The Paygo Con - More Democratic Leadership Lies

Wall Street Journal Editorial - Stephen Moore

A day after beating incumbent Arlen Specter in a Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary contest, Rep. Joe Sestak announced that he would make "enforcement of the pay-as-you-go budget rules" a priority if he wins in November. Good luck to him.



Pay-as-you-go, or paygo, rules require that new entitlement spending and new tax cuts must be paid for dollar-for-dollar with entitlement spending cuts or tax increases. As Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee has noted, the Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi "have violated pay-as-you-go rules by nearly $1 trillion" over the past three years.


And they're not done. In the coming weeks, say Congressional Republicans, we should expect some $300 billion of expenditures that Democrats will declare "emergency spending" and thus do not have to be offset by other spending cuts. The list includes $60 billion for a military supplemental spending bill; $23 billion for education; and $170 billion for jobless and other welfare benefits. All said, the deficit could climb to $1.7 trillion from the current record high $1.4 trillion. "I really can't think of the last time the Democrats paid for anything they want to spend money on," Mr. Ryan grumbles.


The reality is that paygo is designed to stop tax cuts rather than check spending, which is why Democrats will soon return to singing its praises. Before the end of the year, look for Republicans to push for a continuation of the Bush tax cuts. And look for Democrats to insist they must be paid for.

Liberal Logic - Brian McGrory Editorial on Scott Brown's Win

BRIAN MCGRORY



Swept off our feet


By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist
January 20, 2010






I’m going to need some Advil and a cold compress, please. I’m the Massachusetts Electorate, and I have what is bar none the absolute worst hangover of my entire voting life.

Seriously, I was so drunk on power, so caught up in the moment, so free of any of my usual inhibitions, I can’t remember what’s gone on these last two weeks. Think, Electorate, think. What did I do?

This much I’m starting to remember. Martha and I walked into the party and everything seemed to be going fine. She wasn’t talking much, but she never really does, and she wasn’t exactly pushing me to bare my soul, either. That’s what I’ve always liked about Martha: She’s a low-maintenance politician.

And now I’m vaguely recalling that stranger across the room, the one in the barn jacket who kept smiling at me and seemed to know my name. Martha vanished for a while, and - is it bad that I’m saying this? - I didn’t really care.

Suddenly, that tall, handsome man was standing at my side doing something that Martha rarely did - offering to pay for drinks, chatting me up, curious what was on my mind.

Every time I ever tried telling Martha about my day, my hopes, my dreams, she shushed me and said she was preparing a legal brief or watching “Law & Order.’’ And now there’s a stranger telling me he could change my entire world.

Scott! That was his name. Lived near the outlet stores. Talked a lot about being smarter with money. I know, not like Martha, who always had some expensive home renovation project up her sleeve.

And then, I remember that time itself seemed to stop. The mundanity of everyday events gave way to the exhilaration of my suddenly unpredictable existence. No more Martha taking me for granted. No more Martha calling all the shots. I was living the moment, immersed in the life I always wanted before caution overwhelmed desire.

We were on the dance floor, Scott and I, moving to the music, his hands all over my body politic. Everyone was watching, and I mean everyone - fellow partygoers, bartenders, passersby staring in the windows. Look at me, the Massachusetts Electorate, the bellwether of America!

I think I took my shirt off. I think I didn’t care. I remember something about Scott in a pair of Calvin Klein jockey shorts, but it may have been a picture he showed me from his wallet.

Out of nowhere, there were video cameras filming us from every angle. Analysts were describing the events. Scott’s important friends were texting and calling my cell. Get this: Curt Schilling, talking to a regular old Electorate like me.

Then, above the din and the music and the cheering, I distinctly heard someone ask, “How’s Martha going to feel about this?’’

And just like that, there she was, back at the bar, giving me that aloof prosecutorial look I knew all too well. I went back to her, sweaty and out of breath. Amazingly, she didn’t seem angry. She didn’t really show any emotion at all. She just pretended like nothing ever happened and tried to continue on.

Oh, but something did happen. I knew it, she knew it, and so did Scott, who was still beckoning from the other end of the bar, asking me to take a walk outside. And now it’s coming clear: I did.

He was talking nonstop, but I noticed he was repeating himself over and over again - 41st vote, and drawing boards, and being a “Scott Brown Republican.’’ He was starting to lose me until we were standing in front of a GMC pickup and he said, “This is my truck.’’

Oh, you bad boy. You bad, bad boy.

I remember catching my breath. I remember pulling a curtain shut. I remember having to make a really important choice.

I needed to send a message. I don’t know much about Scott, and I have no idea how long he’ll be in my life, but I do know that nobody will ever take me for granted again.






McGrory is a Globe columnist. His e-mail is mcgrory@globe.com.


© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Ooh, looky looky here. A dem supporter tells the truth about Obamacare

Some Vaguely Heretical Thoughts on Health-Care Reform



With the publication of H.R. 3962, the House Democrats’ mammoth, 1,990-page proposal to restructure the health-care system (the outlines of which can be found in this detailed summary), decision time is fast approaching in the big reform debate. Paul Krugman, in his usual forthright style, says, “History is about to be made—and everyone has to decide which side they’re on.” Democrats and progressives can line up behind the reform legislation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put forward last week, or they can help to kill reform for another generation by aligning with hard-line conservatives.






As political analysis, there’s something to be said for Krugman’s Manichean view of the world. But Krugman is also an economist—a very good one—and the economics of what is proposed bear inspection. The President is on the verge of fulfilling his campaign pledge to extend health-care coverage to many of the uninsured. He is doing this, however, not by transforming the existing system of private insurance, which gave rise to many of the current problems, but by extending it. The White House has reached a deal with the big health insurers, such as Aetna and CIGNA. In return for the industry’s agreeing to cover people with preëxisting health conditions, and making various other more minor concessions, the government will force more than twenty million new customers into its arms.






