The Nevada Legislature has stepped into the issue of access by Nevadans to non-US sources of prescription medication. In March, Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley (D-Las Vegas) introduced Assembly Bill 195 which would allow Nevada’s Pharmacy Board to license Canadian pharmacies and to set up a website to provide information and access for Nevadans. The bill passed the Assembly in April, but last week Senator Randolph Townsend (R-Reno), usually one of the legislature’s more rational Republicans, attached a provision that would require the federal government’s approval before this program could be launched, a move that would effectively kill the initiative. The bill will now go to a conference committee, where hopefully a compromise will be worked out. (It never ceases to amaze me how quickly Republicans abandon their “no federal interference” stance when it serves their ends),
I have worked as a consultant to big pharmaceutical companies including some of the biggest, in the US and abroad, and while the individuals I have worked with there are, by overwhelming numbers, dedicated, committed people, the industry as a whole is one of the most venal, self-serving, and cynical I have encountered this side of the tobacco and firearms industries. In the US, big pharma pushes its margins higher and higher and does its best to block admission of less expensive generic drugs to the market, all at the expense of those who need prescription medications for life and health, and nowhere has this venality and cynicism shown so clearly as in the industry’s fight against importing drugs from outside the US.
If you believe pharma advertising, importation of drugs that are FDA-approved in the US from reputable pharmacies in Canada exposes the hapless American consumer to impure, mislabeled, and otherwise dangerous drugs made in Fiji, China, Cambodia, and who knows where.
I have no doubt that there are unscrupulous and unethical people and companies out there in the dark recesses of the world beyond America’s borders – why wouldn’t there be, when we have plenty of them here – US “ethical” drug companies have, in the recent past, been shown to have withheld data on possible drug dangers and drug interactions, failed to remove drugs such as Vioxx from the market until long after dangers were reported, and failed to fully test “hot” drugs such a Viagra, resulting in recent findings that it may cause blindness. In other words, US drug companies and their partners at the FDA are very quick to point out the faults of foreign suppliers while ignoring their own.
In point of fact, many “US” drugs are manufactured abroad. If you take generic prescription drugs, the chances are very good that they were manufactured by Teva Pharmaceuticals of Israel, the world’s largest manufacturer of generics, and manufactured in Israel or in Europe. Many of the world’s largest drug companies are non-US companies. Yes, these companies are subject to FDA review and approval, but do you really think that, when a company produces, say, a heart drug, they produce one, pure, version to sell in the US and a second, impure version for the rest of the world?
The Federal Government’s resistance to importing drugs that can be obtained more cheaply from non-US sources comes from big pharma’s lobbying and donations, not from any concern about US consumers’ health. It is established fact that, because of this unholy alliance between big pharma and the FDA, many in the US, particularly seniors and the indigent, cannot afford medication that they need or take less than the prescribed dosages to stretch their medication dollars. Assemblywoman Buckley is looking out for the welfare of Nevadans in her attempt to make medication available more cheaply, and her inserting the Nevada Pharmacy Board into the process shows that this is not an irresponsible or wild approach. Senator Townsend’s blocking move may be well-intended, in which case he needs to educate himself about the realities of the industry, or it is further evidence of the Republicans’ cynical alliance with big business at the expense of the citizen on the street.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Column 33: National - 150 Days of Bush 2
150 Days of Bush 2: A Progress(ive) report
There can be little doubt in anyone’s mind that in his second administration President Bush has made common cause with the far right wing of the Republican Party as represented by the likes of Tom DeLay and with what have been called of Christianity as represented by James Dobson. It is, of course, the right of any President to align himself with whatever political strains he finds compatible, but after five months of this administration, the gap between the President’s views and those of all but the fringe of America is becoming more evident and wider.
By overreaching in a number of areas including the Terri Schiavo case and the “nuclear option” threat, the Republicans have given mainstream America a fresh appreciation of the dangers of unrestrained government arrogance, and a respect for the checks and balances needed to restrain that arrogance.
That same kind of arrogance is at work in the GOP's move to protect Tom DeLay by rewriting House ethics rules and is behind the Republican attack on federal judges – when they attacked judges for upholding the Constitution in the Schiavo case it became clear to the country that the issue was not judicial activism but that the judiciary is the only government branch beyond their control. With that, what had been for many a vague and growing unease began to coalesce into a deep distrust.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll recently indicated that only 26 percent of Americans polled said federal judges are too liberal; 18 percent said they're too conservative; and 52 percent think they're about right. In the same poll, an astounding 66 percent opposed the Republican effort to make it easier to ram even the most extreme judges through the Senate confirmation process. Like the change of ethics rules in the House, that proposed change is seen as an effort to remove all impediments to raw power.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen almost 800 points from its high in early March, and Alan Greenspan and his predecessor, Paul Volcker, are warning about dire consequences if the federal deficit is not addressed in a serious manner. Bush, however, has made it clear that he has no intention of changing course.
As a result, a Gallup poll last month found that only 31 percent of Americans rated the economy as good or excellent; 68 percent called it fair or poor. Just two months earlier, 50 percent of Americans told Gallup they believed the economy was getting worse; by the end of April it was 61 percent.
I don’t have room here to go into Iraq or energy policy or Social Security, where the numbers are much the same. Failed policy, and poll numbers that reflect it.
Other telling evidence of the growing gap is the right wing’s increasingly desperate efforts to attack indiscriminately those who disagree with them in any way. This has extended from the “Justice Sunday” effort to gain support for the nuclear option all the way down to increasingly strident attacks in letters to this newspaper. What is most interesting is how bereft of content these attacks are – at every level, the right attempts to defend itself by defaming anyone and everyone who disagrees, by name-calling, and by insinuating that disagreement is somehow evidence of being anti-American, anti-God, and anti-morality. In fact, though, those poll results can't be explained by Democratic attacks or a liberal media. It's just the cold, hard recognition of failure setting in and of an American public that, if it is anti-anything it is anti-autocracy.
There can be little doubt in anyone’s mind that in his second administration President Bush has made common cause with the far right wing of the Republican Party as represented by the likes of Tom DeLay and with what have been called of Christianity as represented by James Dobson. It is, of course, the right of any President to align himself with whatever political strains he finds compatible, but after five months of this administration, the gap between the President’s views and those of all but the fringe of America is becoming more evident and wider.
By overreaching in a number of areas including the Terri Schiavo case and the “nuclear option” threat, the Republicans have given mainstream America a fresh appreciation of the dangers of unrestrained government arrogance, and a respect for the checks and balances needed to restrain that arrogance.
That same kind of arrogance is at work in the GOP's move to protect Tom DeLay by rewriting House ethics rules and is behind the Republican attack on federal judges – when they attacked judges for upholding the Constitution in the Schiavo case it became clear to the country that the issue was not judicial activism but that the judiciary is the only government branch beyond their control. With that, what had been for many a vague and growing unease began to coalesce into a deep distrust.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll recently indicated that only 26 percent of Americans polled said federal judges are too liberal; 18 percent said they're too conservative; and 52 percent think they're about right. In the same poll, an astounding 66 percent opposed the Republican effort to make it easier to ram even the most extreme judges through the Senate confirmation process. Like the change of ethics rules in the House, that proposed change is seen as an effort to remove all impediments to raw power.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen almost 800 points from its high in early March, and Alan Greenspan and his predecessor, Paul Volcker, are warning about dire consequences if the federal deficit is not addressed in a serious manner. Bush, however, has made it clear that he has no intention of changing course.
As a result, a Gallup poll last month found that only 31 percent of Americans rated the economy as good or excellent; 68 percent called it fair or poor. Just two months earlier, 50 percent of Americans told Gallup they believed the economy was getting worse; by the end of April it was 61 percent.
I don’t have room here to go into Iraq or energy policy or Social Security, where the numbers are much the same. Failed policy, and poll numbers that reflect it.
Other telling evidence of the growing gap is the right wing’s increasingly desperate efforts to attack indiscriminately those who disagree with them in any way. This has extended from the “Justice Sunday” effort to gain support for the nuclear option all the way down to increasingly strident attacks in letters to this newspaper. What is most interesting is how bereft of content these attacks are – at every level, the right attempts to defend itself by defaming anyone and everyone who disagrees, by name-calling, and by insinuating that disagreement is somehow evidence of being anti-American, anti-God, and anti-morality. In fact, though, those poll results can't be explained by Democratic attacks or a liberal media. It's just the cold, hard recognition of failure setting in and of an American public that, if it is anti-anything it is anti-autocracy.
Column 32: Nevada Tax Rebate
The amazing thing about the current (and hopefully temporary) ascension of the right wing to power is their capacity to believe that the more they trumpet their version of what others are doing wrong, the less people will notice what they are doing. This goes a long way toward explaining inconsistencies such as those we saw in the Terry Schiavo debate and the Iraq WMD debacle.
Jim Clark proposes the creation of a hymn to the greatness of Governor Guinn (and by the way, Jim, “America” is set to the tune of “God Save the Queen,” not the other way around) and castigates Assembly Democrats for wanting to use the surplus that resulted from the Governor’s overtaxing policy to improve education in the state. He accuses the Democrats of “spin” for fighting a fight he thinks they cannot win.
Well, let’s talk about spin. Jim is quick to cite the statistic that Nevada moved from 25th to 22nd highest state in per capita taxation, but he conveniently ignores that Nevada is 48th highest in per student spending on education. Jim loves to heap scorn on Democrats, but what they are proposing is to use a tax surplus – money that we have already paid and learned to live without – to give our teachers and public employees more than the miserly 2% raise that Governor Guinn put in his budget and to fund the Millennium Scholarship at a level beyond what State Treasurer Krolicki was able to eke out without tax money. Is that so bad?
Would you be satisfied with a 2% increase in your pay next year? By way of a reference point, the current cost of living adjustment for Social Security is 2.7%, so what the Gov is proposing as a raise for teachers and public employees is less than the increase in the cost of living. According to Jim, the “costly social program” being proposed by those “arrogant democrats” is a 5% increase. Why, we’ll see teachers squirreling away these riches and then leaving in droves, those money-hungry wretches! No, better to look to the Republican administration in Washington and piously mouth pro-education platitudes while passing unfunded mandates on to the states, secure in the knowledge that like-minded governors will ignore the need for funding them, preferring to dress the Republican Party in a red suit and give money back to buy votes.
The population of Nevada is 2.3 million people. If the budget surplus of $300 million were distributed equally it would amount to about $130 for every man, woman, and child in the state or about 2 tankfuls of Bush Administration gasoline. Now I know that, for many people in the state a windfall of three or four hundred dollars to their family would be welcome, but for any family making enough money to have paid taxes, it wouldn’t make that much difference – surely not as much as the difference that putting that $300 million to work in our overburdened schools, paying some of the $300 million to give our overworked and underpaid teachers a raise beyond what would immediately be eaten up by the increase in the cost of living, and helping families that need assistance to sent their kids to college would make.
Right-wing radio “personalities” love to scream about the leftist media while never mentioning that the airwaves are dominated by conservatives. This President has made an art of waving his right hand (the social security non-crisis) to draw attention away from what his left hand ($84 million for Iraq, the nuclear option in the Senate, the appointment of John “Gepetto” Bolton to the UN) is doing. And now Governor Guinn wants to dazzle us with a rebate so that we don’t notice him undercutting honest attempts to pull Nevada out of the educational quagmire we have been in for years.
It really amazes me how stupid the conservatives think people are (except, of course, for other conservatives) and how they think they can pull the wool over people’s eyes again and again. It’s time we stood up and said no and took back our government from the plutocrats and right-wing fundamentalists.
Jim Clark proposes the creation of a hymn to the greatness of Governor Guinn (and by the way, Jim, “America” is set to the tune of “God Save the Queen,” not the other way around) and castigates Assembly Democrats for wanting to use the surplus that resulted from the Governor’s overtaxing policy to improve education in the state. He accuses the Democrats of “spin” for fighting a fight he thinks they cannot win.
Well, let’s talk about spin. Jim is quick to cite the statistic that Nevada moved from 25th to 22nd highest state in per capita taxation, but he conveniently ignores that Nevada is 48th highest in per student spending on education. Jim loves to heap scorn on Democrats, but what they are proposing is to use a tax surplus – money that we have already paid and learned to live without – to give our teachers and public employees more than the miserly 2% raise that Governor Guinn put in his budget and to fund the Millennium Scholarship at a level beyond what State Treasurer Krolicki was able to eke out without tax money. Is that so bad?
Would you be satisfied with a 2% increase in your pay next year? By way of a reference point, the current cost of living adjustment for Social Security is 2.7%, so what the Gov is proposing as a raise for teachers and public employees is less than the increase in the cost of living. According to Jim, the “costly social program” being proposed by those “arrogant democrats” is a 5% increase. Why, we’ll see teachers squirreling away these riches and then leaving in droves, those money-hungry wretches! No, better to look to the Republican administration in Washington and piously mouth pro-education platitudes while passing unfunded mandates on to the states, secure in the knowledge that like-minded governors will ignore the need for funding them, preferring to dress the Republican Party in a red suit and give money back to buy votes.
The population of Nevada is 2.3 million people. If the budget surplus of $300 million were distributed equally it would amount to about $130 for every man, woman, and child in the state or about 2 tankfuls of Bush Administration gasoline. Now I know that, for many people in the state a windfall of three or four hundred dollars to their family would be welcome, but for any family making enough money to have paid taxes, it wouldn’t make that much difference – surely not as much as the difference that putting that $300 million to work in our overburdened schools, paying some of the $300 million to give our overworked and underpaid teachers a raise beyond what would immediately be eaten up by the increase in the cost of living, and helping families that need assistance to sent their kids to college would make.
Right-wing radio “personalities” love to scream about the leftist media while never mentioning that the airwaves are dominated by conservatives. This President has made an art of waving his right hand (the social security non-crisis) to draw attention away from what his left hand ($84 million for Iraq, the nuclear option in the Senate, the appointment of John “Gepetto” Bolton to the UN) is doing. And now Governor Guinn wants to dazzle us with a rebate so that we don’t notice him undercutting honest attempts to pull Nevada out of the educational quagmire we have been in for years.
It really amazes me how stupid the conservatives think people are (except, of course, for other conservatives) and how they think they can pull the wool over people’s eyes again and again. It’s time we stood up and said no and took back our government from the plutocrats and right-wing fundamentalists.
Column 31: Incline Village Needs a Plan
Incline Village needs a plan. Over the past decades the village has grown without any real organization or planning. From time to time you will hear people talk as if there were a plan – for example, there is a myth that “chain businesses are not allowed here.” Despite the presence of 7-Eleven, and Subway, not to mention Raley’s, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, I still heard that myth cited in wonder when Starbuck’s and then Quizno’s opened here, but in fact there is no such restriction, nor is there any body of regulations short of the County that could make such a restriction.
We saw a shortcoming of not being self-regulating when the County, without much (if any) consultation with the Village, ousted the Children’s Cabinet thrift store from its location on Northwood due to a violation of (County) zoning restrictions. It is very likely that special interests and an arrogant government agency will give us a post office in what may be the worst possible location in the Village, and we will be powerless to stop it.
So I was gratified to see Bill Horn and Gene Brockman recommend that the IVGID Board of Trustees take the lead on developing a community plan. I was especially pleased that Gene recommended that the group be called “Incline Vision.” In my work with companies and organizations I have become a firm believer in the primacy of vision in any undertaking. A plan, to be meaningful and intelligent, must derive from an alignment of all concerned on what they want to see happen and how they want the organization, or in this case the community, to develop over the coming years.
Alignment does not mean that everyone agrees on every particular of a plan, but that there is a shared commitment as regards the future Alignment means reconciling differences at a level that is sufficient to coordinate actions across community boundaries. The source of effective coordination is a common future, and coming to a common future takes effective leadership and a lot of communication. Where alignment is strong, creativity and valuable planning are easy and natural. In the absence of alignment, planning devolves to arguing about how to get somewhere when we have not established where we are going or why we are going there.
While I know the Board’s effort is well-intended, I’m not convinced that IVGID can provide leadership that will create a vision that is broadly based and inclusive of the entire community, and without a vision that meets those criteria, any plan will be likely to be insufficient to meet the community’s needs. A recent book, The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, provides compelling evidence that the broader and more diverse a group is, the more creative and intelligent solutions it comes up with, and the more “expert” and unrepresentative a group, the less well it will do. I believe that this principle must govern any group that takes on the vision stages of the planning process.
Chairman Brockman made the point that for a committee to include all the various points of view in the village would make it too big to be workable, and I agree with him. The solution to this is to recognize that the committee will be a coordinating body, and to task it first with creating that alignment from which a valuable vision will come. TRPA, in its Pathways 2007 project, is trying to do this with a 40+ member committee and numerous subcommittees. It remains to be seen how that will work, but I think a smaller committee that holds forums with all the different interest groups in the Village and then brings together a Village-wide forum to air its findings and to host a conversation to create a vision from which planning will proceed is a more workable model for us.
In any case, we should be glad that the process has been launched, and appreciative of this newspaper for starting the conversation and of Bill Horn, Gene Brockman, and the Board for undertaking the challenge. It is an effort that deserves and needs all our support.
We saw a shortcoming of not being self-regulating when the County, without much (if any) consultation with the Village, ousted the Children’s Cabinet thrift store from its location on Northwood due to a violation of (County) zoning restrictions. It is very likely that special interests and an arrogant government agency will give us a post office in what may be the worst possible location in the Village, and we will be powerless to stop it.
So I was gratified to see Bill Horn and Gene Brockman recommend that the IVGID Board of Trustees take the lead on developing a community plan. I was especially pleased that Gene recommended that the group be called “Incline Vision.” In my work with companies and organizations I have become a firm believer in the primacy of vision in any undertaking. A plan, to be meaningful and intelligent, must derive from an alignment of all concerned on what they want to see happen and how they want the organization, or in this case the community, to develop over the coming years.
Alignment does not mean that everyone agrees on every particular of a plan, but that there is a shared commitment as regards the future Alignment means reconciling differences at a level that is sufficient to coordinate actions across community boundaries. The source of effective coordination is a common future, and coming to a common future takes effective leadership and a lot of communication. Where alignment is strong, creativity and valuable planning are easy and natural. In the absence of alignment, planning devolves to arguing about how to get somewhere when we have not established where we are going or why we are going there.
While I know the Board’s effort is well-intended, I’m not convinced that IVGID can provide leadership that will create a vision that is broadly based and inclusive of the entire community, and without a vision that meets those criteria, any plan will be likely to be insufficient to meet the community’s needs. A recent book, The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, provides compelling evidence that the broader and more diverse a group is, the more creative and intelligent solutions it comes up with, and the more “expert” and unrepresentative a group, the less well it will do. I believe that this principle must govern any group that takes on the vision stages of the planning process.
Chairman Brockman made the point that for a committee to include all the various points of view in the village would make it too big to be workable, and I agree with him. The solution to this is to recognize that the committee will be a coordinating body, and to task it first with creating that alignment from which a valuable vision will come. TRPA, in its Pathways 2007 project, is trying to do this with a 40+ member committee and numerous subcommittees. It remains to be seen how that will work, but I think a smaller committee that holds forums with all the different interest groups in the Village and then brings together a Village-wide forum to air its findings and to host a conversation to create a vision from which planning will proceed is a more workable model for us.
In any case, we should be glad that the process has been launched, and appreciative of this newspaper for starting the conversation and of Bill Horn, Gene Brockman, and the Board for undertaking the challenge. It is an effort that deserves and needs all our support.
Column 30: Earth Day
Last Friday, April 22, marked the 35th anniversary of Earth Day. Though the population of the United States has increased by almost 50% since the first Earth Day, Only about a million Americans were expected to actively participate this year, compared to some 20 million then.
Why is this? As my friend Bob Perkowitz pointed out in his Earth Day column in the Charlotte, NC, Observer, today’s environmental problems are much harder to come to grips with than the problems of the ‘70’s. Global warming? I am an environmentalist and a trained scientist and I can’t even determine whether it’s real or not. Depletion of fish stocks? Too complex – species come and go to begin with, and even if the US restricts fishing, won’t other countries just take the fish anyhow?
Also today’s problems seem to involve too many unpleasant tradeoffs – gas is pushing three dollars a gallon, but we shouldn’t drill in the Arctic. Hybrid cars seem like a good idea, but will they work on our mountain roads? Alternative energy? That’s a problem to be solved by the energy companies – what can I do?
The most widespread mood I encounter, even among many environmentalists is resignation. So much is out of our hands, and what is in our hands seems to amount to gestures –I recycle my bottles and cans and major corporations produce tons of waste. I can go “off the grid” but they’ll still drill for oil in ANWR.
In his column, Bob (Full disclosure: Bob is married to Lisa Renstrom, a member of the Sierra Club Board; I have consulted, and continue to consult to the Sierra Club Board and Lisa) makes a compelling case that much of what impacts environmental quality in the 21st Century is actually under our control, for example energy independence, economic prosperity, healthy communities, and our natural heritage.
Dependence on foreign oil, is our single greatest national security and environmental problem, one that, in Einstein’s famous words, cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it. The US can never produce enough oil to be independent and secure, and our government leaders need to stop buying the oil companies’ story that we can. Viable alternatives to oil exist now – geothermal, active solar, and wind power are all proven and usable – all it takes is the will to change. Hydrogen power is on the way to feasibility, and electric/hybrid vehicles are a reality. Every American, regardless of their politics, should be for energy independence.
Our dependence on foreign oil also has a powerful negative effect on our prosperity. 27% of the US trade deficit in 2004 was due to importing $179 billion in oil. This is a major force behind the weakness of the dollar and high gas prices. An energy policy that focuses on an independent future for America will create jobs, correct the trade deficit and make American businesses more competitive.
Health care does not seem like an environmental issue, but in many cases such as the Fallon cancer clusters it is. Mercury-laden fish that we cannot eat, chemicals in waste water that cannot be removed, air that is unhealthy to breathe all affect our lives and the costs of caring for those affected affect our economies, both public and private. Healthy communities should be an environmental priority.
Finally, there is the natural beauty in which we live. Every gas well in Wyoming, and oil well in the Arctic, every logging road through forests makes the next environmental abomination easier and lulls us into resignation. I have had my differences with TRPA’s methods and actions, but I am grateful that, for the Tahoe basin at least, someone is looking out for our natural heritage.
Let’s have Earth Day be a wake-up call for those of us who have, explicitly or implicitly, given up. Now is the time to be talking about energy independence, economic prosperity, healthy communities, and our natural heritage. I join with Bob Perkowitz, the Sierra Club, the League to Save Lake Tahoe, and yes, even TRPA in inviting you to realize that each of us is, at heart, an environmentalist.
Why is this? As my friend Bob Perkowitz pointed out in his Earth Day column in the Charlotte, NC, Observer, today’s environmental problems are much harder to come to grips with than the problems of the ‘70’s. Global warming? I am an environmentalist and a trained scientist and I can’t even determine whether it’s real or not. Depletion of fish stocks? Too complex – species come and go to begin with, and even if the US restricts fishing, won’t other countries just take the fish anyhow?
Also today’s problems seem to involve too many unpleasant tradeoffs – gas is pushing three dollars a gallon, but we shouldn’t drill in the Arctic. Hybrid cars seem like a good idea, but will they work on our mountain roads? Alternative energy? That’s a problem to be solved by the energy companies – what can I do?
The most widespread mood I encounter, even among many environmentalists is resignation. So much is out of our hands, and what is in our hands seems to amount to gestures –I recycle my bottles and cans and major corporations produce tons of waste. I can go “off the grid” but they’ll still drill for oil in ANWR.
In his column, Bob (Full disclosure: Bob is married to Lisa Renstrom, a member of the Sierra Club Board; I have consulted, and continue to consult to the Sierra Club Board and Lisa) makes a compelling case that much of what impacts environmental quality in the 21st Century is actually under our control, for example energy independence, economic prosperity, healthy communities, and our natural heritage.
Dependence on foreign oil, is our single greatest national security and environmental problem, one that, in Einstein’s famous words, cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it. The US can never produce enough oil to be independent and secure, and our government leaders need to stop buying the oil companies’ story that we can. Viable alternatives to oil exist now – geothermal, active solar, and wind power are all proven and usable – all it takes is the will to change. Hydrogen power is on the way to feasibility, and electric/hybrid vehicles are a reality. Every American, regardless of their politics, should be for energy independence.
Our dependence on foreign oil also has a powerful negative effect on our prosperity. 27% of the US trade deficit in 2004 was due to importing $179 billion in oil. This is a major force behind the weakness of the dollar and high gas prices. An energy policy that focuses on an independent future for America will create jobs, correct the trade deficit and make American businesses more competitive.
Health care does not seem like an environmental issue, but in many cases such as the Fallon cancer clusters it is. Mercury-laden fish that we cannot eat, chemicals in waste water that cannot be removed, air that is unhealthy to breathe all affect our lives and the costs of caring for those affected affect our economies, both public and private. Healthy communities should be an environmental priority.
Finally, there is the natural beauty in which we live. Every gas well in Wyoming, and oil well in the Arctic, every logging road through forests makes the next environmental abomination easier and lulls us into resignation. I have had my differences with TRPA’s methods and actions, but I am grateful that, for the Tahoe basin at least, someone is looking out for our natural heritage.
Let’s have Earth Day be a wake-up call for those of us who have, explicitly or implicitly, given up. Now is the time to be talking about energy independence, economic prosperity, healthy communities, and our natural heritage. I join with Bob Perkowitz, the Sierra Club, the League to Save Lake Tahoe, and yes, even TRPA in inviting you to realize that each of us is, at heart, an environmentalist.
Column 29: National - The Pope
An awful lot has been written about Pope John Paul II since his death last week, which I probably fitting given his long tenure and significant influence in the world. Much of what has been written, however, has, in my view, presented only half of the man, which does a disservice to history, and dishonors the man’s legacy.
If John Paul had been “just a pope,” perhaps this would not be so bad, but this Pope, like Bishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama took a position of world, not just religious, leadership. By taking strong and courageous stands on political issues, by his outreach to other faiths, by his willingness to take responsibility for wrongs committed in the name of the Church in the past, he distinguished himself from earlier Popes, who allowed the Church to ignore or even to appear to condone such wrongs as the Holocaust and the Inquisition.
This same courage and strength, however, informed the Pope’s intransigent conservatism on issues that many, even many Catholics, consider socially urgent. While at the same time demonstrating that the Church has made serious errors in its past doctrines and practices, he maintained its infallibility on current doctrines and practices such as pedophile priests, contraception, abortion, divorce, women in the priesthood, and others.
Every religious group has the right to set its own boundaries and to declare those who transgress those boundaries outside the fold. At the same time, all but the most conservative factions of most faiths in the modern world have made allowances for changing views of the world and exigent factors such as disease. The Pope often spoke of the need for a “culture of life,” but this is hard to reconcile with refusing to allow the use of condoms to prevent disease. The Pope was ready to admit the Church’s errors with regard to Galileo and the Inquisition, but seemed less willing to have the Church take responsibility for the many scandals regarding child molestation in the United States and many have argued that he aided and abetted Cardinal Law in escaping the consequences of his having protected priests accused of molestation and even having transferred known molesters into positions where they still had access to children.
None of this detracts from the Pope’s real accomplishments or from his commitments. He was a stalwart advocate of freedom and if he didn’t bring down Communism single-handedly, he certainly contributed materially to its demise. That there were modern errors he failed to acknowledge does not diminish the importance of his having apologized and taken responsibility for earlier errors. He was deeply compassionate for the poor and the downtrodden, and his lack of compassion for the sides of human misery of which he disapproved did not subtract from this.
However, when a religious leader takes on being a leader in the secular world as well, he makes himself liable to be held to a higher standard of integrity. This Pope, by taking a stand against authoritarian regimes makes his own authority subject to review; by reaching out to other faiths in a spirit of inclusion and collegiality, the integrity of his judging others’ morality by his own doctrine becomes questionable. When millions of Roman Catholics do not follow his teachings on birth control and divorce, his authenticity in proclaiming these teachings as universal is diminished in the world’s eyes. When he turns a deaf ear to the misery of those whose lives were damaged by priests and bishops operating under the mantle of ecclesiastic authority, his moral leadership acquires a hollow ring.
Pope John Paul II was one of the great spiritual, moral, and religious leaders of the 20th Century, and history will remember him as such, but history is not served by remembering only half the man – all of who he was and became made his contribution what it was. Let us remember the whole man.
If John Paul had been “just a pope,” perhaps this would not be so bad, but this Pope, like Bishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama took a position of world, not just religious, leadership. By taking strong and courageous stands on political issues, by his outreach to other faiths, by his willingness to take responsibility for wrongs committed in the name of the Church in the past, he distinguished himself from earlier Popes, who allowed the Church to ignore or even to appear to condone such wrongs as the Holocaust and the Inquisition.
This same courage and strength, however, informed the Pope’s intransigent conservatism on issues that many, even many Catholics, consider socially urgent. While at the same time demonstrating that the Church has made serious errors in its past doctrines and practices, he maintained its infallibility on current doctrines and practices such as pedophile priests, contraception, abortion, divorce, women in the priesthood, and others.
Every religious group has the right to set its own boundaries and to declare those who transgress those boundaries outside the fold. At the same time, all but the most conservative factions of most faiths in the modern world have made allowances for changing views of the world and exigent factors such as disease. The Pope often spoke of the need for a “culture of life,” but this is hard to reconcile with refusing to allow the use of condoms to prevent disease. The Pope was ready to admit the Church’s errors with regard to Galileo and the Inquisition, but seemed less willing to have the Church take responsibility for the many scandals regarding child molestation in the United States and many have argued that he aided and abetted Cardinal Law in escaping the consequences of his having protected priests accused of molestation and even having transferred known molesters into positions where they still had access to children.
None of this detracts from the Pope’s real accomplishments or from his commitments. He was a stalwart advocate of freedom and if he didn’t bring down Communism single-handedly, he certainly contributed materially to its demise. That there were modern errors he failed to acknowledge does not diminish the importance of his having apologized and taken responsibility for earlier errors. He was deeply compassionate for the poor and the downtrodden, and his lack of compassion for the sides of human misery of which he disapproved did not subtract from this.
However, when a religious leader takes on being a leader in the secular world as well, he makes himself liable to be held to a higher standard of integrity. This Pope, by taking a stand against authoritarian regimes makes his own authority subject to review; by reaching out to other faiths in a spirit of inclusion and collegiality, the integrity of his judging others’ morality by his own doctrine becomes questionable. When millions of Roman Catholics do not follow his teachings on birth control and divorce, his authenticity in proclaiming these teachings as universal is diminished in the world’s eyes. When he turns a deaf ear to the misery of those whose lives were damaged by priests and bishops operating under the mantle of ecclesiastic authority, his moral leadership acquires a hollow ring.
Pope John Paul II was one of the great spiritual, moral, and religious leaders of the 20th Century, and history will remember him as such, but history is not served by remembering only half the man – all of who he was and became made his contribution what it was. Let us remember the whole man.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Column 28: A Column about the Column
Over the nine months I’ve been writing this column, a common response I’ve gotten and continue to get is that some people feel that this column speaks for them – not every column for every person but most of the time for most of the people. That was my intent in starting this column, and I’m glad I can do that.
A second group who have responded are people who tell me that they enjoy reading the column even though they mostly don’t agree with me. If what I’m writing and how I’m writing it is readable and/or enjoyable enough that people who disagree with me still like reading it, I like that a lot.
And, of course, there are those who disagree with me who have written letters and even an occasional column, and are thoughtful and express a point of view that I can respect, – the physician who took both Jim and me to task for our health care columns is a great example – his letter was thoughtful and respectful while clearly letting us know his views.. To them I say “thanks.” I did not set out to write a column that had no viewpoint and appealed to all. I am attempting to represent a point of view that is more or less shared by about half the people in the United States and a substantial number of people here in Incline. If there were no disagreement, I would be failing in my task.
Another group, however, are those who cannot seem to disagree without being disagreeable. They name-call and vilifiy, as if the mere fact that they disagree and can think of insults that seem clever to them is proof enough that I’m wrong, if not evil. This is a nasty form of political debate from either side of the aisle, and one I don’t have any respect for. In my opinion the ad hominem attack is the last refuge of the bigoted and ignorant.
A political/social columnist cannot be an expert on everything. Not long ago, when I was testifying as an expert witness in an intellectual property case, I was asked to list the areas where I felt I could be called and “expert.” On the one hand the list surprised me – in a lifetime of study and careers in several fields, I have actually learned something about a number of fields. On the other hand, the list was pretty short. So when I come to write a column I do research and try to get my facts as straight and accurate as I can and to clearly differentiate my opinions from the facts. Bernard Baruch said “Every man has a right to his opinions, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” When I’ve had my facts wrong, I have corrected the error and will continue to do that so that people aren’t left with inaccurate information. As to my opinions, they are my own.
A danger for a columnist is that one can forget that free access to a public medium carries accountability with it. The cynical say (usually of a columnist or commentator they don’t agree with) that the media are just running off at the mouth, unchecked. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Journalism has a long-established code of ethics in the public trust, and recent events involving Dan Rather, the New York Times, and others have made it clear that the public will hold those who abuse this trust to account. One of the reasons I started this column is that my work and travel schedule will not support my serving in a public office – this is my way of serving, and I try to do it honestly and valuably. I’m not trying to please all of the people or even some of the people all of the time, and I will continue to write as long as some people let me know that I speak for them, at least some of the time.
A second group who have responded are people who tell me that they enjoy reading the column even though they mostly don’t agree with me. If what I’m writing and how I’m writing it is readable and/or enjoyable enough that people who disagree with me still like reading it, I like that a lot.
And, of course, there are those who disagree with me who have written letters and even an occasional column, and are thoughtful and express a point of view that I can respect, – the physician who took both Jim and me to task for our health care columns is a great example – his letter was thoughtful and respectful while clearly letting us know his views.. To them I say “thanks.” I did not set out to write a column that had no viewpoint and appealed to all. I am attempting to represent a point of view that is more or less shared by about half the people in the United States and a substantial number of people here in Incline. If there were no disagreement, I would be failing in my task.
Another group, however, are those who cannot seem to disagree without being disagreeable. They name-call and vilifiy, as if the mere fact that they disagree and can think of insults that seem clever to them is proof enough that I’m wrong, if not evil. This is a nasty form of political debate from either side of the aisle, and one I don’t have any respect for. In my opinion the ad hominem attack is the last refuge of the bigoted and ignorant.
A political/social columnist cannot be an expert on everything. Not long ago, when I was testifying as an expert witness in an intellectual property case, I was asked to list the areas where I felt I could be called and “expert.” On the one hand the list surprised me – in a lifetime of study and careers in several fields, I have actually learned something about a number of fields. On the other hand, the list was pretty short. So when I come to write a column I do research and try to get my facts as straight and accurate as I can and to clearly differentiate my opinions from the facts. Bernard Baruch said “Every man has a right to his opinions, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” When I’ve had my facts wrong, I have corrected the error and will continue to do that so that people aren’t left with inaccurate information. As to my opinions, they are my own.
A danger for a columnist is that one can forget that free access to a public medium carries accountability with it. The cynical say (usually of a columnist or commentator they don’t agree with) that the media are just running off at the mouth, unchecked. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Journalism has a long-established code of ethics in the public trust, and recent events involving Dan Rather, the New York Times, and others have made it clear that the public will hold those who abuse this trust to account. One of the reasons I started this column is that my work and travel schedule will not support my serving in a public office – this is my way of serving, and I try to do it honestly and valuably. I’m not trying to please all of the people or even some of the people all of the time, and I will continue to write as long as some people let me know that I speak for them, at least some of the time.
Column 27: Education - Part 2
Throughout the history of the United States there has been a significant strain of distrust and low regard for education. The “self-made man,” who overcame a lack of education to become successful has been held as more worthy of respect than the person with an education, particularly a classical education, and all the more so if the educated person came from an upper- or upper-middle class background. Abraham Lincoln, studying on a slate by firelight and barely finishing a secondary education is the paragon of the American dream, while university president Woodrow Wilson is seen as somewhat effete and having had his head in the clouds.
One result of this ambivalent attitude is that we salute the importance of education while refusing to pay teachers a decent wage, cutting school programs to the bone, eliminating those aspects of education that go to the whole person (music, art, physical education) and demanding of our educators that they do much more with much less.
Governments at the national, state, and local level have passed high-sounding legislation and then failed to fund its implementation, and band-aid solutions are used where surgery is needed. Nowhere is this clearer than in the argument over class size, where low student-to-teacher ratios are mandated by the Federal Government as well as by at least 24 states that have established mandates, grant programs or other financial incentives to lower class size. In 1999 the Clinton Administration allocated funds with a goal of helping districts hire 100,000 new teachers. The Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind Act has incorporated the federal class-size-reduction program into a block grant program to improve teacher quality, but this act is notoriously under funded.
Now, as the economy has receded from 1999 levels, critics of education spending have demanded proof that class size reductions have worked. While data in this area are hard to come by, a couple of things are clear. First, there is strong evidence, particularly from the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio project in Tennessee and the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program in Wisconsin that students in the K-3 years whose classes are smaller do better throughout their education, even after going into larger classes from 4th grade on. Data on the effectiveness of smaller classes in upper grades is inconclusive, and conservative critics have seized on this as proof that class-size reductions do not make any difference.
What is ignored in the conservatives’ argument is the way the reductions were done. When the economy was booming in the latter half of the nineties, states such as California had lots of money to hire teachers and reduced class size on a wholesale basis, to the point where there were not enough teachers to fill the slots and uncertified, and sometimes unqualified teachers were hired. Small wonder that improvement was not seen when the overall quality of instruction went down as class size was reduced. As the economy receded there were fewer funds available, and qualified teachers who left were replaced by more unqualified or less-qualified staff.
What is missing here is some intelligent appreciation that education is a system. When you intervene in a system, what you do has not only local but also global impact. If you reduce class size without making sure there are enough qualified teachers to fill the need you have created, it should come as no surprise that you don’t get the results you wanted. If you mandate smaller classes and don’t fund those mandates, it should be no surprise that, when the mandates are implemented on a shoestring, they do not produce results. This reflects a predilection on conservatives’ part toward establishing high-sounding programs, under funding them, and then pointing to the failure as proof that “liberal” solutions don’t work.
It is time we learned that “the future depends on education” is not merely a truism or a slogan. It is a harsh truth – the future of the United States will depend on the luck of finding more Lincolns or the commitment to educate more Wilsons, Eisenhowers, Kennedys, and yes, even Bushes.
One result of this ambivalent attitude is that we salute the importance of education while refusing to pay teachers a decent wage, cutting school programs to the bone, eliminating those aspects of education that go to the whole person (music, art, physical education) and demanding of our educators that they do much more with much less.
Governments at the national, state, and local level have passed high-sounding legislation and then failed to fund its implementation, and band-aid solutions are used where surgery is needed. Nowhere is this clearer than in the argument over class size, where low student-to-teacher ratios are mandated by the Federal Government as well as by at least 24 states that have established mandates, grant programs or other financial incentives to lower class size. In 1999 the Clinton Administration allocated funds with a goal of helping districts hire 100,000 new teachers. The Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind Act has incorporated the federal class-size-reduction program into a block grant program to improve teacher quality, but this act is notoriously under funded.
Now, as the economy has receded from 1999 levels, critics of education spending have demanded proof that class size reductions have worked. While data in this area are hard to come by, a couple of things are clear. First, there is strong evidence, particularly from the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio project in Tennessee and the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program in Wisconsin that students in the K-3 years whose classes are smaller do better throughout their education, even after going into larger classes from 4th grade on. Data on the effectiveness of smaller classes in upper grades is inconclusive, and conservative critics have seized on this as proof that class-size reductions do not make any difference.
What is ignored in the conservatives’ argument is the way the reductions were done. When the economy was booming in the latter half of the nineties, states such as California had lots of money to hire teachers and reduced class size on a wholesale basis, to the point where there were not enough teachers to fill the slots and uncertified, and sometimes unqualified teachers were hired. Small wonder that improvement was not seen when the overall quality of instruction went down as class size was reduced. As the economy receded there were fewer funds available, and qualified teachers who left were replaced by more unqualified or less-qualified staff.
What is missing here is some intelligent appreciation that education is a system. When you intervene in a system, what you do has not only local but also global impact. If you reduce class size without making sure there are enough qualified teachers to fill the need you have created, it should come as no surprise that you don’t get the results you wanted. If you mandate smaller classes and don’t fund those mandates, it should be no surprise that, when the mandates are implemented on a shoestring, they do not produce results. This reflects a predilection on conservatives’ part toward establishing high-sounding programs, under funding them, and then pointing to the failure as proof that “liberal” solutions don’t work.
It is time we learned that “the future depends on education” is not merely a truism or a slogan. It is a harsh truth – the future of the United States will depend on the luck of finding more Lincolns or the commitment to educate more Wilsons, Eisenhowers, Kennedys, and yes, even Bushes.
Column 26: The Golf Course
Recently there has been controversy centering around the golf course – some people seem to think it is unreasonable that they are not allowed to cross-country ski or sled on the course, which was renovated last year. Others seem to think that the process of upgrading the quality of the professional golf staff and some members of that staff leaving are the result of some kind of dirty deeds on the part of IVGID in general and General Manager Bill Horn in particular.
Let’s start with some facts. IVGID, i.e. you and me, has invested nearly $14 million in the new Chateau and rebuilding the Championship Golf Course. Both these facilities belong to all the residents of the village, golfers and non-golfers alike, but both are dedicated facilities. That is, they are designed to be used in specific ways for specific purposes. I think it’s stretching logic to say that owning a property in common with 9,000 other people gives you the right to abuse that property, and anyone who knows anything about golf course maintenance knows that wintertime activities are harmful to the course.
Secondly, it has been the policy at the Incline courses for at least ten years that golf staff either have the “Class A” PGA certification or be actively engaged in getting it. Brian Eilders, Dave LaFata, and Randy Cooper all have Class A status. Last year, all of the junior staff were notified that the policy would be enforced and they would have to show reasonable efforts and progress toward attaining Class A. No one was fired, and nothing new or unreasonable was required – they were simply given the choice of doing what they should have been doing all along or not being rehired for the 05 season.
Head Pro Eilders resigned in February, of his own volition. He was invited to apply for the new Director of Golf position, and he chose not to apply. This new position, by the way was instituted as a result of a recommendation to the IVGID Board by the golf committee as a means of upgrading the golf program. John Nosek, formerly the Golf Manager, was also given the opportunity to interview for the DoG position, and was not hired – he is now the Merchandise Manager, and by all reports is fine with that.
This brings us to Bill Horn. I have made no secret of my regard for Mr. Horn. From conversations I have had with current and former Trustees and from my extensive interactions with him, I consider Bill Horn a gift to this village. No one, in my view, has more dedication to this Village or has greater passion for its success than Bill does. Notwithstanding gossip spread by those who wish him ill, Bill’s behavior is above reproach, and his work is outstanding, as his performance reviews have indicated. The Board knew when they hired him that he did not live in the Village, and did not consider this an issue – he offered to move and the Board quickly declined that offer.
It has been said that there is an endemic condition in Incline Village of unearned and unwarranted, but assumed expertise. Something in the air seems to make many of us who live here think theys are experts on everything including how to run a village and how to run a golf course. My suggestion to these critics and self-appointed experts is that before trying to run anything from a position of no authority and no accountability, they run for the Board and see if anyone agrees that they are experts. Otherwise, try letting those who are charged with the job do the job.
Let’s start with some facts. IVGID, i.e. you and me, has invested nearly $14 million in the new Chateau and rebuilding the Championship Golf Course. Both these facilities belong to all the residents of the village, golfers and non-golfers alike, but both are dedicated facilities. That is, they are designed to be used in specific ways for specific purposes. I think it’s stretching logic to say that owning a property in common with 9,000 other people gives you the right to abuse that property, and anyone who knows anything about golf course maintenance knows that wintertime activities are harmful to the course.
Secondly, it has been the policy at the Incline courses for at least ten years that golf staff either have the “Class A” PGA certification or be actively engaged in getting it. Brian Eilders, Dave LaFata, and Randy Cooper all have Class A status. Last year, all of the junior staff were notified that the policy would be enforced and they would have to show reasonable efforts and progress toward attaining Class A. No one was fired, and nothing new or unreasonable was required – they were simply given the choice of doing what they should have been doing all along or not being rehired for the 05 season.
Head Pro Eilders resigned in February, of his own volition. He was invited to apply for the new Director of Golf position, and he chose not to apply. This new position, by the way was instituted as a result of a recommendation to the IVGID Board by the golf committee as a means of upgrading the golf program. John Nosek, formerly the Golf Manager, was also given the opportunity to interview for the DoG position, and was not hired – he is now the Merchandise Manager, and by all reports is fine with that.
This brings us to Bill Horn. I have made no secret of my regard for Mr. Horn. From conversations I have had with current and former Trustees and from my extensive interactions with him, I consider Bill Horn a gift to this village. No one, in my view, has more dedication to this Village or has greater passion for its success than Bill does. Notwithstanding gossip spread by those who wish him ill, Bill’s behavior is above reproach, and his work is outstanding, as his performance reviews have indicated. The Board knew when they hired him that he did not live in the Village, and did not consider this an issue – he offered to move and the Board quickly declined that offer.
It has been said that there is an endemic condition in Incline Village of unearned and unwarranted, but assumed expertise. Something in the air seems to make many of us who live here think theys are experts on everything including how to run a village and how to run a golf course. My suggestion to these critics and self-appointed experts is that before trying to run anything from a position of no authority and no accountability, they run for the Board and see if anyone agrees that they are experts. Otherwise, try letting those who are charged with the job do the job.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Column 22b - Education
Nevada ranks 48th out of 50 states plus the District of Columbia in education spending per pupil. Nevada’s funding for public schools grew the least of any state between 1999 and 2001 – less than an 1% increase over those two school years. The 2004 Quality Counts survey by Education Week, gave Nevada a grade of D+ for adequacy of resources.
As noted in an earlier column, the Bush administration wants to take funds from Federal land sales in Nevada that were earmarked for education and use them to offset the Federal deficit. Efforts to create a lottery in Nevada to benefit education have been consistently opposed by casino interests, and will probably be defeated again this year.
In the first term of the Bush administration, the vaunted No Child Left Behind program was under funded in Nevada by $187 million, leaving it to the state to make up the difference in a classic case of an unfunded Federal mandate. The original No Child Left Behind law promised $35 million more for the most disadvantaged students in reading and math than the Bush 2005 budget provides. According to America Coming Together, this shortfall means that 38,551 Nevada students that would have had smaller classes will not, 4,885 children that could have had pre-kindergarten will not, and 4,748 new teachers that could have been certified will not.
Because of under funding, only 40% of eligible children can participate in Head Start – the Federal government has provided only 29% of the funding needed to enroll all of the children who qualify into Head Start. The Children’s Defense Fund says that the Bush 2005 budget shortchanges the state’s youngest children by $115 million. At the other end of the educational spectrum, tuition at public universities in Nevada increased by 15% in the 2003-2005 time period. The President has made much of his promise to provide more Pell Grants for college education, but never mentions that, at the same time, he froze the maximum Pell Grant while tuition has been increasing, denying 9,434 Nevada $22.2 million in promised grants to students with financial need.
In 2003, Republicans in the State Senate, led by Bill Raggio, killed a plan to increase school funding to cover the No Child Left Behind shortfall over two years.
You would think that this would be one of those rare columns that writes itself – after all, who is against education? Who is not for children? In last November’s election, the first Ballot Question was: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Nevada Legislature to fund the operation of the public schools for kindergarten through grade 12 before funding any other part of the state budget for the next biennium?” The good news is that the Question passed. The bad news is that it passed by 56% to 44%, roughly 447,000 to 342,000, and in Washoe County it failed.
What are we to make of this? Are we in Nevada such faint supporters of our children and of education that 44% of us don’t think it’s a priority? And are we in Washoe County actually against it being a priority? I find that hard to believe, but if you look at the overall picture of Federal funding in the 2005 budget and State actions such as that of the Senate in 2003, you really have to wonder where our priorities are. Jefferson said “Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute.” Now our government’s position seems to be “Millions for offense, not one cent for children.” It’s time for all us “bleeding heart liberals” who care about children, education, and the future of this country to stand up and be heard, or the dumbing down of this country under to the intellectual level of the Republican leadership will continue and we will be lost, indeed.
As noted in an earlier column, the Bush administration wants to take funds from Federal land sales in Nevada that were earmarked for education and use them to offset the Federal deficit. Efforts to create a lottery in Nevada to benefit education have been consistently opposed by casino interests, and will probably be defeated again this year.
In the first term of the Bush administration, the vaunted No Child Left Behind program was under funded in Nevada by $187 million, leaving it to the state to make up the difference in a classic case of an unfunded Federal mandate. The original No Child Left Behind law promised $35 million more for the most disadvantaged students in reading and math than the Bush 2005 budget provides. According to America Coming Together, this shortfall means that 38,551 Nevada students that would have had smaller classes will not, 4,885 children that could have had pre-kindergarten will not, and 4,748 new teachers that could have been certified will not.
Because of under funding, only 40% of eligible children can participate in Head Start – the Federal government has provided only 29% of the funding needed to enroll all of the children who qualify into Head Start. The Children’s Defense Fund says that the Bush 2005 budget shortchanges the state’s youngest children by $115 million. At the other end of the educational spectrum, tuition at public universities in Nevada increased by 15% in the 2003-2005 time period. The President has made much of his promise to provide more Pell Grants for college education, but never mentions that, at the same time, he froze the maximum Pell Grant while tuition has been increasing, denying 9,434 Nevada $22.2 million in promised grants to students with financial need.
In 2003, Republicans in the State Senate, led by Bill Raggio, killed a plan to increase school funding to cover the No Child Left Behind shortfall over two years.
You would think that this would be one of those rare columns that writes itself – after all, who is against education? Who is not for children? In last November’s election, the first Ballot Question was: “Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to require the Nevada Legislature to fund the operation of the public schools for kindergarten through grade 12 before funding any other part of the state budget for the next biennium?” The good news is that the Question passed. The bad news is that it passed by 56% to 44%, roughly 447,000 to 342,000, and in Washoe County it failed.
What are we to make of this? Are we in Nevada such faint supporters of our children and of education that 44% of us don’t think it’s a priority? And are we in Washoe County actually against it being a priority? I find that hard to believe, but if you look at the overall picture of Federal funding in the 2005 budget and State actions such as that of the Senate in 2003, you really have to wonder where our priorities are. Jefferson said “Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute.” Now our government’s position seems to be “Millions for offense, not one cent for children.” It’s time for all us “bleeding heart liberals” who care about children, education, and the future of this country to stand up and be heard, or the dumbing down of this country under to the intellectual level of the Republican leadership will continue and we will be lost, indeed.
Column 22a - (National) Social Security
Cui Bono?
The President has stated his clear determination to dismantle Social Security as we know it, and Ifind myself asking the ancient Roman’s question, cui bono? Who benefits?
This administration has a track record of manufacturing crises to justify doing what it wants, and is incredibly good at selling these crises to its followers,who seem to believe what the President says first, and then to ignore him when he recants. Now we have the supposed crisis in Social Security, which the administration has already backed off on, but which its supporters continue to cite as dire necessity to tear down the house that FDR built.
There is no crisis, unless you call a shift in the ratio of input to output that will begin some 37 years from now a crisis. My dictionary defines crisis as “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending,” and defines impending as “to hover threateningly; to be about to occur.” Almost four decades does not qualify as “about to occur”.
While there is no crisis, there is a problem coming in the above time frame. Social Security, as it is now constituted, will reach a point where it will begin to pay out more than it takes in. Obviously, something needs to be done about this. President Bush’s solution to this situation is (a) to cry “wolf” when the wolf is 40 years away, and (b) to dismantle the whole system. As the AARP has been saying, this is like tearing the house down because a faucet is leaking.
There are three main solutions to the problem: raise payroll taxes, cut benefits, or shift the system to include private accounts. No politician in his/her right mind is going to raise taxes or cut benefits for today’s retirees to pay benefits for future retirees, some of whom are not even of voting age yet, so the President has settled on private accounts as the answer, and now we can ask “who benefits?”
I can’t find anyone who thinks that the mid-21st Century retirees will benefit. The most optimistic analysis I’ve seen shows a hypothetical retiree breaking even with today’s system if they get very good returns on a private account. At best privatization will trade a system of certain returns for one in which returns are a gamble.
Wall Street may see some marginal benefit, but that seems unlikely given many retirees will be likely to be very conservative and likely to go toward, for example, buying and holding government and municipal bonds and mutual funds, rather than generating the kind of trading that makes Wall Street firms serious money.
So why is the President in such a lather about Social Security? Ideology. Neoconservatives consider Social Security the most vulnerable part of what they consider to be welfare state US – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, programs designed to avoid the insecurity of pre-depression America. The modern right wing wants to stop what they consider big government by a dual strategy of bleeding and starvation – cut taxes, then use the resulting deficits as justification for cutting spending on social programs.
On the starvation front, the federal revenue as a share of GDP is at a fifty-year low, largely because of a decline in revenues from personal income tax and corporate profits tax, i.e., as a direct consequence of the Bush administration’s cutting taxes for the top incomes, whose tax payments as a share of GDP are at the lowest level we’ve seen since 1942, while taxes on middle- and working-class Americans are at near-record highs, and the President’s new budget continues to give new upper-income tax breaks while proposing cuts in low-income benefits such as child care assistance and food stamps.
This President has already succeeded in dividing America more than it has been divided since the Civil War. Now he proposes to deepen the division by attempting to destroy the programs that have supported lower- and middle-income Americans since the depression. The President and his neocon followers must be stopped from destroying Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
The President has stated his clear determination to dismantle Social Security as we know it, and Ifind myself asking the ancient Roman’s question, cui bono? Who benefits?
This administration has a track record of manufacturing crises to justify doing what it wants, and is incredibly good at selling these crises to its followers,who seem to believe what the President says first, and then to ignore him when he recants. Now we have the supposed crisis in Social Security, which the administration has already backed off on, but which its supporters continue to cite as dire necessity to tear down the house that FDR built.
There is no crisis, unless you call a shift in the ratio of input to output that will begin some 37 years from now a crisis. My dictionary defines crisis as “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending,” and defines impending as “to hover threateningly; to be about to occur.” Almost four decades does not qualify as “about to occur”.
While there is no crisis, there is a problem coming in the above time frame. Social Security, as it is now constituted, will reach a point where it will begin to pay out more than it takes in. Obviously, something needs to be done about this. President Bush’s solution to this situation is (a) to cry “wolf” when the wolf is 40 years away, and (b) to dismantle the whole system. As the AARP has been saying, this is like tearing the house down because a faucet is leaking.
There are three main solutions to the problem: raise payroll taxes, cut benefits, or shift the system to include private accounts. No politician in his/her right mind is going to raise taxes or cut benefits for today’s retirees to pay benefits for future retirees, some of whom are not even of voting age yet, so the President has settled on private accounts as the answer, and now we can ask “who benefits?”
I can’t find anyone who thinks that the mid-21st Century retirees will benefit. The most optimistic analysis I’ve seen shows a hypothetical retiree breaking even with today’s system if they get very good returns on a private account. At best privatization will trade a system of certain returns for one in which returns are a gamble.
Wall Street may see some marginal benefit, but that seems unlikely given many retirees will be likely to be very conservative and likely to go toward, for example, buying and holding government and municipal bonds and mutual funds, rather than generating the kind of trading that makes Wall Street firms serious money.
So why is the President in such a lather about Social Security? Ideology. Neoconservatives consider Social Security the most vulnerable part of what they consider to be welfare state US – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, programs designed to avoid the insecurity of pre-depression America. The modern right wing wants to stop what they consider big government by a dual strategy of bleeding and starvation – cut taxes, then use the resulting deficits as justification for cutting spending on social programs.
On the starvation front, the federal revenue as a share of GDP is at a fifty-year low, largely because of a decline in revenues from personal income tax and corporate profits tax, i.e., as a direct consequence of the Bush administration’s cutting taxes for the top incomes, whose tax payments as a share of GDP are at the lowest level we’ve seen since 1942, while taxes on middle- and working-class Americans are at near-record highs, and the President’s new budget continues to give new upper-income tax breaks while proposing cuts in low-income benefits such as child care assistance and food stamps.
This President has already succeeded in dividing America more than it has been divided since the Civil War. Now he proposes to deepen the division by attempting to destroy the programs that have supported lower- and middle-income Americans since the depression. The President and his neocon followers must be stopped from destroying Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Column 25 - (National) Terri Schiavo
Jim and I originally decided to write this month’s National columns on health care, and what the role of the government ought to be. This seems important, given that about half of all bankruptcies in 2001 were the result of medical problems and, surprisingly, most of those (more than three-quarters) who went bankrupt were covered by our current system of private health insurance at the start of the illness. Often, the bankrupting illness led to job loss and therefore a loss of health insurance. Studies have found that illness and medical bills contributed to at least 46.2 percent, but perhaps as many as 54.5 percent, of all bankruptcy filings.
Then, as I was thinking about the question of the appropriate role for the government in health care, the case of Terry Schiavo flared up again, this time with Congress bringing itself back from recess and the President interrupting his vacation to make this poor woman’s case a matter for passage of what amounts to a Bill of Attainder to prolong her life, notwithstanding the fact that Constitution specifically forbids such bills.
The position of the Republican administration and conservatives in general has been “less government is the best government,” and health care has been no exception to this. So why, now, are Republicans in Congress and the President rushing to bring the full weight of the government to bear on this case?
I really don’t think this effort is out of an excess of compassion for Ms Schiavo, her husband, or her parents. Rather, the Right and its allies among religious fundamentalists see the opportunity to make common cause in behalf of their agendas against reproductive choice and in behalf of portraying those of either party who disagree with them as anti-life, atheistic, and worse. Meanwhile Ms Schiavo’s brain stem continues to work her heart and lungs, her husband continues to attempt to carry out the wishes she expressed to him, and her parents continue to cling to the forlorn hope that their daughter may someday be restored to them, and that hope makes them unwilling tools for political and quasi-religious interests that care not one whit about their or their daughter’s suffering.
That ethical paragon, House Majority Leader Tom De Lay said "… no little judge sitting in a state district court in Florida is going to usurp the authority of Congress.” But under our Federalist system, in which private domestic matters are litigated in state, not federal courts, the rule of law has long provided that such domestic decisions are generally made by spouses, and not parents, elected officials, popular referendum, or the demands of religious radicals. To assert that a case that has had 19 court reviews (not counting the 2 so far this week) is disingenuous in the extreme.
This President, who as governor of Texas presided over 152 executions, and under whose presidency thousands of US military personnel and more thousands of civilians have died, now finds the life of one arguably brain-dead individual so crucial that he dramatically flies back to Washington to be awakened at 1 am to sign the bill that will prolong the case. The only thing missing was the flight suit and the “Mission Accomplished” banner.
Maybe it has something to do with the memo distributed to Republican senators by party leaders last week that called the Schiavo legislation “a great political issue” that would appeal to the party’s “core supporters,” and that could support defeating one of Florida’s Democratic senators next year.
Overall, this sanctimonious spectacle is part of a larger attempt by the political and so-called religious Right to move this country from its founding principle as governed by laws not men to being governed by a few men and their self-righteous agendas and not laws. Nothing could be more dangerous than to allow this subversion of everything America stands for.
Then, as I was thinking about the question of the appropriate role for the government in health care, the case of Terry Schiavo flared up again, this time with Congress bringing itself back from recess and the President interrupting his vacation to make this poor woman’s case a matter for passage of what amounts to a Bill of Attainder to prolong her life, notwithstanding the fact that Constitution specifically forbids such bills.
The position of the Republican administration and conservatives in general has been “less government is the best government,” and health care has been no exception to this. So why, now, are Republicans in Congress and the President rushing to bring the full weight of the government to bear on this case?
I really don’t think this effort is out of an excess of compassion for Ms Schiavo, her husband, or her parents. Rather, the Right and its allies among religious fundamentalists see the opportunity to make common cause in behalf of their agendas against reproductive choice and in behalf of portraying those of either party who disagree with them as anti-life, atheistic, and worse. Meanwhile Ms Schiavo’s brain stem continues to work her heart and lungs, her husband continues to attempt to carry out the wishes she expressed to him, and her parents continue to cling to the forlorn hope that their daughter may someday be restored to them, and that hope makes them unwilling tools for political and quasi-religious interests that care not one whit about their or their daughter’s suffering.
That ethical paragon, House Majority Leader Tom De Lay said "… no little judge sitting in a state district court in Florida is going to usurp the authority of Congress.” But under our Federalist system, in which private domestic matters are litigated in state, not federal courts, the rule of law has long provided that such domestic decisions are generally made by spouses, and not parents, elected officials, popular referendum, or the demands of religious radicals. To assert that a case that has had 19 court reviews (not counting the 2 so far this week) is disingenuous in the extreme.
This President, who as governor of Texas presided over 152 executions, and under whose presidency thousands of US military personnel and more thousands of civilians have died, now finds the life of one arguably brain-dead individual so crucial that he dramatically flies back to Washington to be awakened at 1 am to sign the bill that will prolong the case. The only thing missing was the flight suit and the “Mission Accomplished” banner.
Maybe it has something to do with the memo distributed to Republican senators by party leaders last week that called the Schiavo legislation “a great political issue” that would appeal to the party’s “core supporters,” and that could support defeating one of Florida’s Democratic senators next year.
Overall, this sanctimonious spectacle is part of a larger attempt by the political and so-called religious Right to move this country from its founding principle as governed by laws not men to being governed by a few men and their self-righteous agendas and not laws. Nothing could be more dangerous than to allow this subversion of everything America stands for.
Column 24 - The Walker Report
Some time ago the County engaged a consulting firm, Walker and Associates, to analyze “fiscal equity among the incorporated and unincorporated areas of the County for Fiscal Year 2002-03.” That is, to see if the County’s distribution of funding for services matched its collection of funds. The study is very extensive – the Executive Summary is 8 pages long – and also very well done, in this consultant’s opinion. From Incline’s point of view, the key findings are put forth in the Executive Summary as follows:
1) The taxpayers of the City of Reno receive more services from Washoe Comity than the amount of taxes they pay to the County to the tune of $3,918,179.
2) The taxpayers of the City of Sparks receive more services from Washoe County than the amount of taxes they pay to me County by $2,637,959.
3) The taxpayers of the unincorporated areas of Washoe County, excluding Incline Village, pay more taxes to the County than they receive in services from the County. The surplus is $1,835,871.
4) The taxpayers of Incline Village pay more taxes to the County than they receive in services from the County. The surplus in Incline Village tax revenue to the County is $11,713,263.
Yep, you read it right. Reno receives $4 million more in services than they pay for and Incline pays for $11.7 million more than we receive. This confirms figures first put forward in 2003 by IVGID Executive Director Bill Horn that formed the basis for what began as an IVGID committee to look into how best to remedy this situation, and then for a community committee independent of IVGID, the Independent Incline Committee.
As a member of both committees from their inception, I’ve had people in our community express everything from apathy to outrage about this state of affairs, and propose solutions ranging from doing nothing to seceding from the State, if not from the country.
It is past time for everyone in Incline Village and Crystal Bay to give some serious thought to this situation. While Reno is not posing any current threat to attempt to annex Incline, that possibility is not at all far-fetched given Reno’s aggressive expansion. Even without Reno’s eyeing us, the imbalance in how much tax money we give Washoe County vs. what the County provides in services is unconscionable – given we are represented by one out of five County Commissioners, (who also represents other parts of the County), it amounts to taxation without (or at best with inadequate) representation. If we are going to subsidize Reno and Sparks, we should at least have a choice about it.
It is clear that hiding our communal head in the sand will not work – the subsidy we provide to the County is a strong disincentive for the County to do anything about the inequity, and no one has yet shown me that incorporating as a city, which would protect us from Reno’s depredations, would affect the inequity. My own view is that we must move aggressively on all fronts to become a county separate from Washoe by the 2007 legislative session. You may or may not agree, but whatever your view it is essential that every IV/CB taxpayer address the issue and make their opinions known to the committee that is investigating our options.
1) The taxpayers of the City of Reno receive more services from Washoe Comity than the amount of taxes they pay to the County to the tune of $3,918,179.
2) The taxpayers of the City of Sparks receive more services from Washoe County than the amount of taxes they pay to me County by $2,637,959.
3) The taxpayers of the unincorporated areas of Washoe County, excluding Incline Village, pay more taxes to the County than they receive in services from the County. The surplus is $1,835,871.
4) The taxpayers of Incline Village pay more taxes to the County than they receive in services from the County. The surplus in Incline Village tax revenue to the County is $11,713,263.
Yep, you read it right. Reno receives $4 million more in services than they pay for and Incline pays for $11.7 million more than we receive. This confirms figures first put forward in 2003 by IVGID Executive Director Bill Horn that formed the basis for what began as an IVGID committee to look into how best to remedy this situation, and then for a community committee independent of IVGID, the Independent Incline Committee.
As a member of both committees from their inception, I’ve had people in our community express everything from apathy to outrage about this state of affairs, and propose solutions ranging from doing nothing to seceding from the State, if not from the country.
It is past time for everyone in Incline Village and Crystal Bay to give some serious thought to this situation. While Reno is not posing any current threat to attempt to annex Incline, that possibility is not at all far-fetched given Reno’s aggressive expansion. Even without Reno’s eyeing us, the imbalance in how much tax money we give Washoe County vs. what the County provides in services is unconscionable – given we are represented by one out of five County Commissioners, (who also represents other parts of the County), it amounts to taxation without (or at best with inadequate) representation. If we are going to subsidize Reno and Sparks, we should at least have a choice about it.
It is clear that hiding our communal head in the sand will not work – the subsidy we provide to the County is a strong disincentive for the County to do anything about the inequity, and no one has yet shown me that incorporating as a city, which would protect us from Reno’s depredations, would affect the inequity. My own view is that we must move aggressively on all fronts to become a county separate from Washoe by the 2007 legislative session. You may or may not agree, but whatever your view it is essential that every IV/CB taxpayer address the issue and make their opinions known to the committee that is investigating our options.
Column 23 - The Bear Facts
Thinking about this column, I hesitated because it seems to me that the bear question has been over-discussed. At the same time, I started hearing about a variety of proposed “solutions” to the “problem,” and was struck by what seems to me to be a particular way of thinking about it.
