Obama Watch - Nov. 8 2008

Memories are faulty. Big E is going to try to keep track of Barry Obama's

3. Income Tax Cut for 95% of America. Never mind that about 40% of Americans don't currently PAY income tax; BO promised during the campaign that he would give a tax break to the 95% of Americans making less than $250,000 per year.

1. From the Obama Campaign Website (http://www.barackobama.com/taxes/11-8-08)

-No family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase.

- Typical middle class family will receive well over $1,000 in tax relief

- Families making more than $250,000 will pay either the same or lower tax rates than they paid in the 1990s .

- Cut taxes overall, reducing revenues to below the levels that prevailed under Ronald Reagan (less than 18.2 percent of GDP). "The Obama tax plan is a net tax cut – his tax relief for middle class families is larger than the revenue raised by his tax changes for families over $250,000. Coupled with his commitment to cut unnecessary spending, Obama will pay for this tax relief while bringing down the budget deficit."

If Barry does all this, I will vote for the fool in 2012.

4. Fiscal Stimulus Package. From BO's press conference 11-7-08:

"If it [stimulus package] does not get done in the lame-duck session, it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States . . . A fiscal stimulus plan that will jump-start economic growth is long overdue. I've talked about it throughout this - the last few months of the campaign . . . we should get it done.""

While I have little doubt that Barry, Harry and Nancy will try to dust off the ineffective gimmick of sending out $500 checks; I doubt that it will get done before March and I guarantee you that it won't be effective.

Obama Watch - Nov. 7 2008

Big E will be memorializing the gaffes, mis-steps, scandals, contradictions and campaign reneges of the ill-fated Obama Administration.

Let's see: today is Friday November 7. The election is 3 days old.

Item 1: Obama's New Politics. This is going to be a "post-partisan" administration pursuing new politics, one that rises above entrenched partisan rifts to unite a divided country. Remember "Change We Can Believe In"? So who is Barry's first appointment? Rahm Immanuel, a retro play (was senior advisor to Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998), one of the most partisan choices available. Yah, "New Politics." Right.

Item 2: Cut and Run in 16 Months. We heard often during the 21 month Obama campaign about how opposed he was to the Iraq war, and his plan to get the troops out in 16 months, despite the fact that major combat operations had already been over for years, the efficacy of the 2007 troop surge had exceeded expectations, and the U.S. role had already been reduced to peace-keeping and transitioning the job of keeping the peace to the Iraqi military.

"Barack Obama will work with our military commanders to begin the phased withdrawal of our troops out of Iraq in the first 16 months," Sen. Jack Reed told delegates at the Democratic National Convention in August. This strategy is still being touted on Barry's transition website today. http://change.gov/agenda/iraq/

That would mean troops out May20, 2010. Won't happen. And Big E will be there to document that failure.

Hillary's Comeuppance

This excellent article by the Associated Press is an excellent summary of how Hillary got to be where she is today.

Her biggest problem is that she is not likable; that's not a fault, it's a fact. But surrounded by yes-men and sycophants, she never heard that. It's like the worst of the worst on American Idol: all of their lives they have been singing in the church choir, and they are shocked when they learn that the larger world is a much harsher judge.

Bolstered by her own hubris, she always believed that this was her turn, and still can't seem to grasp that she'll have to wait for another day to get her ride on the carousel.

Muddled Vision for Champaign County Nursing Home

Today's News-Gazette article about the Champaign County Nursing Home really gets to the crux of the problem behind this debacle of local government. I confess I haven't been paying attention, but it appears that the place we find ourselves in today is the result of a lack of clear goals for this facility.

County homes have historically been a place where folks without means (either because of age, infirmity or mental illness) were allowed to live. They were clearly charitable institutions, funded largely by taxpayer subsidy. There was no discussion about breaking even, or making a profit; the budget discussion was about how to pay the bills.

