Bob Kerns: Thinking

Emilia Asks About the GOP Religion and Hate

A bright 15-year-old young woman asks:

 

My response, lightly edited:

Well, I can't actually answer the "why so many", which is at the crux of this, but I can provide some relevant background.

Tyndale's Unicorn

Let's start at a beginning: The Bible, translated to English.

 

In 1526, William Tyndale published the first English translation of the Bible. This was not popular with the oligarchs of the time, and escaping to Holland did not help. He was executed for heresy: strangled, then burned at the stake (I guess it's better in that order!)

 

But that wasn't the end of it. A couple years later, King Henry commissioned the Great Bible. And Protestants who had fled to Geneva, under John Calvin, produced the Geneva Bible. This is the Bible that W. Shakespeare knew and used.

 

These were based on heretic Tyndale's!

These and a couple of others were the basis for the King James version—a true committee work. James set 47 scholars to the task, in response to complaints from the Puritans.

 

Tyndale was still dead. Unicorns were still in it. It would be centuries before that was thought odd.

 

But meanwhile, off in Geneva, John Calvin and his friends had a bunch of arguments, about things like predestination and how that could fit with salvation. If God knows our futures, do we have free will? Is sin our fault? Is it predetermined who will be saved?

 

When I come back, we'll briefly visit Holland, and England again, then jump to the US in the 19th century. There are some interesting twists ahead.

 

A visit to Holland

OK, back. later than expected, 'cause daughter was later than expected. Do your parents a favor and come home on time or let them know, 'k?

 

So the bit about predestination wasn't a detour. It's why we're visiting this history. I'll sew that up after we cover planes & TV!

 

Meanwhile, back in the late 16th century, we return to Holland, to consider Jacobus Arminius. Trained in Geneva by a successor to Calvin, he had a different take on predestination. I'll simplify as "free will exists, kinda".

 

On to England, where Arminius's ideas had taken hold in the Church of England. John Wesley, an ordained Anglican, his brother Charles, and a friend Whitefield, began to preach outdoors to reach miners and others who would not enter churches.

 

Evangelism begins.

A pamphlet referred to them as "The Oxford Methodists", so Wesley himself adopted the term. They became a sort of a church within the Church of England.

 

Wesley was invited to the colonies. What he started during his time here, became separate & evangelism took aim at natives

 

But Calvinist ideas came, too, with denial of free will. Life is as God ordained; sinners are damned, the saved are blessed, end of story.

 

This is more compatible with the notion of slavery. Perhaps you can see where this is headed, already?

 

It's not that Calvinism supports slavery. But if you take that idea of predestination, and give a little twist, you can convince yourself that slavery is God's will, just like everything else. Sinners and the saved are pre-determined, as God willed.

 

Wealth as Religion

Religion is often no match for creative rationalization. But Calvinism and Arminianism coexist. The notion of hard work = saved, laziness = damned takes root, alongside evangelism. Of course, there are many divisions and variations, such as Baptists and Anabaptists. Do you baptize infants?

 

The Anabaptists like the Amish and Mennonites don't play a large role in our story, but the Baptists reenter.

 

But now we come up upon the Gilded Age. The age of western expansion, railroads, and steel.

 

And Andrew Carnegie, a self-made man, rose to the top of the heap.

 

Now, Carnegie was a religious man, and a great philanthropist. 3000 libraries, half of CMU, and more. He was a major benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute, for Black education.

 

And he wrote a booklet, "The Gospel of Wealth".

 

In this, he argues for the accumulation of wealth, and subsequent philanthropy.

 

But let's give that idea another century to percolate. I promised you airplanes. And on that track, I must correct a small error. The Mennonites make a brief appearance, by kicking out Martin Boehm.

 

In response, Reformed pastor Philip Otterbein welcomes him and they found the United Brethren. They flourish.

 

In 1889, the same year as Carnegie's Gospel, there's an argument. One of the bishops leads the conservatives off on their own.

 

We'll join up with the majority later.

 

Airplanes

I meant to mention, the United Brethren had taken a strong stand against slavery, but slavery has now ended. But we're still talking about white-lead churches here. I'll come back to that.

 

Meanwhile, meet Bishop Milton Wright. His sons invented the plane. More planes later!

