So much of politics often deals with the negative side of everything. Much lip-service is paid towards “cleaning up politics” and making things more positive. For the most part, this is impossible. What you have is two or more groups of people passionately believing something and attempting to explain their worldview. Since most of what I write about deals with these hot-button issues, it’s nice to sit back every once-and-a-while and write a story about something inspiring.
Most of America has yet to hear about a young man named Henry Cejudo; and certainly almost all of America outside of the wrestling community. Cejudo is a 21-year-old wrestler who represented the United States at the Olympic Games this year at the 55 kg. (121 pound) weight class. He was a four-time state champion in high school, splitting his years between Colorado and Arizona. Cejudo was the youngest Olympic champion in the history of American wrestling; but that’s probably the least of the obstacles he had to overcome.
Henry Cejudo was born the sixth (and last) child to two undocumented workers while they were living in California. His father left him at the age of 4 and returned to Mexico, while his mother decided to stay in the United States to ensure a better future for her children. Cejudo’s older brothers discovered the joy of wrestling and passed that on to him.
After winning four state championships, Henry decided to forgo certain full-ride scholarships to college and train for the 2008 Olympics. As someone who adjusted to college wrestling coming out of high school, I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be to go from high school to international competition. Nevertheless, Cejudo trained for a few years and earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team.
In freestyle wrestling (which differs from normal high school and college wrestling), a competitor must win two of the three periods to prevail. All three of Cejudo’s matches on the way to the championship bout went the same way. He lost the first periods and had to claw his way back by taking the next two. A difficult task…but relatively minor compared to the obstacles he put up with throughout his life.
I’m not going to pretend I know Henry Cejudo. From what I’ve read, he lived a life in which his family did not have a lot of money. He was a citizen, but his parents were not. I can only imagine the types of struggles that he has been dealt; I can only imagine because my life has been so easy in comparison.
All of this makes for an amazing story. But the thing that amazed me the most was Cejudo’s answers when he talked about his Olympic gold medal in retrospect. He spoke about “(having) that American blood pumping through my veins.” He called the United States the “land of opportunity” and the “greatest country in the world…I’m just proud to be an American.”
I read an interesting news story once that commented that depending on where you went in the world, people had different thoughts about what Americans looked like. In more modernized countries (like Western Europe), they saw all of us as white. In the Latin American countries (like Cuba), many saw a huge influence of Hispanic culture. In some Asian countries (most notably China) and parts of Africa, they thought that we were mostly black. The reasons for this vary, but I personally see it as something to celebrate. I was watching swimming this year and when a (seemingly) white swimmer from Zimbabwe competed, I was dumbfounded. Different colors, races, and religions are scarcely represented in other countries; and yet nobody thinks twice about it here in America.
By the end of the interview, I thought to myself: “This guy really gets it.” Henry Cejudo understands America; far better than the rest of the world, far better than most politicians, and probably far better than me and most of you.
The American Dream is still a reality.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record
Update: Barack Obama offered a refutation to the claims made in my last article. Here is the response.
Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record
By Paul Kengor and Jarrett Skorup
A few weeks ago at NRO we posted a piece on Barack Obama’s votes in the Illinois legislature on a statewide version of the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA)—i.e., legislation requiring medical personnel to provide treatment to infants who unexpectedly survive abortion procedures. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=
Our point was to clarify the record and to add a crucial “rest of the story” that is still being missed: how this legislation sailed right through the Illinois legislature once its primary obstacle—Barack Obama—left the Illinois Senate for the U.S. Senate. In both senates, Illinois and the United States, the born-alive legislation was passed unanimously, but only in the absence of Senator Barack Obama.
This issue is now heating up, as Obama addressed the subject over the weekend in a question from CBN’s David Brody, and as talk-radio is now firmly on board. The latest is that Sean Hannity plans to interview Jill Stanek, the nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where babies were aborted and those that survived were left to die. We interviewed Stanek at length for our article. She, too, can clarify the facts in this debate, and as an eye-witness.
Obama, hailed for being smooth and articulate, fumbles and bumbles and contradicts himself when forced to answer the simplest questions on human life, from whether life begins at conception to his votes on abortion survivors in the Illinois legislature. Here’s the latest on this issue, compliments of Obama’s remarks to Brody over the weekend:
Speaking of Evangelicals, Catholics, and the National Right to Life Committee, Brody noted to Obama that “they’re basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill [the Illinois version of BAIPA].” Obama dove right in: “Let me clarify this right now … because they have not been telling the truth. And I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying.”
Obama explained: “I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported, which was to say that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born, even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade…. So for people to suggest that I … [was] somehow in favor of withholding life-saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it’s an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond.”
Obama claimed that these “people” were “misrepresent[ing] my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they’re wrong. And that’s what’s been happening.”
What’s the true answer here? The reality is that Obama needs to admit he was wrong, that he exercised bad judgment, and deal with it. His position is not being misrepresented.
What Obama is saying is partly true. Yes, he believed that the Illinois version of BAIPA—which, we were told, was identical to the federal bill, certainly in intent—would undermine Roe v. Wade. That is indeed the reason why he opposed the legislation. He opposed the legislation not because he wanted to see abortion survivors slowly die on cold tables or in trash cans at Illinois “hospitals,” like Christ Hospital, but because he feared that passing such legislation would undermine Roe v. Wade—the holy grail of modern liberalism.
We noted precisely this in our last article. We quoted Pam Sutherland, the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, who defended Obama on this exact point, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”
Quite the contrary, Obama did not see the legislation for what it was. He was all alone as an obstacle to the legislation. Obama had fallen for the classic red herring by the abortion industry, which argues that practically any restriction on abortion, no matter how sensible and humane, will undermine the sacred Roe v. Wade.
Obama was wrong. The obvious proof is that the passage of such legislation, at the state and national level, has not undermined Roe v. Wade. The most fanatical pro-choicers in the U.S. Senate, from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton, understood this and thus voted in favor of BAIPA. Obama, however, failed to make the crucial distinction.
That does not mean that Obama is a monster who enjoys killing babies, and suggesting so would indeed be “offensive.” At the very least, however, this calls into question his judgment, his experience, and his decision-making abilities—crucial characteristics for a man who wants to be president of the United States.
It is also revealing of his stridency on the abortion issue and blind loyalty to the abortion movement. Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton on abortion.
Of all the policy areas where Obama could have failed his fellow citizens, this one was pretty darned serious.
Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.
Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record
By Paul Kengor and Jarrett Skorup
A few weeks ago at NRO we posted a piece on Barack Obama’s votes in the Illinois legislature on a statewide version of the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA)—i.e., legislation requiring medical personnel to provide treatment to infants who unexpectedly survive abortion procedures. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=
Our point was to clarify the record and to add a crucial “rest of the story” that is still being missed: how this legislation sailed right through the Illinois legislature once its primary obstacle—Barack Obama—left the Illinois Senate for the U.S. Senate. In both senates, Illinois and the United States, the born-alive legislation was passed unanimously, but only in the absence of Senator Barack Obama.
This issue is now heating up, as Obama addressed the subject over the weekend in a question from CBN’s David Brody, and as talk-radio is now firmly on board. The latest is that Sean Hannity plans to interview Jill Stanek, the nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where babies were aborted and those that survived were left to die. We interviewed Stanek at length for our article. She, too, can clarify the facts in this debate, and as an eye-witness.
Obama, hailed for being smooth and articulate, fumbles and bumbles and contradicts himself when forced to answer the simplest questions on human life, from whether life begins at conception to his votes on abortion survivors in the Illinois legislature. Here’s the latest on this issue, compliments of Obama’s remarks to Brody over the weekend:
Speaking of Evangelicals, Catholics, and the National Right to Life Committee, Brody noted to Obama that “they’re basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill [the Illinois version of BAIPA].” Obama dove right in: “Let me clarify this right now … because they have not been telling the truth. And I hate to say that people are lying, but here’s a situation where folks are lying.”
Obama explained: “I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported, which was to say that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born, even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade…. So for people to suggest that I … [was] somehow in favor of withholding life-saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it’s an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond.”
Obama claimed that these “people” were “misrepresent[ing] my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they’re wrong. And that’s what’s been happening.”
What’s the true answer here? The reality is that Obama needs to admit he was wrong, that he exercised bad judgment, and deal with it. His position is not being misrepresented.
What Obama is saying is partly true. Yes, he believed that the Illinois version of BAIPA—which, we were told, was identical to the federal bill, certainly in intent—would undermine Roe v. Wade. That is indeed the reason why he opposed the legislation. He opposed the legislation not because he wanted to see abortion survivors slowly die on cold tables or in trash cans at Illinois “hospitals,” like Christ Hospital, but because he feared that passing such legislation would undermine Roe v. Wade—the holy grail of modern liberalism.
We noted precisely this in our last article. We quoted Pam Sutherland, the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, who defended Obama on this exact point, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”
Quite the contrary, Obama did not see the legislation for what it was. He was all alone as an obstacle to the legislation. Obama had fallen for the classic red herring by the abortion industry, which argues that practically any restriction on abortion, no matter how sensible and humane, will undermine the sacred Roe v. Wade.
Obama was wrong. The obvious proof is that the passage of such legislation, at the state and national level, has not undermined Roe v. Wade. The most fanatical pro-choicers in the U.S. Senate, from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton, understood this and thus voted in favor of BAIPA. Obama, however, failed to make the crucial distinction.
That does not mean that Obama is a monster who enjoys killing babies, and suggesting so would indeed be “offensive.” At the very least, however, this calls into question his judgment, his experience, and his decision-making abilities—crucial characteristics for a man who wants to be president of the United States.
It is also revealing of his stridency on the abortion issue and blind loyalty to the abortion movement. Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton on abortion.
Of all the policy areas where Obama could have failed his fellow citizens, this one was pretty darned serious.
Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Handle With Care: Obama's Abortion Problem
By Paul Kengor & Jarrett Skorup
In both 2000 and 2004, it was the so-called moral-religious “values voters” who were crucial to the election of George W. Bush. It is no secret that the Democrats want those voters in 2008. Barack Obama wants them badly. What stands in his way? For Obama, the problem is not so much the Reverend Jeremiah Wright as it is the issue of abortion — consistently the dominant political-social issue in the eyes of conservative Christians, from evangelical Protestants to devout Catholics. Obama’s abortion problem is a reality that has become especially evident in recent weeks, most notably in his public battle with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson.
But it’s more specific than that. Obama’s problem is not the run-of-the-mill, over-the-top abortion stridency that has come to define the modern Democratic party’s presidential nominee, from Bill Clinton to John Kerry, but specifically his abominable position on the matter of newborn babies who survive abortions.
This subject is beginning to receive publicity even in the mainstream press, as was evident in a recent exchange on CNN between Bill Bennett and Donna Brazile, but we doubt that even the most well-informed observers know the full story. First, some background:
In 2002, Congress passed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA). BAIPA is simple: It establishes that if an abortion is attempted on a fetus and the fetus survives — alas, magically morphing into a “baby” — everything medically possible must be done to save the child. Plainly, if a fetus takes a breath of air outside the womb, personhood has been established, and all persons in America must receive medical care from trained professionals on the scene. Americans are not to be denied emergency medical care.
Such legislation was necessary because of the countless number of times in which babies who survived abortions were not offered medical treatment after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973. Unknown numbers of these babies — unknown to the would-be mothers, to the medical community, to the general public — were left instead to die alone in a room, typically abandoned to a cold, hard, metal table, or in a trash can, behind closed doors, slowly gasping for air until they perished. Chalk it up as yet another glorious consequence of a woman’s “right to choose.” This China-like human-rights atrocity went on in America for three decades. Mercifully, at long last, Congress finally did something about it by introducing BAIPA in 2002.
In the early stages, the bill was opposed by NARAL and extremist pro-choice groups, but objections ceased as a vote on the bill approached, most likely in anticipation of the public outcry. Yes, even the abortion industry can occasionally smell a bad p.r. move. The bill passed overwhelming in the House, by a margin of 380-15, and unanimously in the Senate, where even the most fanatical abortion-rights advocates — from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton — were on board.
The bill was signed into law by President Bush on August 5, 2002. In attendance was Gianna Jessen, who in 1977 had survived a saline abortion attempt.
Remarking on the rare moment of unanimity was Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.): “I, as being a pro-choice senator on this side, representing my colleagues here, have no problem whatsoever with this.” She added, “I feel good that we can, in fact, vote for this together. It is very rare that we can.” Indeed, it is.
Who could possibly oppose such legislation?
That brings us to Barack Obama, the Democratic party’s presidential candidate for 2008.
