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(10/19/10 11:17pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The GOP has generated a myth of desiring small government while generating most of the nation’s debt. Since 1978, 81 percent (or $9.1 trillion) of the U.S. Public Debt has been created under Republican presidents.Yet Republicans cling to their Reaganomics and supply-side economics, not phased by the reality of history. In the age of Clinton — the age of tax increases for those with an income of more than $200,000 — conservatives were sure a recession was on the horizon. But instead, as Jonathan Chait noted for The New Republic, “the economy boomed and revenue skyrocketed. It is rare that events so utterly repudiate an economic theory.”Kudos to the Republicans. In their “Pledge to America,” they not only decry Obama’s “job-killing” policies, but they also offer solutions, which are profound and original.The Democrats’ prediction that unemployment would plunge to 7 percent by now turned out to be fearsomely incorrect. The state of the economy could have been worse with 1.4 to 3.3 million more Americans jobless, had the stimulus package not been implemented.This is not to say that the Republicans are wrong on all accounts. Reihan Salam of National Review makes an excellent point that the desire to curb taxes for the rich is more than the mentality of “they earned it, they should get to keep it.” People understand the need for infrastructure, military, social welfare, etc. but legitimately worry whether their tax dollars are being used effectively.True too is the basic economic knowledge that tax hikes do create disincentives for working harder. But unfortunately for the GOP, the world is more complex. Their proposed policies would have us in more debt than Obama’s ever would — and indeed, the stimulus package is expected to increase budget deficits by $814 billion during the next 10 years.So as House Minority Leader John Boehner said, surely Obama is refusing to do anything “about bringing down the deficits that threaten our economy.”But let’s take a look at the policies he and his fellows support: If Republicans were to truly have their way, Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest among us would add $700 billion more to the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that repealed health care would lead to a deficit increase of about $455 billion (opposed to the $170 billion to be pruned if kept).Along with other measures, Republican policies would make the deficit worse by about $1.1 trillion as opposed to the $640 billion increase Democratic policies caused.The total amount of government workers have declined under Obama. Aside from health care reform and rising unemployment insurance and Medicaid, the government has not been a wicked, cancerous growth metastasizing throughout the country, as Republican witch doctors have diagnosed.But perhaps it should be.As far as the Bush tax cuts are concerned, please note that Obama plans to extend them for the 95 percent of taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year (and those wealthier still receive the cuts on the first $250,000 of their income).Is Obama really being unreasonable? No. Our recovery drags along painfully, but it is simply not feasible to maintain such low tax rates.As true fiscal conservative Andrew Sullivan blogs, repealing the cuts is an unfortunate necessity: “The Bush tax cuts became unaffordable as soon as we launched two wars. They were designed to end now. ...So let’s get on with it and stop this 1980s posturing.”After all, wishful thinking is about as effective of a cure as Glenn Beck’s tears and fairy dust. E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu
(10/13/10 12:15am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Would you trust your public utilities — which are usually monopolies — to regulate themselves? And for the line between government and business to blur and fade? And if such a situation were to occur and was ignored by your State Ethics Commission, or even approved and deemed legal by it, would you gawk and gape in wonderment at the Ethics Commission members, who regulate the very administration that appoints them?You might want to start — immediately — and question your increasingly jacked up utilities bill. The debacle involving Scott Storms and David Hardy brought corruption within the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to light, but it is only the beginning. Storms, who played general counsel to the IURC as well as an administrative law judge for major Duke Energy cases, had been in touch with Duke regarding a job offer while presiding over hearings related to a $2.9 billion coal-gasification plant (a price-tag that has increased tremendously from its original estimate of less than $2 billion). He accepted the job this past September after taking a twirl in the revolving door between IURC and Duke, not even completing the one-year “cooling-off period” required between a decision-maker regulatory post and work at the regulated entity. And yet, the State Ethics Commission ignored ethics rules and cleared the path for Storm’s new career. When it came to light that Hardy, the IURC Chairman, was aware of Storms’ negotiations whilst regulating, Governor Mitch Daniels fired him promptly. But, as Rep. Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne, said, “This is just the beginning of the solution, but the firing doesn’t solve the problem.” While Daniels should be lauded for this rightful action, much reform is needed in the system, reform that he appears resistant to. Moses and House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, call for “greater enforcement over the whole ethics structure” and especially for an independent voice in the modus operandi, but Daniels claims “it wouldn’t have prevented this.” Daniels is leery, no doubt, because their suggested reforms would limit his power. Moses and Bauer’s sound solutions, however, are crucial to ratepayers’ rights (in fact, it is shocking that they are not in place already).First, they encourage that the state inspector general be made more independent, as it is a conflict of interest for him to investigate and expose corruption and waste in the administration of the governor that appointed him. Second, they suggest requiring legislative confirmation of the IURC’s five members, all of whom are currently appointed by our governor. Daniel’s resistance should be called into question. Perhaps such changes “wouldn’t have prevented this,” as he claimed, but such would be true only if the