Groceries and Politics - and Euthanasia?

A strange thing happened to me a couple months ago while I was grocery shopping.   This was before the Federal health insurance bill was passed.  I was approached by a elderly man (elderly meaning older than me) who commented on my Iowa T-shirt.   The commenting wasn't the strange part.  The discussion that ensued was, at least to me, the strange part.  It started benignly, with "How are things in Iowa?"   I responded that things were pretty good in Iowa (where I used to live), especially as compared with the political chaos in Illinois (where I've lived for the past 22+ years).   

In case you haven't heard, Illinois is drowning under a $13 billion (maybe more) deficit and politicians who don't have the courage to raise taxes to pay for the services the public has come to expect.   So we're laying off teachers because the State owes money to local school districts for last school year.   But I digress.  

I made some remark about Illinois government, and the man launched into a passionate dissertation on how the Federal government wants to ration health care to the elderly.   I was startled initially, but tried to say something about how health care costs are out of control and too many people have no insurance.  His response was that the government wants to set up "death panels" to save money.   I was flabbergasted that this guy was actually convinced that his country wants him dead.

As I listened to this man, who was convinced that any effort to reduce health care costs would be tantamount to executing the elderly, I realized that he wasn't really interested in discussion, but simply wanted to convince me that his view was correct.  I don't feel like I know all the answers to lots of topics, but I wasn't about to buy into this conspiracy theory.  It seemed advisable to extricate myself from the "chat" and finish my grocery shopping, which I did.   But the encounter bothered me a lot.

I had suggested to the man that our current for-profit health insurance system is designed to make profits for the corporations, and that lots of people are denied coverage for various treatments by the insurance companies.  He told me his fate was more secure in the hands of corporate interests rather than government, another consequence of Ronald Reagen's anti-government philosophy.  

I find such a belief truly incredible, given how badly many large corporations treat employees, the environment, and anything else that doesn't directly pad their profits.  

And I'd also suggest that when it comes to something as overtly nefarious as euthanasia, our government is the last place to look for efficient implementation.

No, I don't believe anyone in the current Administration was promoting "death panels" or euthanasia in order to curb health care costs.   I also believe that we Americans expect miracle cures for everything, from "ED" to sleeplessness to terminal cancer.  And we simply can't afford to consider unlimited expensive cures (paid for by someone else) to delay the inevitable.   As usual, there has to be a middle ground and we have to find some way to discuss what that might be.

Watching Our Schools Crumbling

The State of Illinois is currently imploding financially and the politicians of both major parties seem unwilling to actually deal with the problems.   They persist in pointing fingers at the "other" party and sticking their heads in the sand.   For decades, both Republicans and Democrats have trumpeted "no tax increase" and convinced the public that State government (including all that it supports such as public schools) is bad and fat.   The result is that Illinois has one of the lowest and most regressive income taxes in the nation (3%) and a $14 Billion dollar deficit.   Schools throughout the state are now laying off teachers for next school year (some estimates say the layoffs may reach 17,000 teachers or more), and social services organizations are closing their doors because the State hasn't made payments due this fiscal year.  To put the deficit into perspective, if the State fired every State employee right now, that would amount to $4 Billion, leaving us with a $10 Billion hole.

I wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune a couple weeks ago, but neither has printed it.   I am publishing it here in the hope that a few people will find it of interest and use.  It's a little long, but IMO it addresses the core issues.

Put Pressure Where It Belongs-Springfield

In recent weeks, many people have become aware of the financial difficulties being faced by school districts around the State.   In many cases, the Districts are confronted by huge revenue shortfalls and are considering draconian cuts to staff in order to meet these changes.  As a Board Member of a District directly impacted by the State of Illinois' deadbeat status, I'd like to offer several observations.

1. The budget shortfalls currently facing most Districts is directly related to the unwillingness of Illinois legislators to meet the State's financial obligations.

2. The underlying weakness causing the immediate financial problems in public education is an over-reliance on property taxes.  As the basis for public education, property taxes cause huge inequities between Districts which have lots of commercial property and those that do not.   Those that are forced to rely on homeowners as the major source of property taxes tend to have higher tax rates and tax burdens on individual homeowners.  Commercial properties bring revenue into school districts without adding students.

3. The State legislature has repeatedly refused to change the funding of public education from property taxes to the income tax over the past couple of decades.

4. When legislators wring their hands over the potential bankruptcy of public education, and say "we understand the problem, but we just don't have the money" they are being disingenuous, at best.   If the State of Illinois doesn't "have the money" it's because the legislators have refused to deal with reality and alter the State's ridiculously low and regressive income tax in order to fully meet the State's responsibility for funding education.