At the time that BAIPA went through the U.S. Congress, Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate, meaning, of course, that he could not vote on the federal BAIPA bill. He could, however, vote on such legislation if it were introduced in Illinois, as was being done by state legislatures around the country. That opportunity came when legislation was introduced in the Illinois legislature.
Offering testimony on the Illinois version of BAIPA was an eyewitness to the horror of these “survivor” abortions: Jill Stanek, a nurse from a hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, who had witnessed several occasions of babies surviving attempted abortions and then being left to die. For Stanek, recalling these episodes is like revisiting a nightmare in painstaking, graphic detail. But Stanek saw her testimony as a necessary evil to what she figured would be a “no-brainer” for Illinois legislators. She would later admit that she had been “naïve.” Her no-brainer met a major, unforeseen obstacle: a committee member named Barack Obama.
From the moment of her testimony, Stanek sensed she was in trouble: She recalled an incident when she was asked to take an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby to the hospital “Soiled Utility Room,” where the “attempted-aborted” babies were sent to take their final breaths. The little boy’s parents did not want to hold him, and none of the other nurses could find the time or bear the agony. Stanek remembers rocking the baby in her arms for the final 45 minutes that he suffered an excruciating life. “He was too weak to move very much,” she remembered, “expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet that I couldn’t tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall.”
This incident took place at Christ Hospital, which would fire Stanek for her testimony.
Stanek was struck by Sen. Barack Obama’s cold, non-response to her testimony: Interviewed for this article, she told us that he appeared “unmoved” by her testimony and “even argued against it.” He told her, “What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman and I can’t support that.” Perhaps signaling his April 2008 remarks about his daughters, Obama could not imagine these un-desiring mothers being “punished with a baby.”
Obama gazed right past Stanek’s image of a gasping, dying, abandoned, newborn baby and instead saw an over-riding moral imperative: a woman’s “health-care choice.”
In Illinois, in order for a law to be sent to the full House and Senate, it must be approved within committee. The bill had been called up in the Senate Judiciary Committee — twice, in March 2001 and March 2002. Obama was a member of that committee. He first voted “present” on the bill and then later cast a “no” vote. It was there that he argued with Stanek’s testimony.
But that was nothing compared to the more decisive obstruction Obama provided as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee in March 2003, once the Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. From that perch, Obama prevented the bill from being called up for a vote. In fact, he even refused to allow Stanek to testify orally, though he could not refuse to accept her written testimony. No doubt, Obama must have considered Stanek too persuasive to be permitted to speak.
Flying the flag for the “right to choose,” Obama, as committee chair, ensured that babies who survived abortions in Illinois would not receive emergency medical care, and thus would die. As Obama obstructed, time ticked away, with abortion survivors getting no protection from the state of Illinois and those “medical” providers who swore a Hippocratic Oath.
The gist of much of this has been reported, minus a few details. But what has been neglected is the crucial rest-of-the-story: As evidence of how Barack Obama did not simply oppose this legislation but was its primary if not sole hurdle, consider what happened to the Illinois legislation once Obama left the statehouse: It sailed right through.
In 2004, the people of Illinois elected Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate. This was wonderful news for abortion survivors in the state of Illinois — literally lifesaving. The act was reintroduced in 2005 and passed the Illinois House 116-0 and the Illinois Senate 52-0. Passage of the bill was more unanimous than even BAIPA in the U.S. Congress. Among the members of the Health and Human Services Committee that Obama had previously chaired, none voted against the bill in 2005.
Barack Obama had been totally alone in the Illinois legislature. His lone corner of support in the entire state was the small island of fanatics who make their living literally by killing unborn babies. It is no exaggeration to say that these people, and Barack Obama in solidarity with them, make supporters of partial-birth abortion look compassionate by comparison.
It should be added that Obama had been commended for his obstruction by the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, Pam Sutherland, who averred, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”
That, of course, is nonsense. This assertion was a classic red herring by the abortion industry. As obvious proof, abortion has not been banned anywhere in Illinois or nationwide with the passage of these laws protecting infants who survive abortions. Hillary Clinton understood that, as did Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, and all of Obama’s current pro-choice colleagues in the U.S. Senate. Why couldn’t Barack Obama figure it out? Such poor decision-making, tragic misjudgment, or outright zealotry, is an important consideration for this frontrunner to become our next president — a man whose platform is about the future, change, and hope.
Democrats, who pride themselves on their alleged compassion, get angry and offended when their party is called the party of death. With Obama at the helm, they will do nothing to change the label. Quite the contrary, with Barack Obama as their voice, they are truly the party that has trashed the little guy.
— Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.
This article was first published in National Review Online.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=
In both 2000 and 2004, it was the so-called moral-religious “values voters” who were crucial to the election of George W. Bush. It is no secret that the Democrats want those voters in 2008. Barack Obama wants them badly. What stands in his way? For Obama, the problem is not so much the Reverend Jeremiah Wright as it is the issue of abortion — consistently the dominant political-social issue in the eyes of conservative Christians, from evangelical Protestants to devout Catholics. Obama’s abortion problem is a reality that has become especially evident in recent weeks, most notably in his public battle with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson.
But it’s more specific than that. Obama’s problem is not the run-of-the-mill, over-the-top abortion stridency that has come to define the modern Democratic party’s presidential nominee, from Bill Clinton to John Kerry, but specifically his abominable position on the matter of newborn babies who survive abortions.
This subject is beginning to receive publicity even in the mainstream press, as was evident in a recent exchange on CNN between Bill Bennett and Donna Brazile, but we doubt that even the most well-informed observers know the full story. First, some background:
In 2002, Congress passed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA). BAIPA is simple: It establishes that if an abortion is attempted on a fetus and the fetus survives — alas, magically morphing into a “baby” — everything medically possible must be done to save the child. Plainly, if a fetus takes a breath of air outside the womb, personhood has been established, and all persons in America must receive medical care from trained professionals on the scene. Americans are not to be denied emergency medical care.
Such legislation was necessary because of the countless number of times in which babies who survived abortions were not offered medical treatment after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973. Unknown numbers of these babies — unknown to the would-be mothers, to the medical community, to the general public — were left instead to die alone in a room, typically abandoned to a cold, hard, metal table, or in a trash can, behind closed doors, slowly gasping for air until they perished. Chalk it up as yet another glorious consequence of a woman’s “right to choose.” This China-like human-rights atrocity went on in America for three decades. Mercifully, at long last, Congress finally did something about it by introducing BAIPA in 2002.
