Socialism and the Administrative State ... Education and Individual Choice ... The Case for Vouchers

Our system of education is clearly at odds with individual choice and parental control. It's being run by the Administrative State and is a form of socialism, pure and simple.


In fact, K-12 public education is very much government controlled and operated in accordance with the wishes and mandates of the insiders, aka administrators and teachers, and for the benefit of those same administrators and teachers, and not aligned with the choices of We the People.


Admittedly, that's a harsh assessment of the current situation, but it's backed up by a recent survey of school officials and the public they are hired to serve.


We the People need to start acting like it's our country in lots of ways, and education is a great place to begin. It's our country and our kids' futures that are at stake, and nothing is more important than that.


Teachers vs. the Public is subtitled 'Educators don't agree with the average American on how to run schools.' The book excerpt cites some clear headed facts about the varying views of educators, citizens and who's in charge.


And guess what? It's not we commoners, aka We the People, who are in charge:


"From "Teachers Versus the Public: What Americans Think About Schools and How to Fix Them" (Brookings), a new book by Paul E. Peterson, Michael Henderson and Martin R. West:

Teachers and the public disagree over other teacher employment policies. . . . Seventy-six percent of the public think that teachers should demonstrate success in raising student achievement before receiving tenure but only 29 percent of teachers share that view. The total elimination of tenure is supported by 72 percent of the public but by only 35 percent of teachers. Teachers are also more skeptical than the public of allowing principals to hire uncertified applicants and more likely to see teacher unions as having a positive effect on local schools. Indeed, on each of these teacher policy issues, a majority of teachers oppose the position taken by a majority of the public.

When it comes to setting the terms for teacher employment, public policy today is more consistent with teacher opinion than with that of the public as a whole. While merit pay plans were enacted during [Michelle] Rhee's tenure in Washington, D.C., and have been introduced in other locales, only a few districts around the country have significantly modified traditional practices, which compensate teachers according to experience and credentials without regard to performance. Only a few districts have eased the process by which teachers can be dismissed if they are shown to be ineffective, and traditional teacher certification policies remain largely intact in most states, though in some states teachers can begin teaching before obtaining certification. On these issues, policy seems more responsive to those inside the iron [education] triangle than to the public at large."

Summing Up

Vouchers are the answer.

They would demonstrate to the "powers that be" where the power really lies.

Vouchers would change a top down bureaucratic government driven system to a market based system where the customer is in control.

In turn, our system of education would improve immediately, and our costs would decrease dramatically as well.

Most importantly, our kids would be well served, and our nation would emerge stronger.

The status quo is a powerful force for keeping things as they are, but it's a force worth fighting and beating.

We the People can win, but first we much take up the fight.

That's my take and that's the true American way -- individuals being free to choose and a system of self government designed to do just that.

Thanks. Bob.

Student Loans, Open Enrollment and a Lesson in Government Incentives and Expensive Unintended Consequences

Many taxpayer supported colleges practice open enrollment. That simply means anybody can enroll regardless of ability to do the work academically. In fact, not-for-credit remedial classes are numerous and heavily attended by newly enrolled 'students.'


The result is more butts in the seats and more money for the colleges and their administrators, of course. {NOTE: We won't comment on what that says about the K-12 outcomes herein, but that's another story for another time.}


But there's more to the story than more money for the colleges. There are the accompanying higher tuition charges by the colleges and the higher taxes paid by the taxpayers.


And all this "free and easy" stuff is being done for what often amounts to not much of an outcome academically. But there's more that's wrong going on here --- much more.


There are the "freely and universally available" financial implications of this "open" enrollment policy to consider as well. That's because anyone can "qualify" for a government granted/backed loan, which in turn puts more butts in the college seats (at least temporarily), which in turn provides more funds for colleges and their administrators. There's only one problem -- the loan comes due down the road and somebody has to pay --- enter the student, perhaps the family and certainly the taxpayers.


No, it's not the government and not the college or its staff that's on the hook. It's the borrowing student (and perhaps family members) and the taxpayers.


So students, beware (taxpayers too). Government is out to help you borrow money for an education that you may or may not receive, and that's the problem. It's yet one more example of the "We're from the government and we're here to help" growing way of American life. Now the colleges are in on the scam too.


Most of us remember clearly when ObamaCare became the law of the land a few years ago.


However, too few of us recall another historic piece of legislation that same year --- the government took over student loans in its ongoing quest to save the taxpayers money. But as usual, it hasn't worked out that way. Not even close, as a matter of fact.


Defining Delinquency Down is subtitled 'Government programs to reduce defaults are encouraging more debt' and has this to say about our government in action and its effect on our college students:


"ObamaCare may get most of the press, but don't forget the growing mess that is the Obama Administration's student-loan program. . . .

A new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York finds that as of the fourth quarter of 2012 only about 40% of student borrowers were paying down their loans. About 17% were delinquent, defined as 90 days past their due payment. Hard to believe, but this "measured delinquency rate" is higher than any other consumer debt product, even credit-card debt.

Yet it is only half of the "effective" delinquency rate. A whopping 14% of borrowers who were not officially delinquent had the same balance as the previous quarter and 30% saw their balances increase.

That's because borrowers who can't afford to pay down their loans can ask the government for a deferment or forbearance, which freezes their payments while interest continues to accrue. During a deferment, Uncle Sam pays the interest on subsidized loans. To qualify for either option, borrowers merely need to claim an economic hardship or return to school. Borrowers can postpone payments indefinitely by enrolling in college half-time—during which time they can take out even more loans. Borrowers can use the loans to pay for incidental living expenses.

Heavily indebted borrowers can also enroll in an income-based repayment plan, which caps monthly payments at 10% of their discretionary income—about $150 per month for someone earning $30,000 annually. The government then forgives the entire outstanding loan after 10 years of making these minimum payments while working for a nonprofit or the government. You have to wait 20 years if you work in the profit-making economy.

But as the New York Fed report notes, borrowers who participate in income-based repayment plans may "make only small payments, which are often insufficient to cover the accumulated interest." Thus their loan balances grow.

Student loan debt nearly tripled to $966 billion in 2012 from $364 billion in 2004, but not merely because more students are going to school and taking out bigger loans. The Fed report's major finding is that government programs intended to prevent defaults are actually causing many borrowers to rack up more debt. Yet these borrowers aren't included in the government's official default or delinquency rates.