case of Storm and Hardy were an isolated incident. In actuality, state regulators and the industries they are intended to regulate are buddy-buddy through and through. Hardy himself worked for the predecessor of Duke, Public Service Indiana, before joining the IURC. David Joest, once a coal industry lobbyist, is now a lobbyist for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, and Thomas Easterly, the current head of IDEM, formerly headed a utility company. Frankly, the one-year revolving door rule doesn’t cut it. Regulators do not need a background working in the industry they regulate — in fact, it should be undesirable to ratepayers.Take, for instance, Duke’s planned “clean coal” plant (an oxymoron if there ever was one). Duke asked for electricity rates to be spiked 19 percent to cover the costs of this plant. Challenged by various organizations — such as the Citizens Action Coalition, Valley Watch and Sierra Club — as being unnecessary for Hoosiers’ electrical needs and prohibitively expensive, the plant has been approved by the IURC. This decision was made even though a $15 million study, funded by ratepayers, showed the building site to be wholly unsuitable for carbon capture and sequestration of the nine million tons of CO2 projected to be released each year by the plant, a process Duke insincerely claimed would be “on site” and part of the nearly $3 billion bill. As Storms was largely involved in the plant’s approval, Daniels will have his administrative opinions for the case reviewed to determine whether “undue influence was exerted in the decisions,” as David Pippen, Daniels’ general counsel, wrote in a memo. However positive this action may be, the ethics process in Indiana state government must be restructured to form a vanguard against future mishaps and abuses. E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu
(10/06/10 12:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Paycheck Fairness Act of 2010. Hell, we don’t need that, do we?As columnist George F. Will wrote for Monday’s Newsweek, women last year got themselves more doctoral degrees than men, and they even live five years longer than men on average (Because that really relates to, you know, gender equality). Women are so darn lucky now. Isn’t it just plain “ludicrous to argue that women should be regarded as victims in a patriarchal, phallocentric America?” Yes, Mr. Will, but only if you completely skew the facts (which you did). Sure, women have made progress — but underlying cultural norms still persist, and (can you imagine!) disparities still exist. I’ll try to keep my asperity restrained while I explain.First, pay disparities do not “largely reflect women’s choices” to spend more time with the family than in the office. Even women who do not intend to have kids, go to the best schools and aim high earn $4,600 less than their male peers in their first jobs out of business school, according to a survey from Catalyst.And then we have the women who, God forbid, do choose to marry and have munchkins. What terrible life choices, what faulty decision-making.You see, marriage and kids affect women more than men in the workplace. People employ “bias avoidance strategies” if their care-giving commitments seem negative to their bosses and co-workers. A study on tenure-track parents employed at Pennsylvania State University found that 37 percent of fathers and 46.2 percent of mothers skipped their kids’ important events because they “did not want to appear uncommitted to their jobs.” And looking at the study as a whole, 23.9 percent of men and 49.6 percent of women reported “at least one productive bias avoidance behavior,” meaning they minimized family time.These perceived biases are legitimate. Women in management with children are still earning 79 cents per every dollar male managers with children make, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s latest glass-ceiling report. Female managers without children have seen their average pay rise from 81 cents to 83 cents per every dollar a male manager makes between 2000 and 2007.In fact, women who use their partner’s surname are viewed as “more dependent, less intelligent, more emotional and less competent” than single peers and are less likely to be hired, as a study at Tilburg University discovered.And in dual-earning households, women still shoulder two-thirds of the housework, leading to what is called the “second-shift.” But suck it up, ladies. After all, it was your choice, and a 20 percent wage gap is practically zero, am I right? We must stop purporting misleading half-truths about the wage gap. After all, women are not out to surpass men. This is a struggle for equality, not a cause for defensiveness.I am not saying that we are all sexist — at least, not consciously. Both men and women are barraged by cultural influences, some good, some bad. I only ask that we try to be aware of these often unconscious biases and that we don’t shy from legislation dealing with them. Now to the Paycheck Fairness Act.Where our president sees a common sense measure that ought to pass, Will sees merely a way for trial lawyers to fill their coffers. Yes, yes, the act allows women more ease in suing employers who pay them less than men. But if those cases are legitimate ones with real discrimination (and I’m sure most women would hesitate to cry “victim”), then what’s the problem? Moreover, as Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., writes, this isn’t just a problem for women — with “more two-income couples stretching every single penny in their possession to make ends meet, the problem of women earning smaller paychecks for no good reason becomes even more acute for the entire family.”And, as Will notes, construction and manufacturing were particularly hard-hit in this recession, which could lead to women comprising the majority of the workforce for the first time. However, this exacerbates the problem because that extra 20 cents or so per dollar could really help out struggling families.Perhaps, if passed, the act truly will be an “invitation to litigation,” as Will puts it. But fighting for pay equity shouldn’t be slanted negatively as a battle between men and women — because “women’s liberation,” as activist Gloria Steinem said, “is men’sliberation too.” E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu
(09/29/10 12:28am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The DREAM Act, which had been tacked onto the recent defense bill, would have granted legal residency and a chance at citizenship to undocumented immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children and who are either attending college or joining the military.Republican senators filibustered the defense bill with all its attendant amendments. It couldn’t even be debated.Worse, Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes to overcome the filibuster. But the dream isn’t dead yet.Now, added as a stand-alone bill to the legislative calendar and likely to be voted on after November, the DREAM Act has a fighting chance. Unfortunately, without the safety of being passed with the defense bill, the DREAM Act will likely be subject to much compromise.Sen. Richard Lugar is currently the only GOP sponsor of the DREAM Act, which is a brainchild of his along with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). He did side with other Republicans against the defense bill, but only on account of his uncertainty about a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that was also attached to the bill. I have no doubt he will whole-heartedly support the DREAM Act as a stand-alone.Still, I must express doubt at the lily-livered actions of senators on both sides of the aisle. As business writer Daniel Cubias blogged for www.change.org, “It is mystifying, however, why they insist on shooting themselves in the foot and then congratulating each other on their aim.”You see, many Republicans who approved the measure in 2004 — when 58 percent of Americans supported it — have now flip-flopped (perhaps because a new president would be signing it) although public approval has now increased to an overwhelming 70 percent.This change is because of the Republican party’s increasing shift to the far right, which is in part caused by the recent tea party politics. Republicans have solidified themselves as the party of no, repeatedly blocking discussion and votes while offering no feasible solutions themselves.Even the Republicans’ insipid “Pledge to America” is a stale piece of work that is “grounded in the same worn-out philosophy,” as President Barack Obama put it. Slash spending, slash taxes (for the wealthy) and refuse to debate the merits of any other policy. But back to my primary topic — the slashing of dreams.First, the GOP’s main complaint (or excuse) about the DREAM Act is it’s one of many non-defense related tag-alongs on the defense bill.Actually, it would ease military recruitment efforts. Ironically, the same complainers had no qualms when it was attached to a previous defense bill in 2007.In fact, there would many benefits to the American people as a whole. The concept of “amnesty” should not be stigmatized; children should not be penalized for the supposed sins of their parents. Furthermore, it is common knowledge that not long from now, minorities will be the majority and a driving force in our economy. About 52 percent of Hispanics born outside of the U.S. drop out of high school, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. After all, why not? Their career options, if they are here illegally, are severely constricted. People should not be horrified that illegal immigrants are here, but of their tragic state of education. Imagine the economic benefits, the investments, the increased tax revenues and decreased expenditures on social services and the military service to the U.S. that would be brought about by the estimated 825,000 young people who would benefit from the act, according to the Migration Policy Institute. These young people were raised in this land, and it was not by their say that they were brought here. So let them join the legal workforce — it’s in our self-interest as well as theirs. E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu
(09/22/10 11:02pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Tempers flared at a recent European Union summit when French President Nicolas Sarkozy argued with President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso about France’s continuing deportation of Roma migrants. Sarkozy took special umbrage to E.U. Justice Commissioner Vivian Reding’s lamentation that “this is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War.” While it is true that Word War II comparisons are often trite and exaggerated, we feel that Reding’s comments are appropriate to the situation. On the defensive, Sarkozy calls her words “disgusting and shameful.” Shameful? It is shameful that France — according to a leaked official circular — is targeting the Roma, a specific ethnic group, to deport. It is disgusting and shameful action that is not only morally repugnant but also illegal under E.U. law.About 500,000 Roma in France are French nationals, 100,000 of whom travel and about 10,000 are migrants from poorer regions. The latter are allowed to move freely throughout the union and remain in any one place for three months, after which they must have obtained a job or be paying into a social security system. according to E.U. law. Supposedly, Sarkozy is going after the illegal camps (although, as the leak reveals, this is based on ethnicity), but many of the ostensibly illegal camps to be bulldozed are comprised wholly of French citizens, as discovered by visiting Canadian Parliament Member Ujjal Dosanjh. Few dare to challenge France, an influential founding member of the E.U., but Reding still intends to take France to court for its racially based deportations.Sarkozy has also attempted to remove some Roma by offering them 300 euros, about $392, to leave voluntarily. And yet, these deportations are not only illegal, they are ineffective. As one tittering Romanian official said, “They are just giving the Roma a paid vacation.” As soon as they leave, they turn back around. Where else are they to go? Roma populations are rejected nearly everywhere and treated based on stereotypes of criminality and uncleanliness: Roma children are often pushed into classes for the mentally handicapped and Roma women are placed in separate maternity wards.Roma culture does contribute to this problem. Experts say education is often considered of little value, but little education combined with lack of skills has made it difficult for many Roma to find jobs. Eric Besson, the French minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Mutually-Supportive Development, asserts that Romania should spend more on integration. Perhaps, but France should consider this option as well.Instead of shipping Roma out, which is a short-term solution if a solution at all, France should follow the lead of Spain, where the majority of migrating Roma have settled. Instead of deporting them, Spain formed a program to invest in education, health and lodging for Roma women.