 

A Trip to Los Angeles

In 1903, the same year as the first flight, William Seymore moved to Houston seeking to further his religious education, where he connected with Charles Parham, who'd rebelled against his Methodist education & pioneered speaking in tongues, faith healing, etc. The Jim Crow era racism made it difficult for Seymore, who had to sit outside the classroom door to circumvent the laws. But he and Parham preached frequently together outdoors.

 

They are the founders of the Pentecostal movement.

 

In 1906, Seymore was invited to preach in Los Angeles. Los Angeles proved fruitful, with the Azusa Street Revival drawing large crowds. The ideas took root and spread, most especially in the black communities.

 

But our story lies with the white branch. And we return for a while to the United Brethren majority who did not join Wright. In 1946, right after WWII, they joined up with the Evangelical church, to form the Evangelical United Brethren.

 

Meet my grandfather, Rev. Dragoo.

Meet my father, Rev. Kerns

Meet bigot Steve King (IA-R). He grew up half-way between my fathers' and grandfather's churches.

And I went to the same school as Rep. King's mother.

 

And I have no idea where he gets his hateful ideas, nor why he got elected. Hopefully @Scholten4Iowawill put an end to that. [Ed: Nope, sigh] [Ed: Maybe 2020?]

 

So we haven't quite arrived at our toxic destination.

 

In 1968, the EUB and the Methodist churches merged to form the United Methodists.

 

And Pentecostal televangelist Oral Roberts became an Elder, believing this made him a part of the United Methodist clergy.

 

And now we can begin to see the pieces come together, answer just out of reach.

 

Prosperity gospel. Predeterminism. And jet planes. And coming up, a surprise personal encounter with bigotry.

 

Praying for Dollars

Televangelism as big business was really started by Pat Robertson, in 1960. He started as a Southern Baptist, but far outside their mainstream. He tried to become a lawyer, failed, so became a minister, founding the Christian Broadcasting Network.

 

This was too profitable, so it had to be spun off to avoid his non-profit status. CBN begat CBN Family, which was spun off and sold, became ABC Family, Disney family, and now Freeform. Contractually bound to perpetually air CBN's 700 Club.

 

We're starting to get at "so many"!

 

Robertson founded Regent University. And, in response to the ACLU, the ACLJ. A Regent U student, Jay Sekulow, became their lead counsel. Argued 12 cases before SCOTUS on "religious freedom".

 

Sekulow's family now controls ACLJ and became rich.

 

Jay Sekulow is Trump's Mueller lawyer.

 

Oral Robert also founded a university. Named it after himself. A Houston preacher's kid (like me) named Joel Osteen studied TV communication there. No degree, no divinity degree. But took over his father's church after his death, and built an empire, and bought the Compaq Center, a stadium, to be his new church.

 

It wasn't big enough, so spent millions expanding it. Includes TV studio. Bought a huge mansion.

 

And of course, TV evangelists need jet planes. Remember Carnegie's Gospel?

 

This is all part of the message. Riches are a sign of God's blessing. Wanna be rich? Get blessed. Donate!

 

Tying It Together

So let's look where these threads have brought us.

 

We have a truly massive reach, pushed by really big money, and penetrating deep into politics, even the presidency.

 

We have a religious justification for the accumulation of wealth, and wealth as a sign of religious and personal worth.

And we have predestination. The notion of predestination slots with people's ideas about others. They're poor? It's because they're not chosen. They'e not worthy.

 

LGBTQ? Born that way?

 

Predestination to be that way. And to be damned.

 

These ideas slowly spread into the more mainstream traditions. In I think 1992, I attended a Methodist service as part of my parent's anniversary celebration. At this service, a lay delegate gave a report on the Methodist conference—at which they ruled out gay marriage and ministry. That was disturbing enough, but he delivered it with glee. Adding to the dissonance was he was dressed and groomed to perfection, to a degree I would have guessed he was the very thing he feared. I'm not guessing at his sexuality, but the futility of his fears.

 

Had it been any other occasion, I would have stood and protested, and left

 

But we have a theme here. Remember Tyndale? Remember predestination justifying slavery? With predestination, you can if you choose, write off anyone you disapprove of. LGBTQ? They belong to the devil.

 

Remember, the Methodists were Arminianist. They still reject that formulation of predestination. But it has become pervasive, thanks in part to the power of televangelism. The Azusa St. Revival was just a foreshadowing, with no marketing power.

 

And the poor? They will be with us always because it is Gods will that they be poor, and that they're not worthy.