This reduces the political pressure to rein in government student lending, even though on present trend taxpayers will have to absorb tens of billions in default losses. As with ObamaCare, Mr. Obama passes out the loan benefits to young voters now, but everyone pays the price later."

Summing Up

Student loan debts accumulate, as does interest on those loans.

And if the borrower goes to work for the government or a nonprofit agency, the loan is forgiven in half the time as it would be if the borrower went to work in the private sector.

Yes, you read that right. Government discourages students from working in the private sector, and that's the productive segment of society on which the government and many nonprofit entities depend on taxpayers to fund their payrolls, and activities.


Like student loans and colleges, for example.

It's crazy but it's also true.

In the end, the open enrolled, heavily borrowing and resulting 'uneducated' students probably won't be able to get good jobs anyway, so the bill just gets sent to the taxpayers.

Politics sucks.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

Today's Question for Individual Long Term Savers and Investors ... Continue to Invest in Stocks or Sell Now and Go Away Temporarily ? ... The Answer is Easy

What's an individual to do with his savings now that the stock market has rebounded to new highs? Is it time to take some money off the table? Or stay the course?


Well, everything is relative when it comes to investing for the long haul, as is also the case with almost everything else in life. And individuals will be hearing the old 'sell in May and go away' advice from lots of peers and stock brokers as summer nears.


But I do know this about investing for the long haul. It's not enough to be right when deciding that it's time to sell. Later we also have to be right about the timing on when it's time to buy again. A two'fer is tough for even the best professionals, and a feat not often tried successfully by either pros or amateurs. So my method is to stay invested for the long haul and let the general upward direction of the market take care of things for me.


In fact, even for the worry warts among us, and despite all the unsettling domestic political and international issues (especially those concerning Russia), the stock market isn't overvalued today.  Our U.S. and global economies are improving, albeit slowly, and while no guarantee, this factor alone makes it likely that the market still has a considerable ways to climb before running into potentially serious headwinds down the road.


Investors double down on dumb idea is subtitled 'Why seeking too much safety will be worse than being too aggressive' tells the story well:


"Average investors are known for having a few classic bad habits.


Right now, however, they may be avoiding one of their bad traits by actually doing something worse. The question is whether the move is pushing investors out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire.                                        


To find out, consider research released this week by Bankrate.com showing that nearly three-quarters of Americans say they’re not “more inclined to invest in the stock market right now,” despite the over-sized returns the market delivered last year — and has produced since 2009 — and the under-sized rates they can get on cash and fixed-income investments.


Those numbers held across all ages and income groups, and mirror results from surveys done in 2012 and 2013, when 76% of Americans said they were not inclined to increase their stock market exposure. . . .


It’s why studies show that investors routinely get the worst out of their mutual funds, rather than the best; they only make purchases after big run-ups and then they sell when they are disappointed as the market runs through cycles and performance evens out.                                        


The problem is that by staying out of the market at a point when rates are so low and the Federal Reserve is practically daring you to invest, those same people already have missed out on several great years.                                         


Maybe they locked in the losses suffered during the financial meltdown of 2008, or maybe they simply have stayed put with their asset allocations — in which case not being inclined to invest more in stocks does not suggest they are out of the market — but either way they have missed out on a huge opportunity. . . .                                        


The real problem here is that investors are simply exchanging one risk for another, but they think they are being safe in the process.


While the money kept on the sidelines does not face principal risk — the chance they will lose money during a market decline — it runs headlong into purchasing-power risk (the potential for their holdings to be unable to keep pace with inflation) and longevity risk, where current returns are insufficient to make their money last a lifetime. . . .


Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors, has . . . noted that during the market’s six percent pullback in January — as well as a more recent quick decline of four percent -- “Our clients didn’t buy, they didn’t sell, they sat on their hands and didn’t do anything.”                                                


It would be easy to pass that off as a buy-and-hold, set-it-and-forget-it philosophy, but that’s not what Wren sees as happening.                                        


“Many investors think back not just to the financial calamity that happened in 2008 but also to the tech bubble that burst in 2000…so 14 years of memories of two times portfolios being down at least on paper over 50% have scared a lot of people,” he said. “The baby boom generation is worried about outliving their money but they are sitting on too much cash, and the younger generation…they’re not invested in the stock market I think as much as the baby boom generation was.”


Investors who are sitting on the sidelines because they believe the market is overdue for a downturn or another calamity will someday be right again. It could be soon, the problem might be more than a “correction,” and they don’t want to feel like they are getting burned.


But if you don’t see trouble as being imminent — meaning that an implosion is imminent for reasons that have you scared right now — you can spend a lot of quality investment time in the wrong investments waiting to avoid the next downturn.


Avoiding pain simply because downturns scare you — and with the market at all-time highs, you can make a case that all downturns are “temporary” — too often turns into missing out on the long-term trend. It is, proverbially speaking, jumping out of the frying pan without recognizing that the burn suffered from missing out could be far worse; for too many sideline sitters, the results of seeking too much safety will be worse than the pain they would have suffered by being too aggressive.


“Five percent CD yields are not coming back any time soon,” said Wren."


Summing Up


Interest rates are low.


Inflation is low.


Economic growth is slow.


But the economy is getting better, albeit slowly.


The general direction of stocks is up. That's always the case.


In the short term, anything can happen, of course.


But long term savers and investors need to get in, stay in, invest more and keep the faith in the future of our great country. It's never been a bad bet over the long haul, and it's not one now.


That's my take.


Thanks. Bob.

Race Relations, Guns, Government and We the People ... Rodney King's Question Still Rings True ... "Why Can't We All Just Get Along"?

There has been a great deal of troubling news lately concerning American race relations. In that regard, some really despicable things have been said and done.


From the rancher in Nevada to the NBA owner in Los Angeles to the inner city Chicago shootings, it certainly hasn't been pleasant viewing, reading and listening.


So what can be said and done by us mere mortals who just want to get along and not judge or be judged by the color of our skin? In other words, what can those of us do who still ask the same question that Rodney King of Los Angeles asked us to answer more than two decades ago, "Why can't we all just get along?"


For that answer let's take a look at what two 'regular' people did recently, each on their own and each in a color blind manner. It's a lesson which speaks to all of us.