(09/21/10 11:22pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Elizabeth Warren, who has the role of setting up the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection by President Obama, poses this question: “Why should students who are trying to finance an education be treated more harshly than someone who negligently ran over a child or someone who racked up tens of thousands of dollars gambling?” It’s a darn good question. Ever since the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, consumer protections have been gradually but grossly stripped from student loans. First, discharges were not allowed until five years had passed after the first payment, but now student loans are absolutely non-dischargeable unless “undue hardship” upon the debtor or dependents are proven, a rule that is inconsistently applied. Originally, this non-discharge protection only included student loans backed by government entities, but in 2005, legislation egregiously expanded it to private student loan lenders. Meanwhile, mortgages, credit-card balances and gambling debts are all easily excused without the debtor having to prove undue hardship. As for students, they do not have the protections of Truth in Lending Act measures, statute of limitations, certain exemptions of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and other key safeguards awarded to nearly all other loans.Additionally, student loans are subject to the most brutal debt collection policies: wage garnishment is allowed for debts on student loans without a court order, as is garnishment of social security and disability benefits. As college costs rise along with the debt students accumulate, these draconian measures take their toll. But what about overhaul of the student loan program that was slipped into healthcare reform not too long ago?President Obama hailed the reform as “one of the most significant investments in higher education since the GI Bill.” The reform cuts out many of the middlemen (mainly Sallie Mae) who lined their pockets repeatedly and gratuitously throughout the debt collection process; now students might borrow directly from the government. However, this just turns the vastly profitable student loan market back to the government while saving taxpayers a truckload. While some of these subsequent savings will go toward the Pell Grant program and some interest rates will be lowered, the reforms actually accomplish little on behalf of students themselves.These are positive changes for the country (before, Sallie Mae made a killing on student loans at no risk to itself) but students are still left defenseless. With the Department of Education receiving 20 percent returns from interest and fees on defaulted student loans, the government has no incentive to protect students’ rights. Instead, students are treated as a cash cow, and criminally so. And yet, reform might be on the horizon — only last week a House subcommittee passed legislation H.R. 5043, which would reinstate bankruptcy protections to private student loans. Although it has overcome its first obstacle, the bill is still a long way from becoming law. Republican opposition is strong as they fret over the market for private loans and worry, rather needlessly in this case, over abuse of the bankruptcy system — as if uncapped interest rates are in no way abusive to students. I urge you to call or write your representatives and ask them to support H.R. 5043, the Private Student Loan Bankruptcy Fairness Act. One day, you may be glad that you did. E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu
(09/14/10 11:57pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s the spring of 1964, and a school’s student body is given a standardized intelligence test: those expected to be high achievers are presented as such to their instructors. By fall, the selected first graders have increased their I.Q. by an average of 27.4 points, compared to the 12 points achieved by their peers. The test was an accurate predictor of success, no? No. The children singled out for success had originally performed across the board — low, average, high — and it was the power of expectation on the part of the teachers, the positive influence bestowed upon the purported high achievers, that drew out their potential. It was the Pygmalion effect, ivory turned to flesh. And now it’s 2010, and your governor, Mitch Daniels, believes that too many youngsters attend college. “We want to see an Indiana where there is a place for every student, but not every student can go every place.” This is the quote stressed by his office in a recent news release regarding a session with trustees of our state’s public colleges. It’s an oft-repeated sentiment of Daniels, who only a year ago distributed copies of Charles Murray’s “Real Education” to members of the Indiana Education Roundtable — a book in which Murray states that “one of the most damaging messages of educational romanticism has been that everyone should go to college.” The book also says an I.Q. test should be given to 6 year olds to determine whether they will go on to college or to skilled labor programs and that race is