflation, or the cost of labor. Yet instead of any plan to invest in our economy, House Republicans tout their jobs plan while seeking to gut financial regulation at the same time. Regulating Wall Street is imperative if we want to put our economy on a sounder footing moving forward. Insisting that finance should be free of government interference is what caused the Great Recession. It’s insane to take us down that road again.

Real Republican Budget Hatchet Man Intends to Hit the Poor Hardest – In the escalating fight over the budget and deficit in Washington, all eyes have been trained on GOP golden boy Rep. Paul Ryan. But though the Wisconsin Republican’s controversial plan to gut Medicare has dominated the headlines, another House GOPer has been quietly doing the dirty work of making the budget cuts that actually have some chance of passing.

Two weeks ago, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, made the GOP’s next big move to slash spending for social programs. In a little-noticed proposal, Rogers detailed how the GOP wants to inflict the pain of more than $1 trillion in unspecified discretionary spending cuts contained in Ryan’s 2012 budget, which passed the House in April. Rogers has now divided up the cuts into 12 different areas, each of which will be considered as its own spending bill. Under his proposal, the poor and the working class will be hardest-hit.

Think About It
If the Republican plan to replace Medicare with a voucher system really doesn’t leave the recipients holding the bag, then why are Republicans unwilling to implement it across old and young immediately? Obviously, the fact that they want to exempt current seniors (traditionally part of their base) proves that the costs are much larger than they are letting on. – JLV
Regards,

Jim

Texas Republicans Have Decided They Need to Do More Damage to Our Schools – The Texas Legislature convened Tuesday for a Special Session to try and pass the enforcement tools necessary to cut public education funding by $4 billion, plus another $1 billion in cuts to programs like Pre-K grants and services to help students achieve. Additionally, the Special Session again will include attempts to gut the class-size law, cut teacher pay and weaken other education quality standards.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst spent much of Monday, the last day of the 2011 regular session of the Texas legislature, trying to get four-fifths of the Senate—25 of 31 senators—to suspend the rules and approve a radical new proposal on school finance, implementing deep cuts in public education, that most lawmakers first saw only yesterday. Republican Dewhurst could not persuade 25 senators to grant his wish. (The Senate has 19 Republican senators and 12 Democrats.)

He then asked Gov. Rick Perry to call an immediate special session, beginning at 8 a.m. Tuesday (May 31) and lasting up to 30 days, to consider this school-finance bill and a wish list of eight other controversial bills. These include a revived version of HB 400/SB 12, the legislation that would permanently gut class-size caps, state pay standards, and contract safeguards for educators. (HB 400 and SB 12 could not win enough support to pass in the regular session.)

Gov. Perry on Monday evening obliged the lieutenant governor by calling a special session for tomorrow as requested, including on the agenda “measures that will allow school districts to operate more efficiently”—code words for HB 400/SB 12 legislation at the expense of students and teachers. (Also on the agenda are measures to reduce state health-care outlays.)

Lt. Gov. Dewhurst vows that Senate rules in this special session will be changed to override the Senate procedure requiring a two-thirds vote to bring bills to the floor. He claims the reason for this extreme step is “the unwillingness to find consensus” of a small number of Democrats.

We invite you to judge for yourself whether the troubles that beset Lt. Gov. Dewhurst’s last-minute school-finance bill were due to someone else’s “unwillingness to find consensus” or to legislative leaders’ own failure to get their act together. See the recitation below of the actual facts about legislative leaders’ maneuvers that led to the failure of their school-finance plan in the regular session.

But more important than what these politicians say and do now is what you will say and do, as the legislature reconvenes to decide issues posing great risks to you and the students in your classrooms. With a special session starting as the school year winds down, the folks in charge at the state capitol seem to be counting on fast action to force through obnoxious legislation before you can refocus on this threat and mobilize in opposition.