5. The public is rightfully concerned about the potential long-term damage to our schools, and the resultant long-term damage to our children's education caused by the current financial melt-down.

6. State legislators of both major parties should be held accountable by the public for their refusal to work for the "greater good" and ensure that all our public schools are fully funded. 

7. Local school board members have remarkably little control over how to respond to the current financial constraints.   If their Districts do not have enough revenue coming in, they have no choice but to cut staff.

8. If the public wants to effect meaningful change, it must put unrelenting pressure on its elected State representatives to deal with reality and stop finger-pointing and political posturing.   The public needs to tell our State legislators that it is well past time for Illinois to actively support public education and fund it accordingly.

Until State legislators of both major parties in both the House and Senate feel like there is a political consequence to ignoring the State's financial plight, nothing will change.   Your child's classes will inevitably get larger, and the elements of a well-rounded education, such as exposure to the arts, will become rarer.  If you truly care about your children, and equally importantly, the children of your neighbors, you need to express your outrage to your State representatives.

Public education is about the education of everyone, including your child and the children of your neighbors.  Just as we all benefit from good roads and bridges, we all benefit from good public schools.  And, one way or the other, we will all pay for the destruction of public education in Illinois.

Voting By The Uninformed

One of the benefits of a democracy is that the citizens have the right to vote.  One of the problems in a democracy is that the citizens have the right to vote even if they have no clue what's going on.   For the entire history of our Republic, there have been countless elections in which very few voters bothered to vote.  

Even during the formation of the nation, as school kids used to be taught, the populace didn't form a clear majority for a particular direction (we learned 1/3 of the late 18th century population was "loyalist" or pro-British, 1/3 were in favor of independence, and the remaining 1/3 didn't care one way or the other).  This break-down apparently arose from the writing of John Adams, and he may have been talking about support for the French Revolution, not the American dispute.   Other estimates give the Loyalists and Patriots in the neighborhood of about 20% each, and the fence-sitters the vast majority (around 60%) of the white population.  The point is, even during the American Revolution, there were a huge amount of people who either had no opinion or couldn't make up their minds. 

So should we expect everyone to vote in elections now?   I think not, and so does Stan Zegel in this Chicago Tribune article.   He makes the case that our country is better served by only encouraging the informed voters to actually vote, and let those who are uninformed stay home.  

In Illinois, the State that gave the nation Rod Blagojevich our impeached ex-Governor, and the State that recently had an unknown pawnbroker win the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor (only to resign from the nomination after his criminal history became public), and the State that is rapidly lurching toward bankruptcy, the recent primary election had something less than 1/3 of the eligible voters show up.


Zegel rightly points out that "that the quality of the vote is more important than the quantity of votes."  He talks about the fact that a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor drew 7000 votes, despite the fact that he dropped out of the race before election day.  That implies that there were at least several thousand voters who weren't paying attention closely enough to understand who was still in the race.  In fact, the winner of that race still hasn't been determined, and the votes for the non-candidate are far greater than the distance between the top two candidates.

Those random or uninformed votes are four times greater than the margin separating the first- and second-place finishers in the cliffhanger race. In fact, carefree voting possibly changed the outcome of the race.

I have to agree with Zegel; our elections, whether they are for national or local offices, are too important for all of us to be decided by the ignorant.   We should be encouraging people to become informed and knowledgable about issues, rather than simply encouraging everyone to "get out and vote."

Most citizens have the right to vote, but not everyone should exercise that right. Voting is too important to be thrust into the hands of the uninformed...For good government we need good voting. The best election is not one in which everyone votes, but one in which everyone who voted cast fully informed ballots.

Politics and Global Warming

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that there seems to be a vocal minority in the US that still doesn't believe than humans created the world's pollution levels and that the pollution has caused global temperatures to rise over the years and that this temperature rise is a threat to us. If you use the commentary section on newspaper web sites as an indicator, it would appear that there are an awful lot of these folks out there; more on that later.

In a recent news report on the current Governor's race in Illinois, the Daily Herald reported that five of the seven candidates for the Republican nomination don't "believe" that humans have caused global warming. One candidate allowed that humans "contribute" to global warming, but wasn't sure how much. The seventh candidate hedged his bets and stated he believes global warming research is "still evolving." I'm surprised he was brave enough to use the word "evolve."

