Old man scapegoats cloud:

or, whither our priorities

A friend shared the text/graphic at right on her Facebook timeline, and I had to agree--IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.

The same national leadership yelling loudest about illegal immigration and foreign aid are the same ones blocking veteran benefits, fighting against more funding for wider health care and prescription drug coverage for seniors, demonizing the hungry in our own country, and on and on.

Their goal is to have the rich pay less per capita than the poor in taxes and distracting the public by making issues like illegal immigration and federal foreign aid the scapegoats for why these other things aren't being funded. (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)

$1 TRILLION in revenue has been LOST to the Bush tax cuts on the top 5% of earners between 2001 and 2011. Most of that trillion dollars (seven-tenths) comes from the top 1% of income earners, who make more than $1 million a year. Those lost revenues (given away as two wars began) would wipe out the 2012 budget deficit almost dollar for dollar.

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Why aren't we able to outfit our men and women in uniform properly? F-22 Raptor fighter jets cost $150,000,000 each to make (with development costs included, the number swells to $350 million).

Twelve new planes = fully equipping between 100,000 and 240,000 soldiers for a year.

This year, a secret hold was put on a 1.9% cost-of-living increase in disability benefits for veterans and surviving spouses proposal in the Senate by an unnamed Republican. That extra $500 per year per veteran ($686 million total in fiscal 2013) equates to four F-22s that the military doesn't even want. (That COLA increase was finally passed and signed into law last week).

In 2009, Air Force leaders had already said they didn't want any more F-22s because of the plane's limited air-to-ground capabilities needed for today's battlefields. While the whole Congress opted to end production of F-22 Raptor fighter jets, the House Armed Services committee stripped money from another program budgeted for 2010 to order 12 new F-22s. That the Air Force DIDN'T WANT. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said during his campaign that he "would also add F-22s to our air force fleet," after F-22 production finally ended this year.

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Curious about where that federal foreign aid (1.5% of the federal budget) goes?

In 2010, the total budgeted amount of federal foreign assistance was $38 billion. The top 5 recipients in order were

1. Afghanistan
2. Pakistan
3. Israel
4. Iraq
5. Egypt

Those 5 accounted for more than half of the total help that the US offers the entire world. Two of those top 5 - Afghanistan and Iraq - need our help because our military sorties there have obliterated their infrastructures. Pakistan is being assisted for its help with our objectives there. The cost of the 12 unnecessary (according to the Air Force itself) F-22s the House Armed Services Committee ordered up pays for the foreign aid of the top 5 countries listed there.

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The federal tax/cost deficit created by undocumented households (yes, undocumented workers *do* contribute to federal coffers) was $29 billion for 2011. That equates to 1/10th of 1% of the federal budget in 2011.

By comparison, we spend $52 billion - almost twice that tax/cost deficit - on maintaining the US nuclear weapons program. Estimates put costs at $352 billion minimum over the coming decade to operate and modernize the current US arsenal.

 

Bonus fun facts:

The average nuclear weapon in the US arsenal is approximately eight times more powerful than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, immediately killing some 90,000 people.

At a count of 5,113, we have as many operational* nuclear warheads as the rest of the world COMBINED. When stockpiles and warheads in queue for disarmament are included, the number is something like 19,000).

 

Where are SD state education "reform" ideas coming from? Meet ALEC

As a South Dakota parent or teacher, would you like to know where our state's education "reform" legislation is coming from? Sen. Todd J. Schlekeway (R-11), Rep. Tad Perry (R-24) and Rep. Jacqueline Sly (R-33) are listed as "Individual Members" of the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC]'s 2011 "Education Task Force." The 2011 gathering would have informed this year's session re: bills to be introduced. The US Chamber of Commerce, for example, introduced at the ALEC gathering the "model" bill "Free Enterprise Education Act".

[Thursday, 02 Feb. 2012] Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an "island" resort on the coast of Florida to a unique "education academy" sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise.

The non-profit group Fund Education Now intercepted one of ALEC's invitations to legislators in Florida delineating the junket's deluxe (and gratis) accommodations and summarizing the opportunity to learn more about school privatization and giving teachers their comeuppance.

"You are cordially invited to attend ALEC's K-12 Education Reform Academy, February 3-4, 2012 at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. For invited legislators like you, ALEC will cover your room for up to two nights at the host hotel. ALEC will also reimburse up to $500 for travel expenses, which includes coach airfare, cabfare, and a reimbursement of 55.5 cents per mile driven."

"This event will address the top reforms in K-12 education that ALEC believes each state must have to ensure the successful and productive education for all American students. We will discuss what you as a state legislator can do to address a variety of issues surrounding K-12 education reform, including charter schools accessibility, accountability and transparency, standards for teacher excellence, open enrollment, vouchers, tax credits, and blended learning options."

Fund Education Now co-founder Kathleen Oropeza says the "academy" is closed to the press and the public and Amelia Island itself is secluded from the outside world and heavily policed. The meeting's agenda is so secretive that Oropeza has been unable to track one down.

"The island is a challenge for protestors, and we think they chose it for that reason," Oropeza says.

However, a raft of ALEC legislative and corporate members are certain to be there. These include online school businesses such as K-12 Inc., Insight Schools, and Connections Academy a division of Connections Education LLC. These for-profit schools will likely join with their allies from the Heritage Foundation, Texas Public Policy Center, The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the Hoover Institution, the Alliance for School Choice and more.
[Dustin Beilke, PR Watch]

To begin understanding how the American Legislative Exchange Council and its corporate-led agenda can affect education in South Dakota, start at this article. Follow your outrage from there.