Regards,

Jim

Republicans Hold America’s Financial Health and Credit Rating Hostage – In yet another act of political terrorism, the latest Republican plot is to hold our nation’s honor and good credit hostage until Democrats join the Republican assault on Medicare.

Republicans are trying to shift public blame for their Medicare misanthropy by attempting to force Democrats to join them through blackmail. They want to be able to say that Democrats joined them in attacking Medicare because it was necessary, thus absolving themselves of well-deserved guilt.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says substantial Medicare cuts must be part of a spending and deficit cut package to get his support to raise the debt limit. “To get my vote, for me, it’s going to take short term [cuts, via spending caps]… Both medium and long-term, entitlements.,” McConnell said. “Medicare will be part of the solution.”, To clarify, McConnell was asked “[I]f [the Biden group] comes up with big cuts, trillions of dollars worth of cuts, but without substantially addressing Medicare, it won’t get your vote?”, “Correct,” McConnell said.

If Democrats cave-in, they will lose all the political advantage they have gained. Every time Democrats surrender to Republican terrorism, we lose support.

Republican Congressional Redistricting Plan for Texas Violates Voting Rights Act – Tuesday, Republicans presented Texans with their proposed congressional districting map.

“This map is the very definition of an unfair and illegal congressional plan, one that was constructed behind closed doors with reckless disregard for the testimony of Texans who asked for a plan that adheres to the Voting Rights Act and preserves communities of interest,” Rep. Veasey explained. “The Seliger-Solomons Plan is a slap in the face of minority voters responsible for 90% of Texas growth in the last decade.”

An initial review of the proposed plan clearly indicates that it is retrogressive and creates only 10 effective minority opportunity districts out of 36 compared to the 11 effective districts in the current 32 member plan.

“In fact, preserving only 11 effective minority opportunity districts when the state now has four additional seats due to minority population growth would still be retrogressive, and I have no doubt that a plan that has only 10 effective minority opportunity districts runs afoul of the Voting Rights Act,” Rep. Veasey said.

Across the state, this discriminatory plan splits and packs minority communities. Nowhere is that illegal scheme more apparent than Tarrant and Dallas Counties. Veasey pointed out that once again, the Southeast Ft. Worth community he represents is separated from other areas of African American growth in Tarrant County and placed in a district that would be controlled by suburban Anglo voters. This time, the North Side Hispanic community is exiled to a Denton County district and Latino voters in Dallas-Ft. Worth are split into at least seven different districts.

“A plan that splits and packs the 2.1 million African Americans and Latinos in Dallas and Tarrant Counties to provide us only one effective voice in Congress is not just illegal, it’s wrong,” concluded Rep. Veasey.

The above was released by State Representative Marc Veasey, who is serving his fourth term in the Texas House. He is a member of the Elections; Pensions, Investments and Financial Services; and Redistricting Committees. Residents of District 95 are encouraged to contact Rep. Veasey at (512) 463-0716.

Republicans Depriving Citizens of the Right to Vote Across Country – Republicans have a long history of gaining electoral advantage by schemes to deprive people likely to vote for Democrats of the right to vote. Methods used include caging, choosing challenge based on race, electronic vote theft (ES&S and Diebold), preventing voter registration campaigns, placing too few polling places districts with high concentrations of minority voters, and now, voter ID laws. Their excuse is the straw man, voter fraud. The actual problem is virtually nonexistent, and what few cases there have been are mostly Republican fraud.

Less than 18 months before the next presidential election, Republican-controlled statehouses around the country are rewriting voting laws to require photo identification at the polls, reduce the number of days of early voting or tighten registration rules.

Republican new rules have advanced in 13 states in the past two months. Democrats say the changes have little to do with fraud prevention and more to do with placing obstacles in the way of possible Democratic voters, including young people and minorities.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas signed a law last week that would require each voter to show an official, valid photo ID to cast a ballot.