A Beating in Detroit is about two 'ordinary' people, one white male and one black female. In my opinion they are true American heroes:


"AS Detroit burned to the ground on a hot summer night in July 1967, my grandparents stood on their front lawn listening to the sounds of our civic suicide.

“Pa,” my grandmother is said to have said. “We’ve got to get out of this neighborhood.”

To which my grandfather replied, “How many of them can there be?”

Grandpa was talking about black people, of course.

Grandpa wasn’t black. Not anymore. The census of 1920 may have listed him as a “mulatto” down in Louisiana, but he was light-skinned and when the family moved north to Detroit he was able to become “white” by the time the 1930 census rolled around.

I don’t judge him. Life and race and class in America are complicated and murky things. But it is easier to be white. Grandpa knew that. We all know that if we’re being honest.

In any event, the next morning, my grandfather got a gun. A few years later they got out of town. Their home is for sale again. Asking price around $500.

I’ve been thinking about my grandfather and his gun these past few weeks, ever since a mob outside a gas station in Detroit beat up a man who had accidentally hit a child with his truck after the kid stepped into traffic, perhaps playing a game of chicken. When the driver stopped to come to the aid of the child, he was attacked.

After what happened, I suspect lots of people in Detroit are getting guns. And if they’re not getting guns, then for sure they’re not stopping for gas.

The motorist, Steve Utash, was white. The mob, witnesses say, was made up of a dozen black men. A crowd of onlookers gathered while the mob beat Mr. Utash within an inch of his life. He was saved by Deborah Hughes, a black woman and a retired nurse who carries a .38. After attending to the child, who was not critically injured, Ms. Hughes lay across the body of Mr. Utash and promised herself that she would put a bullet in the next person to strike him.

Four adult men were bound over for trial this week and charged with intent to murder. A teenager has also been charged with ethnic intimidation. Mr. Utash spent nine days in a coma, and is now conscious and recovering in the hospital.

Was the beating race-related? Probably. This is America, after all. This is Detroit. We have a history. The city has endured three major race riots. In my lifetime I remember two out-of-work white autoworkers in 1982 beating a Chinese-American man to death because they thought he was Japanese. In the early 1990s, white cops went to prison for beating a black motorist to death. Last year, a white man shot a black woman to death after her car broke down and she was wandering the neighborhood, presumably looking for help. Now this. So the circle spins on. Black mob. White fear. More guns.

Sadly, the talk after the attack on Mr. Utash wasn’t about a man who stopped to do the right thing. It wasn’t about Ms. Hughes, the gun-toting angel of mercy who saw no color except the red of his blood. It wasn’t about the use of justifiable force or the value of carrying a sidearm.

Instead white people asked: Where were the old-school civil rights advocates who usually spoke out against such beatings? Where was Reverend Al? Why did it take Jesse Jackson almost two weeks to say something? Not that any of them really wanted famous civil rights leaders coming to town and marching around. What they seemed to be demanding was an admission from black leaders that blacks harbor racial hatred, too.


But leaders nationally and in Detroit stayed curiously silent. A medical fund was established for Mr. Utash, but it took more than a week to convene a vigil for him as he lay in a coma. Until that vigil not even Mike Duggan — the first elected white mayor of Detroit in 40 years — made a public appearance about it. (Though he did put out a press release and a tweet.) Nor did any City Council person that I’m aware of. And nothing from President Obama. Rage and hopelessness are no excuses here. All Detroit, whether black or white, noticed the silence.

The fact is, it’s often hard to be white in America, too, especially in a struggling city like Detroit. Just ask the Utash family.

Three black men I spoke with at the gas station a few days after the beating acknowledged this two-way street. They called Mr. Utash an honorable man for stopping to help when too many people in this city don’t. They mocked the silence of civic leaders. They wanted to know why the mayor had not come to their neighborhood. They knew the score. They’re Americans. And they also know that we can’t expect those leaders to solve this riddle of ours called race.

If you’re looking for any hope in this story, go back to the corner of Morang and Balfour on the east side of the city of Detroit, where two very good people named Steve Utash and Deborah Hughes met one very bad day."

Summing Up

Perhaps Rodney King said it best after the vicious 1991 beating he received from Los Angeles police officers, "Why can't we all just get along?"

Well, for that to happen, we'll need more good people like Steve Utash and Deborah Hughes.

We need to recognize that government won't solve these problems for us for one very simple reason --- they can't. It's up to us. Each of us and all of us.

We also need to resolve once again to become a color blind society based only on things like freedom, individual choice, hard work, personal responsibility and merit.

And we must resolve to come to the aid of our fellow American citizens when they are in need, whatever their race and sex, just as Steve Utash and Deborah Hughes did just because it was the right thing to do.

Our self interested political leaders, aren't now, never have been and never will act as the force for good that Steve and Utash and Deborah Hughes did in Detroit, without fanfare.

They did what they did because it was simply the right thing to do, and that's what makes America the greatest place on earth and in the history of the world.

But we still have lots of work to do to realize our potential, both as individuals and as a community of equals.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

Faith in Government? ... Illinois Teaches a Valuable Lesson

Who should we trust to take care of us and make things better for all of our fellow citizens? ---- ourselves and each other or our government officials, both elected and appointed? We the unwashed masses representing the commoners or the chosen elites who purport to be all knowing and always claim to be acting in our best interests?


My vote is for self-reliance and voluntary assistance, other than in the areas of national security and necessary public services. By necessary public services I mean those where government can perform them better than a free market of consenting adults is capable of providing same for themselves. But only those.


And I also believe that we should live within our means and that incentives (including the amount of taxes levied) matter, both for us as individuals and as members of a broader community and society.


But those fundamental beliefs don't make me unaware or unwilling to help those in need. I'm all for that. Very much so.


Emerson's essay on Self-Reliance and the importance to each of us of being a non-conformist when making individual choices was written more than 150 years ago. It still rings true to me today.


In Illinois, Tax Increases Become an Article of Faith is subtitled 'Praise the Lord and pass the new progressive tax that will finance public pensions.' It's worth reading if only for its entertainment value:


"In Illinois—a state plagued by epic budget woes, a pension crisis, byzantine taxes and the nation's second-highest unemployment rate—politics is rarely associated with godliness. Four of the past seven governors, most recently Rod Blagojevich, have been sent to prison. Locals will tell you that corruption is practically a sport. But on April 8 more than 500 Illinoisans showed that they, at least, were keeping the faith.

Donning orange T-shirts reading "Faith in Action," a coalition of religious groups flooded the state capitol in Springfield, singing hymns, shouting "Hallelujah," and praying for higher taxes on the rich. Their goal: replacing the state's long-standing flat income tax with a new, progressive "Fair Tax."

"The gospel tells us that 'For everyone to whom much is given, much will be required,' " Rev. Jason Coulter, a Chicago pastor and board member of the Community Renewal Society (which organized Faith in Action) told me. "I'm called by my faith tradition to speak truth to power when I see injustice being done. And a flat tax is an injustice."

                

"This is a moral imperative," said Rev. C.J. Hawking, executive director of Arise Chicago, a workers' rights group. "There are over 400 passages in the Bible that talk about God's special concern for the poor. Our current tax system, which favors the wealthy, is so off kilter, so skewed, and so contrary to the vision God has set before us."

More than 250 religious leaders have signed a public statement demanding a progressive tax. . . .

For those who hold their faith and their preferred tax policy in different spheres, this image—along with its subtext of class warfare—is a bit jarring. "The Bible tells us to care for the poor. It doesn't say a thing about marginal tax rates," Jonathan Greenberg, an ordained rabbi and the director of external relations at the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market think tank, told me. . . .

Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, noted that "some faith communities are being propelled into this debate to provide moral cover in order to raise more revenue for state programs. The thing is, we've seen this movie before. We're in a state where fiscal responsibility has not been paramount." Mr. Gilligan asked: "Where is this additional money going to go? How can we be sure it will go to help the poor and vulnerable?"

The argument that the Fair Tax will help the poor is, at best, murky. Illinois's last income-tax hike, in 2011, was touted as a temporary fix to raise $31 billion for the state's astronomical debts and struggling schools. In reality, the bulk of the money—$25 billion—went to state-employee pension coffers and interest payments. The state budget is still $3 billion in the hole. Not coincidentally, high-profile members of public-employee unions like the Illinois SEIU are actively engaged—some as "faith leaders"—in the fight for a progressive tax.

"These are people who put their faith in government to do what communities and churches should be doing," Mr. Greenberg said. "There's just this strange faith in government in general—which, as the corrupt and incompetent government in Illinois clearly demonstrates, is a seriously flawed faith." Brian Burch, the president of Catholic Vote, an Illinois advocacy group, put it another way: "They're substituting the state for God."

When asked whether additional tax revenue would really be used to help the poor, supporters like Rev. Hawking and Rev. Coulter tend to change the subject. When asked whether a progressive tax might backfire by driving wealth and jobs out of Illinois, both doubted anyone would leave. Besides, Rev. Hawking told me, "minimum wage earners," not the wealthy, "are the real job creators." The numbers, which show Illinois ranking second in the nation in outbound moves and losing more than $30 billion in adjusted gross income between 1992 and 2010, suggest otherwise.

One thing is clear: Christian, Jewish and Islamic scriptures all call on us to help the poor. Less clear is whether that vital help should be increasingly outsourced to rambling behemoths like the Illinois state government."

Summing Up

Here's my take.

What happened to the idea of the separation of church and state?

And since money is fungible, why would anybody believe that tax dollars raised by self-interested politicians would be used to do "God's work?"

Thanks. Bob.

Keystone XL Pipeline Indecision ----- It's Politics as Usual ----- And That's a Bad Thing for We the People

The Keystone XL Pipeline Timeline is worth contemplating:

Demonstrators lie down along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House during a protest against the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, in March.

The regulatory review process for the Keystone XL pipeline has numerous twists and turns dating back to 2008. Here is a look:

Sept. 19, 2008


TransCanada files its first application to the State Department for a cross-border permit.

Oct. 15, 2010


Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the administration was “inclined” to approve the pipeline, comments which galvanized environmentalists to protest the project.

Aug. 26, 2011


The State Department releases its first final environmental review of the project, concluding that it wouldn’t add significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. 

Nov. 10, 2011

Citing environmental concerns over the pipeline’s route in Nebraska, President Barack Obama says a final decision on the pipeline won’t come until after the 2012 presidential election because a new route must be selected.

Dec. 23, 2011


Mr. Obama signs into law legislation that requires he make a decision on the pipeline within 60 days.

Jan. 18, 2012


Mr. Obama formally rejects TransCanada’s permit, blames congressional Republicans for forcing his hand and signals that the company should apply for another permit.

May 4, 2012


TransCanada re-applies for the State Department permit, restarting the regulatory review process for a second time.

June 25, 2013

Drawing a new line in the sand, Mr. Obama says he will only approve the pipeline if it doesn’t “significantly exacerbate” climate change.

Jan. 31, 2014


The State Department releases its final environmental impact statement, finding—as the previous one did—that the pipeline would not significantly exacerbate climate change.

Feb. 19, 2014


A district court judge in Nebraska declares the law that allowed for the pipeline’s route through the state unconstitutional. It’s now awaiting review at the Nebraska Supreme Court.

April 18, 2014


The State Department announces it is indefinitely extending the inter-agency review of the pipeline, citing ongoing litigation over a Nebraska law that allowed the pipeline’s route through the state.


Summing Up


Politics sucks.


And because we choose our elected officials, in the end We the People get the various government results that we deserve.


I guess we don't deserve much from our government officials at the various national, state and local levels.


Because we sure don't get much --- good results, strong leadership and effective representation, that is.


Thanks. Bob.

Keystone Pipeline Indecision and the President's Six Year Long Political "Punt" ... Private Sector Union Leader Tells It Like It Is

We need more jobs.


We need more high paying jobs.


We need more jobs in the private sector and fewer in the public sector.


We also need to pursue energy independence.


And national security.


We need to show Russia that their energy based bullying won't work to let them run the world.


We need greater economic growth, more income and taxes from that growth, and to accept the reality that a fossil fuel based energy policy has to be front and center for decades to come.


And we need to start telling the truth about why politics sucks. All of us.


Now a Democratic union leader and former Obama enthusiast has come forward to do just that --- speak the truth.


