Federal Judge BLOCKS Florida’s New Welfare Drug Testing Law

From the Washington Post

A federal judge temporarily blocked Florida’s new law that requires welfare applicants to pass a drug test before receiving the benefits on Monday, saying it may violate the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Judge Mary Scriven’s ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Navy veteran and single father who sought the benefits while finishing his college degree, but refused to take the test.

The judge said there was a good chance plaintiff Luis Lebron would succeed in his challenge to the law based on the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.

The drug test can reveal a host of private medical facts about the individual, Scriven wrote, adding that she found it “troubling” that the drug tests are not kept confidential like medical records. The results can also be shared with law enforcement officers and a drug abuse hotline.

“This potential interception of positive drug tests by law enforcement implicates a ‘far more substantial’ invasion of privacy than in ordinary civil drug testing cases,” Scriven said.

The law’s proponents include Gov. Rick Scott, who said during his campaign the measure would save $77 million. It’s unclear how he arrived at those figures.

The rest of the article is available here. 

President Obama: "Occupy Wall Street 'Not That Different' From Tea Party Protests"

From Yahoo! News:

President Obama, who has become a target of the Occupy Wall Street protests sweeping the country, today embraced the economic frustration being given voice on the streets and said that his vision for America’s economic system is best suited to resolve protesters’ concerns.

“I understand the frustrations being expressed in those protests,” Obama told ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper in an exclusive interview from Jamestown, N.C.

“In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party.  Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them,” he said.

Obama said the most important thing he can do as president is express solidarity with the protesters and redouble his commitment to achieving what he described as a more egalitarian society.

“The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded,” Obama said. “And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.”

The rest of the article is available here.

Does the GOP lack competence among its competition?

There's a lot to like about Herman Cain. He's funny and personable. He's a great American success story. His 9-9-9 tax plan may be half-baked, but the concept behind the plan (replace the corporate income tax with in effect a consumption tax) has a lot to recommend it.  

Finally, in a political cycle that has seen too many coded racial attacks on President Obama and his family, it's a source of great pride to me to see an African-American topping my party's polls.

If Herman Cain had served as governor of Georgia, or even mayor of Atlanta, he'd be a valid and credible candidate for president of the United States.

But here's the trouble: he has not held those offices or any other executive office at any level of government. He did serve on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in the 1990s, including two years as chairman -- a distinguished position and an important responsibility, but not one that involves the management of a public agency.

So what?

So everything! The president's most fundamental job is to run the government. That job is very, very hard. The consequences of a mistake are very, very serious.

For that reason, Americans have historically demanded a record of successful accomplishment in public office from their presidential candidates. The current president is an exception to the rule, and -- well -- enough said.

Barack Obama became president despite a negligible record in large part as a reaction against the perceived failures of the George W. Bush presidency. Many voters in 2008 made a calculation like: "Obama may never have governed anything. But George W. Bush was a two-term governor of the country's second biggest state, and he got us into Iraq and a terrible recession. So maybe experience doesn't count. Maybe what we need is a different style: somebody more cautious than Bush, somebody who doesn't always go with his gut."

Herman Cain You might expect Republicans to react similarly against the Obama presidency, demanding from their nominee skills that Obama lacked: administrative experience, negotiating skill, deep policy knowledge.

But no.  From Donald Trump to Michele Bachmann to Herman Cain, the Republican activist base has again and again fixed its hopes on people who have never held an executive public office and who defiantly reject the very idea of expertise.

The rest of the article is available here.

Raising Cain: Popularity Soars for GOP Presidential Hopeful Herman Cain

From Bloomberg News

Herman Cain, a one-time pizza magnate and sunny-skies orator, is entering a new phase of scrutiny after a wave of Republican Party dissatisfaction with its presidential choices has thrust him into the upper tier of candidates.