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The Events Center and our schools

By opting for expediency and near-term savings benefits, we will be doing the city of Sioux Falls grave near- and long-term economic disservice (and in the process compounding a past failure of placement with the Convention Center) if we fail to build the proposed new Events Center in the heart of Sioux Falls. In its recent decision that Councilor Jim Entenman’s ownership of property near the Arena posed no conflict of interest in the matter, the Board of Ethics unanimously concluded that land values would not rise with a new events center at the Arena site.

AECOM reached similar conclusions in its economic and development impact analysis of the two sites - even in the near-term, projecting $51.1 million in new near-term investment attracted by a downtown location versus $6.7 million at the Arena site (“Sioux Falls Events Center Economic and Development Impact Analysis,” p. 8). The AECOM report also concludes that

“Currently, there is an estimated $500 million in planned or proposed downtown projects. Based on discussions with local developers, the proposed Events Center would likely provide the needed impetus to kick start many of these projects. Locating the Events Center at the Downtown site could create a level of potential spin‐off development not likely achievable at the Arena/Convention Center site.” (p. 37 – emphasis mine)

That’s FIVE TIMES the estimated cost of building the Events Center injected directly into the Sioux Falls economy in property development alone.

The property tax implications go far beyond mere municipal receipts; our city has the opportunity to reap benefits in terms of our greatest asset: our children and the quality of their education. The AECOM report continues on page 8:

“[W]e estimate $30,000 in new city property tax revenues from spin‐off development at the Arena/Convention Center site in 2016, and $228,000 from the Downtown site. This does not include other tax impacts that would be captured by other public bodies, such as the local school district, the county, and the state.” ‐AECOM “Sioux Falls Events Center Economic and Development Impact Analysis,” p. 8 [emphasis mine]

In 2010, the allotments from each SD property tax dollar were split five ways: 27.35% for counties, 1.51% for townships, 1.89% for special assessments, 13.4% for municipalities, and 55.85% for schools. (SD Dept of Revenue 2010 Annual Report, p. 19) From AECOM’s projected municipal revenues, we can extrapolate the Sioux Falls School District’s property tax share. Considering only new near-term investment numbers ($51.1 million downtown / $6.7 million Arena site), $950,000 – almost a million dollars – will be generated annually for Sioux Falls schools from a downtown events center versus $125,000 from an Arena placement.

The difference grows even more stark when we consider the $500 million in already-proposed development that a downtown Events Center would kickstart. The city of Sioux Falls loses an additional $2.2 million in property tax revenues every year those developments languish, but an even greater impact is had on Sioux Falls schools. The mayor and AECOM are right when they say that building the events center downtown will “only” speed up development in the downtown area, but we need to be clear what “only” really means: Every year that downtown development is delayed, Sioux Falls schools are missing out on an estimated $10.2 million of additional funding.

So *that's* how the GOP plans to reduce the deficit

By exempting their deficit-exploding policy proposals from budgetary consideration. Can't pay for that massive tax "relief" for the rich? Just say "that doesn't count toward the deficit":

Republicans' deficit reduction platform, which may have helped catapult them into the majority, is about to run headlong into a hard reality: Many of their key policy goals will increase the deficit dramatically.

To get around this fact, they've included measures in their new rules package to exempt some of their biggest legislative priorities from deficit consideration. Among the exceptions, which the House is likely to consider in the 112th Congress, are the health care repeal bill (scheduled for a vote a week from Wednesday), the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, an AMT patch, extending the estate tax, and more.

For links and more hard information, check out the full Talking Points Memo story here and Jason Linkins' HuffPo story here.

Speaking of our "free" market and pure capitalism

I loves me some thinking man - oh, Gary Hart, why couldn't you have kept it in your pants? You would have made a good president, but you're probably a better man today for not having been. From his blog at mattersofprinciple.com (and cross-posted at Huff Po here):

It is quite possible that the greatest human challenge in this century will be how or whether we humans can fairly share what belongs to all. Aristotle stated the issue: "... what is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest." Garrett Hardin summarized this issue for the present age: "Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons."

Our economic system is built on the proposition that markets allocate resources best. But what is true of private resources may not also be true of public resources, those we hold in common. The conservative response to this is, of course, privatize all public resources. 20 years ago this was accomplished in Russia, and about a dozen and a half oligarchs ended up with most of the public assets.In the industrial age we let private interests allocate our most precious public resources, our air and water, and we see how that worked out. In this century we are now competing with the rest of the world as to how and whether together we can prevent carbonization of our very climate from fundamentally altering life on earth.

Every man for himself would be a (more or less) rational approach to life... if men and women were merely economic creatures. But there is also such a thing as moral man. And it is moral man (and woman) who confront the necessity of protecting the commons and preventing a tragedy brought on by greed.

We will either learn to live together and protect and preserve our common resources or our children and future generations -- with the exception of the very wealthy -- will have to learn how to perish separately. And the prospect of a world of all against all may not even prove to be that attractive to the children of the very wealthy.

Brain and brain, what is brain!

Finally, a scientific explanation for conservatism.

"Researchers from the University College London scanned the brains of group of research participants and a handful of politicians. The results? Those who identified as politically conservative had significantly larger amygdalas, the almond shaped part of the brain in charge of “primitive” emotion like fear and anxiety. Not only that but their anterior cingulate—the part of the brain thought to be responsible for impulses like courage and optimism—was found to be smaller in conservatives as well."

Good kids, good tidings.