The question was raised to elicit comment from the candidates on their views of "cap and trade" legislation at the Federal level. As such, it's really of small importance to the potential Governor of Illinois, but these candidates felt the need to explain their opposition to cap and trade. Rather than simply stating that they felt that a cap and trade approach to reducing pollution would have an unacceptable detrimental impact on business and employment (presumably because they think cap and trade will add costs to doing business), these politicians felt that they needed to attack the very notion that humans caused the climate changes scientists are observing. The public comments these people made are positively stunning in the depth of ignorance they displayed:

"I don't accept the premise that man is the cause of global warming, if global warming even exists," Kirk Dillard, a state senator from Hinsdale, said at a candidate forum last week.

"Global warming is not created by man and anybody who says that, it's just bad science. It's not true," said Bob Schillerstrom, chairman of the DuPage County Board.

Dan Proft, a Chicago-area public relations consultant, said Al Gore and other global warming activists are "kind of enviro-terrorists."

The State of Illinois is staggering under huge budget deficits, a regressive state income tax that hasn't been changed in a generation, more corrupt politicians than you can shake a stick at, and a public education system that is going bankrupt due to its reliance on property taxes. One could argue that the position of a potential Illinois Governor on global warming, climate change, and whether humans or polar bears caused these problems is of little relevance to the Chief Executive of the State. One would probably be mostly correct.

On the other hand, the fact that five candidates for statewide office had no compunction making such patently ridiculous statements in a public forum is disturbing for another reason. These politicians are so busy pandering to the "GOP base," that they can't accept what every middle school student knows is true; there's no explanation for global warming and its impact on climate besides humans and the pollution we have generated.

Now back to the online comments made by newspaper readers. This article generated the same kind of vitriolic and ignorant rants that cause me to generally avoid reading such commentary. Virtually all of these comments are posted by people using pseudonyms and their anonymity empowers them to make broad assertions as if they were facts. While they lambaste other commenters for making unsubstantiated or false "liberal" or "left-wing" statements about global warming, these posters make just as unsubstantiated claims masquerading as fact. Some of them make simple blanket statements about how well wildlife is faring in the Arctic, as if to settle the fallacy of global warming for everyone.

The ignorant comments of the public after news articles (about ignorant comments of politicians) are even more worrisome than the politicians' statements. The anonymous public vitriol tends to discourage rational discussion, and is little more than online bullying. For an excellent post on what's wrong with the public comment sections of news related web sites, read Steve Dahl's excellent 11/11/09 article "Everybody is a know-it-all these days."

In the end, it's impossible to debate with these folks and expect that they will ever be able to modify their viewpoint. If they don't "believe" in global warming by now, they never will.

What Makes One Curmudgeonly?

I've been an elected member of our local elementary school board since 1988 and throughout those years, we've been faced with serious underfunding issues. In Illinois, public education is funded primarily by property taxes at the local level. Without getting really detailed and boring, that system was workable up to the first half of the 20th century, but it's hopelessly maxed out now. Schools are subject to the same kinds of increasing costs (mostly related to salaries and benefits for staff which may consume 80% of a School District's budget) as the rest of the world, but property tax revenue is pretty much tapped out. In addition, as an early effort to pander to the voters, Illinois placed property tax limitations on schools in the Chicago suburbs years ago, so school districts are left with nowhere to go for necessary funds. Oh, did I mention that Illinois has a 3% flat income tax, one of the lowest in the nation? The State itself is now going broke itself with an estimated $11 billion deficit.

There are a lot of other reasons for our financial problems (like too many districts, too many local government units, etc), but IMO the biggest problem is our political leaders' inability to actually lead. Rather than suggest to us what we should do to solve societal problems, our so-called "leaders" devote their energy to telling us what they think we want to hear.

This is a leading cause of curmudgeon-ness (at least for me). No matter what political party is in power (and right now the State legislature and executive branch is controlled by Democrats), 99% of the politicians in Illinois are unwilling or unable to actually provide leadership. The pandering to the public is mind-numbing and relentless ("Taxes are too high," "Cut waste in government before we raise taxes"). The result has been gridlock. And don't get me started on our ex-Governor Blago; he was the King of Pandering. He's (in)famous for handing out free rides to everyone in the State over the age of 65 on public transportation (without providing any cash to the transit systems, of course). Well, that's only one of the things he's (in)famous for...

What politicians won't tell the public is that while Illinois has made graft, waste, and cronyism an artform) most of the State's budget issues are related to human services (education, health care, senior citizen care, highways, and the like). Citizens are all for cutting services that benefit someone else, but not so keen on cutting something that might affect themselves. And that's the underlying problem, for which we can maybe thank Ronald Reagan. We have lost that concept that there is a "public good" and that we as a people do things for the benefit of the many, not just for the benefit of the few. This was pretty much assumed back in the 1950s, but no more. As a society, we're preoccupied with "not in my backyard" and "what's in it for me?"

To quote Ashleigh Brilliant: "I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem."