By Liam Day
July 14th, 2008
Jeff Jacoby has a piece in yesterday’s Globe criticizing Democrats for a certain level of hypocrisy on the issue of a candidate’s military service. Whereas in 2004 they let no opportunity to extol John Kerry’s service go by, many Democrats this year seem intent on attacking John McCain for his.
My question for Jeff would be is what Democrats are doing really all that different from what Republicans did to John Kerry four years ago? After all, swiftboating has become part of the political lexicon. (I suppose Republicans at least had the good sense to use a shadowy 527 to launch their attacks, rather than trotting out respected (maybe formerly respected) party leaders, including, even, a former standard bearer.)
Back in May Pioneer hosted Gene Healy, senior editor at the Cato Institute, to discuss his new book, The Cult of the Presidency. Gene likes to use a term called “situational constitutionalism” to describe the
tendency to support enhanced executive power when one’s friends hold the executive branch.
What should we call Jeff’s distaste for Democratic attacks on John McCain’s service record? Situational electoral ethics? What is wrong in 2008 was equally wrong four years ago.
By Liam Day
July 11th, 2008
Limited, but interesting post on Red Mass Group. (I’ve plugged Blue Mass Group on here in the past and figure, as a non-profit, we should also be non-partisan.)
It seems that, despite a population roughly half of Pennsylvania’s and a geographic area less than a quarter of our fellow Commonwealth’s, our state budgets are almost identical in size - $28.3b as opposed to our $28.2b - which means Governor Patrick’s government will spend just about twice as much per capita in fiscal year 2009 as Governor Ed Rendell’s government.
Now, without having seen any breakdowns, I assume Massachusetts spends significantly more as a state for public education, which is just one of the reasons why we have the best public schools in the country, and the costs associated with health care reform were much higher than most people anticipated.
We can and should debate the state’s appropriate role in both education and health care - particularly whether it should be the purview of the state to guarantee access to health insurance; even more particularly, whether the state should be mandating insurance coverage. We should also be asking ourselves whether the slew of recent legislation passed and proposals floated is worth the various price tags.
Maybe, as voters, we do decide that universal proficiency, universal health care, expanded commuter rail service, targeted tax credits for biotech and film companies, infrastructure repair and everything else on offer by the Governor and Legislature are what we want. But we should be having a public and spirited debate over spending priorities.
And a simple, but stark statistic such as this one might be a good place to start.
By Jim Stergios
July 11th, 2008
[I]f there is a state budget problem, it is not the result of increased enrollment in Commonwealth Care but rather of the state failing to fully comply with the basic waiver agreement to shift subsidies from health care providers to individuals needing assistance in buying health insurance.
That’s a clear indictment from Greg D’Angelo and Edmund F. Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation in the just released policy piece entitled Health Care Reform in Massachusetts: Medicaid Waiver Renewal Will Set a Precedent.
The Health Care Reform Act However included hold harmless payments for the Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Health Alliance (so-called Section 122 payments). The payments “were authorized for three years starting at $200 million for FY 2007, declining by $20 million each year.” D’Angelo and Haislmaier note that:
Had initial enrollment in Commonwealth Care come in at or below projected levels, these Section 122 payments would likely not have created a financing issue. But with enrollment running higher than expected, the state has already obligated elsewhere hundreds of millions of dollars that it should otherwise have available to meet the added cost of providing subsidized coverage to more individuals. In FY 2008, Section 122 payments come to $180 million, while Commonwealth Care overruns are $153 million.
D & H finally note that
State payments for uncompensated care do not seem to have decreased as much as these trends suggest they should have. One explanation may be that some hospitals are attempting to compensate for providing less uncompensated care by charging the state higher rates for the uncompensated care they still provide.
Interesting work — and the timing is impeccable given the waiver discussions.
By Jim Stergios
July 11th, 2008
I have referenced the Stephen Moore-Arthur Laffer report on Rich States, Poor States, and its overall message that tax policy does matter for people and business locational decisions. I know the question of business creation and population growth is more nuanced than that, but as I was reading Stephanie Ebbert’s piece in the Sunday Globe about the hundreds of thousands of dollars we are spending to boost our Census numbers, I wondered if we aren’t as usual on trying to manage the message rather than addressing the underlying problem.