In the early stages, the bill was opposed by NARAL and extremist pro-choice groups, but objections ceased as a vote on the bill approached, most likely in anticipation of the public outcry. Yes, even the abortion industry can occasionally smell a bad p.r. move. The bill passed overwhelming in the House, by a margin of 380-15, and unanimously in the Senate, where even the most fanatical abortion-rights advocates — from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton — were on board.
The bill was signed into law by President Bush on August 5, 2002. In attendance was Gianna Jessen, who in 1977 had survived a saline abortion attempt.
Remarking on the rare moment of unanimity was Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.): “I, as being a pro-choice senator on this side, representing my colleagues here, have no problem whatsoever with this.” She added, “I feel good that we can, in fact, vote for this together. It is very rare that we can.” Indeed, it is.
Who could possibly oppose such legislation?
That brings us to Barack Obama, the Democratic party’s presidential candidate for 2008.
At the time that BAIPA went through the U.S. Congress, Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate, meaning, of course, that he could not vote on the federal BAIPA bill. He could, however, vote on such legislation if it were introduced in Illinois, as was being done by state legislatures around the country. That opportunity came when legislation was introduced in the Illinois legislature.
Offering testimony on the Illinois version of BAIPA was an eyewitness to the horror of these “survivor” abortions: Jill Stanek, a nurse from a hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, who had witnessed several occasions of babies surviving attempted abortions and then being left to die. For Stanek, recalling these episodes is like revisiting a nightmare in painstaking, graphic detail. But Stanek saw her testimony as a necessary evil to what she figured would be a “no-brainer” for Illinois legislators. She would later admit that she had been “naïve.” Her no-brainer met a major, unforeseen obstacle: a committee member named Barack Obama.
From the moment of her testimony, Stanek sensed she was in trouble: She recalled an incident when she was asked to take an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby to the hospital “Soiled Utility Room,” where the “attempted-aborted” babies were sent to take their final breaths. The little boy’s parents did not want to hold him, and none of the other nurses could find the time or bear the agony. Stanek remembers rocking the baby in her arms for the final 45 minutes that he suffered an excruciating life. “He was too weak to move very much,” she remembered, “expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet that I couldn’t tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall.”
This incident took place at Christ Hospital, which would fire Stanek for her testimony.
Stanek was struck by Sen. Barack Obama’s cold, non-response to her testimony: Interviewed for this article, she told us that he appeared “unmoved” by her testimony and “even argued against it.” He told her, “What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman and I can’t support that.” Perhaps signaling his April 2008 remarks about his daughters, Obama could not imagine these un-desiring mothers being “punished with a baby.”
Obama gazed right past Stanek’s image of a gasping, dying, abandoned, newborn baby and instead saw an over-riding moral imperative: a woman’s “health-care choice.”
In Illinois, in order for a law to be sent to the full House and Senate, it must be approved within committee. The bill had been called up in the Senate Judiciary Committee — twice, in March 2001 and March 2002. Obama was a member of that committee. He first voted “present” on the bill and then later cast a “no” vote. It was there that he argued with Stanek’s testimony.
But that was nothing compared to the more decisive obstruction Obama provided as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee in March 2003, once the Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. From that perch, Obama prevented the bill from being called up for a vote. In fact, he even refused to allow Stanek to testify orally, though he could not refuse to accept her written testimony. No doubt, Obama must have considered Stanek too persuasive to be permitted to speak.
Flying the flag for the “right to choose,” Obama, as committee chair, ensured that babies who survived abortions in Illinois would not receive emergency medical care, and thus would die. As Obama obstructed, time ticked away, with abortion survivors getting no protection from the state of Illinois and those “medical” providers who swore a Hippocratic Oath.
The gist of much of this has been reported, minus a few details. But what has been neglected is the crucial rest-of-the-story: As evidence of how Barack Obama did not simply oppose this legislation but was its primary if not sole hurdle, consider what happened to the Illinois legislation once Obama left the statehouse: It sailed right through.
In 2004, the people of Illinois elected Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate. This was wonderful news for abortion survivors in the state of Illinois — literally lifesaving. The act was reintroduced in 2005 and passed the Illinois House 116-0 and the Illinois Senate 52-0. Passage of the bill was more unanimous than even BAIPA in the U.S. Congress. Among the members of the Health and Human Services Committee that Obama had previously chaired, none voted against the bill in 2005.
Barack Obama had been totally alone in the Illinois legislature. His lone corner of support in the entire state was the small island of fanatics who make their living literally by killing unborn babies. It is no exaggeration to say that these people, and Barack Obama in solidarity with them, make supporters of partial-birth abortion look compassionate by comparison.
It should be added that Obama had been commended for his obstruction by the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, Pam Sutherland, who averred, “The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was.”
That, of course, is nonsense. This assertion was a classic red herring by the abortion industry. As obvious proof, abortion has not been banned anywhere in Illinois or nationwide with the passage of these laws protecting infants who survive abortions. Hillary Clinton understood that, as did Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, and all of Obama’s current pro-choice colleagues in the U.S. Senate. Why couldn’t Barack Obama figure it out? Such poor decision-making, tragic misjudgment, or outright zealotry, is an important consideration for this frontrunner to become our next president — a man whose platform is about the future, change, and hope.
Democrats, who pride themselves on their alleged compassion, get angry and offended when their party is called the party of death. With Obama at the helm, they will do nothing to change the label. Quite the contrary, with Barack Obama as their voice, they are truly the party that has trashed the little guy.
— Paul Kengor is professor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. Jarrett Skorup is a student fellow at the Center for Vision & Values.
This article was first published in National Review Online.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZDI0MDJiOTM1Zjk0NjUyNWM2NzY3YTdmM2I2MWUyZDM=
Monday, June 30, 2008
The National Extortion Association (NEA)
Recently, one of my friends informed me that she would be attending the National Education Association Student Program Conference in Washington, D.C. As the son of two parents who are teachers, I've long held opinions about the NEA. I follow up on the issues in their monthly magazine and have grown increasingly angry at the organization. What follows is my reasons for opposing them.The NEA is the largest teachers union in the country, in a corrupt system. The public education system in our country is doing a horrible job, is unfair, and is unconstitutional.