 

Maybe God is telling them they should work harder.

Maybe gays aren't trying hard enough to be straight.

Maybe my religion requires me to hate those who would help.

 

It's a long story. This is just one of the challenges we face. Evangelism was never about this kind of thing, any more than it was about slavery, which it opposed

 

But it was the original viral message, and it can be weaponized.

 

And that is one of the things we face today.

 

Christianity is not unique in this. And I don't write this as an anti-religion screed. But it is the context for why so many of today's evangelicals can countenance very unchristian behavior. There's history, precedent, and ideology.

 

Best of luck in coping with it.

 

The GOP Religion

In response to some nonsense or other from Steve King [R-IA4], in November 2017, I wrote the following.

My father was an Iowa country preacher. So was my mother's father. I never saw the slightest hint of such attitudes, heard the slightest whisper. I don't recall ever being taught that women need men's protection -- just the Golden Rule -- treat everyone as you'd like to be treated yourself.

My father and grandfather were in the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB), a Wesleyan denomination that with an intervening split and merger, once counted the Wright Brothers father as a Bishop, and ultimately were an offshoot of the Church of England.

In 1968, they merged with the Methodists, also Wesleyans, gathering most Wesleyan tradition into one church.

In the same year, they also gathered one Oral Roberts, formerly a Pentecostal minister, founder of Oral Roberts University.

The Pentecostal denominations are descended from the Azusa Street Revival -- a long-running Revival meeting in LA in the early 20th century. Speakers in tongues, "holy rollers", and believers in the near-term Second Coming. Not exactly predestinationalists, but they believe in an all-or-nothing salvation. When Christ (soon) walks again on earth, you will be saved, or you will be damned.

The Methodists gave him more freedom of operation, and in the negotiations, expressed a fair bit of envy of his evangelism (aka "recruitment successes").

I graduated high school in 1972, from Correctionville, a town where my dad had been brought in to handle the merger of two congregations, plus a third in Cushing, an even tinier town to the west, in the same school district.

Fast forward 9 years. Joel Osteen graduates high school in a Houston suburb and attends Oral Roberts University, where he studied, not divinity, but Radio and Television Communications.

Rewind to the year before the merger. Representative Steve King graduates high school from Dennison; he lived in the tiny town of Kiron, about the size of Cushing, that I never even heard of. This was the neighboring district to the Southwest -- and halfway between my father's and my grandfather's churches. We drove within a couple of miles of it a couple hundred times in my youth, but like Cushing, it was off the main highway.

Go back a couple more years. My elementary school (Grand Meadow) (neighboring district to the north). Population 13 at the time. Had just merged Back a generation. Steve King's mother attended the same school, prior to the merger that sent me 13 miles further north for junior high. Flash forward to present day, two more mergers, district is now 400 square miles.

Back to the main thread of the story. 1999. Joel Osteen preaches his first sermon. Becomes pastor of Lakewood, the Charismatic/Pentecostal church founded by his father in 1959. Later that year. Forward 4 years, Lakewood leases the Compaq Center, former home of the Houston Rockets. Payment in advance for the first 30 years of the lease -- $11.5 million.

Also in 2003, Steve King is elected to the US House of Representatives.

They spend $100 million to renovate and turn it into a mega-church, adding 5 stories in the process, and a television studio, and move in in 2005. Five years later, Houston sells it to them for $7.5 million.

2011, Steve King on the floor of the House: “Well, if you applied that preventative medicine [birth control], universally what you end up with is you’ve prevented a generation. Preventing babies from being born is not medicine. That’s not— that’s not constructive to our culture and our civilization. If we let our birth rate get down below replacement rate, we’re a dying civilization.”

Today, Osteen is noted as one of the leading ministers of the Prosperity Gospel. Donations continue to pour in, funding his lavish lifestyle. Manny Pacquiao, former world-Champion boxer and current Philippines Senator, recently gave him a $86 million jet.

I grew up in parsonages, owned by the church, each not unlike the homes our parishioners lived in. mostly older. Only one still survives; the rest have been abandoned and torn down.

Joel Ornstein and his family live in a $10.5 million mansion.

I'm not jealous. I have a nice home in one of the most expensive counties in the nation. Our next home will be smaller, not bigger.

I'm appalled.