So, a friend from Mississippi emails the Moore-Laffer report and notes that we are soon to have the political oomph of the Mockingbird and magnolia state. Check out table 1 on page 15 of the RS/PS report, which suggests that Massachusetts is among the bottom 10 in the nation in terms of cumulative domestic migration. Huh? It means that we lost 330K people over 10 years (1997-2006). Connecticut lost 110K, and at the very bottom of the list is California at -1.3 million and New York at -1.96 million.
At the top (winners) is Florida at +1.6 million, Arizona at 770K, and even colder states like Washington (+218K). Folks, can we, uh, start acting like adults and figure this out?
By Steve Poftak
July 10th, 2008
The Commonwealth has many important priorities (some apparently believe those priorities extend to subsidizing their golf rounds).
And the transportation bond bill passed by the Senate today (see the unamended version here) allegedly is a statement of those priorities.
Now, this space is strong proponent of smart infrastructure investment, so its particularly galling to see a resurgence of the Off-Street Parking program contained in the bill.
In this program, the Commonwealth pays for the construction of parking garages in various communities. But the problem is that parking garages are among the few public assets that have the potential to fund themselves (see our analysis of Salem’s proposal).
To put it more bluntly, if your downtown has a demand for parking, then people will pay for it. And if people will pay for it, then they can fund the garage and the state can move on to some other worthy project, or not spend the money at all.
By Jim Stergios
July 10th, 2008
“Do they deserve tickets out too?” That was the question posed to then candidate Deval Patrick by David Gergen during the October 19 gubernatorial debate. He was referring to school choice and public charter schools — chances that were made available to Mr. Patrick as a child, and choices that Governor Patrick has made for his own children.
The relevant portion of the debate:
Moderator: Mr. Patrick, you talked about the need for change. I’d like to ask you, sir, about the change in public education. This question: when you were young, you won a scholarship to go off to the Milton Academy. You essentially won a ticket out of poorly-performing public schools to go to a private school where you blossomed and you have a stirring life story. Why sir, then are you so opposed to giving tickets to children who are now in public schools in Massachusetts who might want to go to a charter school or they might want a voucher. Do they deserve tickets out too?
Patrick: Well, I’ll tell you, first of all, I’m not opposed to charter schools. I think they have a critical role to play in education reform. We’ve been on this journey, I think we ought to continue on this journey.
Moderator: Right, but what about the question - there’s a lid, as you know, on charter schools. You’re opposed to lifting the lid.
Patrick: I’m coming to that and I think we can lift the cap on the number of charter schools, David, when we fix the funding formula, and it’s broken right now. What it creates is an unnecessary and I think, unhelpful tension between the families of the kids in district schools- traditional public schools- and the families of kids in charter schools. And it disserves both. It seems to me that if the state is going to support this element of education reform - and I think that’s important - then the state has to step up and provide the kind of funding that makes both charter schools and district schools flourish. That’s one point. Second point I’d make is, I want the best innovations that come from the best charter schools- and they’re not all great, but the best of them- to be imported into the district schools- whatever that takes. And I will tell you, having talked with teachers and parents and kids, frankly, who are in the district schools, and many who are in the charter school movement- they want that collaboration, too. That’s a leadership issue.
Ross: Yeah, I think, Deval, it’s interesting when I hear you say things like that because I’ve been in many debates with you and that’s the first time I’ve heard you say that maybe someday we’ll lift the cap.
Yep, it’s a leadership issue. And a campaign promise. A year and a half into the administration’s tenure, we have had numerous education task forces and an unwieldy set of proposals, many of which are still in the trial balloon stage.
The key question on the table is the achievement gap. Charters have outperformed district schools and pilot schools in urban districts. We need some urgency — the same kind of urgency we all have for our children. More years, more talk, more task forces, will not do.
It seems Grace Ross was prescient on this one.
By Amy Dain
July 9th, 2008
A few years ago the New Yorker ran an article on why NYC is the greenest city in the US. While people might think of Manhattan as island turned ecological nightmare, the article concludes that if NYC were granted statehood, it would rank 51st in per capita energy use. Eighty-two percent of Manhattan residents take public transit to work. They buy less stuff to fill their tiny apartments. They don’t maintain lawns. Etc.
While Massachusetts’ mill cities may evoke for you the dirty-air image of smoke stacks, like NYC, they are actually green engines for development. Lowell’s City Manager Bernie Lynch has a couple of entries on his blog this week that made me think of this.
Lynch notes that as fuel prices rise, Lowell is a good local destination for summer travel. The Lowell Folk Festival is in a few weeks. Lynch also comments that the high price of fuel puts Lowell in an enviable position - with its walkable downtown and public transit options. Here’s to suburbanites being green with envy for Lowell.
By Jim Stergios
July 9th, 2008
Massachusetts is supposedly in a “new era of education reform,” according to many a press release from the Governor’s office. I like the merit/differential pay idea and a couple of other items, but the Readiness proposal is just a sketch at this point. Kind of odd for one year’s worth of work. Feel like we in Massachusetts have gotten complacent and are “adrift in the edu-sphere,” as the Globe editorial put a few months back.
On the other hand, there has been building momentum in Florida. Florida is pretty wise in terms of reform — as it experiments it seeks stronger accountability models, especially when compared to some other voucher and choice systems. Choice is no panacea. You need high academic standards and accountability; otherwise, there is no way to know if what you are buying is a good product.
Christin Coyne of the School Reform News reports on the opportunity to move the dial further in Florida. Florida’s Taxation and Budget Reform Commission meets once every 20 years. It can place popular referendum items on the election ballot — and this year it did so. As my dad used to say, and what a doozy (blog etymologists please weight in on the spelling of doozy…) it is!
Florida voters can do away with the state’s Blaine amendment to the constitution, which bans state aid to religious institutions.
In 2004 a Florida appellate court struck down Bush’s statewide school voucher program for students in failing public schools, the A+ Opportunity Scholarship Program, as unconstitutional, citing the Blaine amendment.
The ballot initiative is simple. It inserts:
a new sentence stating “individuals or entities may not be barred from participating in public programs because of their religion” would essentially replace the Blaine amendment wording, which states “no revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”
(Yes, Massachusetts is one of 36 other states with a Blaine amendment. Oddly, the amendment seems only to K-12 education… I wonder what Boston College would think if the same restriction on aid to religious institutions were applied to higher ed.) Good luck, Florida.
By Steve Poftak
July 8th, 2008
Rushing headlong into the 19th Century, the MBTA has negotiated the end of 15 minute ‘wash-up’ breaks for employees once and for all.
By Jim Stergios
July 8th, 2008
In DC and pick up a paper and it is all DC Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, all the time. We hear a lot of talk about a new era in education reform in Massachusetts, but during the Romney administration the focus was not there and during the first two years of the Patrick administration there have been backward steps, moving of some boxes (Board of Ed, creation of a Secretary of Education, etc.), but no real action.
Compare that to the urgency of Mayor Adrian Fenty and Chancellor Rhee. In the WaPo today, there is an op-ed by Margaret Spellings calling for the continuation of the DC voucher program (also supported by Fenty and Rhee, who care less for party and more for the kids).
Signed into law by President Bush four years ago, the program is the first to provide federally funded education vouchers to students. It awards up to $7,500 per child for tuition, transportation and fees; in 2007-08 it enabled 1,900 students from the underperforming Washington public school system — the highest total yet — to attend the private or religious schools of their choice.
Results?
An independent study of the program released last year confirms this parental satisfaction… The IES study reported academic gains in reading by three student subgroups, totaling nearly 90 percent of all students. They gained the equivalent of two to four extra months of learning. An IES report last year found increased math scores among some of the same subgroups.
This is especially impressive when you consider that nearly all of the participating students are from families that are at or below the poverty line; the average income of participating families is $22,736, only $2,000 above the poverty level for a family of four. Ninety-nine percent of the children are African American or Hispanic. Many escaped poorly performing public schools, where they worked below grade level in a city that has struggled for years to educate its young.
Some in Congress (many of whom send their kids to private schools) are still opposing the program. Spellings notes:
If Congress were to discontinue funding for D.C. opportunity scholarships, 86 percent of the students would be reassigned to schools that did not meet “adequate yearly progress” goals in reading and math for 2006-07. We cannot allow that to happen. Fortunately, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee share my enthusiasm for reform. It’s an exciting time for education in Washington. The three-sector approach enjoys strong support among District residents. It has been a catalyst for innovation. It may also inspire other cities to develop their own scholarship programs.
If Congress (R & D) tends to be all talk, Fenty and Rhee show what local public leaders can do. And fast.
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