I regard an expansion of the government safety net as ethically essential, economically justified, and long overdue. It is indefensible for a country as rich as the United States to fail to provide adequate health care for many of its citizens. In extending our health-care system, all we are doing is catching up with Otto Von Bismarck’s Germany, which recognized a hundred and twenty-five years ago that universal health and disability coverage, along with old age pensions and a system of public education, were essential elements of a modern society. Moreover, given the reluctance of “Blue Dog” Democrats, such as Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, to support anything that smacks of big government, and President Obama’s determination to coöperate with moderate Republicans, the proposed reform may be the most that can be accomplished today. But we will be dealing with its consequences for decades to come, and I think it’s important to be clear about what the reform amounts to.






Let’s remind ourselves of the basics. There are two big (and linked) problems with the current health-care system. It excludes 46.3 million Americans, according to the Census Bureau, and it is inordinately expensive. The proposed reform purports to tackle both of these problems; in fact, it only addresses the first one in any systematic manner. The future cost savings that the Administration and its congressional allies are promising to deliver are based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand. Over time, the reform, as proposed, would almost certainly add substantially to the budget deficit, thereby worsening the long-term fiscal crisis that the country faces. Financing this measure alone wouldn’t break the U.S. Treasury. Other elements of the fiscal picture, such as the looming increases in interest payments on the national debt and an explosive growth in Medicare spending as the baby boomers retire—are far larger. But the numbers involved in health-care reform are still significant—perhaps one per cent of annual G.D.P.






The Pelosi bill, in particular, wouldn’t do much, if anything, to address the overall escalation in health-care costs, much of which is rooted in the nature of insurance, where individuals consume costly health services, and different people—the other members of their risk pool—pay for them. This is the “moral hazard” problem that the economist Kenneth Arrow identified as long ago as 1963. (For an easy-to-understand account of Arrow’s argument, see this riveting new book on market failure.) In the past twenty years, many ideas have been tried in the effort to restrict the growth of spending within a private insurance system, the most notable of which was the creation of H.M.O.s. Some have enjoyed temporary success. None have worked for long.






If you read through the briefing papers provided by the House Ways and Means Committee, the fiscal implications of the proposed reform are pretty obvious. Under the proposed legislation, people whose employers don’t offer health coverage will receive “affordability credits” that fall with income, tapering off at about eighty-five thousand dollars a year. A lower-middle-class family of four earning, say, forty-five thousand dollars a year would be entitled to a subsidy of, say, seventy-five hundred dollars a year, to enable them to buy a basic health insurance plan that would cost them, say, eleven thousand dollars a year on the proposed Health Insurance Exchange, These estimates are based on a table on page 3 of the summary document I referred to earlier, which says that families that earn between two hundred and two hundred and fifty per cent of the federal poverty level would have to pay a maximum of eight per cent of their income in insurance premiums. Some poorer families that couldn’t afford to buy coverage even with the generous new tax breaks and subsidies would become eligible for an expanded Medicaid program. Individuals and families that failed to obtain coverage despite these inducements would be subject to a fine of seven hundred and fifty dollars for each uninsured adult.






By any standards, the subsidies in the plan are big ones. For example, they dwarf the Earned Income Tax Credits for poor and middle-income working families, which have been steadily expanded since George H. W. Bush first introduced them. From an egalitarian perspective, the establishment of these generous subsidies would be an important moment in U.S. history. But two practical questions immediately arise. Who would police the new system, and how much would it cost?






The answer to the first question is the Internal Revenue Service. If you couldn’t prove to the I.R.S. that you hadn’t obtained coverage, it would add the seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fine to your tax bill. A healthy, single, self-employed person in his twenties would have the choice of buying an individual insurance plan for, say, five to six thousand dollars a year (considerably less than that if he were eligible for a subsidy) or paying the fine. Undoubtedly, some people will choose to pay the fine and go uninsured. According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of Pelosi’s plan, in 2019 there would still be about eighteen million uninsured adults. (In percentage terms, the share of legal nonelderly Americans with health coverage would rise from about eighty-three per cent today to about ninety-six per cent.)






According to the C.B.O., in summary, many more people will, with government assistance, buy private insurance coverage (some twenty-one million) and many others (about fifteen million) will become newly eligible for Medicaid, which is wholly financed by the taxpayer. Surely, this will cost considerable sums of money and add to the deficit. Or will it? The Democrat-controlled C.B.O. says that the Pelosi plan will actually reduce the deficit by a hundred and four billion dollars between 2010 and 2019, thereby satisfying President Obama’s claim that the reform will be deficit neutral. Furthermore, the C.B.O. suggests that the legislation’s impact on the deficit will continue to be negative in the following decade, from 2019 to 2029. I wish I could believe these figures, but I don’t.






Two large items underpin the Administration’s math: five hundred and seventy-two billion dollars of tax increases over ten years, and roughly the same amount of cost savings on Medicare and other existing government health programs. Most of the revenue increase would come from levying a 5.4 per cent surcharge on Americans individuals who earn more than five hundred thousand dollars a year and joint filers that earn more than a million dollars. I am a big supporter of progressive taxation, but at some point it becomes politically unsustainable. If health-care reform goes through, and the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011, top earners will face a marginal tax rate of forty-five per cent at the federal level. Add in state and local taxes, plus Social Security and Medicare payments, and wealthy people in New York, say, would be facing tax rates of about sixty per cent. As sure as night follows day, this would generate more tax evasion and a political backlash. Without a doubt, the next Republican-controlled Congress would reverse the changes.






If it decides to forgo soaking the rich, the Administration could return to its earlier proposal, which was included in a Senate Finance Committee bill that Senator Max Baucus put forward, to tax firms that provide their employees with costly “Cadillac” health-care plans. “A policy such as this is probably the number one item that health economists across the ideological spectrum believe is likely to stem the explosion of health-care costs,” Christine Romer, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a recent speech. But this idea wouldn’t work politically, either. To raise enough revenue, the tax on swanky insurance plans would have to be set as high as forty per cent. When labor unions, some of whose members enjoy coverage in these plans, learned about this punitive levy they objected loudly, prompting Pelosi to drop the idea, which, broadly speaking, amounts to taxing the upper middle class to provide benefits for the lower middle class.