Lots of folks seem to subscribe to the view that we just need more bear-proofing, and the problem will somehow go away. The logic in this seems flawed to me on a couple of fronts. First, the more “bear-proof” something is, say trash cans, the more difficult they will be to use. Experience has shown that when things become difficult to use, people find ways to make them easier to use, usually by defeating the purpose for which they were designed. Secondly, our very fine trash service, Waste Management, brings the truck up, pulls the lids off the cans, empties the cans into the truck and puts them back. If they have to start unscrewing or unlatching lids, the whole process will slow down and become more expensive. Finally, a hungry bear will find a way. Unless you want to invest in very expensive and very heavy trash containers, the bears will roll, drop, maul, mangle, and otherwise mess with the “bear-proof” cans until they break into them.
I’d like to propose an approach that may not be popular It’s called personal responsibility. Personal responsibility starts with a clear appreciation of the facts: Fact: This is the bears’ home. They were here before we got here and, barring our killing them all, they will be here after we’re gone. Fact: bears get hungry and need a lot of food, particularly when they are hibernating. Fact: bears are smart, particularly where food is concerned, and they are lazy – given an easy food source and one that is harder to get to, they’ll take easy every time. Fact: if the animals can’t get food easily from humans, they will forage and eat as they always have.
So here’s the deal. Let’s eliminate the temptation for bears and other animals to look to us for food. How? By not giving them access. Garbage is never picked up at night, when it’s quiet and there are few people around, so that’s when the animals approach. So don’t put your garbage out at night! Put it out in the morning, or if your trash pickup doesn’t happen until later in the day, put it out later. Make it a rule that you don’t leave full garbage cans out longer than an hour or two. If you do that, you can go right on using your trusty Rubbermaid container, and you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on containers that are probably only an annoyance to the bears at best.
Now here’s the second part of personal responsibility: take responsibility for your neighborhood. If you know that some of the houses in your neighborhood are rented out, contact the owners and ask them to post instructions not to leave garbage out overnight and to provide an alternative if need be.
And use common sense about your home – the mother bear and two cubs that were killed on the West Shore got into the house because the homeowner left a door open. Close your ground floor windows and doors when you are out and when you are cooking or preparing food.
People have lived alongside the animals in the Tahoe Basin for hundreds of years, and we can continue to do so, but only if we rely on ourselves rather than expecting to find an easy solution through technology so that we don’t have to be responsible. Let’s handle this one ourselves rather than through some labor-saving (and responsibility-saving) solution.
Lots of folks seem to subscribe to the view that we just need more bear-proofing, and the problem will somehow go away. The logic in this seems flawed to me on a couple of fronts. First, the more “bear-proof” something is, say trash cans, the more difficult they will be to use. Experience has shown that when things become difficult to use, people find ways to make them easier to use, usually by defeating the purpose for which they were designed. Secondly, our very fine trash service, Waste Management, brings the truck up, pulls the lids off the cans, empties the cans into the truck and puts them back. If they have to start unscrewing or unlatching lids, the whole process will slow down and become more expensive. Finally, a hungry bear will find a way. Unless you want to invest in very expensive and very heavy trash containers, the bears will roll, drop, maul, mangle, and otherwise mess with the “bear-proof” cans until they break into them.
I’d like to propose an approach that may not be popular It’s called personal responsibility. Personal responsibility starts with a clear appreciation of the facts: Fact: This is the bears’ home. They were here before we got here and, barring our killing them all, they will be here after we’re gone. Fact: bears get hungry and need a lot of food, particularly when they are hibernating. Fact: bears are smart, particularly where food is concerned, and they are lazy – given an easy food source and one that is harder to get to, they’ll take easy every time. Fact: if the animals can’t get food easily from humans, they will forage and eat as they always have.
So here’s the deal. Let’s eliminate the temptation for bears and other animals to look to us for food. How? By not giving them access. Garbage is never picked up at night, when it’s quiet and there are few people around, so that’s when the animals approach. So don’t put your garbage out at night! Put it out in the morning, or if your trash pickup doesn’t happen until later in the day, put it out later. Make it a rule that you don’t leave full garbage cans out longer than an hour or two. If you do that, you can go right on using your trusty Rubbermaid container, and you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on containers that are probably only an annoyance to the bears at best.
Now here’s the second part of personal responsibility: take responsibility for your neighborhood. If you know that some of the houses in your neighborhood are rented out, contact the owners and ask them to post instructions not to leave garbage out overnight and to provide an alternative if need be.
And use common sense about your home – the mother bear and two cubs that were killed on the West Shore got into the house because the homeowner left a door open. Close your ground floor windows and doors when you are out and when you are cooking or preparing food.
People have lived alongside the animals in the Tahoe Basin for hundreds of years, and we can continue to do so, but only if we rely on ourselves rather than expecting to find an easy solution through technology so that we don’t have to be responsible. Let’s handle this one ourselves rather than through some labor-saving (and responsibility-saving) solution.
Column 22 - US Postal Service
The US Postal Service seems prepared to decide what is best for Incline, despite some very cogent concerns that have been expressed over the past several years by Incline residents, elected officials, and business owners.
Apparently in 1999 the USPS decided that the current Post Office “had become too small to serve the community adequately.” If memory serves, this was just before they decided to eliminate Saturday window service completely, so that now the only way you can mail anything that is not ready (and the right size) to drop in the slot on Saturday is to go to Truckee, Reno, or Carson City.
Let’s see if we have this straight: The current PO is too small to serve the community adequately, so we’ll eliminate service to the community on the one day a week that working people can comfortably get there, given that the during the week hours coincide with most people’s working hours, and at lunch hour the lines are often out the door. I guess if you’re a USPS bureaucrat, that makes sense.
Also, let’s move the PO out of Village Center, where there is almost unlimited parking, and put it on the corner of Tanager and Village, where traffic is heavy and often backs up on Tanager trying to turn left onto Village now. And let’s take it out of Village Center, where it actually supports the businesses there, and where a trip to get the mail can be combined with a stop at Village Market, picking up the dry cleaning, having a coffee and a chat at Sweet Decadence (a locally owned, non-chain coffee shop), etc., and put it on a corner where the only business in close proximity is Village Pharmacy. That way, Incline residents can make several trips in their cars where one might have done, thereby increasing fuel consumption, air pollution, lake pollution, you name it.
Oh, and let’s create heavy traffic on Tanager and Village, right by the main Fire Station, so that if fire trucks or ambulances need to get out, it can create a real mess and maybe endanger some lives and property.
When he was Chair of the IVGID Board of Trustees, Syd Brosten wrote to the USPS, TRPA, and the County on behalf of the Board and the residents of Incline asking that another site be found. The USPS did not deign to answer – that should let us know in what regard they hold the village that they propose to build in – and neither did the other two agencies, though in a recent Bonanza article, it was indicated that TRPA has received a permit application from the USPS.
Here is an opportunity for TRPA and the County to mend some fences with Incline Village by doing the right thing. TRPA should deny the permit on environmental grounds – the added traffic will have a direct impact on the clarity of the lake, given that runoff of road dirt is one of the biggest danger to that clarity. Washoe County can and should block the proposal on any number of grounds, not the least of which are safety and traffic. Has an environmental impact study been done? If so, it should be made public.
This is an issue that does not divide along political or philosophical lines – this is a quality of life issue for all of us who live in the village and for businesses that are locally owned and contributing to our lives here – imagine if we lose Village Market and are stuck with only Raley’s on those holiday weekends in the winter and all summer when it is jammed with bewildered flatlanders – and we should all get behind blocking this ill-advised move. Contact TRPA, Jim Galloway, the Postal Service, and the IVGID Board to let them know how you feel.
Apparently in 1999 the USPS decided that the current Post Office “had become too small to serve the community adequately.” If memory serves, this was just before they decided to eliminate Saturday window service completely, so that now the only way you can mail anything that is not ready (and the right size) to drop in the slot on Saturday is to go to Truckee, Reno, or Carson City.
Let’s see if we have this straight: The current PO is too small to serve the community adequately, so we’ll eliminate service to the community on the one day a week that working people can comfortably get there, given that the during the week hours coincide with most people’s working hours, and at lunch hour the lines are often out the door. I guess if you’re a USPS bureaucrat, that makes sense.
Also, let’s move the PO out of Village Center, where there is almost unlimited parking, and put it on the corner of Tanager and Village, where traffic is heavy and often backs up on Tanager trying to turn left onto Village now. And let’s take it out of Village Center, where it actually supports the businesses there, and where a trip to get the mail can be combined with a stop at Village Market, picking up the dry cleaning, having a coffee and a chat at Sweet Decadence (a locally owned, non-chain coffee shop), etc., and put it on a corner where the only business in close proximity is Village Pharmacy. That way, Incline residents can make several trips in their cars where one might have done, thereby increasing fuel consumption, air pollution, lake pollution, you name it.
Oh, and let’s create heavy traffic on Tanager and Village, right by the main Fire Station, so that if fire trucks or ambulances need to get out, it can create a real mess and maybe endanger some lives and property.
When he was Chair of the IVGID Board of Trustees, Syd Brosten wrote to the USPS, TRPA, and the County on behalf of the Board and the residents of Incline asking that another site be found. The USPS did not deign to answer – that should let us know in what regard they hold the village that they propose to build in – and neither did the other two agencies, though in a recent Bonanza article, it was indicated that TRPA has received a permit application from the USPS.
Here is an opportunity for TRPA and the County to mend some fences with Incline Village by doing the right thing. TRPA should deny the permit on environmental grounds – the added traffic will have a direct impact on the clarity of the lake, given that runoff of road dirt is one of the biggest danger to that clarity. Washoe County can and should block the proposal on any number of grounds, not the least of which are safety and traffic. Has an environmental impact study been done? If so, it should be made public.
This is an issue that does not divide along political or philosophical lines – this is a quality of life issue for all of us who live in the village and for businesses that are locally owned and contributing to our lives here – imagine if we lose Village Market and are stuck with only Raley’s on those holiday weekends in the winter and all summer when it is jammed with bewildered flatlanders – and we should all get behind blocking this ill-advised move. Contact TRPA, Jim Galloway, the Postal Service, and the IVGID Board to let them know how you feel.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Column 21 - Land Sale Ripoff
It’s never a pretty sight when chickens come home to roost. In the presidential election Nevadans had an opportunity to send a message to President Bush regarding his reneging on his promise not to support storing nucular waste at Yucca Mountain. However they may have felt about other issues in the campaign, you would think that the President’s callous disregard for the wishes of almost everyone in the state on this issue would have been enough to keep Nevada residents from voting for him, but no – Nevada went for Bush and now that we have let the President know that he can do as he wishes with Nevada, he has decided to divert millions of dollars from federal land sales in the state to offset the Federal deficit that he created when he spent the surplus he inherited in 2000.
I’ve said before that this president is the worst thing to happen to the environment since Chernobyl, but lest you think this is purely a tree-hugger’s issue, these funds were earmarked for schools and water infrastructure as well as for important environmental uses including environmental improvement projects here at the Lake. And lest you think this is purely an agenda of those crunchy granola Democrats, the bill that set up the land sales was written by Senator Ensign, and the provision that allotted $300 million of the funds generated by the land sales to environmental improvements in Lake Tahoe was co-generated by Senator Ensign and Senator Reid.
Nevada Republicans and right-wingers need to wake up to what they are bringing on themselves when they support this President, the author of such statements as:
“Nuclear power certainly answers a lot of our issues. It certainly answers the environmental issue.” January 12, 2005
“We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.” September 23, 2002
The environment is not a liberal issue or a conservative issue. When the Lake loses clarity it loses it for all of us, and when nuclear waste is stored in our state it does not affect one side and not the other. I’m not talking here about things like global warming which, even as an environmentalist I find to be arguable at best, or about saving the spotted owl, or any of the other issues that anti-environmentalists like to use to ridicule environmentalists’ concerns. I’m talking about nuclear waste, water conservation, air pollution, urban sprawl, and the preservation of our exurban way of life in the state and here at Tahoe. I guess there are people who are for nuclear contamination and air pollution – after all, if people can rationalize smoking they can probably rationalize anything – but I don’t think the majority of us here are for these things. Yet this president has shown a cavalier disregard for environmental concerns.
George Bush took office when this country had one of the biggest budget surpluses we had ever seen, and in short order he put us into one of the biggest deficits ever. Now he proposes to take money that was generated by selling federal lands for the purpose of making up for some of the negative effects of this deficit so that he can fulfill the promise he made in the State of the Union address to cut in half the deficit that he created in the first place.
Both Nevada senators have promised to block this attempt. Let them know you support them in this and in their commitment to Nevada’s environment.
I’ve said before that this president is the worst thing to happen to the environment since Chernobyl, but lest you think this is purely a tree-hugger’s issue, these funds were earmarked for schools and water infrastructure as well as for important environmental uses including environmental improvement projects here at the Lake. And lest you think this is purely an agenda of those crunchy granola Democrats, the bill that set up the land sales was written by Senator Ensign, and the provision that allotted $300 million of the funds generated by the land sales to environmental improvements in Lake Tahoe was co-generated by Senator Ensign and Senator Reid.
Nevada Republicans and right-wingers need to wake up to what they are bringing on themselves when they support this President, the author of such statements as:
“Nuclear power certainly answers a lot of our issues. It certainly answers the environmental issue.” January 12, 2005
“We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.” September 23, 2002
The environment is not a liberal issue or a conservative issue. When the Lake loses clarity it loses it for all of us, and when nuclear waste is stored in our state it does not affect one side and not the other. I’m not talking here about things like global warming which, even as an environmentalist I find to be arguable at best, or about saving the spotted owl, or any of the other issues that anti-environmentalists like to use to ridicule environmentalists’ concerns. I’m talking about nuclear waste, water conservation, air pollution, urban sprawl, and the preservation of our exurban way of life in the state and here at Tahoe. I guess there are people who are for nuclear contamination and air pollution – after all, if people can rationalize smoking they can probably rationalize anything – but I don’t think the majority of us here are for these things. Yet this president has shown a cavalier disregard for environmental concerns.