So let's hear what he has to say in Keystone Uncensored, which is appropriately subtitled "A labor leader calls the Administration 'gutless,' 'dirty' and more:"


"Republicans are denouncing President Obama's latest delay on the Keystone XL pipeline, six long years after it was proposed. But for cold political fury they have nothing on Terry O'Sullivan, who runs the Laborers' International Union that represents a half-million construction workers.

"This is once again politics at its worst," Mr. O'Sullivan said in a public statement that deserves to be quoted at length. "In another gutless move, the Administration is delaying a finding on whether the pipeline is in the national interest based on months-old litigation in Nebraska regarding a state level challenge to a state process—and which has nothing to with the national interest. They waited until Good Friday, believing no one would be paying attention. The only surprise is they didn't wait to do it in the dark of night.

Terry O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers' International Union of North America.            

"It's not the oil that's dirty, it's the politics. Once again, the Administration is making a political calculation instead of doing what is right for the country. This certainly is no example of profiles in courage. It's clear the Administration needs to grow a set of antlers, or perhaps take a lesson from Popeye and eat some spinach.

"This is another low blow to the working men and women of our country for whom the Keystone XL Pipeline is a lifeline to good jobs and energy security."

The pipeline is expected to create some 2,000 new jobs from construction and thousands more related to the project. Many of those jobs would go to Mr. O'Sullivan's union members, who do not live on San Francisco's Pacific Heights like billionaire donor Tom Steyer who opposes Keystone.

Mr. O'Sullivan may feel especially bitter because he and the Laborers twice endorsed Mr. Obama for President, calling him a leader "who will fight to create jobs." But he shouldn't be surprised now given that Mr. Obama was doing the Keystone delay and dodge routine throughout 2012. Union leaders whose members work in the private economy, not the government, should know by now that if they want Keystone approved they will need a Republican Senate."

Summing Up

Mr. O'Sullivan speaks the unvarnished truth.

Politics sucks.

And the games President Obama plays are dangerous to We the People --- all of us --- and our American economic well being and national security.


The rest of the world's too.

And since our private sector based fellow citizen and union leader has spoken so clearly and eloquently about the Keystone situation, that's all I have to say about that.

Thanks. Bob.

Education ... Learning the Basics in a "Blended" Manner ... It's All So Simple ... Learning to Do Old Things in New Ways

Learning is the forerunner of knowledge, which in turn enables us to make a living and hopefully attain a measure of personal financial security and eventually perhaps even some wisdom along life's path.


Learning can be fun as well as time consuming, and the more productively we use our time while learning, the more knowledge we gain. It's that simple.


In my view, the absolute key to progress and productivity and achieving a fun and even higher standard of living is in large part a result of learning to do old things in new ways --- such as education.


So instead of clinging to the traditional and largely wasteful time consuming all-day, every day, butts in the seat approach, why not adopt a new way of learning and teaching --- the blended method enabled by technology today?


Of course, the status quo defenders will oppose this. Meanwhile, our too costly system of education gets worse with each passing day.


And there we have the age old conflict which arises whenever we try to adopt a new and improved way in place of clinging to the old. It's clinging to the devil we know versus accepting the fear that comes with trying the unknown.


The status quo bureaucracy and political powers that be are always aligned against We the People who wish only progress, productivity and better results for our families and society as a whole. In this case, that's a better education and more knowledge as a foundation for a life well lived.


Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in writing Founding Principles in the Digital Age, has this to say about achieving better results and greater productivity in education by the adoption of a blended methodology embracing technology:


"Something important happened in education last month. The College Board announced a new design for the SAT exam. And in doing so the organization made a commitment that every student who takes the new exam will read a passage from America's founding documents or the great global conversation they inspired. This news was eclipsed by another important announcement: The College Board and Khan Academy—a nonprofit digital education platform—will partner to provide "free, world-class test prep" for the new exam.

These changes may sound unrelated, but they represent a fascinating paradox in education today: What is old in education has never been more important, but it may take what is new in education to truly prepare students for success in college, career and civic life.

Teaching the Constitution and the nation's other foundational texts is as old as public education itself. America's public schools were founded on the idea that education is vital to the success of democracy. But these texts are demanding and complex. Understanding them takes hard work and concentration. The effort is invaluable, though, not least because it instills the discipline that will equip young people with the knowledge and the habits of mind necessary to become powerful actors in civic life.

                

                  

Millions of students taking the SAT will now encounter texts like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as the writings of individuals from James Madison to Martin Luther King Jr. But old test-prep methods like flashcards and rote memorization will not be sufficient. Students will need more sophisticated tools to help them understand the material and engage with it. Digital technology will be essential to achieving that goal.

For today's students, learning can happen anytime, anywhere. Digital resources are growing more intuitive, more personalized and more affordable. With real-time assessments, teachers can identify how each student learns, where improvement is needed, and which learning strategies work best. New technologies allow students to learn from materials tailored to their progress, tied to clear academic standards and accompanied by constant, actionable feedback.

Blended learning—combining digital tools with supervised instruction—incorporates the best of what teachers do with the support of instructional technologies that help strengthen the time that teachers spend with their students. This kind of blended learning is particularly effective for tackling difficult subject matter.

Progress has always been about a tension between the old and the new. The rapidly changing world has made the age-old skills of deep reading and command of historical documents more important than ever. And the very accelerant of these changes—technology—provides the opportunity to more effectively teach and learn those timeless disciplines."

Summing Up

Finding new and better ways to do old things always makes sense to me. And that's especially true for educating our young people to better compete in a more competitive world.

That said, however, the public school officials and teachers' unions won't like the common sense based blended learning idea put forth by Sandra Day O'Connor -- not one little bit.

But there's nothing new about that.

And here's something else that's not new. The school officials and union leadership have the undivided attention of the politicians --- unfortunately.

So don't hold your breath waiting for the blended learning approach to be adopted in your community any time soon.

And that's just another way in which politics sucks.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

Helping to Solve the Income Inequality in a Big Way

We hear about the greed of the fat cats and the income inequality issue all the time, especially in election years. This is an election year.


Of course, what isn't being discussed nearly enough by those seeking office and other so-called leaders are the effects of (1) insufficient education/knowledge, (2) globalization/competition, (3) demographics/aging, (4) indebtedness/government and private, and (5) technology/productivity.


While we'll skip the discussion of those five important topics herein, they are each and all real, impactful and vital factors which will continue to change the way we live and work. And perhaps our future American standard of living as well, depending on whether and how well we react to each of them.