Cain, 65, whose come-from-way-behind campaign has been conducted largely via television, presents himself as destined for victory: His new memoir is called “This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House.”  Now, in the run-up to tomorrow’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, Cain is being pressed on his so-called 9-9-9 tax plan -- a flat 9 percent rate on corporate and personal income and a national sales tax -- his criticism of the Occupy Wall Street protesters and his lack of experience in public office.

“Get ready for an aberration of historic proportion,” Cain said in an interview yesterday during “State of the Union” on CNN. “People who are criticizing me because I have not held public office, they are out of touch with the voters out there.”

The rise of Cain, political analysts say, is a reflection of prolonged hunger among a segment of Republican voters for someone to inspire -- someone who isn’t former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has been criticized for inconstancy. In the past week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin declined to enter the race. Texas Governor Rick Perry has stumbled, creating an opportunity for Cain.

The rest of the article is available here.

Economy leads young Americans to put adulthood on hold

The slackers of the 1990s are remembered as listless MTV watchers and basement dwellers who opted out of America's striving, mercenary ethos. Many young adults today look similar at first glance. They're in their 20s or early 30s, they don't have jobs or spouses, and many live with mom and dad. But that's not by choice.

This generation of reluctant slackers is eager to get started building careers, owning homes, getting married and having kids. They have put their lives on hold, though, thanks to the bleak economic climate.

This year, 5.9 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 35 lived with their parents, according to Census Bureau data. That's an increase of 25 percent from before the recession. And between 2007 and 2009, the share of Americans living in a multi-generational household shot up by 4.9 million, or 10.5 percent, a Pew study found.

The rest of the article is available here.

Students’ Knowledge of Civil Rights History Has Deteriorated, Study Finds

From the New York Times Education Section:

“Across the country, state educational standards virtually ignore our civil rights history,” concludes the report, which is to be released on Wednesday.

The report assigns letter grades to each state based on how extensively its academic standards address the civil rights movement. Thirty-five states got an F because their standards require little or no mention of the movement, it says.

Eight of the 12 states earning A, B or C grades for their treatment of civil rights history are Southern states where there were major protests, boycotts or violence during the movement’s peak years in the 1950s and ’60s.

“Generally speaking, the farther away from the South — and the smaller the African-American population — the less attention paid to the civil rights movement,” the report says.

Alabama, Florida and New York were given A grades. Those states require relatively detailed teaching about the decade and a half of historic events, roughly bookended by the Supreme Court’s 1954 school desegregation ruling and the April 1968 assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the enactment of the federal Civil Rights Act a week later.

Many states have turned Dr. King’s life into a fable, said Julian Bond, who now teaches at American University and the University of Virginia. He said his students knew that “there used to be segregation until Martin Luther King came along, that he marched and protested, that he was killed, and that then everything was all right.”

Alabama, Florida and New York require teaching not only about Dr. King but also about others like James Meredith, who in 1962 became the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi; Medgar Evers, the rights organizer murdered the following year in Jackson, Miss.; and Malcolm X, the Muslim minister who challenged the movement’s predominantly integrationist goals.

Some experts in history education criticized the report’s methodology. Fritz Fischer, a professor at the University of Northern Colorado who is chairman of the National Council for History Education, said it was unfair to give Colorado and some other states an F because of vague state history standards, when they are required by state constitutions or laws to leave curriculum up to local districts.

“The grading system they came up with does a disservice in putting the focus on requirements that certain states are unable to meet and will never be able to meet,” Dr. Fischer said.

Even though Colorado’s standards barely mention the civil rights movement, some Colorado schools teach the civil rights movement thoroughly, he said. “I’ve been in classrooms and watched them teach about the sit-ins and about the controversies between Martin Luther King and Malcolm,” he said.

The report is by no means the first to sound an alarm about nationwide weaknesses in the teaching of American history.

Over the past decade, students have performed worse on federal history tests administered by the Department of Education than on tests in any other subject. On the history test last year, only 12 percent of high school seniors showed proficiency.