What about the proposed cost savings? They, too, are questionable. Most of them consist of reductions in Medicare outlays, which, according to this C.B.O. analysis, would save four hundred and twenty-six billion dollars between 2010 and 2019 compared with current plans. Look a bit more closely, and you find that more than half of the Medicare savings (two hundred and twenty-nine billion dollars) come from cutting payments to providers of services under the regular program; most of the rest (a hundred and seventy billion dollars) come from changing the way payments are set in the Medicare Advantage program. Does anybody really believe that these savings will materialize? For decades now, Congress has been promising to reduce the growth of Medicare outlays, and yet every year they continue to go up. The reasons are straightforward: the population is aging; seniors are politically active; and health-care treatments, particularly for the aging, continue to evolve in complex and costly ways.






To be fair, contained in its reform plan, the White House does have a proposal to address these issues: the establishment of an Independent Medicare Advisory Council (IMAC), which would provide Congress each year with cost-saving recommendations. “By removing some of the political pressure around such reforms,” Romer said in the same speech, “the IMAC would make it easier for improvements to be made year after year.” This statement can only be described as wishful thinking. I hope it will be proved right, but Washington is replete with now-defunct independent bodies and commissions that toiled dutifully, did good work, and made little difference.






So what does it all add up to? The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment to help provide health coverage for the vast majority of its citizens. I support this commitment, and I think the federal government’s spending priorities should be altered to make it happen. But let’s not pretend that it isn’t a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won’t.






Many Democratic insiders know all this, or most of it. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it (and many other Administrations before that) is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind. At some point in the future, the fiscal consequences of the reform will have to be dealt with in a more meaningful way, but by then the principle of (near) universal coverage will be well established. Even a twenty-first-century Ronald Reagan will have great difficult overturning it.






That takes me back to where I began. Both in terms of the political calculus of the Democratic Party, and in terms of making the United States a more equitable society, expanding health-care coverage now and worrying later about its long-term consequences is an eminently defensible strategy. Putting on my amateur historian’s cap, I might even claim that some subterfuge is historically necessary to get great reforms enacted. But as an economics reporter and commentator, I feel obliged to put on my green eyeshade and count the dollars


John Cassidy
The New Yorker
Supporter of Obamacare
Apparently at any cost

Even The Washington Post Doesn't Like This Bill

Saturday, November 7, 2009






MUCH OF the criticism of the health-care measure before the House of Representatives is overwrought. Another part is simply wrong. Unfortunately, that does not mean that this is a good bill. As we have said, it does not do enough to control costs, and it is not funded in a sustainable way. Expanding coverage for the uninsured is imperative, but so, too, is getting the country on a credible fiscal path.






As an example of the hyperbole, take the ludicrous assertion by Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) that the Democratic measure "is the greatest threat to freedom that I've seen in the 19 years I've been in Washington." Come on. The proposal has been endorsed by the American Medical Association and the AARP, hardly wild-eyed radicals.






As an example of the simply wrong, take the assertions that the measure would result in insurance subsidies for illegal immigrants and federal financing of abortions. The House bill explicitly states that illegal immigrants are not eligible for federal insurance subsidies or to enroll in the public option. Although the language is being negotiated, the bill would, unlike the Senate Finance Committee version, permit illegal immigrants to purchase insurance on their own through the newly created exchanges. This should be welcomed, not discouraged. Fewer uninsured people means less uncompensated care costs dumped on hospitals, and it would bring younger, healthier people into the exchanges. In other words, the illegal immigrants would be helping the federal treasury, not draining it.






The controversy over abortion funding is similarly phony. Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is endangered. The House bill would leave that restriction in place. It would exclude abortion from the list of benefits that plans participating in the insurance exchange would be required to offer. Instead, the exchanges would have to include one plan that covers abortion, along with one that doesn't. Even so, the plans that cover abortion would have to take steps to make sure that federal funds are segregated from those used to pay for abortions.


Now to our concerns. The measure would cover 36 million more Americans, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That would be a major achievement. And yet: At what cost? The CBO says that the measure would be fully paid for -- in fact, it would bring in money -- both during the first 10 years and in the following decade. But will the planned cuts to Medicare spending be implemented -- or will they be abandoned once they start to pinch? That is a risk, and the measure does not include enough other ways to get health-care costs under control. The bill would help spur needed changes in Medicare reimbursements to reward quality rather than quantity of care. But it is missing two important elements that the Senate Finance Committee bill begins to address: a commission to remove at least some of the politics from the business of determining Medicare payment policies and a tax on high-cost insurance plans. The House bill instead taxes the rich, tapping revenue that will be needed to narrow the overall federal deficit.






The House will probably pass the bill. But there's a lot of work to be done before its final enactment will be possible -- or desirable.

Hey Maureen, can we be friends? Probably not.

Wow, I don't think she would like me very much. What Sarah Palin has to do with this I'm not sure.

White Man's Last Stand

Maureen Dowd New York Times July 15, 2009


You can’t judge a judge by her cover.

Despite the best efforts of Republicans to root out any sign that Sonia Sotomayor has emotions that color her views on the law, the Bronx Bomber kept a robotic mask in place.

A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not know that a gaggle of white Republican men afraid of extinction are out to trip her up.

After all, these guys have never needed to speak inspirational words to others like them, as Sotomayor has done. They’ve had codes, handshakes and clubs to do that.

So when Republican Senator Jon Kyl, without so much as a howdy-do, went at Sotomayor, and soon was asking her if she agreed with Barack Obama’s contention, when he voted against John Roberts, that a judge’s heart is important, the would-be justice was as adroit as her idol Nancy Drew.

“No, sir,” she said, indicating that the only bleeding-heart thing about her was the color of her jacket. She added that “it’s not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It’s the law.”