Here in Champaign County (home of the dysfunctional 27-member County Board), there appear to be competing visions regarding the County's $27 million investment. [Not surprising, given that the biggest dream that some of the members have is to get elected to the worst-in-the-nation Illinois General Assembly, or worse, to be mayor of Urbana. ]

Some apparently expect the home to run on at least a break-even basis. But if that is the case, why is government involved at all? Is there a lack of private nursing home companies out there? Not likely. Why in the world would an impotent county government imagine that it is in a better position than a professional private company to run this operation? If the goal is to minimize expense to taxpayers, sell the damn thing to a professional operator and cut your losses.

It is not a little ironic that the idea of booting impoverished Medicaid recipients is being floated. If the goal of the facility is to provide refuge to those who would otherwise be out in the cold, this step would be absolutely contraindicated.

So what's it going to be, you dummies? A decision to provide heavily-subsidized care, or to make the facility a self-sufficient enterprise? The choices could not be more stark, but resolution will require courage and clear-thinking. I, for one, am not holding my breath.

Its NOT the Economy, Stupid

The economy showed "remarkable signs of resilience Friday as job losses slowed, the dollar gained a bit of muscle for a change and there were even indications that food prices may be easing." The unemployment rate actually decreased by 1/10th of 1%, although the actual number of jobs decreased.


While the economy is obviously taking a rest, those who traffic in gloom and doom will have to temper the hand-wringing a bit.

That's bad news for the Hill and Barack crowd, who are heavily engaged in the rhetoric that we are all going to hell in a handbasket, NOW.

We heard the same tripe in 1992, when, despite evidence that the economy had started to rebound in late summer, the disaster drum continued to be beaten, all to the benefit of a certain New Democrat from Arkansas.

This year, let's all keep in mind that (a) the economy has ups and downs, (b) we are probably in a down, (c) in life, it's almost never as great or terrible as we think, and (d) the news media is slow to pick up on change, as the inertia pushes last month's story about 6 months past its prime.

My question: is is REALLY that bad?

The phony-baloney 'subprime mortgage mess' is a total red herring; 99% of Americans are indifferent.

Gas prices? Yes, they've gone up, along with the price of eggs, groceries and everything else that is transported by truck. Call me insensitive and elitist, but I'm hard-pressed to believe that an additional $20 a week for gas is going to ruin anyone's life.

The stock market? Sure, your 401(k) has taken a beating. But, unless you are retiring tomorrow, it's just numbers on a piece of paper.

The truth? Things are about like they've been for a long time. To hell with any politician who tells you any different.

Al Gore = Henny Penny

According to Wikipedia, global warming is the observed increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation. Former Vice President has appointed himself the world's gadfly on the issue, and has won accolades from the save-the-whale set for his efforts. (The cynical view is that he is using the issue as a medium for shedding his "Wooden Al" persona in an effort to garner support for an '08 run for prez).

Let's big picture this thing.

First, who with a functioning brain would expect the earth NOT to be warming? Think about it - the sheer number of warm human bodies has multiplied hundreds of times in the last millenium. Even the most primitive cultures start fires, and the most developed among us heat our dwellings and drive vehicles powered by combustion engines. In other words, Al, damn straight human activity is warming the earth! And since there are more of us every day, expect that trend to continue.

Second, no one really knows just how quickly the earth is heating up, and no one knows what the effects are going to be, either short or long run. The earth is too big and long term weather patterns too complex to understand with much certainty. Anyone who claims too strongly to the contrary is reading tea leaves. Myopia sets in when such calculations are made. For example, while arctic glaciers might melt (massive flooding!), have the geniuses making such calculations factored in the additional moisture that the warmer atmosphere will hold?

Third, any effects will come about gradually. The sky is not going to just cave in one day, Al.

Fourth, in the big picture, who cares if the world does warm up? Will it be such a tragedy if we lose some coastline in Florida? If you can grow produce in Illinois? If there is an uptick in severe storms?