The rest of the article is available here.

Debt Ceiling Dilemma presents Opportunities for Different Ideas

Back in August, President Barack Obama signed the bill that raises our debt ceiling and cuts spending by a little more than $2 trillion over the next decade.  This bill was signed after months and months of political wrestling and wrangling over which party or politician had the better plan.  Even after the final deal was grudgingly reached by both Democrat and Republican leadership in the US House and Senate, there was still much that both progressive liberals and TEA party leadership did not like. 

Key staff members from the White House and leaders from both parties agreed that this bill does not solve everything.  Many fiscal experts that study and monitor federal deficits agree that the bill relies too heavily on cuts to discretionary spending, which is not the major driver of the country's long-term deficits. And it all but ignores the need to reform entitlements and raise more revenue.  Both of which are key ingredients to improving the country's long-term solvency. 

In addition to the short-term problems, the special bipartisan congressional committee that the legislation creates could take up both entitlement and tax reform. But given the partisan bitterness on both those issues, the jury's out on whether the committee, which is made up of 12 members from the House and Senate, can move past that.

Lastly, according to CNN Money, the size of the deal is less than what hawks were pushing for.  A $4 trillion "grand bargain" is what budget experts say is the minimum needed to start hitting the brakes on growth in the country's debt.  The fact that negotiators were working toward such an agreement only to step back from it makes the final deal all the more frustrating.

This is our federal leadership at work.  This is partisan politics mixed with bureaucratic bungling and topped with election envy.  I think our leaders are forgetting what it means to compromise and work together to solve the problems of the day.  In the midst of this fiasco, the behavior of GOP officials that seek to “make Obama a one-term president” reeks of junior high bravado. 

Additionally, the repeated walking out of both parties during the discussion reminds me of something my son does when I restrict his time with my Playstation.  All that was missing was the incessant pouting.  Again, this is our leadership at work.  This is our federal leadership that enjoys a 92% re-election rate, a monthly $1,400 automobile lease allowance, and an average annual salary of $174,000.   

But there is a silver lining to this dark cloud.  This is the opportunity to acknowledge all that really is broken with our political system and acknowledge some serious discussion and solutions to fix these problems.  I’d like to propose the following solutions: (1) term limits for federally elected officials and (2) a viable third party option to challenge the current two-party system.

We have been working with the same two political parties for quite some time.  And we have been getting undesired results for quite some time.  People are concerned about the federal government’s spending, Bush-era tax cuts, healthcare, and the 2 ½ wars we are engaged in right now.  These are issues that that been handled improperly by both Democrats and Republicans.  Yet, we still have to choose the lesser of the two evils when the election season rolls around.  As I understand it, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is an acceptable definition of insanity.  This is where the debt ceiling debate lends itself to discussion of a viable third party.

Terms limits, in my opinion, do the following: (1) it gives the elected official a timeline and deadline to accomplish the goals he or she set forth in their campaign and (2) it lets them know that their job is temporary and they should groom a replacement.  I think US Presidents and Vice-Presidents have figured this one out already. 

Since one of the more recent trends are to “think of what the founding fathers would do” and “live according to the constitution”, I will offer this quote from John Adams: “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

Teen moms: Enormous social costs (from the Clarion-Ledger)

From the Clarion-Ledger

A new study shows Mississippi's epidemic of teen pregnancies is costing far more than previously thought - more than $154 million a year from taxpayers.
As The Clarion-Ledger reported, that includes increased costs of foster care, social services and incarceration for young people born years ago to teen moms.

"This is not an unsolvable problem," says Carol Penick, executive director of the Women's Fund, which sponsored the study by the nonprofit Mississippi Economic Policy Center. The state's new "abstinence plus" sex education program for public schools can help address it.

And as Jamie Holcomb, director of programs for the Women's Fund said, parents "are part of the solution" by talking to their children about sex.