President Obama wants Sotomayor, naturally, to bring a fresh perspective to the court. It was a disgrace that W. appointed two white men to a court stocked with white men. And Sotomayor made it clear that she provides some spicy seasoning to a bench when she said in a speech: “I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging, but I accept there will be some based on gender and my Latina heritage.”

The judge’s full retreat from the notion that a different life experience is valuable was more than necessary and somewhat disappointing. But, as any clever job applicant knows, you must obscure as well as reveal, so she sidestepped the dreaded empathy questions — even though that’s why the president wants her.

“We apply law to facts,” she told Kyl. “We don’t apply feelings to facts.”

She even used a flat tone when talking about the “horrific tragedy” of 9/11, when she was living near the World Trade Center. And she was mechanical in explaining to a grumpy Senator Orrin Hatch that banning nunchaku sticks did not dent the Second Amendment because the martial-arts weapons’ swing “can bust someone’s skull.”

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer gamely tried to make the judge seem even more coldhearted. Recalling the sad plight of poor families from the Bronx who sued T.W.A. after a jet crashed off Long Island in 1996, he quoted the Bronx jurist’s dispassionate dissent: “The appropriate remedial scheme for deaths occurring off the United States coast is clearly a legislative policy choice, which should not be made by the courts.”

Schumer also cited the case of an African-American woman who filed suit after being denied a home-equity loan, even after the loan application was conditionally approved based on her credit report.

Sonia Legree ruled that the woman’s claim was filed too late, the same argument that the Supremes used on Lilly Ledbetter when she belatedly learned that her male coworkers were much better paid. President Obama has cited the Ledbetter decision as a reason the court needs a more “common touch.”

“The law requires some finality,” Sotomayor explained about her case, with an iciness that must have sent a chill up the conservative leg of Alabama’s Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, even as it left Obama hanging out on an empathy limb.

Republican Lindsey Graham read Sotomayor some anonymous comments made by lawyers about her, complaining that she was “temperamental,” “nasty,” “a bit of a bully.” Then he patronizingly lectured her about how this was the moment for “self-reflection.” Maybe Graham thinks Nino Scalia has those traits covered.

But the barbed adjectives didn’t match the muted performance on display before the Judiciary Committee. Like the president who picked her, Sotomayor has been a model of professorial rationality. Besides, it’s delicious watching Republicans go after Democrats for being too emotional and irrational given the G.O.P. shame spiral.

W. and Dick Cheney made all their bad decisions about Iraq, W.M.D.’s, domestic surveillance, torture, rendition and secret hit squads from the gut, based on false intuitions, fear, paranoia and revenge.

Sarah Palin is the definition of irrational, a volatile and scattered country-music queen without the music. Her Republican fans defend her lack of application and intellect, happy to settle for her emotional electricity.

Senator Graham said Sotomayor would be confirmed unless she had “a meltdown” — a word applied mostly to women and toddlers until Mark Sanford proudly took ownership of it when he was judged about the wisdom of his Latina woman.

And then there’s the Supreme Court, of course, which gave up its claim to rational neutrality when the justices appointed by Republican presidents — including Bush Sr. — ignored what was fair to make a sentimental choice and throw the 2000 election to W.

Faced with that warped case of supreme empathy, no wonder Sotomayor is so eager to follow the law.

Sarah is Stepping Out and Speaking Out

It is a shame that the campaign didn't let her make more speeches on energy last year. Maybe she would not have been type-casted as stupid.

By Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK)There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America's unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won't bring jobs. Our nation's debt is unsustainable, and the federal government's reach into the private sector is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy.Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for electricity.

"We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will result in the latter.

For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher prices.Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation? Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.


URL: http://tinyurl.com/ludeob

Medical Technology in Canada - Washington Examiner Part 2

By: Sally C. Pipes, Examiner Contrbutor- 6/5/09 6:43 AM
KEY DATA: The average patient waiting period between referral and actual treatment for 12 most-frequently needed specialties was nearly four-and-one-half months in 2008, double the average from 15 years ago.

KEY DATA: A third of Canada's gamma cameras, used in nuclear medicine imaging, and a quarter of its angiography and cardiac catheterization labs, for heart-related ailments, are more than 10 years old.

Last month, the recipient of the first successful face transplant in the United States appeared publicly for the first time since her operation in late 2008. Ohio resident Connie Culp could barely swallow or breathe after being shot in the head by her husband.

Doctors used skin grafts from a recently deceased woman to replace 80 percent of her face. Now Ms. Culp can taste, smell, eat solid food, and even smile.

In the same week, doctors in Pittsburgh completed the first double hand transplant in the U.S. on a 57-year old Georgia man.

Both groundbreaking procedures are indicative of the advanced medical care that's readily available throughout the United States. Such medically-sophisticated procedures are often not an option in my birthplace, Canada. In fact, Canadian patients have limited access to many of the advanced medical technologies taken for granted here in the States.

Would-be health reformers in this country who call for a health care system with “universal coverage” as exists in Canada fail to recognize the system’s inherent inability to provide patients with the latest and most advanced therapies. The consequences can be deadly.

Advanced medical technologies are essential to improving patient health. They help doctors identify and treat diseases more effectively and safely. They can also deliver treatment to patients with less discomfort and pain.

Canadians have significantly lower levels of access to several key medical technologies than citizens in other developed countries. Among member nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada ranks a dismal 19th out of 26 for the number of CT scanners per million residents. It ranks 14th out of 25 for MRI scanners, and 19th out of 21 for lithotripters, which are used to treat kidney and gall stones.

Limited access to high-tech equipment has resulted in lengthy wait times for care. After visiting a primary care physician, the average Canadian has to wait more than a month to get a CT scan and more than two months to get an MRI.

According to Canada’s Fraser Institute, roughly 800,000 of Canada’s 33 million citizens are currently on a waiting list for some medical treatment. For 12 specialties across the country's 10 provinces, the average waiting period between referral from a general practitioner and actual treatment was nearly four and a half months in 2008. That’s double what the average wait time was 15 years ago.