Democrats, who point to scant evidence of voter-impersonation fraud, say the unified Republican push for photo identification cards carries echoes of the Jim Crow laws — with their poll taxes and literacy tests — that inhibited black voters in the South from Reconstruction through the 1960s. Election experts say minorities, poor people and students — who tend to skew Democratic — are among those least likely to have valid driver’s licenses, the most prevalent form of identification. Older people, another group less likely to have licenses, are swing voters

“There is not one documented case that has been presented to us, and we had numerous hearings,” said State Senator Brad Hutto of South Carolina, a Democrat. “Republicans have to have some reason to do this because it doesn’t sound good to say, ‘We don’t want Latinos or African-Americans voting.’ ”

The Republican Pathetic 10-Page Jobs Brochere – On Thursday, House Republicans finally unveiled their “plan” for tackling America’s jobs crisis. It clocks in at a mere 10 pages, in large type, chock full of slick images. What’s missing is any legitimate solutions to lowering the nation’s jobless rate. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein wrote, “It looks like the staffer in charge forgot the assignment was due on Thursday rather than Friday, and so cranked the font up to 24 and began dumping clip art to pad out the plan.”

The criticism is well deserved. Reading the “House Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators” (PDF), released by the House Republican leadership, is an exercise in wonderment: you wonder what the Republicans actually propose. Several of the “Republican Solutions” are a bit vague. “After a systematic review of our visa system, the Congress should undertake prudent reforms,” reads one “solution.” Another “solution”: “We will work to control the federal deficit to assure investors and entrepreneurs that our nation’s elected leaders are finally getting serious about paying off the debt over time.” Details? Apparently, the Republican view was, why bother?

The Republican “plan” boiled down to its essence is rather retro: Roll back regulation, lower taxes, pass free trade agreements, shrink the US debt, and boost energy production. In other words, the same failed Republican agenda we had for the past three decades. There’s nothing in this plan that is specific regarding the current jobs crisis. The plan completely forgets that George W. Bush was president four years ago and that he was a Republican, and perhaps there should be a pro forma mention of Wall Street and the financial crisis somewhere in this narrative.

Regards,

Jim

Not one cent of rainy day fund used despite critical situation for schools. – By a vote of 20 to 11 in the Senate and 97 to 53 in the House on Saturday evening, the Texas 82nd Regular Legislature passed a 2012-2013 budget that makes deep, unnecessary cuts in public education, higher education, health care, and other basic public services. With more than $6 billion available in the Rainy Day Fund, the legislative majorities chose to leave that money untouched rather than use it as intended to keep a short-term funding shortfall from causing long-term damage. They also chose not to address the state’s rickety tax structure, which (thanks to deliberate decisions going back to 2006 and beyond) does not generate the revenue needed to pay for public schools as promised.

The adverse impact of these decisions will be felt in many ways. School districts will receive $4 billion less in state aid, a cut of about $400 a year per pupil, than current law would require in the coming biennium. Another $1 billion plus will disappear for such valuable programs as the state’s grant program for high-quality, full-day pre-kindergarten, which is entirely eliminated. Almost entirely gone is state funding for students at risk of failing high-stakes tests—the so-called Student Success Initiative. For the first time in living memory, the state under this budget betrays its commitment to fund the cost of enrollment growth of 80,000-plus pupils per year. The cumulative impact of all these cuts easily could translate into the loss of 40,000 or more jobs in public education.

The budget passed Saturday chops more than $1 billion from higher education, including a cut in student financial aid that will leave as many as 43,000 college students empty-handed. The bill reduces spending on health care as well, to the detriment of elderly and disabled Texans in particular. Overall, this budget shrinks state spending $15 billion below the 2010-2011 level.

This budget in large part simply shifts costs to the local level or to the next biennium. School districts now may well have to seek local tax-rate increases in order to avoid damaging layoffs and program cuts. This budget deliberately underestimates the cost of Medicaid by a whopping $4.8 billion, and the legislature will have to come up with that money or drastically curtail benefits in 2013.