My father would have known what to do with $10.5 million dollars. Heifer International would likely be where it would go, to help feed sustenance farmers. He grew up a farmer, plowing the land with a team of horses. He knew the good that a donation of livestock can do.

Steve King was raised a Methodist.

This is the GOP.

This is the GOP Religion.

How can Congress hold an AG in Contempt?

With Attorney General Barr's refusal of a congressional subpoena, many people are wondering, can a sitting Attorney General be called to account?

The answer is "yes", assuming a congressional spine, at least in the House.

[Note: I am not a lawyer, and there may be subtle difficulties I am missing here. My intent is to convey the broad outlines for educational purposes. If you are a public official planning on refusing a congressional subpoena, please seek professional legal and ethical advice.]

Let's first look at two things that probably won't work:

• Charge him with contempt, and refer him to the FBI & US District Attorney for the District of Columbia for prosecution. Barr is their boss, and has a history of non-recusal in the face of conflict and ignoring ethics officials.
• Impeach him, and any acting successors who refuse to act against him. Too slow, and involves the Senate. I suspect this might be the solution our founders would have suggested, but it's moot.

Criminal Contempt

There are two paths to a criminal contempt action to enforce a subpoena. The statutory one involves the above-mentioned referral to the DOJ for enforcement. I won't discuss it further.

But the traditional approach, termed "Inherent Contempt" is still available. It hasn't been used since 1935, but it has been tested before the Supreme Court.

The Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate can arrest and bring them before the body. They can be held until the end of the Congressional session, e.g. Jan 3, 2021.

The best part is, it's not pardonable. It's viewed as an offense against Congress, not against the laws, and the separation of powers kicks in. Not even the courts have authority. As noted in Jurney v McCracken, 

Where a proceeding for contempt is within the jurisdiction of a House of Congress, the questions whether the person arrested is guilty or has so far purged himself that he does not deserve punishment are questions for that House to decide, and which cannot be inquired into by a court by a writ of habeas corpus.

The mechanisms are rusty, since it's been farmed out to the DOJ throughout our lifetimes.

Civil Contempt

The other approach is to bring suit in court as civil contempt. This has been done most recently (I believe) in the case of Backpage.com, in which its CEO, Carl Ferrer, refused to deliver documents to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, which I'll refer to as the PSI.

This does not involve going through the Department of Justice nor William  Barr in any way. It is handled by the body's in-house counsel.

The problem is, it can be slow.

By the time it worked its way through appeal, he turned over documents, and the committee wrapped up its work and no longer sought to enforce the subpoena against him, so the case was dismissed as moot. The original case was filed on March 29, 2016. Ferrer lost. 

The appeal was filed October 6, 2016, and the case dismissed as moot on July 10, 2017. You can see the docket on the appeals case here. (Unfortunately, purchases of appeals case documents don't appear on CourtListener. So I dropped a couple $$ on PACER to figure this out so you don't have to: Ferrer Opinion.)

As a result, it was dismissed in District Court on July 21, 2017, nearly 16 months after filing. I  went ahead and bought the original motion to enforce and their proposed court order; others have purchased and shared other filings; you can find them on CourtListener.

Update 2019-05-07

I just learned of an excellent Congressional Research Service report on the topic. On a quick scan, I don't see any errors in my text above, but a few areas I might extend or areas where I might improve the explanation. In the meantime, and in any case, if you would like more information, it's recommended reading.

Congress’s Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure

Footnote #1: Backpage

Backpage is currently tangled up in a money laundering case in the US District Court, District of Arizona.

Footnote #2: Sergeant-at-Arms

You may be wondering, who is this "Sergeant-at-Arms"? You may have the sense you've learned of it and forgotten, or at least heard of it but never quite knew what it was about. I don't even recall when I learned of it, about a half-century ago, when I had a subscription to the paper Congressional Record, courtesy of Iowa Senator Harold Hughes, but the office still exists today.

The basic idea is that Congress runs its own affairs without interference from the Executive branch. That includes law enforcement and managing its facilities. And, of course, the House and Senate have to share control; each having their own Sergeant-at-Arms.

Most of your questions will be answered by the House Sergeant-at-Arms official web page.

It the history goes back to the UK House of Commons, and power struggles between the king and parliament, etc. (And beyond to Rome, but beyond our scope). Here's a bit of drama over Brexit that involves their Seargent at Arms staff.

The US House of Representatives has a Mace, too. 