Canadians face some of the longest lines for access to the advanced technologies essential to most major surgeries. The lag between a general practitioner’s referral and treatment by a specialist is eight months for neurosurgery and nine months for both orthopedic surgery and plastic surgery.

Once a Canadian patient finally makes it into the examination or operating room, there’s a good chance that his doctor is using antiquated equipment. The country’s healthcare system employs far too many old and potentially unreliable medical technologies. Many machines should have been junked years ago. Others will need to be replaced in the near future.

According to the Fraser Institute, the European Coordination Committee of the Radiological and Electromedical Industries (ECCREI) recommends that no more than 10 percent of a country’s health technology inventory be older than 10 years old. Beyond that age, the equipment is not considered state-of-the-art and thus could pose a health hazard or lead to substandard treatment of patients.

The Canadian health system doesn't even come close to adhering to this standard. As of 2007, the share of its medical inventory that's over a decade old includes 21 percent of its bone densitometers, which are used to measure the bone density of osteoporosis patients, and 28 percent of its SPECT units, which are used to create three-dimensional images of the body.

A third of Canada's gamma cameras, which are used in nuclear medicine imaging, and a quarter of its angiography and cardiac catheterization labs, for heart-related ailments, are more than 10 years old. Not only does Canada have comparatively few lithotripters to fight kidney and gall stones -- a third of the machines it has are more than a decade old.

The ECCREI also recommends that 60 percent of a country’s medical machines be less than five years old, according to a Fraser Institute study. Canada’s hospital inventories fail in this regard for a seemingly endless list of different machines: bone densitometers, MRI machines, SPECT units, gamma cameras, lithotriptors, and angiography suites, to name a few.

The widespread use of antiquated medical equipment puts Canada’s patient population in a dangerous position. These machines are liable to break down during treatment. Older imaging technologies may yield low-quality images, which can cause doctors to misdiagnose conditions and prescribe ineffective or even harmful treatment regimens.

Canada's dearth of advanced medical technologies is the natural product of a penny-pinching government-run health system. If America moves closer to a fully government-run health system itself, the days of medical -- and technological -- miracles like Connie Culp’s face transplant may be numbered.

Sally C. Pipes is President & CEO of the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care.

Canadian Healthcare Waitlist - Washington Examiner Part 1

Canadians seeking health care have a 'wait problem'
By: Sally C. Pipes, Examiner Contributor- 6/3/09 5:58 PM
First of a two-part series

It's the start of what promises to be a beautiful spring day. But not for you. As the first rays of sunshine filter through your bedroom window, a searing pain settles into your head. You pop an aspirin after shuffling out of bed, drink plenty of water throughout the day, and head to bed early that evening.

But your head is still pounding the next morning. Perhaps it might be time to make an appointment to see your doctor. Unfortunately, as a lifelong resident of Canada, getting medical care is no simple task. Luckily, you generally don't have a problem seeing your general practitioner -- unlike some 17 percent of your compatriots who do not have a GP, or what Americans call a primary care doctor. But seeing a specialist in your native land is almost always a nightmare.

As you lie on the couch with an icepack on your head, you think back a couple years, when you had to wait nine months to see an orthopedic surgeon after hurting your knee playing hockey. The thought of all that waiting convinces you to put off your appointment at the doctor, just in case the problem goes away. After all, it's just a headache, right?But the pain doesn't subside. The headaches persist for a week, and now they're accompanied by occasional bouts of dizziness. Plus, you're having difficulty concentrating, which is affecting your work. Something's got to be wrong.

When you finally go to the doctor and describe your symptoms, he orders an MRI to make sure your headaches aren’t a sign of something serious, like a tumor. Of course, you won't learn the answer for quite awhile. Your doctor informs you that there's a ten-week wait for an MRI. Ten weeks of chronic headaches will be bad enough, you think, but not knowing what's wrong will be even worse because of the worry.

The doc attempts to lighten the mood by pointing out that you could have gone for an MRI in less than a week if you were a dog. Somehow that's not comforting.

Your doctor goes on to tell you that you'll have to wait another 19 weeks for a referral to a neurological specialist if the MRI reveals that something is wrong. "It's probably nothing," your doctor says, "so just relax and try to put it out of your mind."This proves impossible. The wait is so nerve-wracking -- and the headaches so bothersome -- that you do a little online research to see what might be ailing you. You visit a few expert websites and find out that the average survival rate for all forms of cancer is three to four percentage points higher in the United States than it is in Canada, thanks in part to Canada's long waiting lists.
With these statistics in mind, you can't help but consider the worst-case scenario -- a brain tumor. You remember when your neighbor had a benign tumor and had to go in for surgery. What if you end up having a malignant one? You begin to panic. A simple MRI takes 10 weeks, and you have to wait 19 weeks for an appointment with a specialist. All told, you'd likely wait about 32 weeks from the time of your appointment with your general practitioner for neurosurgery treatment! "What good is a single-payer healthcare system," you ask yourself, "if I have to wait eight months for brain surgery? If pets wait less than two days for an MRI and less than a week for an appointment with a specialist, perhaps I'd be better off as a dog!"You prepare to slog through the longest 10 weeks of your life, until your turn with the MRI machine comes.
After one month, you can't wait any longer. You decide to dip into your savings to pay for a private MRI. To your dismay, every healthcare facility you call turns you away (except those in Quebec because of a 2005 Canadian Supreme Court decision), claiming that it's against the law to sidestep the public health system to purchase certain procedures privately, like MRIs. No wonder you constantly hear of not just rich but middle-income Canadians and high-profile politicians heading south to the States to skip the line, get tests like these done privately, and pay out of pocket.

Well, now it's your turn. You head across the border to a private clinic in the United States. The money you had socked away for a family vacation is now destined for an MRI test and a motel in Cleveland.When your test results come back the following day, you finally receive some good news. There's nothing physically wrong with you. The doctor is confident that the headaches are the result of eyestrain and stress. He sends you home with a simple prescription: Take a break, and think about investing in a glare-reducing filter for your computer monitor. If you had known this several weeks earlier, you would have been spared a great deal of anguish. And you would have been able to afford that much-needed beach vacation. Unfortunately, Florida may have to wait until next year.

If you don’t like this scenario, it may just be what we will all face if the public insurance plan that President Obama and leading congressional Democratic politicians have been touting becomes a key pillar of health care reform legislation in America.

Just remember: Access to a waiting list is not access to health care.
Sally C. Pipes is President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care.

Cap & Trade Editorial - Washington Post

It seems like the evidence is mounting that the cap & trade bill will only make the far left happy. This is just one more example of the federal government taking our money, and giving little to no benefit to the average American.


Cap-and-Trade: All Cost, No Benefit

By Martin FeldsteinMonday, June 1, 2009

The Obama administration and congressional Democrats have proposed a major cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Scientists agree that CO2 emissions around the world could lead to rising temperatures with serious long-term environmental consequences. But that is not a reason to enact a U.S. cap-and-trade system until there is a global agreement on CO2 reduction. The proposed legislation would have a trivially small effect on global warming while imposing substantial costs on all American households. And to get political support in key states, the legislation would abandon the auctioning of permits in favor of giving permits to selected corporations.

The leading legislative proposal, the Waxman-Markey bill that was recently passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would reduce allowable CO2 emissions to 83 percent of the 2005 level by 2020, then gradually decrease the amount further. Under the cap-and-trade system, the federal government would limit the total volume of CO2 that U.S. companies can emit each year and would issue permits that companies would be required to have for each ton of CO2 emitted. Once issued, these permits would be tradable and could be bought and sold, establishing a market price reflecting the targeted CO2 reduction, with a tougher CO2 standard and fewer available permits leading to higher prices.

Companies would buy permits from each other as long as it is cheaper to do that than to make the technological changes needed to eliminate an equivalent amount of CO2 emissions. Companies would also pass along the cost of the permits in their prices, pushing up the relative price of CO2-intensive goods and services such as gasoline, electricity and a range of industrial products. Consumers would respond by cutting back on consumption of CO2-intensive products in favor of other goods and services. This pass-through of the permit cost in higher consumer prices is the primary way the cap-and-trade system would reduce the production of CO2 in the United States.

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction -- slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target -- would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year. Some expert studies estimate that the cost to households could be substantially higher. The future cost to the typical household would rise significantly as the government reduces the total allowable amount of CO2.

Americans should ask themselves whether this annual tax of $1,600-plus per family is justified by the very small resulting decline in global CO2. Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent. Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States.

The CBO estimates that the sale of the permits for a 15 percent CO2 reduction would raise revenue of about $80 billion a year over the next decade. It is remarkable, then, that the Waxman-Markey bill would give away some 85 percent of the permits over the next 20 years to various businesses instead of selling them at auction. The price of the permits and the burden to households would be the same whether the permits are sold or given away. But by giving them away the government would not collect the revenue that could, at least in principle, be used to offset some of the higher cost to households.

The Waxman-Markey bill would give away 30 percent of the permits to local electricity distribution companies with the expectation that their regulators would require those firms to pass the benefit on to their customers. If they do this by not raising prices, there would be less CO2 reduction through lower electricity consumption. The permit price would then have to be higher to achieve more CO2 reduction on all other products. Some electricity consumers would benefit, but the cost to all other American families would be higher.

In my judgment, the proposed cap-and-trade system would be a costly policy that would penalize Americans with little effect on global warming. The proposal to give away most of the permits only makes a bad idea worse. Taxpayers and legislators should keep these things in mind before enacting any cap-and-trade system.

Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard University and president emeritus of the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984.

Washington Examiner Editorial - Cap & Trade

Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade scheme will wreck U.S. economy
By: Examiner Editorial-05/18/09 6:05 AM EDT
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, has teamed with Rep. Edward Markey, D-MA, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, to produce the latest in a series of “cap-and-trade” bills designed to reduce carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. Such emissions are produced when carbon-based fuels like petroleum and coal are burned to create energy to run things like electric power plants, automobiles and air conditioning systems. These emissions must be reduced because they are allegedly causing the earth’s atmosphere to heat up, with all sorts of lethal consequences following, not excluding death, destruction and the Final Apocalypse of All Mankind. The problem for such advocates, however, is that earth’s average temperatures have been declining for a decade, and a fast-growing number of climate and other scientists now question the root idea of a global warming crisis. These critics are increasingly banding together with elected officials and other experts in the public policy arena who see cap-and-trade schemes like Waxman-Markey as fatally flawed on two counts.
First, under Waxman-Markey, the government would establish a schedule of emissions reductions – 70 percent by 2030 – and a program of “credits” for businesses that meet the schedule. Those that don’t meet it can buy credits from companies that do, thus satisfying the government’s emission reduction mandate. The problem is that even under the most optimistic scenario, achieving the Waxman-Markey reductions would have only a negligible effect on global temperatures. Europe’s similar cap-and-trade program has been in effect for five years, yet has had no measurable impact on global temperatures. The U.S. effort is likely to fail, too, for the simply reason developing countries, particularly China and India, aren’t going to hobble their expanding economies, which will be dependent upon carbon-based fuels for the foreseeable future. Thus, at best, Waxman-Markey will reduce average global temperatures by much less than one degree.

That reduction highlights the second flaw, which is the excessive cost of achieving virtually no reduction in global temperatures. The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis used an econometric model of the U.S. economy to measure the projected impact of Waxman-Markey and found that by 2035, it would:

§ Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,
§ Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,
§ Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,
§ Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,
§ Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,
§ Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500, and
§ Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

That is a prescription for wrecking American prosperity for decades to come.