Finally, given the vast and diverse number of persons and activities on this earth, it is highly unlikely that trivial and silly efforts by developed countries to 'reduce greenhouse gases' will have any meaningful effect. In other words, by far the greatest contributors to global warming are non-discretionary: we need to generate heat to warm our homes, manufacture goods, and transport people and things around the world. Even if everyone on the earth started using solar power tomorrow, think about the aggregate amount of heat from sunlight that we would be trapping and absorbing!

Global warming is inevitable. Enjoy it and think about moving to Minnesota.

School Desegregation / Integration

Today, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases (Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, KY) and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District (Seattle, WA)) challenging the ability of public schools to use race as a factor when assigning students to schools.

My question: why does anyone think, in 2006, that it is appropriate to use race as the basis of eligibility for ANYTHING?

While desegregation might have been a necessary tool to jerk America out of the Jim Crow south in the 1950s and 1960s, those days are long since past. At some point, we need to stop using race as a factor, even in supposedly benign ways and with the stated goal of remediating past discrimination.

Is it fair and just to bus kids (regardless of race) across town just so their neighborhood school can be "racially balanced"? No.

Is it fair and just to deny black parents the right to send their kids to a neighborhood school, if that is what they want to do? No.

Is it fair to give one kid the last spot in an elite school, at the expense of some other kid, who goes to a lessser school? No.

None of these things was fair, just or right when it was being done to black kids, and it's not fair, just or right now for anyone else.

Let's take race off the school application, the job application, and the scholarship application. Race should be as irrelevant as the color of one's eyebrows or one's height. THAT is the colorblind ideal of the civil rights movement, not blind adherence to a quota or preference system that is badly outdated.

The Real Reason for Declining Enrollment in Champaign Schools

Jim Dey had another informative piece in Saturday's News-Gazette regarding declining enrollment in Unit 4 schools, and the corresponding increases in enrollment at private schools and schools in satellite communities such as Mahomet and St. Joe.

Of course, most of the dialogue involving our schools concerns issues of race and the continuing consent decree that mandates federal district court involvement in monitoring efforts to improve educational opportunities for racial minorities.

While I would readily concede that racism is alive and well in Champaign-Urbana (and everywhere else on this planet), I think there has been too much focus on racsim as the source of Unit 4's troubles.

The unfortunate part of the consent decree mess is that the focus has shifted from the old utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest number" to an incredible over-emphasis on student skin color and a need for administrators to weigh each decision, first and foremost, on disparate impact considerations.

In my view, the biggest part of the exodus from Unit 4 schools involves issues of class, rather than race. For the same reason that wealthy families in New England send little Muffy and Charles off to rich-kid prep schools, middle class Champaign county families send their kids to relatively expensive private schools locally: they want their kids to intereact with kids of similar socio-economic means.

While there are a handful of idealists who believe that there is educational value in having their (privileged) kids hang out with kids who live in trailer parks, there are far more who go to great lengths to avoid those kinds of interactions.

Elitist snobbery? Sure. Racism? Not so much. It's easy to confuse race and class, because a disproportionate number of blacks fall on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

My kids go to private school, not because I hate black people or poor people. They go to private school because they can get a great education and make friends with kids who come from achievement-oriented families who make education and personal success a priority. They go because order and discipline is a constant requirement, can be meted out swiftly and uniformly, and can include expulsion, where the situation demands it.

Can you attend public schools and get a great education? Sure.

Are there families of modest means (including single-parent families) who are achievement-oriented and upwardly mobile? Certainly.

Are there kids at private school (including weathly and "upper class" kids) who are a horrible influence on the kids around them, and who come from wholly-dysfunctional families? Without a doubt.

Are there kids in public schools who are brilliant and headed for a lifetime of success? Yes.

Am I somehow sheltering my kids from the 'real world'? Probably.

But what I am really doing is sending our kids to schools that, on balance, give them the best educational environment.