 

Publishers: Stand up to the Texas State Board of Education

Eric Mann pointed me at a Credo Action-sponsored mailing campaign to the major textbook publishers.

This is a way YOU can make a lasting difference in our education system.

They provide you with a pre-written letter you can send, but allow you to send your own instead. So even if you don't agree with Credo Action's politics, and even if you don't like their letter, I urge you, please take a moment and send something.

Here is what I sent. Please write, either via this link, or directly. Please feel free to steal anything you like from my piece.

Dear sirs,

As an MIT-educated parent, with a life-long interest in education, I have watched with increasing horror the ever-escalating manipulations by the Texas State Board of Education.

There are times when a company must walk away from business. Times when the indirect costs far outweigh any profits. Times when the lasting damage to ones reputation is more important than the bottom line today.

Now is that time.

If we -- no, if YOU allow this blatant manipulation, we will all be poorer for it. I can think of no greater harm to be done to our educational system, than to allow this bunch to insert their propaganda into the nation's textbooks.

But it's not enough to supply an alternate version for a state which appears to have slipped into an alternate reality.

It is time to take a corporate stand, that you will have NO PART IN THIS.

I do not believe the Texas State Board of Education will continue have this extremist makeup for much longer. I think any books you were to make for them would have a very short lifespan, anyway.

But if you take a stand for intellectual honesty -- a PUBLIC stand, I believe you will hasten that day. You'll help put the issue on more Texan voter's radars.

I actually think you'll have a chance to make up for any lost sales, when those damaged-goods propaganda pieces that most parents would cringe at giving their kids, are urgently replaced with real textbooks again.

Please stand up to these folks!

Our children are counting on you.

The Other Bob Kerns Can't Save You

BGuzzardi at The Conservative Reform Network blog complains that Representative Allyson Schwartz is to the left of Obama and is proud of her role in creating "Obamacare", calls her various names, and gives no specifics. They argue that she's too far to the left for her district.

But it goes on to call for disseminating her voting record, and features a prominent (though ill-formatted) link to her 2010 earmark requests to the Appropriations committee. Specifically, the call on "the other Bob Kerns" (GOP Chair for Montgomery County, PA) to send her record to everybody they can think of.

I don't know if she's too far to the left for her district -- they did elect her, after all. The best answer to that would be to fairly and accurately make her record known, preferably with primary sources, and let the voters decide that issue.

I'm all in favor of that -- as a general rule, not just in this specific case. The problem is, here it's a knee-jerk response, responding to the "left", using maximally divisive language. That might get you warm feelings from your equally-outraged friends -- but that's no way to get any change. 

So I thought I'd challenge them, and see if they'd consider actually taking up the core fiscal issue rather than pursue the left/right thing. Because if the GOP-controlled Congress taught us anything, it's that the left has no monopoly on spending our money in inappropriate ways.

Appealing to my partisan counterpart won't fix the problem. From where I stand, he's part OF the problem. I say this, without a clue as to whether I'd agree or disagree with him on any issue. I say it because, despite having followed him for some time, I still don't KNOW how he stands -- except that he stands for party discipline over any HINT of cooperation with "the other side".

So he's part of the problem.

So this is is my response. At the time of writing this note, my comment awaits moderation. I don't know if it will appear there or not, but this is my challenge to conservatives everywhere:

No, I’m not the above-mentioned Bob Kerns — though the appearance of “my” name brought me to this page.

I’m not a big fan of my namesake’s brand of partisan politics. Nor am do I approve of your brand of rhetoric filled with spite and derisive labels, rather than actually contributing meaningful analysis to the discussion.

But nonetheless, I agree with you on one very key point. Namely, that an informed electorate is essential to our democracy.

I think you’re confusing left and right with up and down. Left and right is just a distraction the politicians use to keep you from noticing how they’re spending your money and controlling your lives. The so-called “right” politicians do it AT LEAST as much as the so-called “left” ones.

Here’s what I suggest: Go through her list of 2010 earmarks. For each one, ask yourself: “Is there a solid reason for this to be FEDERALLY funded?” Research to lower repair costs on fighter jets doesn’t look like it would work too well as a local initiative. Funding local conversion to electronic healthcare records? Bzzzt!

Do this for ALL politicians, regardless of party. At the state level, look for similar grabs from local governments. Out here in CA, our local school districts are in thrall to Sacramento, and suffer financial chaos as a result.