Washington Examiner Editorial on the Supreme Court

Two Views of the Constitution and Supreme Court nominations

By: Sen. Jim DeMint, OpEd Contributor- 5/20/09 4:33 PM

Quick, name the American public official who said that a Supreme Court Justice should "make decisions based on the law and the Constitution. Politics and ideological agendas have no place on the nation's highest Court . . . . Activist judges -- from the right or the left -- who substitute their judgment for that which is written in our national charter and in our nation's laws undermine the protections for ordinary Americans provided in our Constitution."Was it:* President George W. Bush* Justice Clarence Thomas* Chief Justice John Roberts* Justice Antonin Scalia* None of the above. It was Vermont Democrat Sen. Pat Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who this week deployed the Orwellian strategy of adopting the language of one's adversary and slapping it on an agenda to do the precisely the opposite.
Regrettably, Leahy's tactics make it very hard for Americans to evaluate the two very different positions on the correct way to interpret the Constitution, which has once again taken center stage with President Obama's first chance to nominate a Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

These two sides took clear shape in the 1980s, when a great and honest debate arose between advocates of judicial restraint, led by President Reagan's Attorney General Ed Meese, and advocates of judicial activism, led by Justice William Brennan. Leahy has always been in the Brennan camp, who are euphemistically referred to as proponents of the "living Constitution," which sounds nice, except that it means you have to throw out the written Constitution.

The problem for Leahy, and for Obama (who is the greatest proponent of judicial activism to occupy the White House in our nation's history), is that Americans like the written Constitution very well, thank you, and they want judges to stick to it. In fact, 70 percent of actual voters nationwide in the last election, regardless of whom they voted for, want a president to nominate justices who "will interpret and apply the law as it is written and not take into account their own viewpoints and experiences" -- that is, who will not do as Obama has said he wants judges to do in the most difficult and controversial cases involving our Constitution. Obama has said plainly that he intends to choose a justice who will go beyond the law and instead be guided in his decisions by “that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles.” That is, instead of applying the Constitution and Bill of Rights as they are written, an Obama judge would substitute his own personal views, feelings, and experiences in deciding court cases.

Yet, in his very next sentence, the president went on to contradict his previous statement, using Leahy’s tactics, “I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role.” Which is it? The rule of law or a justice’s personal views? It cannot be both.But Americans did not vote for Obama because they agree with him on rewriting our democratic laws and Constitution from the bench. In fact, they disagree -- by a margin of more than 3 to 1.

Which is why the President and Leahy are now wrapping their long embrace of liberal judicial activism -- of judges substituting their own (liberal) views for what the law says -- in the rhetoric of the rule of law and judicial restraint.There are only two possibilities here: Dissembling or epiphany.If the former, then Leahy and the White House are seeking to confuse the issue of what's at stake in Supreme Court appointments. Instead of having the courage of their convictions, as Justice Brennan did, and giving Americans a sharp picture of the distinction between the two camps on this issue, they have co-opted the language of judicial restraint to advance the cause of politicized judicial “empathy.”

This cynical manipulation of words undermines the very basis for our system of self-government, because the people are entitled to a robust debate between adversarial points of view among their public servants to decide whom they want to support. Or, Leahy and Obama have simply seen the error of their activist ways, and are now adherents to the original intent of the Framers. They've come to appreciate the decades of overreaching by the Supreme Court, which has failed to equally uphold the explicit commands of the Constitution and Bill of Rights for all Americans and instead has concocted law that was never agreed to by the Founders or by living American citizens.

If this is the case -- and I truly hope it is -- the proof will be in the pudding when Obama nominates someone like Justice Byron White, nominated by President John F. Kennedy, who stood firmly for the rule of law as written in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, who dissented from Roe v. Wade and other lawless forays by the Court into legislating from the bench.Very soon, we will see which of these two scenarios is at work.

Jim DeMint, U.S. Senator from South Carolina, is chairman of the Senate Steering Committee.

ACORN Editorial - The Washington Examiner

The Washington Examiner has done an amazing job reporting on ACORN. No one should want this organization anywhere near something as important as the census.


ACORN got $53 million in federal funds since 94, now eligible for up to $8 billion more
By: Kevin MooneyExaminer Columnist 5/6/09 5:32 AM
At least $53 million in federal funds have gone to ACORN activists since 1994, and the controversial group could get up to $8.5 billion more tax dollars despite being under investigation for voter registration fraud in a dozen states.

The economic stimulus bill enacted in February contains $3 billion that the non-profit activist group known more formally as the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now could receive, and 2010 federal budget contains another $5.5 billion that could also find its way into the group’s coffers.

An Examiner review of federal spending data found that ACORN has received at least $53 million in federal money since 1994. A downloadable spreadsheet of the $53 million is posted on washingtonexaminer.com.

Scott Levenson, ACORN's national spokesman, said "we have received no significant federal funding." When asked by The Examiner about the $53 million, Levenson said: "If you listen to some of the Republicans who are going to get a billion dollars from the stimulus package, I'm still waiting for my share. Their claims are overinflated, this is a gimmick and an attempt to demonize ACORN."

At least one lawmaker, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-MN, wants to stop the flow of tax dollars to ACORN, but House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-MA, stands in her way.

Frank plans to strip out an anti-ACORN provision Bachman succeeded in inserting in the proposed Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act that could be voted on by the House today or Thursday.

Bahmann’s amendment was unanimously approved by Frank’s committee in a voice vote last week. It would block organizations that have been indicted for voter registration or vote fraud from receiving housing counseling grants and legal assistance grants.

The Bachman prohibition would apply only to the proposed mortgage reform legislation, and would not change ACORN’s ability to receive funds under either the stimulus program or 2010 budget.

Frank said his panel’s approval of the Bachman amendment was a mistake and that he had not carefully reviewed its language when he previously voted yes.

“I did not read it carefully, and it was in the last minute that the amendment was accepted,” Frank said. “It is a deeply flawed amendment and I am opposed to it. Banning people from possible participation in government programs based on an indictment is a violation of the basic principles of due process.”

Frank plans to offer another amendment to the bill on the House floor that would allow non-profits that have been indicted to receive grants under the legislation so long as they have not been convicted.

Bachmann said Frank’s amendment would “eviscerate the meaning” of her original amendment.