The discussion issue du jour is single parent families and their "contribution" to income inequality. So let's face that issue in head-on fashion and look at what we may not know and what isn't being acknowledged as a primary contributing factor to income inequality by our pundits and political "leaders."


Ignoring an Inequality Culprit: Single-Parent Families is subtitled 'Intellectuals fretting about income inequality are oddly silent regarding the decline of the two-parent family' says this in part:


"Suppose a scientific conference on cancer prevention never addressed smoking, on the grounds that in a free society you can't change private behavior, and anyway, maybe the statistical relationships between smoking and cancer are really caused by some other third variable. Wouldn't some suspect that the scientists who raised these claims were driven by something—ideology, tobacco money—other than science?

Yet in the current discussions about increased inequality, few researchers, fewer reporters, and no one in the executive branch of government directly addresses what seems to be the strongest statistical correlate of inequality in the United States: the rise of single-parent families during the past half century.

The two-parent family has declined rapidly in recent decades. In 1960, more than 76% of African-Americans and nearly 97% of whites were born to married couples. Today the percentage is 30% for blacks and 70% for whites. The out-of-wedlock birthrate for Hispanics surpassed 50% in 2006. This trend, coupled with high divorce rates, means that roughly 25% of American children now live in single-parent homes, twice the percentage in Europe (12%). Roughly a third of American children live apart from their fathers.

Does it matter? Yes, it does. . . .

                

                  

In an essay for the Institute for Family Studies last December, called "Even for Rich Kids, Marriage Matters," University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox reported that children in high-income households who experienced family breakups don't fare as well emotionally, psychologically, educationally or, in the end, economically as their two-parent-family peers.

Abuse, behavioral problems and psychological issues of all kinds, such as developmental behavior problems or concentration issues, are less common for children of married couples than for cohabiting or single parents, according to a 2003 Centers for Disease Control study of children's health. The causal pathways are about as clear as those from smoking to cancer.

More than 20% of children in single-parent families live in poverty long-term, compared with 2% of those raised in two-parent families, according to education-policy analyst Mitch Pearlstein's 2011 book "From Family Collapse to America's Decline." The poverty rate would be 25% lower if today's family structure resembled that of 1970, according to the 2009 report "Creating an Opportunity Society" from Brookings Institution analysts Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill. A 2006 article in the journal Demography by Penn State sociologist Molly Martin estimates that 41% of the economic inequality created between 1976-2000 was the result of changed family structure. . . .

Why isn't this matter at the center of policy discussions? There are at least three reasons. First, much of politics is less about what you are for than who you are against . . . .

Second, family breakup has hit minority communities the hardest. So even bringing up the issue risks being charged with racism, a potential career-killer. . . . 

Finally, there is no quick fix. . . . The change must come from long-term societal transformation on this subject, led by political, educational and entertainment elites, similar to the decades-long movements against racism, sexism—and smoking.

But the first step is to acknowledge the problem."

Summing Up

The first step to problem solution is problem identification.

After identification comes discussion, study and consensus on how to solve the problem.

Then comes leadership and targeted efforts, often over a long period of time, which will rectify or at least minimize the problem.

If we're doing the wrong things, we're generally doing them poorly.

But if we aren't even ready and willing to recognize the problem, its solution won't appear.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

Political versus Free Market Reality ... Does President Obama Want the Consumer to Pay $6.90 for Hamburgers at McDonald's ... $14 for Foot-Long Sandwiches at Subway? ... If Not, What Does He Want? ... The Minimum Wage Proposal

There is a critical and distinct difference between cost plus pricing and price based costing --- the presence or absence of a pricing monopoly (government and bureaucratic control) compared to free market competition (customer choice and control).


Government, government contracts, college tuitions and pricing by hospitals are examples of heavily influenced government cost based pricing. In these monopolistic situations, the taxpayers underwrite the institutions getting away with the cost based pricing. Costs escalate and taxpayers pay -- and pay -- and pay -- and pay some more. But the values of what they pay for and receive don't improve. They frequently just get worse.


Unlike market based competitive price based costing, government and  government influenced provider productivity and the incentive to offer outstanding and competitive customer values aren't even part of the pricing equation. Sadly and unfortunately, that's generally the costly and monopolistic government controlling way of doing things.


On the other hand, private businesses have to compete in the competitive market. They only do so effectively by offering values which combine competitive prices with goods and services that offer competitive values compared to their market based competitors.


Wal-Mart and McDonald's are examples of low cost market based competitive providers who have done exceedingly well over the years by offering to their customers what they want and demand -- compelling values featuring low prices.


But what if, like Costco does, Wal-Mart charged its customer base $110 annually for the pleasure and privilege of its customers shopping at Wal-Mart? Or raised its prices dramatically? Or what if McDonald's charged a membership fee or increased the price of a hamburger to $6 or more?


We all, including President Obama, know the answers to those simple questions. Customers would go elsewhere, and that's where the price based costing approach and business necessity of competitive values, including pricing. come into play in the non-monopolistic private sector competition based free market.


Why Subway Doesn't Serve a $14 Reuben Sandwich is subtitled 'President Obama touts raising the minimum wage at pricey restaurants, not at fast-food places where it would hurt.' tells the story of the minimum wage proposal in its proper context:


"Why can't every business be more like Costco? The Washington-based retailer received a glowing endorsement from President Obama in January for paying entry-level employees above the federal minimum wage. "It's a company that's looking out for workers," Mr. Obama said in a speech in Maryland. Two other businesses were also recognized in recent stops on the White House's minimum-wage promotional tour: Michigan-based deli Zingerman's and the East Coast burger chain Shake Shack.

In reality, these businesses are case studies in why the president's plan to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25—a nearly 40% jump—is such a bad idea. Not all businesses can afford the cost of Mr. Obama's good intentions.                 

                  

Start with Costco, whose CEO, Craig Jelinek, is an outspoken advocate of raising the minimum wage. "At Costco, we know that paying employees good wages makes good sense for business," Mr. Jelinek said in a statement in March of last year. Mr. Jelinek offers new employees $11.50 an hour, but his narrative omits a few key details. First, Costco charges its customers as much as $110 a year for the privilege of shopping at the store. That's a $2 billion-per-year luxury no grocer or restaurant enjoys.