It's a monopoly. I'll explain what I mean by using an analogy.What would you do if the government came to you and said that you had to shop at Wal-Mart for all of your shopping? You don't like Wal-Mart, and in fact, you like the local grocery store better. Also, say that Wal-Mart costs twice as much as the local grocery store, had worse products, and the products they sold were things you didn't like or want. But, too bad, you have to shop there. You, as an American, would never put up with it. If this scenario really happened, Wal-Mart would be a terrible place to shop. If everyone had to pay and go to Wal-Mart, they wouldn't have any incentive to provide good products. But we aren't forced to go to Wal-Mart: you can go to Kmart, or Target, or whatever. Since you have options, Wal-Mart has to do a good job, or else no one will go there and they'll go out of business.
Now, this analogy accurately describes our public education system. Everyone has to pay money to it, and you don't have any choice. Sure, you can pay to send your kid to a private school; but you still have to pay for the public school system. According to the Washington Post, Washington D.C. public schools spend $12,979 per student. The CATO Institute believes that private schools in D.C. get, on average, about $10,000 less per child. So if you send your kid to a private school, or home school them, you are paying those costs on top of what the public district already gets from you in terms of tax dollars.
To counter this, voucher programs are needed. This means that the parents of a child get that $13,000 and can use it to send there kid wherever they want. This would mean that the public school has to do a better job, or else nobody will go there and will take the money elsewhere. This has been tried in Cleveland and Milwaukee and has worked enormously well (though the parents only get a partial amount of that money to spend at a different school). Naturally, teacher unions and most notably the National Education Association hate this idea. They like the system how it is and insist that districts just need "more money" and they will perform better.
According to UNICEF and other organization, in recent tests America is getting trounced by the rest of the world. In 4th grade, our kids are amongst the top 5 in the world. In 8th, we are middle of the pack. By senior year of high school, we are near the bottom. We are being beaten not only be the Japanese and other modernized countries...but by places like Portugal, Greece, and even some African countries. Keep in mind that we spend more (by far) than any other country in the world. So what's different between us and others? Well...other countries have an education system where you are free to go where you want. Our educational system is like the Wal-Mart I described in my scenario; it is government-run and has no reason or incentive to do better.So that's the argument against public schools in general, but what about the NEA? Besides being against voucher programs, there are many other proposals the NEA supports that are dangerous and just plain bad ideas. This includes tenure and equal pay for equal time. Tenure is ensured after 3-5 years of teaching in a district. It is nearly impossible to fire a teacher after they have gained tenure. In Illinois, where I'm from, the number of public school tenured teachers fired per year since 1985 has never been over 5. It costs over a quarter of a million dollars to fire a teacher in the New York City school district; possibly explaining why some teachers are paid (and given pay raises!) while sitting in jail (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-06-30-teacher-tenure-costs_N.htm).
Imagine if the businesses in our country ran this way: Work hard for 3 years, and then after that you're guaranteed a job for life, as long as you don't rape a child or kill someone. It would be a disaster. If I owned that business, I couldn't fire anyone. The reason that America has the best and top-performing businesses in the world is because people know that if they don't do a good job, they will lose their job. The opposite of this is true in countries like France, where it is nearly impossible to fire businessmen; and their economy is in the tank.
Equal pay sounds like a good idea. It's the idea that you are paid based on how long you've worked somewhere rather than the value you bring. So gym teachers, math teachers, science teachers, etc. are all paid the same. Can you honestly tell me with a straight face that teaching gym class and learning how to do that is as difficult as math and science? In academia today, we are having a harder and harder time finding math and science teachers. This is because people will teach "easier" subjects and go through schools learning things that aren't as challenging because they are paid the same anyways. To give you an extreme example: Imagine if a company paid the CEO and the janitor the same amount. It sounds good in theory, but in practice is horrible. Everyone would be a janitor, and nobody a CEO. CEO's, much as we like to demonize them, provide a valuable service to the company and only got there because they are so talented.
The NEA also supports "force-fee" initiatives. There are some "right-to-work" states in which teachers don't have to be in unions, but other states follow a "force-fee" standard in which the states' public school teachers are forced to be in a union and pay dues. A teacher in Illinois recently won the TEAI--Technical Education Association of Illinois "Teacher of the Year" award, was an ITEA "Teacher of Merit", and sent a letter of protest to them in the same month. It seems that the NEA has an official position of being "pro-choice" on abortion and this teacher had a problem with them being involved in that issue. How do I know this? Because that teacher is my father. This goes along with the NEA's position of being pro-gay marriage. Now, issues of abortion and homosexuality are complicated and controversial; but come on, should a union dedicated towards teachers really be getting involved in these issues that have nothing to do with education? The NEA sends 99% of the money it gets towards Democratic politicians, and thus supports Democratic positions. It is an endless cycle of unfairness, and children are on the losing end.
It's a monopoly. I'll explain what I mean by using an analogy.What would you do if the government came to you and said that you had to shop at Wal-Mart for all of your shopping? You don't like Wal-Mart, and in fact, you like the local grocery store better. Also, say that Wal-Mart costs twice as much as the local grocery store, had worse products, and the products they sold were things you didn't like or want. But, too bad, you have to shop there. You, as an American, would never put up with it. If this scenario really happened, Wal-Mart would be a terrible place to shop. If everyone had to pay and go to Wal-Mart, they wouldn't have any incentive to provide good products. But we aren't forced to go to Wal-Mart: you can go to Kmart, or Target, or whatever. Since you have options, Wal-Mart has to do a good job, or else no one will go there and they'll go out of business.
Now, this analogy accurately describes our public education system. Everyone has to pay money to it, and you don't have any choice. Sure, you can pay to send your kid to a private school; but you still have to pay for the public school system. According to the Washington Post, Washington D.C. public schools spend $12,979 per student. The CATO Institute believes that private schools in D.C. get, on average, about $10,000 less per child. So if you send your kid to a private school, or home school them, you are paying those costs on top of what the public district already gets from you in terms of tax dollars.
To counter this, voucher programs are needed. This means that the parents of a child get that $13,000 and can use it to send there kid wherever they want. This would mean that the public school has to do a better job, or else nobody will go there and will take the money elsewhere. This has been tried in Cleveland and Milwaukee and has worked enormously well (though the parents only get a partial amount of that money to spend at a different school). Naturally, teacher unions and most notably the National Education Association hate this idea. They like the system how it is and insist that districts just need "more money" and they will perform better.