linked to intelligence.It’s social Darwinism and pseudo-scientific racism, a belief that the lower classes are stupid, immutably so, and inferior to Murray’s cognitive elite. This is Daniels’ beloved author, whom he touts profusely as inspiration for his economic philosophy. As IU professor and State Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, writes, such philosophy is “a throwback to 50 years ago when African-Americans and other students from economically struggling families were told they could never achieve beyond low-paying, dead-end jobs.”Murray asserts that children from low-income households cannot be significantly assisted by even the best schools. There is no sound scientific evidence of this — but perhaps such ideology influenced Daniels last year when he slashed $300 million from education funds. After all, he believes teachers to be greedy and overpaid, and that public anger is directed “not just [toward] Wall Street or overpaid corporate CEOs but government employees and their unions.” In reality, about 4 percent of Americans agree that teachers are overpaid, according to a January poll by CBS news.Daniels’ philosophy mocks the 21st Century Scholars program and scorns upward mobility. It is the same scorn initially given to the G.I. Bill by professors and university administrators who believed “unqualified people, the most unqualified of this generation” were coming to college, as Harvard’s president contended at the time.And yet, as Karen Chenoweth of advocacy group The Education Trust writes, “Those returning vets, once they got a higher education, provided much of the managerial and professional spine for the nation’s economy for the second half of the 20th century.”Daniels’ pernicious ideology is both dangerous and cruel — it is, as former President George W. Bush stated in one of his few eloquent moments, “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu
(09/08/10 1:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Media has, in total, misled Americans regarding the “Ground Zero Mosque,” largely by embracing that very meme. Why the emaciation of sound journalism? Why exacerbate what shouldn’t be controversy? To incite said controversy. To provide easy campaign fodder. To gain viewership and readership. And now, if you will be enlightened, here are some widely available, widely ignored facts. Fact: The mosque is not on nor at Ground Zero. The Associated Press, when finally pressing associates to do away with such phrasing, noted the mosque will be “two blocks away in a busy commercial area.” Fact: The mosque is more than just a mosque. It is to be “a small portion” of Park51, a YMCA-style cultural center with an auditorium, library, swimming pool, gym and “a September 11th memorial and quiet contemplation space, open to all,” according to the project’s website.Fact: This area has already been used for worship since 2009, as there is much spillover from two already well-established mosques in lower Manhattan (Masjid Manhattan, founded 1970, four blocks from Ground Zero and Masjid al-Farah, founded 1985, 12 blocks away).“People had been praying on sidewalks because they had no room ... We made the move to buy 45 Park Place in July 2009 in part to offset the loss of this space,” said lead developer Sharif el-Gamal.Fact: Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf, despite Fox News’ portrayal of him as “part of the stealth jihad” and out-of-context quotes, is indeed a moderate, part of “a Muslim-American force for promoting the universal values of justice and peaceful coexistence in which all good people believe,” who believes “fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam.” What should we make of these facts? Is there anything to debate? Should an entire religion be condemned for the acts of a few extremists who do not follow its true practices? No. Even if it were solely a mosque and not part of a community center, a resounding No. So why, as a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll tells us, is 70 percent of America against the building plan? Why does Pastor Terry Jones intend to hold a “International Burn a Koran Day” because he said he believes the sacred text, which he has never read, is “full of lies?” Fear. The us-them mentality. Columnist Stanley Fish aptly wrote that if a perpetrator of violence is “uncomfortably close” to our own profile — white, Christian — we “characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.” If they are comfortably distant from yourself — lambast the lot, all of their brethren. It happened in the case of Timothy McVeigh and again in the case of Michael Enright — who, perhaps spurred on by the anti-Mosque rhetoric, assaulted a Muslim cab driver only a few weeks ago. But that, you see, was the act of an individual. So back to anti-Mosque, anti-Islam sentiments. It is not bigotry, the opponents of the mosque say. It is because it is emotionally right. But, it is the same feeling of emotional rightness that led to the internment of Japanese-Americans, hostility toward German-Americans and Catholics and hate-crimes throughout our nation’s history. E-mail: celgrund@indiana.edu