As a result, the warehouse retailer rakes in what amounts to a more than $10,000 profit per employee, according to data from business research company Hoovers. A casual dining restaurant, on the other hand, earns a roughly $2,000 profit per employee, which explains why most businesses aren't following the president's "just be more like Costco" advice.

There are exceptions. In a visit this month to the University of Michigan, for instance, the president stopped at the local deli Zingerman's. He raved about its Reuben sandwich as well as the generous wages that the business offers. Like Mr. Jelinek, Zingerman's co-founder Paul Saginaw supports hiking the minimum wage. . . .

As Mr. Obama relished the perfect sandwich prepared by well-paid employees, he neglected to mention how much he paid for the happy experience: Zingerman's Reuben costs $14. That's about three times as much as a Subway foot-long. . . .

If every deli could charge $14 a sandwich, then perhaps an $11 or $12 minimum wage would be feasible. But your local sandwich shop cannot match the price points of a shop serving a parent-subsidized clientele in a college town. Expecting restaurants everywhere to do so is a recipe for business failure.

The president seems oblivious to pricing pressures that exist outside of high-end restaurant concepts in tony metropolitan areas. Labor Secretary Tom Perez's March visit to a Shake Shack in Washington, D.C.—again, to promote the company's above-minimum starting wage—was typical. While praising the restaurant's wage structure, Mr. Perez did not mention that the least-expensive double cheeseburger on the menu sells for $6.90, or more than 40% more than a Double Quarter Pounder at the McDonald's nearby.

 

If McDonald's could raise burger prices by 40% without losing customers, it would have done so already without input from Messrs. Obama and Perez. But customers are price sensitive. The same dilemma exists at restaurants, grocery stores and countless other service businesses across the country. If higher prices aren't an option for offsetting a wage hike, costs have to be reduced by eliminating jobs and other employment opportunities."

Summing Up

That's the difference between ugly politics and the free market reality. 

Taxpayers and jobless workers end up paying for the political folly, and their choices don't often enter the political picture.

On the other hand, customers reign supreme in the market based economy and their choices determine who is successful and who is not.

What's so hard to understand about that? Not a thing.

This election year minimum wage proposal is just our ugly pandering political system at work again, and there's nothing new about that.

Sadly and unfortunately, there's nothing hard to understand about it either.

America's politics sucks. It really does.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

Our Political System is Broken ... Why Politics Sucks ... Another Politically Based Delay of the Keystone XL Pipeline Decision

The decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline project past the November elections is yet another example of why politics sucks.


Of course, I would like to see the project approved and believe that it should have been given the "go ahead" signal several years ago. The boost to jobs, the economy, energy independence and U.S. national security are the underlying reasons for my common sense belief.


Of course, the reigning Democratic politicians in Washington, led by President Obama, are deeply conflicted between the preferences of two of their big contributors --- (1) the "green environmentally friendly" big money donors (2) and the AFL-CIO union officials who want the sorely needed high paying jobs for their dues paying membership.


Thus, President Obama remains steadfast in his multi-year determination not to make a decision. It's just another example of the President's decisive indecisiveness, it's being done purely for political purposes, and it sucks.


Administration Delays Keystone XL Pipeline Decision is appropriately subtitled 'State Department's Extended Comment Period Could Push Final Call Until After Midterm Elections:'


"The Obama administration is extending its review of the Keystone XL pipeline, citing ongoing litigation in Nebraska over the project's route through the state, according to people familiar with the matter.

The State Department is allowing more time for government agencies to weigh in on the project—a review process that was expected to end in early May, State Department officials told congressional staff on Friday.

It is unclear how much more time the State Department will allow for input, but it is likely to push a final decision on the pipeline—which has been under review by the Obama administration for more than five years—until after November's midterm elections.

TransCanada Corp. wants to send oil through a pipeline from Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries in the U.S. The pipeline project has stirred opposition from environmental groups, which warn it could lead to oil spills and exacerbate global warming. Business interests contend it will create jobs and offer a safer alternative than transporting the oil by rail.

Critics say the pipeline will lead to greater development of, and reliance on, energy sources with high greenhouse gas emissions. In February, a Nebraska judge ruled a law allowing the oil pipeline to be built across the state was unconstitutional, creating a new wrinkle for a project awaiting U.S. federal government approval.

Earlier this month, 11 Senate Democrats, including five up for reelection, sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to make a final decision on the pipeline by May 31. This delay nearly guarantees that won't happen."

Summing Up 

Our political system is broken.

Our politics sucks.

We the People deserve better.

We should demand such from our "public servants" who don't bother to serve us.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

"Known Knowns" ... Tax Filings and Preparation ... Donald Rumsfeld Tells It Like It Is and Should Be ... DIY, Anyone?

Tax preparation is too difficult, to say the least.


Government, customer service and aiming for simplicity don't go together, and our tax system is a great example thereof.


The KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) approach, it ain't. At least not yet.


Donald Rumsfeld declares war on IRS speaks for most Americans when he tells the IRS like it is (unbelievably complex), and what it should be (simple and easy):

Not even Donald Rumsfeld understands his tax returns.


"The former defense Secretary penned an annual letter to the Internal Revenue Service stating that he has “absolutely no idea whether our tax returns and our tax payments are accurate.” In the letter, links to which were posted on  Rumsfeld’s Twitter account Tuesday afternoon, he notes that despite being a college graduate (slightly understating his resume) he and his wife do not understand their tax returns and that neither do most other Americans. “As in past years, I have spent more money than I wanted to spend to hire an accounting firm to prepare our tax returns,” he writes.


Rumsfeld is hardly the only taxpayer calling for a simplified filing process. Some critics of the tax code say more Americans would do their own taxes – about 60% of returns are done by preparers—if they had a better understanding of the information going onto the forms.


Some tax experts like Austan Goolsbee say one solution could be to have the IRS, which already receives income information from employers and banks,  put together federal tax returns for people with simple tax situations. Goolsbee estimates that up to 40% of Americans would be able to take advantage of “return-free filing” and that it would save them more than $2 billion a year in tax preparation fees and 225 million hours of time.


Unsurprisingly, the biggest opponent of this simpler approach has been the tax preparation industry. An investigation from ProPublica found that lobbyists and public relations pros for Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, were behind much of the letters written in opposition to return free-filing.