According to UNICEF and other organization, in recent tests America is getting trounced by the rest of the world. In 4th grade, our kids are amongst the top 5 in the world. In 8th, we are middle of the pack. By senior year of high school, we are near the bottom. We are being beaten not only be the Japanese and other modernized countries...but by places like Portugal, Greece, and even some African countries. Keep in mind that we spend more (by far) than any other country in the world. So what's different between us and others? Well...other countries have an education system where you are free to go where you want. Our educational system is like the Wal-Mart I described in my scenario; it is government-run and has no reason or incentive to do better.So that's the argument against public schools in general, but what about the NEA? Besides being against voucher programs, there are many other proposals the NEA supports that are dangerous and just plain bad ideas. This includes tenure and equal pay for equal time. Tenure is ensured after 3-5 years of teaching in a district. It is nearly impossible to fire a teacher after they have gained tenure. In Illinois, where I'm from, the number of public school tenured teachers fired per year since 1985 has never been over 5. It costs over a quarter of a million dollars to fire a teacher in the New York City school district; possibly explaining why some teachers are paid (and given pay raises!) while sitting in jail (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-06-30-teacher-tenure-costs_N.htm).
Imagine if the businesses in our country ran this way: Work hard for 3 years, and then after that you're guaranteed a job for life, as long as you don't rape a child or kill someone. It would be a disaster. If I owned that business, I couldn't fire anyone. The reason that America has the best and top-performing businesses in the world is because people know that if they don't do a good job, they will lose their job. The opposite of this is true in countries like France, where it is nearly impossible to fire businessmen; and their economy is in the tank.
Equal pay sounds like a good idea. It's the idea that you are paid based on how long you've worked somewhere rather than the value you bring. So gym teachers, math teachers, science teachers, etc. are all paid the same. Can you honestly tell me with a straight face that teaching gym class and learning how to do that is as difficult as math and science? In academia today, we are having a harder and harder time finding math and science teachers. This is because people will teach "easier" subjects and go through schools learning things that aren't as challenging because they are paid the same anyways. To give you an extreme example: Imagine if a company paid the CEO and the janitor the same amount. It sounds good in theory, but in practice is horrible. Everyone would be a janitor, and nobody a CEO. CEO's, much as we like to demonize them, provide a valuable service to the company and only got there because they are so talented.
The NEA also supports "force-fee" initiatives. There are some "right-to-work" states in which teachers don't have to be in unions, but other states follow a "force-fee" standard in which the states' public school teachers are forced to be in a union and pay dues. A teacher in Illinois recently won the TEAI--Technical Education Association of Illinois "Teacher of the Year" award, was an ITEA "Teacher of Merit", and sent a letter of protest to them in the same month. It seems that the NEA has an official position of being "pro-choice" on abortion and this teacher had a problem with them being involved in that issue. How do I know this? Because that teacher is my father. This goes along with the NEA's position of being pro-gay marriage. Now, issues of abortion and homosexuality are complicated and controversial; but come on, should a union dedicated towards teachers really be getting involved in these issues that have nothing to do with education? The NEA sends 99% of the money it gets towards Democratic politicians, and thus supports Democratic positions. It is an endless cycle of unfairness, and children are on the losing end.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Politics of Discrimination
The gender war has come full circle. Or so it seems.
I’m scanning through Time Magazine this past week during a quick break between classes and I find this doozy of a story. It’s entitled, “College Confidential” with a subtitle of, “To close the gender gap, admissions officers often favor boys. Is that a good idea?”
Granted, the way this story portrayed my gender, I should be happy I was even in classes. Apparently, boys are slackers who don’t work hard, girls are more qualified for college, and men are sexist. Here is a smattering of quotes from the story:
“…if girls were once excluded because they somehow weren’t good enough, they now are rejected because they’re too good.”
“The gap persists on campus, where women tend to win more honors, join more clubs, do more volunteer work.”
“…it (may) turn out that girls emerge stronger somehow from having the game rigged against them,” says Haverford dean Greg Kannerstein.
“It’s a gross generalization that slacker boys get in over high-performing girls,” says Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions at Kenyon College, “but developmentally, girls bring more to the table than boys, and the disparity has gotten greater in recent years.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not disputing the figures that the article quotes. I tend to believe what most tests show: girls make up most of the middle of the spectrum in terms of intelligence whereas boys make up a disproportionate amount of the higher and lower ends. This has held true on the SAT and ACT tests for years now. I feel that this would tend to push more women into bachelor degree programs whereas men would get more PhD’s and be more likely to go to trade school, work construction, or do auto mechanic work. This is the choice we get to make in a free society. Outside of a few women having less choice in dating partners, I don’t feel this affects society too much.
My point is much larger: Where have these people been when debating affirmative action?
Asians and whites routinely score higher on standardized tests then blacks and Hispanics and yet are passed on because of their skin color. Miss Delahunty was horrified to learn that her own daughter had been weight-listed at the college her mom was the dean of, prompting her to write a piece for the New York Times entitled, “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected”. She wondered, “Why aren’t (the women) marching in the streets? That’s the part that slays me. It isn’t fair, and young women should be saying something about it not being fair.” Oh really? It isn’t fair? What is Delahunty’s attitude about affirmative action? Is it more important on college campuses to have racial diversity then gender diversity? I think even the most radical feminist would dispute this.
The current gender disparity is going to cross 60-40% women advantage. I would attribute this mainly to gender differences, the way we treat boys in grade school, and overall interest in college. Again, I’m not going to be super upset if colleges want to accept more girls than guys; I believe people should be accepted on merit. However, I don’t want to see UC Berkley passing up on Japanese-American students who graduate near the top of their class with excellent SAT scores in favor of students with lower scores just because they’re the right ethnicity; and then turn around and complain that girls are getting a bad rap because they outperform their counterparts and aren’t being accepted. I choose Berkley because this has happened there on more than one occasion.
If you’re going to discriminate, at least be consistent.
I’m scanning through Time Magazine this past week during a quick break between classes and I find this doozy of a story. It’s entitled, “College Confidential” with a subtitle of, “To close the gender gap, admissions officers often favor boys. Is that a good idea?”
Granted, the way this story portrayed my gender, I should be happy I was even in classes. Apparently, boys are slackers who don’t work hard, girls are more qualified for college, and men are sexist. Here is a smattering of quotes from the story:
“…if girls were once excluded because they somehow weren’t good enough, they now are rejected because they’re too good.”
“The gap persists on campus, where women tend to win more honors, join more clubs, do more volunteer work.”
“…it (may) turn out that girls emerge stronger somehow from having the game rigged against them,” says Haverford dean Greg Kannerstein.