Don’t worry about left-and-right. Look to see if they’re buying local votes with federal dollars. Look to see if they’re rewarding companies and other interests in exchange for campaign dollars.

THIS is what will get our democracy back. Holding politicians accountable for the money, for the growth of federal programs, and for the “favors” they do. If you want to change Washington, change the political economy.

Don’t be distracted by left-right. The left working WITH the right can make a difference — but of course, that’s not what they want.

Put aside the divisive, angry-at-each-other language, and focus on the core issue. Be a real conservative, not a fire-breathing dragon. Embrace the calm voice of reason, rather than outrage. But put it front and center, and give it a microphone!

(And sometime, go read George Washington’s farewell address, especially his warnings about political parties).

Commentary on Economist: More nonsense about Europe and America

I just posted these comments to the Economist article: More nonsense about Europe and America

While I generally like the Economist for the different view it has on the world and the US, it is often long on opinion and short on analysis.

And I think it reflects the same media obsession with political theatrics, and failures to observe the substance or lack thereof, that I think helps drive American politics to the brink.

Sure, there are plenty of grounds on which to criticize Obama. But there are few grounds to critcize him that don't boomerang, because the failures that brought us here have been massive, and bipartisian, despite the acromony of the past two decades.

---

I'll leave aside your non-sequitor remarks about the church shooting. The image must be stuck in your mind, and had to come out somewhere, even if it did result in a journalistic lapse.

But I'm afraid that in making your (valid) point about the American Right's drumbeat of code words around "soclialism" and "Europeanism", you've engaged your own share of speaking in code. It's not Bill Clinton's associates, but his policies that make the comparison work. It's not what countries Obama mentions in his book, but his diplomatic actions as President, that make him so different than Bush II (and more like Bush I, as another commenter has pointed out).

Frankly, I don't know what the right is hollering about. It's hard to point to anything about Obama (other than being black) that is all that much different. Spending too much money? Reminds me of his predecessor, and Congress -- both parties. Foreign policy? He's not Bush II, but other than that demonstrable disaster, not that different than other recent Republicans.

I think the American Right is trying hard to distract us. And I think it's largely to distract us from failings that occurred on their watch. Although they had plenty of help in creating the current problems from the Democrats, they feel they "own" the territory of fiscal responsibility, small government, and foreign policy, so the failures sting so much more, and trigger attack as a defensive reaction.

It would be SO much more helpful, if instead, they'd focus on the issues. Work to restore Glass-Steigel. Sound the caution around bailing out failing companies contractually locked into massive management bonuses to be paid with taxpayer dollars. Warn of the bills to come due from the bailouts on borrowed money today. Of the credit crunch from excess government borrowing.

We desperately need our conservatives back, now, more than ever. But alas, they've been hijacked by a radical coterie of religious rightists, ideologues, talk show hosts, bloggers, and politicians willing to sell their soul and independence for their help in getting elected.

But most of all, it would help if the media would pay less attention to their howling, and more attention to the issues and the Right's neglect of the very foundation matters they profess to stand for. If they could get into print or on the tube by talking about realistic alternatives and sober forecasts, rather than dramatics -- we just might see a few more positive outcomes and a brighter future.

Pink Slip Day: Time for a New Kind of Taxpayer Revolt

Today, up and down the length of California, something shameful is happening. Dedicated teachers are being told there won't be jobs for them in the fall -- not because they are not needed. Experienced teachers clearly are desparately needed -- and in a few years, we'll have to hire new, inexperienced teachers to replace them.

Teachers, and other staff who support them and our students, are being laid off -- not because of the economy. No, not because of the economy. In fact, while it's worse this year, it happens every year here.

They are being laid off because our school funding is controlled primarily by the state. And not only can't the state run its own finances on a year-to-year basis, it even takes back money already promissed and commited and in many cases spent.

On Wednesday, I attended a budget session of our local school board. What struck me, more than anything, was the stark contrast with how the school runs its finances, compared to how the state does.

Even in this time of crisis, the school retains significant reserves. It is fighting to maintain those reserves, in anticipation of even rougher times ahead.

What does the reserve look like at the state level? Where we use bonds to bridge over shortfalls, where we borrow from voter-dedicated funds, and where we take money promissed for education with empty promisses to pay it back "someday"? Hah!

I don't think our local school has nearly enough reserves, given how much impact the fiscal incompetence at the state level has on their budget.