George Bush took office when this country had one of the biggest budget surpluses we had ever seen, and in short order he put us into one of the biggest deficits ever. Now he proposes to take money that was generated by selling federal lands for the purpose of making up for some of the negative effects of this deficit so that he can fulfill the promise he made in the State of the Union address to cut in half the deficit that he created in the first place.
Both Nevada senators have promised to block this attempt. Let them know you support them in this and in their commitment to Nevada’s environment.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Column 20 - Jim Gibbons
Last week Representative Jim Gibbons, who would like to be Nevada’s next governor, in an interview on NBC’s “Nightly News,” said that anyone who opposed the lavish corporate funding of the Bush Inauguration parties is a Communist. Maybe it was Inauguration euphoria, or maybe Mr. Gibbons slipped into a time warp and was actually in 1955 when he said it, but this strikes me as a very odd remark.
Let’s see: some 100 corporations and 40 individual donors gave about $40 million dollars to fund partying in Washington. One of these donors was the National Energy Institute, which is a leading advocate for the plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain (you remember - Yucca Mountain was where, in his first campaign, President Bush promised not to put nuclear waste, a promise he then reneged on during his first term) a plan Gibbons says he opposes.
This is 40 million dollars while our troops in Iraq are underequipped, and the death toll is climbing, and while a significant portion of the world is digging out from the Tsunami and desperate for aid. And what do you know, some Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, have the temerity to question the wisdom and appropriateness of spending this kind of money on champagne wishes and caviar dreams. Shocking.
At least it seems to be shocking to governor wannabe Gibbons, who reached back 50 years for an epithet strong enough to denounce these dissenters – he called them Communists, and when there was negative reaction to his comment, his spokeswoman Amy Spandauer said the remark was “badly taken out of context.” The context to which she was referring was Gibbons’ explanation that he “firmly believes that everyone in the United States, including corporate executives, have the freedom…to spend their money for political events and to lobby lawmakers.”
Okay, I won’t argue that point, but how does that so-called context change or mitigate the Congressman’s characterization of those who disagree with this particular donation? Actually, I’m hard put to think of a context that would mitigate it, except that it is so out of date as to be almost laughable. It does give us some insight into the real Jim Gibbons behind the affable façade, the Jim Gibbons who is one of the farthest right members of Congress, and who has a reputation for arrogance, imperiousness, and a very nasty temper. Calling those with whom you disagree Communists is called, for those of you too young to remember, red-baiting, and it has a very disreputable history in this country. A lot of lives were ruined by this tactic in the 1950’s, almost all of them undeservedly so. You see, Congressman, that Constitution that you took an oath before God to serve, actually guarantees the right of every American to believe what they wish, including to be Communists if they so choose. More importantly, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but outside of Cuba and North Korea, there aren’t a lot of Communists left – we won that one.
What the Congressman’s remark does, I believe, is allow him to mask his and his party’s loyalty and fealty to big money corporate interests behind a bit of outdated flag-waving and red-baiting. To quote an earlier response to another red-baiting Congressman, have you no shame, sir?
Let’s see: some 100 corporations and 40 individual donors gave about $40 million dollars to fund partying in Washington. One of these donors was the National Energy Institute, which is a leading advocate for the plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain (you remember - Yucca Mountain was where, in his first campaign, President Bush promised not to put nuclear waste, a promise he then reneged on during his first term) a plan Gibbons says he opposes.
This is 40 million dollars while our troops in Iraq are underequipped, and the death toll is climbing, and while a significant portion of the world is digging out from the Tsunami and desperate for aid. And what do you know, some Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, have the temerity to question the wisdom and appropriateness of spending this kind of money on champagne wishes and caviar dreams. Shocking.
At least it seems to be shocking to governor wannabe Gibbons, who reached back 50 years for an epithet strong enough to denounce these dissenters – he called them Communists, and when there was negative reaction to his comment, his spokeswoman Amy Spandauer said the remark was “badly taken out of context.” The context to which she was referring was Gibbons’ explanation that he “firmly believes that everyone in the United States, including corporate executives, have the freedom…to spend their money for political events and to lobby lawmakers.”
Okay, I won’t argue that point, but how does that so-called context change or mitigate the Congressman’s characterization of those who disagree with this particular donation? Actually, I’m hard put to think of a context that would mitigate it, except that it is so out of date as to be almost laughable. It does give us some insight into the real Jim Gibbons behind the affable façade, the Jim Gibbons who is one of the farthest right members of Congress, and who has a reputation for arrogance, imperiousness, and a very nasty temper. Calling those with whom you disagree Communists is called, for those of you too young to remember, red-baiting, and it has a very disreputable history in this country. A lot of lives were ruined by this tactic in the 1950’s, almost all of them undeservedly so. You see, Congressman, that Constitution that you took an oath before God to serve, actually guarantees the right of every American to believe what they wish, including to be Communists if they so choose. More importantly, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but outside of Cuba and North Korea, there aren’t a lot of Communists left – we won that one.
What the Congressman’s remark does, I believe, is allow him to mask his and his party’s loyalty and fealty to big money corporate interests behind a bit of outdated flag-waving and red-baiting. To quote an earlier response to another red-baiting Congressman, have you no shame, sir?
Column 19 - Tax Cap
More often than you might think, Jim Clark and I agree on local issues. Given that, I suppose it should not surprise me when Jim’s stand on a local issue seems at odds with his usual Conservative Libertarian position, but I do find it curious when at the same time uses the opportunity to rail at supposed Liberal positions as he did in his column on the state tax cap proposals (Bonanza, January 14th). Given the Conservative anti-big government and anti-tax positions, I would expect Jim to favor tax caps and cuts, but that he is advocating a Prop 13 type of solution amazes me.
Contrary to Jim’s assertion, Prop 13 is not a mystery to any Liberals I've talked to. Many of us lived in California at the time it was passed, and more of us saw its effects in California and Oregon. Jim says “California and Oregon are surviving with annual property tax limitations of 2 percent,” but both states are struggling with massive deficits and services cutbacks, and the Governator will succeed or fail to the extent that he keeps his campaign promises to solve California’s economic woes. Call me a Liberal, but I actually think that, under our system, the government needs to do more than just survive. Conservatives have advocated that the government should be run like a business – if a business were just “surviving,” would you buy stock or sell?
Jim also trots out the Bush party line that “it's people who pay taxes who are entitled to tax relief.” It’s hard to argue with that until you remember that it’s an incomplete quote – what the President said was that the people who pay the most taxes are entitled to the most relief. I guess if you grew up rich, got your first real job from someone who was doing your Daddy a favor, and then were given your own personal baseball team to play with, this makes sense. To me as a business man it does not. If I had a business with a division that was highly profitable and another that was only marginal, I would take a larger share of the first division’s profits and use them to build up the second so that it could become profitable. Our biblically selective President seems to have missed Luke 12:48, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”
As to the Government “tightening its belt…when the rest of us are suffering,” I guess this is some of that Compassionate Conservatism we don’t hear so much about any more, but I’m not sure who’s suffering, and what exactly Jim wants the Government to do about it. I guess if you're a Conservative and believe the Government shouldn’t do anything (except export democracy to anyplace that doesn’t have it whether they want it or not) then somehow the Government having less money will mean that somehow magically things will get better for those sufferers, but I don’t get it.
Now before my legion of critics rush in to call me names, let me say I agree with Jim’s column last week that we should be hopping mad about the tax situation, and we should do something about it. I am for tax relief and a tax cap. I would even consider a Prop 13 solution if someone could show me how it could work without bankrupting the state and making things worse rather than better, and I think that the Incline Tax Revolt is doing a great job of getting these issues up in front to the Legislature and the Public. I just think that what Jim calls “economic drivel” is exactly the sort of balanced, rational thinking the Legislature needs to be doing. Knee-jerk Conservative solutions of regressive taxes will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
Contrary to Jim’s assertion, Prop 13 is not a mystery to any Liberals I've talked to. Many of us lived in California at the time it was passed, and more of us saw its effects in California and Oregon. Jim says “California and Oregon are surviving with annual property tax limitations of 2 percent,” but both states are struggling with massive deficits and services cutbacks, and the Governator will succeed or fail to the extent that he keeps his campaign promises to solve California’s economic woes. Call me a Liberal, but I actually think that, under our system, the government needs to do more than just survive. Conservatives have advocated that the government should be run like a business – if a business were just “surviving,” would you buy stock or sell?
Jim also trots out the Bush party line that “it's people who pay taxes who are entitled to tax relief.” It’s hard to argue with that until you remember that it’s an incomplete quote – what the President said was that the people who pay the most taxes are entitled to the most relief. I guess if you grew up rich, got your first real job from someone who was doing your Daddy a favor, and then were given your own personal baseball team to play with, this makes sense. To me as a business man it does not. If I had a business with a division that was highly profitable and another that was only marginal, I would take a larger share of the first division’s profits and use them to build up the second so that it could become profitable. Our biblically selective President seems to have missed Luke 12:48, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”
As to the Government “tightening its belt…when the rest of us are suffering,” I guess this is some of that Compassionate Conservatism we don’t hear so much about any more, but I’m not sure who’s suffering, and what exactly Jim wants the Government to do about it. I guess if you're a Conservative and believe the Government shouldn’t do anything (except export democracy to anyplace that doesn’t have it whether they want it or not) then somehow the Government having less money will mean that somehow magically things will get better for those sufferers, but I don’t get it.
Now before my legion of critics rush in to call me names, let me say I agree with Jim’s column last week that we should be hopping mad about the tax situation, and we should do something about it. I am for tax relief and a tax cap. I would even consider a Prop 13 solution if someone could show me how it could work without bankrupting the state and making things worse rather than better, and I think that the Incline Tax Revolt is doing a great job of getting these issues up in front to the Legislature and the Public. I just think that what Jim calls “economic drivel” is exactly the sort of balanced, rational thinking the Legislature needs to be doing. Knee-jerk Conservative solutions of regressive taxes will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
Columns 17 & 18 - TRPA
TRPA Part One: The Nature of Bureaucracy
by Ed Gurowitz
I moved to California in 1981, when the state was just coming out of one of its periodic water shortages. Shortly after I got there it began to rain, and it rained hard and long. Yet no matter how much it rained, I never saw any government official say that the drought was over. Their statements were more on the order of “things are better, but we still have a long way to go.” Even when trees and homes were being washed off hillsides, their story never changed. Then I noticed that all those officials had the word “drought” in their title – and I realized that if they were to declare the drought over, they would be declaring that their job was unnecessary,. This was an epiphany for me about bureaucracy.
Bureaucracies are formed as a means to ensure the continuity and smooth functioning of the government. Nominally, these bureaucracies are there to implement and execute the policies made by elected officials, but bureaucracies are not elected, and therefore not accountable directly to the public. They are only as accountable as the system is structured for them to be, and in a unionized or protected civil service system, that means not very accountable at all. Oftentimes they are viewed by the elected officials as indispensable, since they carry with them vast stores of knowledge and historical lore.
TRPA was founded with all the best of intentions – to safeguard the water quality and clarity of the lake. It was set up as an interstate compact, under Federal oversight, with a board representing both states. This was in 1969. In 1980 TRPA’s charter was revised, and remains in effect. In both the conception of TRPA and in the revision of the charter, the governing bodies tried to specify the agency’s purview in the broadest possible terms rather than defining it so narrowly that it could not function on its own. This led to some language that has proved problematic:
• Maintenance of the social and economic health of the region depends on maintaining the significant scenic, recreational, educational, scientific, natural public health values provided by the Lake Tahoe Basin.
• In order to preserve the scenic beauty and outdoor recreational opportunities of the region, there is a need to insure an equilibrium between the region’s natural endowment and its manmade environment.
• The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency shall interpret and administer its plans, ordinances, rules and regulations in accordance with the provision of this compact.
Unobjectionable by themselves, these three phrases taken together become lethal, mainly because of the inclusion of scenic in the list of values – I would guess that anyone reading this column could take a pretty good stab at defining recreation, education, science, and public health, but scenic, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Combine that with the “need to insure an equilibrium between the region’s natural endowment and its manmade environment,” and the authorization in the third phrase for the Agency to make its own rules, and you have the makings of a free society’s nightmare – a bureaucracy with a license to run amok.
The counterbalance to this license should be the Board, but the TRPA Board is not elected, it is appointed by the Governors, the County Boards, etc. This places Board members at least one step removed from the people their decisions affect. Secondly, there is no qualification for Board members other than that they be appointed, and the Compact specifies that a majority of the seats to be held by citizens from outside the Tahoe Region, so that statewide and national viewpoints count more than the voice of those of us who live here. This has the added effect of the bureaucracy not seeing or interacting with the Board on a day to day basis, with a majority of the Board members located far from here.
Next week we will look at the results of this setup.
TRPA Part Two: Bureaucracy Run Amok
TRPA Board Members, speaking in private, often complain that the staff (a) fails to implement direct instructions from the Board if they do not agree with the Board’s decision and (b) usurp the Board’s authority by taking actions that should be reviewed by the Board without the Board’s direction, i.e., they make their own policies.