“It’s a gross generalization that slacker boys get in over high-performing girls,” says Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions at Kenyon College, “but developmentally, girls bring more to the table than boys, and the disparity has gotten greater in recent years.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not disputing the figures that the article quotes. I tend to believe what most tests show: girls make up most of the middle of the spectrum in terms of intelligence whereas boys make up a disproportionate amount of the higher and lower ends. This has held true on the SAT and ACT tests for years now. I feel that this would tend to push more women into bachelor degree programs whereas men would get more PhD’s and be more likely to go to trade school, work construction, or do auto mechanic work. This is the choice we get to make in a free society. Outside of a few women having less choice in dating partners, I don’t feel this affects society too much.
My point is much larger: Where have these people been when debating affirmative action?
Asians and whites routinely score higher on standardized tests then blacks and Hispanics and yet are passed on because of their skin color. Miss Delahunty was horrified to learn that her own daughter had been weight-listed at the college her mom was the dean of, prompting her to write a piece for the New York Times entitled, “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected”. She wondered, “Why aren’t (the women) marching in the streets? That’s the part that slays me. It isn’t fair, and young women should be saying something about it not being fair.” Oh really? It isn’t fair? What is Delahunty’s attitude about affirmative action? Is it more important on college campuses to have racial diversity then gender diversity? I think even the most radical feminist would dispute this.
The current gender disparity is going to cross 60-40% women advantage. I would attribute this mainly to gender differences, the way we treat boys in grade school, and overall interest in college. Again, I’m not going to be super upset if colleges want to accept more girls than guys; I believe people should be accepted on merit. However, I don’t want to see UC Berkley passing up on Japanese-American students who graduate near the top of their class with excellent SAT scores in favor of students with lower scores just because they’re the right ethnicity; and then turn around and complain that girls are getting a bad rap because they outperform their counterparts and aren’t being accepted. I choose Berkley because this has happened there on more than one occasion.
If you’re going to discriminate, at least be consistent.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Making an Example of Detroit
Let’s imagine there exists a city which has the following characteristics, each a major component of the Democratic platform:
-a high living wage, far above the federal minimum wage, for all employees public and private
-a school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average
-an effective teachers’ union providing exceptional pay and benefits
-an effective labor union providing exceptional pay and benefits
-a tax system that actively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor
There is a city, of course, which looks like this. Detroit, MI has been dubbed “the most liberal city in America” and has voted Democratic consistently for decades. Each of the preceding characteristics are embraced heartily by the city. Newt Gingrich, in an address last week at a think tank in DC, expressed his hope that in the upcoming election conservatives would point to Detroit as an example of what the enactment of the progressive agenda does for a city.
In 1950, Detroit was per capita the wealthiest city in America. Today, the Census Bureau records it as per capita the poorest major city. This time period corresponds with a leftward turn by the inhabitants of the city as unions gained power and the government bureaucracy and business regulation grew. In short, the embrace of the Democratic agenda. And while correlation is not causation it cannot be mere coincidence that what economics predicts would occur when wage controls are implemented, regulation increases, and taxes are raised has occurred there without exception.
Price theory predicts that artificially high imposed wages like the so-called “living wages” will lead to an increase in unemployment. Detroit’s living wage is a whopping $7.40/hr, over $2 above the federal minimum wage when enacted and pressure groups are pushing for more. Additionally, any company working for the city or receiving aid from the city must pay its employees $8.23/hr with benefits or $10.28/hr without benefits. Such high wages make the low-skilled, low-education citizens of Detroit unlikely hires. Struggling and heavily taxed businesses simply cannot pay that high of wages. In a situation that must mystify the well-intentioned progressives at City Hall, yet is understood and predicted by mainstream economists, poverty is rampant and Detroit boasts the highest unemployment rate among large cities.
It is now conventional wisdom among Democrats that if you pay teachers well, support strong teacher unions, and increase spending per student, teacher quality and student performance will improve. We see in the Detroit public schools that this theory must be rejected. The story of the Detroit Public Schools is tragic. The public schools chronically underperform and reforms are vehemently opposed by the powerful teacher unions. The Michigan Education Association is the third largest teacher union in the nation and has negotiated for tremendous compensation for its teachers. Median compensation for a DPS teacher is $76,000 and Detroit spends the third highest amount of money per student among seventy-seven cities nationwide. Statewide, Detroit’s spending per pupil is 91st percentile and Detroit public school teachers are paid at the 96th percentile. And of course, Detroit schools have for decades failed their students.
Despite this massive flow of funds from tax-payers into the schools, Detroit’s public school students perform at the 3rd percentile in the state. People vote with their feet and the DPS loses around 10,000 students each year to charter, private, and suburban schools (called “black flight”). This school system is begging for mass firings for unsatisfactory performance. Of course, teacher unions make this impossible and major reform is opposed at every turn. Major reform was plopped in Detroit’s lap in 2003 at no cost, and again in 2005. Indeed, philanthropist Bob Thompson (an amazing man, look him up) offered public school administrators $200 million to build fifteen charter schools. The offer was turned down both times when the teacher unions revolted and staged walkouts when the mayor considered the offer. Charter schools are public but are not unionized, hence the unions’ opposition. Non-unionized competitors would not be tolerated since it would put their safe and well-compensated jobs at risk.
The MEA is not the only union hurting Detroit. Detroit is of course home to GM, Ford, and Chrysler, three car companies which have contracts with powerful and effective labor unions. The unions have served their workers well over the years. Wages and benefits are phenomenal and workers receive an estimated $71 per hour in total compensation. This is about $25 more per hour than Japanese car companies pay their American workers who are not unionized. Due to this disparity Japanese car companies make over $2000 more profit per car than the American companies. Meanwhile, the Detroit Big 3 are posting billions in losses in recent quarters and suffer the accompanying loss of market share. They have been struggling mightily against bankruptcy since the 80s (and helped along by federal protectionism and tax-payer funded bailouts). Despite this the labor unions won’t accept lower compensation even as plants close.
There are social reasons as well for Detroit’s slide into poverty. Progressive judges in the 1970s court-ordered busing of white students into the failing black neighborhood schools. This coercion of private citizens was resisted, of course. Those who were able simply moved to the suburbs. One infamous mayor told criminals to hit the wealthy and white neighborhoods which didn't help race relations. Finally, a factor that caused the flight of the middle-class and businesses is Detroit’s excessive tax burden, which is currently 170% the national average. Welfare, regulation, bureaucracy, and unions are not cheap.