In response to questions from the audience -- yes, the board will look at going to the voters for an additional parcel tax -- the only option available on the revenue side, other than grants (which may save the arts, BTW). This difficult decision (in this time) would make it possible, if the voters approve, to both further build reserves against future disruption, and to resume needed expansion projects to accomodate the growth in student population. (Remember: there are cost savings to be had in building in a down economy!)

How did we get into this mess? It's a long story, but it begins with property taxes, which were out of whack and posing an increasing burden on many homeowners, because there was really no restraint on how much money a community and the state could raise and spend. A real, legitimate problem. Along came a man with a vision. Howard Jarvis. He proposed trying to solve the spending problem with a cap on the property taxes. Proposition 13 was the result.

And our schools were the victims. Proposition 13 has proven, dramatically, that simply trying to curb government by restricting taxation has horrendous unintended side-effects.  Yet even today, as we lay off teachers, I heard on the radio an ad for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Foundation, touting how wonderful Proposition 13 is, and how we have to have more of the same.

Shameless.

Oh, something needed to be done then, yes. And now, too. But not that.

We need to run the state more like a local school board.  With real constraints, a real mission that has to be fufilled, transparency, and a process that exposes every line item to intense scrutiny -- and every mission is judged by how well it is served.

I'll come back to this theme. But let me say that the Republicans with their no taxes pledge are just as much at fault for this mess as the Democrats who continued to spend on Polyannaish assumptions, without reserves. We need to turn this process inside-out, and drive it from one central question: What is the mission of our government? Whether you think government should be a safetynet, or should just handle roads and schools -- wherever that debate ends up, it needs to feed into a sane, stable budget process, with cost controls, auditing of results, reserves to cover the uncertainties, and the ability to cut programs individually, whether because they aren't producing the desired result, or because they have become a luxury in tight times.

We, the taxpayers, need to demand -- NO MORE BUDGET SPECTACLES!

You may say: "The state is too big to run like a school board". And you have a point. So why has it taken over the school board's job?

Let's return more financial control to the local school boards, and remove school spending from the Legislature's job description.  They've done a bad job of it -- maybe the problem is that they're overloaded.

Of course, there's a whole other debate about how schools should be funded, with many issues and many options. But I think this one -- of the state setting amounts and formulas and manipulating them to fix its own budget woes -- is not viable.

It has reached a point where third graders, of their own iniative -- are talking about trying to do something about it. My own daughter and her friends, are trying to organize a bake sale to raise money for the school, because they see the problem, and because they have the initiative and will to do something about it.

I'm very proud.

It's time we, the voters, the taxpayers, the parents, and yes, the students, stood up and said "No more!"

No, to divisive politics.

No, to one-sided "solutions"

No, to short-sighted fiscal policies

No, to borrowing from our future to cover our present, while defaulting on our debts to the past.

And I hope we can generate a plan -- a responsible plan -- one that even our friends who have joined the "no new taxes pledge" camp, can get behind, and work together on.

Because we've seen how well their current strategy has worked.

We need a new politics -- one where levels of spending and levels of taxation are addressed in a balanced way (that is, spending < taxation), one where, legislators are held directly, individually accountable for each bit of spending they propose, or they approve, and the tax burden that results, as well as the needs left unfilled.

We don't need a system divided into two camps, each driven to more and more radical positions.

Diebold vs the Voters

Wired reports Diebold Voting System Has 'Delete' Button for Erasing Audit Logs

I don't get it. How can Diebold be consistently so lax? This is not rocket science -- but if they'd treat it as seriously as manned rockets, medical devices or even banking records, we would not be having these problems. Or if we did, we would actually be having followup.

These folks simply are not serious.

Unlike some people, I do beleive in electronic voting, conceptually. I believe the audit trail can be far superior with an electronic record. I believe with an electronic record, each voter should be able to audit their vote online, verifying it was counted. And it should be possible to verify that each counted vote corresponds to a registered voter, and that your vote is one of those registered voters.

The standard for electronic voting should be such that major alarm bells go off at the slightest discrepancy, with redundancy and backup at every stage. If a machine catches fire while you are casting your vote, you should be able to quickly determine whether your vote was tabulated -- and be able to recast if not.

In other words, we can and should expect superior reliability and accuracy over manual efforts, and we should be able to make fraud both virtually impossible, and highly detectable.