“I am disturbed by how cavalierly Washington spends the taxpayers’ money,” Bachmann told The Examiner. “The new charges brought against ACORN this week in Nevada reaffirm my concern about giving taxpayer dollars to organizations that are repeatedly under criminal indictment. Last week, I asked: Whose side are we on, the taxpayer's or ACORN's?”

Non-profit groups like ACORN can apply for $2 billion in funds set aside for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes under the $800 billion economic stimulus bill passed earlier this year.

An additional $1 billion in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) are included in the stimulus bill. ACORN and other non-profit advocacy groups could receive through federally funded housing programs administered by state and local governments.

“ACORN is not normally eligible to apply directly for CDBG funds but may apply to the states and local government units that are CDBG recipients,” Matthew Vadum, a senior analyst and editor with Capital Research Center (CRC), said. “This opens the way for ACORN to receive billions more in taxpayer money.”

In addition to the $3 billion available in the stimulus package, the proposed $47.5 billion Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget provides $1 billion for an affordable housing trust fund and $4.5 billion in CDBG funds that could be funneled to ACORN indirectly.

“This means $8.5 billion is on the table this year for ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups,” Vadum said. “ACORN won’t get all of the money but any tax dollars going to a criminal enterprise like this is just wrong.”

Kevin Mooney is an Examiner staff writer on the commentary staff.

More upset at the DC school voucher program

FOX News Blogs » FOX Forum » Juan Williams

April 20th, 2009 4:55 PM Eastern
JUAN WILLIAMS: Obama’s Outrageous Sin Against Our Kids
As I watch Washington politics I am not easily given to rage.
Washington politics is a game and selfishness, out-sized egos and corruption are predictable.
But over the last week I find myself in a fury.
The cause of my upset is watching the key civil rights issue of this generation — improving big city public school education — get tossed overboard by political gamesmanship. If there is one goal that deserves to be held above day-to-day partisanship and pettiness of ordinary politics it is the effort to end the scandalous poor level of academic achievement and abysmally high drop-out rates for America’s black and Hispanic students.
The reckless dismantling of the D.C. voucher program does not speak well of the promise by Obama to be the “Education President.”
This is critical to our nation’s future in terms of workforce preparation to compete in a global economy but also to fulfill the idea of racial equality by providing a real equal opportunity for all young people who are willing to work hard to succeed.
In a politically calculated dance step the Obama team first indicated that they wanted the Opportunity Scholarship Program to continue for students lucky enough to have won one of the vouchers. The five-year school voucher program is scheduled to expire after the school year ending in June 2010. Secretary Duncan said in early March that it didn’t make sense “to take kids out of a school where they’re happy and safe and satisfied and learning…those kids need to stay in their school.”
And all along the administration indicated that pending evidence that this voucher program or any other produces better test scores for students they were willing to fight for it. The president has said that when it comes to better schools he is open to supporting “what works for kids.” That looked like a level playing field on which to evaluate the program and even possibly expanding the program.
But last week Secretary Duncan announced that he will not allow any new students to enter the D.C. voucher program. In fact, he had to take back the government’s offer of scholarships to 200 students who had won a lottery to get into the program starting next year. His rationale is that if the program does not win new funding from Congress then those students might have to go back to public school in a year.
He does not want to give the students a chance for a year in a better school? That does not make sense if the students and their families want that life-line of hope. It does not make sense if there is a real chance that the program might win new funding as parents, educators and politicians rally to undo the “bigotry of low expectations” and open doors of opportunity — wherever they exist — for more low-income students.
And now Secretary Duncan has applied a sly, political check-mate for the D.C. voucher plan.
With no living, breathing students profiting from the program to give it a face and stand and defend it the Congress has little political pressure to put new money into the program. The political pressure will be coming exclusively from the teacher’s unions who oppose the vouchers, just as they oppose No Child Left Behind and charter schools and every other effort at reforming public schools that continue to fail the nation’s most vulnerable young people, low income blacks and Hispanics.
The National Education Association and other teachers’ unions have put millions into Democrats’ congressional campaigns because they oppose Republican efforts to challenge unions on their resistance to school reform and specifically their refusal to support ideas such as performance-based pay for teachers who raise students’ test scores.
By going along with Secretary Duncan’s plan to hollow out the D.C. voucher program this president, who has spoken so passionately about the importance of education, is playing rank politics with the education of poor children. It is an outrage.
This voucher programs is unique in that it takes no money away from the beleaguered District of Columbia Public Schools. Nationwide, the strongest argument from opponents of vouchers is that it drains hard-to-find dollars from public schools that educate the majority of children.
But Congress approved the D.C. plan as an experiment and funded it separately from the D.C. school budget. It is the most generous voucher program in the nation, offering $7,500 per child to help with tuition to a parochial or private school.
With that line of attack off the table, critics of vouchers pointed out that even $7,500 is not enough to pay for the full tuition to private schools where the price of a year’s education can easily go beyond $20,000. But nearly 8,000 students applied for the vouchers. And a quarter of them, 1,714 children, won the lottery and took the money as a ticket out of the D.C. public schools.
The students, almost all of them black and Hispanic, patched together the voucher money with scholarships, other grants and parents willing to make sacrifices to pay their tuition.
What happened, according to a Department of Education study, is that after three years the voucher students scored 3.7 months higher on reading than students who remained in the D.C. schools. In addition, students who came into the D.C. voucher program when it first started had a 19 month advantage in reading after three years in private schools.
It is really upsetting to see that the Heritage Foundation has discoverd that 38 percent of the members of Congress made the choice to put their children in private schools. Of course, Secretary Duncan has said he decided not to live in Washington, D.C. because he did not want his children to go to public schools there. And President Obama, who has no choice but to live in the White House, does not send his two daughters to D.C. public schools, either. They attend a private school, Sidwell Friends, along with two students who got there because of the voucher program.
This reckless dismantling of the D.C. voucher program does not bode well for arguments to come about standards in the effort to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. It does not speak well of the promise of President Obama to be the “Education President,’ who once seemed primed to stand up for all children who want to learn and especially minority children.
And its time for all of us to get outraged about this sin against our children.