As it stands, the tax code has 2,652 pages and more than 1 million words, according to the Tax Foundation. And the flagship 1040 Tax Form has gone from 30 lines and having one page of instructions to 87 lines and needing 206 pages of instructions. That’s why the Tax Policy Center recently released an annotated version of the 1040 Form with about 100 pages of details and factoids about each line."


Summing Up

Of course, the difficulty of our tax system is a "Known Known" for sure.

And it's just one more way of government ignoring the clear wishes and best interests of We the People.

Nothing new about that.

And as long as we 'sheep' are willing to just pay up and shut up, nothing will change.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.

Taxes, Public Sector Unions, Retirement Funding, and the Ongoing Illinois "Experiment" and Lesson in Governance

Our individual states are continuing democratic laboratories for different governing systems and practices.


It's also true that more knowledge is acquired and life lessons learned, albeit painfully at times, from first doing the wrong things than from doing the right things. And if we're doing the wrong things, we're probably doing them poorly.


And continuously doing the wrong things means that our problems will only grow over time and become huge, no matter whether we close our eyes, no matter how hard we try to do the wrong things right, and no matter how much we earnestly may wish for our seemingly insurmountable problems to disappear.


Which brings us to What's the Matter With Illinois?:


"If the states are laboratories of democracy, then a great comparative policy experiment is taking place in America's Great Lakes region. Democrats in Illinois have been pursuing their blue-state model of higher taxes and union-dominated government. Neighboring states since 2010 have gone for lower taxes and union reform.

The comparison is especially apt because Illinois Democrats are doubling down on their strategy in this election year. Governor Pat Quinn has announced plans to make permanent the "temporary" tax hikes that were supposed to sunset at the end of this year. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan last month floated a 3% surcharge on income over $1 million, only to have it shot down by some in his own caucus. Yet Democrats are still flogging a progressive income tax, which Mr. Quinn all but endorsed last year.                                                

                          

All of which makes it an ideal moment to consider how the Quinn-Madigan policies are working. One way to judge is to compare Illinois with four other Great Lakes states that the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) lumps together for its annual survey of economic performance by the 50 states.

Start with Illinois's 8.7% jobless rate, which is the country's second highest after Rhode Island's 9% and has fallen by a mere 0.7 percentage points since Mr. Quinn began his second term in January 2011. That's when Illinois increased its flat income tax to 5% from 3% and the corporate rate to 9.5% from 7.3%.

The nearby chart shows the jobless-rate trend in five Great Lakes states since 2010. Note the sharp decline in Michigan, where Republican Governor Rick Snyder and a GOP legislature cut corporate taxes. In the last three years, the rate has fallen to 7.7% from 11% in the Wolverine State, to 6.5% from 9.1% in Ohio, to 6.1% from 9% in Indiana, and to 6.1% from 7.7% in Wisconsin. Only Illinois has raised taxes, while Ohio cut taxes, Michigan and Indiana have passed right-to-work laws and Wisconsin famously reformed collective bargaining.

Illinois has also recorded the slowest personal income growth in the Great Lakes. Between 2012 and 2013, personal income rose by 2.1% in Illinois versus 2.7% in Wisconsin, 2.5% in Michigan, and 2.3% in Ohio and Indiana.

But get this—about a third of Illinois's personal-income growth last year was driven by "transfer receipts" (i.e., food stamps, workers' compensation, disability, welfare, Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, earned income tax credits, unemployment benefits). According to BEA, these payments increased 5.2% in Illinois in 2013, the third most in the U.S., while wages and salaries ticked up only 1%.

Some 31,000 Illinois workers left the state's labor force in 2013, while Michigan's workforce expanded by 2,000 and Indiana's grew by 11,000. Illinois also lost about 9,000 manufacturing jobs in the last year while Michigan gained 17,000 and Ohio and Indiana each added 12,000. . . .

                

Illinois's 9.5% corporate tax rate is the highest in the Great Lakes and fourth in the U.S. Michigan levies a 6% corporate tax, and Indiana Governor Mike Pence recently signed legislation to cut his state's corporate rate to 4.9% from 7.5% by 2023. Nine years is an overlong phase-in, but at least businesses know taxes are trending down.

Democrats say Illinois taxes aren't all that high and have room to grow. The state's 5% flat personal income tax is lower than the top rates in Ohio (5.392% on income over $208,500) and Wisconsin (7.65% over $240,190), but higher than the flat rates in Michigan (4.25%) and Indiana (3.4%). However, sales taxes are 14% to 33% higher in Illinois than in other Great Lakes states, according to the Tax Foundation. Property taxes are the second highest in the country (after New Jersey) and climbing. {NOTE: Illinois politicians are proposing a hike in the gasoline tax too.}

Democrats want to impose a progressive income tax because they don't want to extend their "temporary" tax hikes on their low and middle income constituents. They'd try to sell a progressive tax to voters as a tax cut for the middle class, even though legislators could later ratchet up rates on everyone when they want more revenue, which they always do. Public unions have proposed top tax rates starting between 9% to 11%.

The real reason Democrats want higher taxes is the state's exploding government-employee pension costs, which will increase this year despite the nips and tucks legislators made in December. Illinois this year will spend $7 billion from its general fund (not counting federal funds) on primary and secondary education—but another $7.5 billion on pensions. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, teacher pensions have gobbled up 70% of new education spending. The next tax increase would be, like the last one, a more or a less a straight income transfer to government worker pensions.

Democrats in Springfield are also teeing up a bailout for Chicago's pension funds, which are $30 billion in arrears. The city must make a $1.07 billion balloon payment next year while Chicago schools must cough up an additional $405 million this year.

Taxes and public union governance aren't the only policy differences in these states, but they have been the most notable since 2010. Judging by the record so far, nothing would make the four Republican Governors of neighboring states happier than for Illinois to keep soaking its millionaires."

Summing Up

It's a free country, and Illinois voters pick their elected officials.

That's their right and their choice.

Oh, and one more thing. There's no free lunch, despite what the populist politicians say and despite what the public sector union leaders may say.

We the People --- all of us --- are the only ones who will pay for the government we select and the policies and programs they enact and enforce --- not the politicians and not the public sector union leaders.

In Illinois and elsewhere, middle class voters should be on the alert.

That's my take.

Thanks. Bob.