Texas already ranked 44th among the states in per-pupil funding before this budget and 49th in percentage of high-school graduates.

In the House, 96 of the 101 Republicans voted for this bill, but 48 out of 49 Democrats voted against it. In the Senate, every one of the 19 Republicans voted for this awful budget, but 11 of the 12 Democrats voted against it.

Like the Alamo, this battle was lost because the people that care about Texan’s futures were outnumbered. Texans should remember what happened on this date and at the next, and every subsequent election, Texans should go to the polls chanting, “Remember the 82nd!”

Regards,

Jim

Sometimes, when either Libertarian Ron or Rand Paul are questioned on particular situations that driven by their general politics beliefs, they contradict themselves.

In response to questions by Chris Mathews concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Ron Paul responded, “I think we would be better off if we had freedom, and not government control of our lives … ” (As I go about my daily life, I find little ‘government’ control of my freedoms in any meaningful way.)

On the 40th anniversary of the Civil Right Act, Ron Paul made the following statements in the House:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society.

The specific idea he supports is that any business owner should be ‘free’ to limit (abuse) who can come into their shop and spend their money. What about the freedom of the consumer to shop any where they chose? Why should the business owner’s freedom to limit customers trump the customers freedom to shop where they want? I call this a contradiction in freedom of choice.

And competition will not take care of this business owner abuse. If competition could have fixed segregation, we would have never needed the Civil Rights Law to begin with. If competition worked, the lack of it would listed as a leading cause for business failures, but it’s not!

As our constitution exemplifies, we need checks and balances to keep power from being concentrated and abused. This applies to our federal government, and our vote is the ultimate check and balance on it. This also applies to all other man made institutions (family, religion, business, non-profits, home owners associations, all levels of local government, etc.), and the federal government is there to check and balance all of these institutions and keep them from abusing citizens when citizens don’t have the power to match that of the abusing institution.

Individual rights and freedoms must trump rights and freedoms of all institutions including business if citizen are to remain in control of America. This check and balance priority is required since institutions can more easily accumulate wealth and power and then abuse it. That’s not to say that individuals won’t abuse their wealth and power. They can, and they need to be checked and balanced also.

Checks and balances need to be in place so that those with power/wealth will be less inclined to abuse. Whether it is laws against spousal abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, or citizen abuse, we need government enforced checks and balances. Not all individuals are as responsible as the Pauls believe they should be. If they were, neither of them wouldn’t be carrying a firearm to provide their own checks and balances. Laws/regulations are the checks and balances for those of us who don’t want to depend on guns in the hand of untrained, fear driven citizens, to stop abuse.

Our government is supposed to be by the people, of the people, and for the people and businesses are not people, in spite of Citizens United. Business rights and freedoms shouldn’t trump those of our citizens. This is especially true for businesses run by executives who don’t like government imposed checks and balances (like the “small businesses” run by the Koch brothers). Wealthy libertarian anti-government executives do not have the right to buy our government. Citizens United took away an important check and balance.

Also, I don’t think Ron Paul should be running for President of the US. Putting a libertarian in charge of the executive branch would be like making a communist political officer the CEO of a free enterprise business. Neither would do the right thing, both systems would fail, and in both cases citizens would lose.

Libertarian ideas on government being bad and business being good are too absolute. Libertarians don’t seem to understand that any institution created by humans is only as good, or bad, as the humans who create or manage that institution. They don’t seem to understand that power in the hands of humans can corrupt any institution, including businesses. Businesses aren’t magically better than government. Government is not necessarily the only cause of citizen abuse. Any institution can abuse citizens.

Another reason Ron Paul should not be running for the office of President of the US is that he doesn’t represent what America is becoming. Just look at the demographics of his audiences and compare that to any national demographic. Few matches exist. Here are the results of a 2006 Pew Research study on political views:

Libertarians are predominantly young, rich, white males. Secondarily, they are moderately educated, less religious and evangelical than others, and live in the west.