Detroit is an example of the compassionate welfare state, a system progressives would like all of us to live under. Tom Bray of the Detroit News says this,
“Detroit, remember, was going to be the ‘Model City’ of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the shining example of what the "fairness" of the welfare state can produce. Billions of dollars later, Detroit instead has become the model of everything that can go wrong when you hook people on the idea of something for nothing—a once-middle class city of nearly 2 million that is now a poverty-stricken city of less than 900,000.”
Let’s hope Democrats will revise their platform after being made aware of the disaster their policies helped produce in Detroit.
-a high living wage, far above the federal minimum wage, for all employees public and private
-a school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average
-an effective teachers’ union providing exceptional pay and benefits
-an effective labor union providing exceptional pay and benefits
-a tax system that actively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor
There is a city, of course, which looks like this. Detroit, MI has been dubbed “the most liberal city in America” and has voted Democratic consistently for decades. Each of the preceding characteristics are embraced heartily by the city. Newt Gingrich, in an address last week at a think tank in DC, expressed his hope that in the upcoming election conservatives would point to Detroit as an example of what the enactment of the progressive agenda does for a city.
In 1950, Detroit was per capita the wealthiest city in America. Today, the Census Bureau records it as per capita the poorest major city. This time period corresponds with a leftward turn by the inhabitants of the city as unions gained power and the government bureaucracy and business regulation grew. In short, the embrace of the Democratic agenda. And while correlation is not causation it cannot be mere coincidence that what economics predicts would occur when wage controls are implemented, regulation increases, and taxes are raised has occurred there without exception.
Price theory predicts that artificially high imposed wages like the so-called “living wages” will lead to an increase in unemployment. Detroit’s living wage is a whopping $7.40/hr, over $2 above the federal minimum wage when enacted and pressure groups are pushing for more. Additionally, any company working for the city or receiving aid from the city must pay its employees $8.23/hr with benefits or $10.28/hr without benefits. Such high wages make the low-skilled, low-education citizens of Detroit unlikely hires. Struggling and heavily taxed businesses simply cannot pay that high of wages. In a situation that must mystify the well-intentioned progressives at City Hall, yet is understood and predicted by mainstream economists, poverty is rampant and Detroit boasts the highest unemployment rate among large cities.
It is now conventional wisdom among Democrats that if you pay teachers well, support strong teacher unions, and increase spending per student, teacher quality and student performance will improve. We see in the Detroit public schools that this theory must be rejected. The story of the Detroit Public Schools is tragic. The public schools chronically underperform and reforms are vehemently opposed by the powerful teacher unions. The Michigan Education Association is the third largest teacher union in the nation and has negotiated for tremendous compensation for its teachers. Median compensation for a DPS teacher is $76,000 and Detroit spends the third highest amount of money per student among seventy-seven cities nationwide. Statewide, Detroit’s spending per pupil is 91st percentile and Detroit public school teachers are paid at the 96th percentile. And of course, Detroit schools have for decades failed their students.
Despite this massive flow of funds from tax-payers into the schools, Detroit’s public school students perform at the 3rd percentile in the state. People vote with their feet and the DPS loses around 10,000 students each year to charter, private, and suburban schools (called “black flight”). This school system is begging for mass firings for unsatisfactory performance. Of course, teacher unions make this impossible and major reform is opposed at every turn. Major reform was plopped in Detroit’s lap in 2003 at no cost, and again in 2005. Indeed, philanthropist Bob Thompson (an amazing man, look him up) offered public school administrators $200 million to build fifteen charter schools. The offer was turned down both times when the teacher unions revolted and staged walkouts when the mayor considered the offer. Charter schools are public but are not unionized, hence the unions’ opposition. Non-unionized competitors would not be tolerated since it would put their safe and well-compensated jobs at risk.
The MEA is not the only union hurting Detroit. Detroit is of course home to GM, Ford, and Chrysler, three car companies which have contracts with powerful and effective labor unions. The unions have served their workers well over the years. Wages and benefits are phenomenal and workers receive an estimated $71 per hour in total compensation. This is about $25 more per hour than Japanese car companies pay their American workers who are not unionized. Due to this disparity Japanese car companies make over $2000 more profit per car than the American companies. Meanwhile, the Detroit Big 3 are posting billions in losses in recent quarters and suffer the accompanying loss of market share. They have been struggling mightily against bankruptcy since the 80s (and helped along by federal protectionism and tax-payer funded bailouts). Despite this the labor unions won’t accept lower compensation even as plants close.
There are social reasons as well for Detroit’s slide into poverty. Progressive judges in the 1970s court-ordered busing of white students into the failing black neighborhood schools. This coercion of private citizens was resisted, of course. Those who were able simply moved to the suburbs. One infamous mayor told criminals to hit the wealthy and white neighborhoods which didn't help race relations. Finally, a factor that caused the flight of the middle-class and businesses is Detroit’s excessive tax burden, which is currently 170% the national average. Welfare, regulation, bureaucracy, and unions are not cheap.
Detroit is an example of the compassionate welfare state, a system progressives would like all of us to live under. Tom Bray of the Detroit News says this,
“Detroit, remember, was going to be the ‘Model City’ of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the shining example of what the "fairness" of the welfare state can produce. Billions of dollars later, Detroit instead has become the model of everything that can go wrong when you hook people on the idea of something for nothing—a once-middle class city of nearly 2 million that is now a poverty-stricken city of less than 900,000.”
Let’s hope Democrats will revise their platform after being made aware of the disaster their policies helped produce in Detroit.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Tax Cuts: A Simple Lesson in Economics
Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh $7.
• The eighth $12.
• The ninth $18.
• The tenth man (the wealthiest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
So, now dinner for ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.
So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being "PAID" to eat their meal.
So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:
• The fifth man, like the first four now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
• The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before, one now eats for free. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man - "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine surrounded the tenth man (the wealthiest) and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
I can't claim this idea as my own unfortunately, I just cleaned parts of it up so that it was more relateable.
• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh $7.
• The eighth $12.
• The ninth $18.
• The tenth man (the wealthiest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
So, now dinner for ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.
So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being "PAID" to eat their meal.
So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:
• The fifth man, like the first four now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
• The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before, one now eats for free. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man - "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine surrounded the tenth man (the wealthiest) and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
I can't claim this idea as my own unfortunately, I just cleaned parts of it up so that it was more relateable.
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