What we have here is a case of multiple non-accountability. The Board Members are barely accountable to those who appointed them, and the bureaucracy seems not to hold itself accountable to the Board. In the case of the Board Members, I have yet to hear of any Board member reporting to or being held to account by the Governors of Nevada and California, the County Commissioners, or anyone else, and I doubt very much that Mr. Yount, the President’s non-voting appointee, is in close communication with the White House, though in fairness, he has proven to be one of the more responsive Board Members, and he does live here at the Lake.
In theory at least, these people are all accountable to the taxpayers and fee payers whose remittances pay their salaries and cover the costs of running the TRPA. In the past year or so, and to its credit, TRPA has had a presence at the Tuesday morning forums held by the Bonanza. More often than not, it is represented by its public relations arm, Julie Regan and more recently her new assistant, who is an Incline native. This is well and good, but it does suggest that TRPA considers the low esteem in which it is held in this community and the degree of animosity toward it a PR problem, rather than a problem rooted in its policies and actions. Once in a while a Board Member (usually Mr. Yount) will attend, and the new Executive Director John Singlaub has been there on occasion, but I, at least, have seen little effect from the conversations we have had with them.
The recent dispute between TRPA and the Nevada and California Transportation Departments are a good example of the problem. TRPA decided that highway guard rails on 267 over Brockway Summit (a good 5 miles or more from the lake) and guard rails and rumble strips on 50 between Spooner Summit and Zephyr Cove are somehow within its purview. How? It can’t be scenic – the guard rails are not visible from the lake – and it cannot be environmental, so how? Only TRPA knows. My suggestion is that this is one more opportunity for scopecreep. If they are successful against the resistance of the DOT’s, then TRPA will have extended its authority that much farther and will be that much harder to get rid of.
You see, the true, never-stated purpose of any bureaucracy is to ensure its own growth and survival. The more TRPA can extend its scope, the harder it will be to kill. Just as no drought official can afford to have a drought be over, TRPA cannot afford to have anything within a mortar shot of the lake be outside its domination. Some have suggested that Nevada withdraw funding from TRPA as a way of bringing them to heel, but that won’t work – all they will do is use the decreased funding as an excuse to refuse permits on the Nevada side. In the long run, I believe that the only recourse we have is for Nevada to secede from TRPA and regulate ourselves, but politically that is problematic. Failing that, I suggest that everyone who cares about this issue keep up unrelenting pressure on our US Senators, State Legislators, Governor, County Commission and on TRPA itself, demanding that it be accountable and responsive to the people it was created to serve.
by Ed Gurowitz
I moved to California in 1981, when the state was just coming out of one of its periodic water shortages. Shortly after I got there it began to rain, and it rained hard and long. Yet no matter how much it rained, I never saw any government official say that the drought was over. Their statements were more on the order of “things are better, but we still have a long way to go.” Even when trees and homes were being washed off hillsides, their story never changed. Then I noticed that all those officials had the word “drought” in their title – and I realized that if they were to declare the drought over, they would be declaring that their job was unnecessary,. This was an epiphany for me about bureaucracy.
Bureaucracies are formed as a means to ensure the continuity and smooth functioning of the government. Nominally, these bureaucracies are there to implement and execute the policies made by elected officials, but bureaucracies are not elected, and therefore not accountable directly to the public. They are only as accountable as the system is structured for them to be, and in a unionized or protected civil service system, that means not very accountable at all. Oftentimes they are viewed by the elected officials as indispensable, since they carry with them vast stores of knowledge and historical lore.
TRPA was founded with all the best of intentions – to safeguard the water quality and clarity of the lake. It was set up as an interstate compact, under Federal oversight, with a board representing both states. This was in 1969. In 1980 TRPA’s charter was revised, and remains in effect. In both the conception of TRPA and in the revision of the charter, the governing bodies tried to specify the agency’s purview in the broadest possible terms rather than defining it so narrowly that it could not function on its own. This led to some language that has proved problematic:
• Maintenance of the social and economic health of the region depends on maintaining the significant scenic, recreational, educational, scientific, natural public health values provided by the Lake Tahoe Basin.
• In order to preserve the scenic beauty and outdoor recreational opportunities of the region, there is a need to insure an equilibrium between the region’s natural endowment and its manmade environment.
• The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency shall interpret and administer its plans, ordinances, rules and regulations in accordance with the provision of this compact.
Unobjectionable by themselves, these three phrases taken together become lethal, mainly because of the inclusion of scenic in the list of values – I would guess that anyone reading this column could take a pretty good stab at defining recreation, education, science, and public health, but scenic, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Combine that with the “need to insure an equilibrium between the region’s natural endowment and its manmade environment,” and the authorization in the third phrase for the Agency to make its own rules, and you have the makings of a free society’s nightmare – a bureaucracy with a license to run amok.
The counterbalance to this license should be the Board, but the TRPA Board is not elected, it is appointed by the Governors, the County Boards, etc. This places Board members at least one step removed from the people their decisions affect. Secondly, there is no qualification for Board members other than that they be appointed, and the Compact specifies that a majority of the seats to be held by citizens from outside the Tahoe Region, so that statewide and national viewpoints count more than the voice of those of us who live here. This has the added effect of the bureaucracy not seeing or interacting with the Board on a day to day basis, with a majority of the Board members located far from here.
Next week we will look at the results of this setup.
TRPA Part Two: Bureaucracy Run Amok
TRPA Board Members, speaking in private, often complain that the staff (a) fails to implement direct instructions from the Board if they do not agree with the Board’s decision and (b) usurp the Board’s authority by taking actions that should be reviewed by the Board without the Board’s direction, i.e., they make their own policies.
What we have here is a case of multiple non-accountability. The Board Members are barely accountable to those who appointed them, and the bureaucracy seems not to hold itself accountable to the Board. In the case of the Board Members, I have yet to hear of any Board member reporting to or being held to account by the Governors of Nevada and California, the County Commissioners, or anyone else, and I doubt very much that Mr. Yount, the President’s non-voting appointee, is in close communication with the White House, though in fairness, he has proven to be one of the more responsive Board Members, and he does live here at the Lake.
In theory at least, these people are all accountable to the taxpayers and fee payers whose remittances pay their salaries and cover the costs of running the TRPA. In the past year or so, and to its credit, TRPA has had a presence at the Tuesday morning forums held by the Bonanza. More often than not, it is represented by its public relations arm, Julie Regan and more recently her new assistant, who is an Incline native. This is well and good, but it does suggest that TRPA considers the low esteem in which it is held in this community and the degree of animosity toward it a PR problem, rather than a problem rooted in its policies and actions. Once in a while a Board Member (usually Mr. Yount) will attend, and the new Executive Director John Singlaub has been there on occasion, but I, at least, have seen little effect from the conversations we have had with them.
The recent dispute between TRPA and the Nevada and California Transportation Departments are a good example of the problem. TRPA decided that highway guard rails on 267 over Brockway Summit (a good 5 miles or more from the lake) and guard rails and rumble strips on 50 between Spooner Summit and Zephyr Cove are somehow within its purview. How? It can’t be scenic – the guard rails are not visible from the lake – and it cannot be environmental, so how? Only TRPA knows. My suggestion is that this is one more opportunity for scopecreep. If they are successful against the resistance of the DOT’s, then TRPA will have extended its authority that much farther and will be that much harder to get rid of.
You see, the true, never-stated purpose of any bureaucracy is to ensure its own growth and survival. The more TRPA can extend its scope, the harder it will be to kill. Just as no drought official can afford to have a drought be over, TRPA cannot afford to have anything within a mortar shot of the lake be outside its domination. Some have suggested that Nevada withdraw funding from TRPA as a way of bringing them to heel, but that won’t work – all they will do is use the decreased funding as an excuse to refuse permits on the Nevada side. In the long run, I believe that the only recourse we have is for Nevada to secede from TRPA and regulate ourselves, but politically that is problematic. Failing that, I suggest that everyone who cares about this issue keep up unrelenting pressure on our US Senators, State Legislators, Governor, County Commission and on TRPA itself, demanding that it be accountable and responsive to the people it was created to serve.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Column 16: Neo-Corporatism
In Sinclair Lewis's novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative politician is helped to the presidency by a radio host. The politician runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. He and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy - those concerned with individual rights and freedoms - as anti-American. That was 69 years ago.
Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, writing in 2003, identifies a set of agendas common to both right-wing political and fundamentalist religious movements. These include:
1. Powerful and continuing use of patriotic/religious rhetoric.
2. Sacrifice of human rights to “emergency,” political, security, or to maintain the faith.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
4. Military needs given priority over civilian.
5. Sexism
6. Mass media indirectly controlled and censored by government regulation or media spokespeople who are sympathetic and/or intimidated.
7. Obsession with national security
8. Religion and government are intertwined – use of the majority religion as a tool to manipulate public opinion; use of religious rhetoric by public officials.
9. Corporate power is protected
10. Labor power is suppressed
11. Disdain for intellect and the arts
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
13. Cronyism and corruption – government without dissent
14. Fraudulent elections
In 2000, a group of Neo-Conservatives including Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and others published a document called The Project for the New American Century, This group saw the fall of Communism as an opportunity for America to become the sole dominant power in the world, and noted that these plans would take a long time, unless there were a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that would let the leaders turn America into a military country.
This Neocon agenda, arose concurrently with the rise of the religious right, particularly in the wake of President Clinton’s moral failures, and the ascendancy of large corporate interests which found a congenial home in the Bush/Cheney administration. September 11th provided just the catalyst they said was needed for their rise to power.
This analysis draws in part on the thinking of Davidson Loehr, a Unitarian minister in Austin, Texas. Loehr, in a recent sermon, labels this agenda fascism, and indeed Professor Britt, in the article cited above, calls the fourteen points the characteristics of fascism. I don’t use that term – since World War II, it is impossible to use the term fascism without evoking Hitler and the Nazis, and I think that comparison to the current regime in the United States is inaccurate, and a specious oversimplification. Still, I think that the danger in what, in the 1930’s in the US was called “corporatism” is real and current.
Historically corporatist agendas, whether on the right or the left (Soviet Russia was corporate Communism and if you substitute the State for private business, it fit the fourteen criteria perfectly) has beaten liberalism and progressivism too often for those of us to the left of center to be complacent about it. This, more than any other factor was, I believe, the determinant of the recent election. Liberals and Progressives must wake up to this fact, and see that the emphasis on individual rights to the exclusion of responsibilities to the larger society is no longer a viable philosophy, if it ever was. We need to recognize the validity of people’s religious and moral values, and to include a moral platform that will appeal to the hearts and minds of voters. Also, we need to be more aggressive and factual about exposing the damage that a Corporatist agenda does to the average working person and their family. The Corporatists have learned how to sell the canard that “what’s good for corporations is good for the USA,” and we must both have a vision that is broad enough to defeat that, and a campaign that points up that the values of Corporatism are diametrically opposed to those of the average American. Or we can be steadfast about how much better we are than they are, and how tragic it is that people don’t see that, in which case we are in danger of being right – dead right.
Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, writing in 2003, identifies a set of agendas common to both right-wing political and fundamentalist religious movements. These include:
1. Powerful and continuing use of patriotic/religious rhetoric.
2. Sacrifice of human rights to “emergency,” political, security, or to maintain the faith.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
4. Military needs given priority over civilian.
5. Sexism
6. Mass media indirectly controlled and censored by government regulation or media spokespeople who are sympathetic and/or intimidated.
7. Obsession with national security
8. Religion and government are intertwined – use of the majority religion as a tool to manipulate public opinion; use of religious rhetoric by public officials.
9. Corporate power is protected
10. Labor power is suppressed
11. Disdain for intellect and the arts
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
13. Cronyism and corruption – government without dissent
14. Fraudulent elections
In 2000, a group of Neo-Conservatives including Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and others published a document called The Project for the New American Century, This group saw the fall of Communism as an opportunity for America to become the sole dominant power in the world, and noted that these plans would take a long time, unless there were a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that would let the leaders turn America into a military country.
This Neocon agenda, arose concurrently with the rise of the religious right, particularly in the wake of President Clinton’s moral failures, and the ascendancy of large corporate interests which found a congenial home in the Bush/Cheney administration. September 11th provided just the catalyst they said was needed for their rise to power.
This analysis draws in part on the thinking of Davidson Loehr, a Unitarian minister in Austin, Texas. Loehr, in a recent sermon, labels this agenda fascism, and indeed Professor Britt, in the article cited above, calls the fourteen points the characteristics of fascism. I don’t use that term – since World War II, it is impossible to use the term fascism without evoking Hitler and the Nazis, and I think that comparison to the current regime in the United States is inaccurate, and a specious oversimplification. Still, I think that the danger in what, in the 1930’s in the US was called “corporatism” is real and current.
Historically corporatist agendas, whether on the right or the left (Soviet Russia was corporate Communism and if you substitute the State for private business, it fit the fourteen criteria perfectly) has beaten liberalism and progressivism too often for those of us to the left of center to be complacent about it. This, more than any other factor was, I believe, the determinant of the recent election. Liberals and Progressives must wake up to this fact, and see that the emphasis on individual rights to the exclusion of responsibilities to the larger society is no longer a viable philosophy, if it ever was. We need to recognize the validity of people’s religious and moral values, and to include a moral platform that will appeal to the hearts and minds of voters. Also, we need to be more aggressive and factual about exposing the damage that a Corporatist agenda does to the average working person and their family. The Corporatists have learned how to sell the canard that “what’s good for corporations is good for the USA,” and we must both have a vision that is broad enough to defeat that, and a campaign that points up that the values of Corporatism are diametrically opposed to those of the average American. Or we can be steadfast about how much better we are than they are, and how tragic it is that people don’t see that, in which case we are in danger of being right – dead right.
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