This doesn't even seem to be on our radar. We seem to look at the lowest bidder, generally Diebold, and a metric of meeting lax standards -- and then are extremely lax in validating against those standards.

Most importantly, we tolerate a degree of secrecy that I think is unacceptable in this role. If ever Open Source should be a requirement, this is where.

George Washington on Political Parties

I've been discussing politics with an old friend from MIT lately. He commented that partisanship is not evil.

I don't agree. And neither did George Washington.

I'd like to reintroduce you to George Washington's farewell address.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

The Spend-Our-Way-Out-Of-Trouble Plan

There's a lot to say about the  Spend-Our-Way-Out-Of-Trouble plan. That's not its official name, of course, but it should be.

I've written a fair bit about this in other contexts, that eventually I'll pull into this blog. But here's my thinking:

• The worst thing we could do is abruptly cut back on total Federal Spending with no plan. Fortunately, there's not much risk of this. But the states are already doing this, constrained by constitutional balanced-budget requirements. Government makes up almost 1/3 of our economy.
• The second worst thing we could do is to try to spend our way  out of trouble. A big part of our current trouble is lack of available credit, and guess who the biggest consumer of credit is? And we'll be leaving all that debt to our children.
• The third worst thing we can do is nothing. 

A recession is a good time to invest. There are available people, materials, plants -- all ready to be prepared for future good times.

All that's missing is capital.

Capital has fled. What we have to do is make Federal efforts that get the private sector capital to flow gain. That's partly confidence.

The US infrastructure has certain needs. We can invest in those -- schools, some roads. Signficantly, our electrical infrastructure needs to be reworked for a new energy economy not based on oil. Investment activities are things which not only produce jobs now, but produce savings or income later that can pay for themselves for our children, AND help with the other debt.

The other thing that is good to do in a recession, is to tighten your belt. That means, review your expenditures, and trim or redirect ones that aren't productive or priorities.

Federal spending in all major categories, including discretionary spending, is increasing. (But non-discretionary spending is increasing faster, mostly defense, Social Security & Healthcare). During the same interval, our overall US rate of productivity has improved substantially. Yet we don't see the same degree of productivity gains in the Federal sector. Any initiatives here can help free resources for more stimulating investment.

That's only a piece of the puzzle, however. Without cuts in real defense spending, and without tackling the health care costs, we have no choice but to borrow. Or, to turn it around -- since we can't afford to borrow more than the insane amont we've already borrowed -- we have to look at triming defense spending and health care.

Since we don't want to go without defense or health care, we have to make it a priority to make them more efficient. Both sectors suffer from an open loop -- people will pay any amount to be secure and healthy.

But remember, defense spending is the biggest target -- it's seen far more recent growth than any other category. If you are wondering why Medicare ends up tight and you can't get certain things you need -- we spent it in Iraq. That's the reality. Or a big piece of it. We also wasted it in administration costs, we bailed out an inefficient and crumbling auto industry, we bailed out a collapsing banking system destroyed by greed.

We did these things -- and now we have to get real smart about where we go from here, because we can't afford to keep operating this way. We simply don't have the money to spend our way out of trouble.

We need to invest our way out -- and we're seriously constrained in doing that by borrowing, because we've already gone to that well far too often in recent years.

We need to be guided by a few principles:

• ROI. No new spending without a clearly visible return on investment -- infrastructure that will benefit our children and avoid future costs, or investments that will result in future income (e.g. loans, limited capital investments in public-private partnerships. I'm not a fan of government ownership -- but I'm less of a fan of giving tax dollars away with no return). 
• Leverage -- Dollars we invest should be overmatched by private dollars invested. 
• Pay-as-you-go. Sorry, this means no broad tax cuts. If tax cuts provide leverage and ROI, perhaps, but just diffuse "stimulate the economy" doesn't cut it -- it just adds to the downstream problem. Our tax income is about to take a big hit anyway with unemployment and reduced corporate income. If we had maintined a balanced budget over the past 8 years, things would be different -- but we already used that bullet, and it didn't work. 

Sources:

• Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Commerce Dept.
• Federal Spending, 2001 through 2008, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Cost Estimate, HR 1 (Senate), Congressional Budget Office 
• Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke, Federal Reserve Board 

[Edit: Added "by borrowing" for clarity] 
[Edit: Some of this is an outgrowth of a disuscussion thread, Cars aren't selling, SegwayChat.com]