2009 Winner Alan Grayson (D-FL)
It takes chutzpah for a Democrat whom has helped set two consecutive American (and world) records in federal deficits and government waste (over $1.4T per year) to suggest that voting for Republicans, whom controlled the Congress and the only party to run a budget surplus, on multiple occasions, over the last 40 years, makes no more sense that hiring members of Al Qaeda to be pilots. Any comparison of the GOP to Al Qaeda is an indisputable breach of civility.
Let me do Grayson the courtesy of seriously analyzing his assertion that turning over the keys of the Congress (and White House) to a party that preaches limited government is irrational. No, Mr. Grayson, the GOP is not a party of anarchists. Grayson's analogy makes no more sense than asserting that you should never eat at a restaurant with a toned, trim head chef whom dishes out limited portion sizes. This is patently absurd, of course. A lean, mean chef doesn't mean that he or she doesn't love food; it simply means he eats what he needs to live a healthy lifestyle. The food doesn't have to taste like cardboard or be prepared in an unhealthy way. In a similar manner, a conservative can believe in public service; however, he or she understands that too much government impedes vibrant economic growth and the well-paying jobs business growth yields, not to mention the self-actualization of its citizens. Lean, mean government never serves for its own purposes but simply to execute limited, core functions and to manage related objectives and goals effectively.
Obama Special-Interest Bailouts? HELL, NO!
Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Obama are backing a $23B state/local teacher bailout (despite Obama's promise of no more bailouts--apparently some bailouts are more equal than others). And Senator Bob Casey recently introduced legislation for a $165B private union bailout.
It has become trite political fare to pay tribute to "overworked" and "underpaid" teachers. Republicans are not exempt from this American sacred cow; Governor Crist (R/I-FL) said he was moved to veto a critical education reform he initially supported because of individual educator anxiety over the nature of new teacher performance standards. My favorite new governor, Chris Christie, almost feels the need to apologize for asking teachers for minor concessions in the face of a huge state budget deficit.
Before going on, let me point out I taught 8 years on the university level, the last 5 years as a full-time professor. I have a sister, a niece, cousins, and a late aunt with education degrees and/or years of teaching experience, plus at least two other college-age nieces and a nephew whom aspire to teaching careers, probably none of whom agree with what I'm about to write. The point is, I have a great deal of respect for the teaching profession. I do not share the same degree of respect for teacher unions and administrators. I also don't have a lot of patience for teachers or professors whom seem to be motivated more by pay and benefit packages, at taxpayer expense, beyond the average household in a state; I was earning less as an untenured professor than a number of my former students. For me, it wasn't about the money; after earning my MBA, I was making just enough money teaching a couple of classes a semester to cover my graduate school expenses.
Politicians have been throwing money at public education for decades now, e.g., lower class sizes. For example, we've gone from roughly 28 students per teacher in the 1950's to 16 students per teacher. Now as someone who has designed research studies, I can tell you how researchers would look at the hypothesized relationship between class size and educational performance. There are relevant complications such as moderator factors; for instance, after I mastered basic skills, I was motivated more by intrinsic factors and my own goals than by teacher behavior; by early high school, I was checking out calculus books from the base library. You want to confirm hypothesized relationships and look for generality across settings (e.g., educational systems outside the US). So, for example, if we increase the ratio of teachers to students, we should see some commensurate improvement in achievement test scores, college entrance exams, etc. In fact, if anything, we have seen scores stagnate or erode despite improved class size, and we have seen higher math scores achieved by students outside the United States, despite much larger class sizes.
In fact, for those of us from a business background, this is a very curious business model. Most of us would look at improving teacher productivity through the intelligent use of technology, e.g., automate skill building, freeing up teacher time to mentor higher-order educational objectives. Instead, we have decreasing economies of scale at the same time we have seen wages and benefits sharply increase, in particular unsustainable pension systems.
Here's the point: legislators, particularly Democratic ones backed by teacher unions, have been throwing more and more money to increase the number of teachers for the same number of students with generous salary and benefit increases. There are some public school teachers earning $70K or more; a second household income pushes that into the six-figures. Legislators are always afraid against pushing back: are you against the education of your constituents' children? Why, I bet you're against babies, Mom, apple pie, and Chevrolet, too! Well, before the Democrats started throwing more money at education, they should have been thinking of establishing a rainy-day fund and what would happen if tax revenues dropped by 20% or more. It's not like recessions are unknown phenomena.
The fact is, there are competing demands for public funds; I'm sure that police, firemen and other public servants also feel the same way. But more to the point, if states like Texas and Indiana have done a better job of planning for down periods than, say, California, Illinois and New York, why should we be bailing out Democratic legislators whose promises to their special-interest supporters are effectively being bailed out by American taxpayers whose own jobs are not being bailed out by the government?
Perish the thought than maybe some states may actually have to increase class size to somewhere between 16 and 28! I suspect that somehow despite all the teacher union Chicken Little's, our kids are resilient...
I am not indifferent to hard-working teachers losing their jobs during a recession. I lost my college teaching career during one; I know a talented experienced teacher in Colorado going into her second year without a full-time job offer. But the larger issue is setting a bad precedent: the states will know that future generations of the United States will pick up the costs if states don't want to do the politically unpopular, i.e., cut enough or raise taxes to make up the difference If families have to live on a budget, so do the city, state, and federal governments.
As for Senator Casey wanting to bail out various union-relevant pension plans, the vast majority of which were in trouble 4 years ago before the recession, dream on! Did we bail out Enron employees, many of whom lost their entire retirement savings? Pension funds are going the way of the dinosaurs; we are seeing more 401K/403B type retirement systems with a partial company match. Just as bailing out the states is wrong from a moral hazard perspective, so is bailing out private pension funds. What the Obama Administration did in putting union demands over the higher-ranking obligations to bondholders during the auto bankruptcies was grossly unethical: now we're talking about the American taxpayer or future generations expected by pay off Democratic chits to Big Labor...
Political Cartoon
Lisa Benson points out that Obama has managed to spend his way to a $3T deficit, while barely touching on an 8 million job deficit since the recession, followed recently by a fragile economic recovery, started in late 2007. (And, yes, Obama, we know--Bush was President during the early period of the recession when you and a majority of other Senate Democrats controlled the Senate.)
Quote of the Day
One may go a long way after one is tired.
French proverb
Musical Interlude: The AFI Music Top 100 (continued)
#33. "Aquarius"
#34. "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"
#35. "America" from West Side Story
#36. "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"