Districts must choose between teaching abstinence-only or "abstinence-plus," which includes information about contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases. Each district must adopt a policy by June 30, 2012.

The rest of the article is available here. 

A post for September 11th

I vividly remember where I was when two airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  It was the fall semester of my senior year at Alcorn State University.  Just like most mornings, I had gotten up and walked to the bathrooms to wash up for class.  As I was brushing my teeth, I can remember a buddy of mine asking if I had seen what happened in New York.  Thinking that he was referring to abnornmal weather or a sports event, I responded, "nah...I'll check it out in a few.  I'm trying to get to class now."

After showering and picking out something to wear for the day, I turned on the TV.  As I dressed myself, I saw the replay of the 1st plane crashing into the tower.  This had to be a movie.  No one flies a jumbo jet into a building, neither on purpose nor by accident.  But it was real.  It was no big budget movie.  Lives were lost and the United States would be changed forever. 

In addition to the mass panic, that occured across the nation, there was also a fear that gas prices would double in a matter of hours.  I can remember the long lines to the lone gas station on our campus. 

I don't think I made it to a single class that day.

It's 10 years later and we remember where we were and what we were doing on that day.  As this day becomes a chapter for study in new history books, we must also remember those responsible. 

Here is an article from Teaching Tolerance in which a father explains to his son who "they" are.  After believing that "they" are Muslims or Pakistani, the father tells him that "they" are terrorists. 

The father offers this advice: "I understand that teaching a tragic event such as 9/11 can be emotional and difficult, but it is necessary to ensure that children understand events accurately so they do not develop prejudiced ideas about an entire group of people."

The biggest honor we can give those that died on this day is to properly inform our children of who did this. 

Welfare Drug-Testing Yields 2% Positive Results

This is a follow up posting to an earlier post entitled "Drug Testing Our Problems Away".

Tampa Bay Online reports about 2 percent of Florida TANF recipients have tested positive for drug use since mid-July.

Ninety-six percent proved to be drug free -- leaving the state on the hook to reimburse the cost of their tests.
The initiative may save the state a few dollars anyway, bearing out one of Gov. Rick Scott's arguments for implementing it. But the low test fail-rate undercuts another of his arguments: that people on welfare are more likely to use drugs.

At Scott's urging, the Legislature implemented the new requirement earlier this year that applicants for temporary cash assistance pass a drug test before collecting any benefits.

The law, which took effect July 1, requires applicants to pay for their own drug tests. Those who test drug-free are reimbursed by the state, and those who fail cannot receive benefits for a year.

Having begun the drug testing in mid-July, the state Department of Children and Families is still tabulating the results. But at least 1,000 welfare applicants took the drug tests through mid-August, according to the department, which expects at least 1,500 applicants to take the tests monthly.

So far, they say, about 2 percent of applicants are failing the test; another 2 percent are not completing the application process, for reasons unspecified.

Cost of the tests averages about $30. Assuming that 1,000 to 1,500 applicants take the test every month, the state will owe about $28,800-$43,200 monthly in reimbursements to those who test drug-free.

That compares with roughly $32,200-$48,200 the state may save on one month's worth of rejected applicants.

The savings assume that 20 to 30 people -- 2 percent of 1,000 to 1,500 tested -- fail the drug test every month. On average, a welfare recipient costs the state $134 in monthly benefits, which the rejected applicants won't get, saving the state $2,680-$3,350 per month.

But since one failed test disqualifies an applicant for a full year's worth of benefits, the state could save $32,200-$48,200 annually on the applicants rejected in a single month.

Net savings to the state -- $3,400 to $8,200 annually on one month's worth of rejected applicants. Over 12 months, the money saved on all rejected applicants would add up to $40,800-$98,400 for the cash assistance program that state analysts have predicted will cost $178 million this fiscal year.

The rest of the article is available here.

Drug Testing Our Problems Away

Lawmakers in the State of Florida voted on a bill which would make drug testing mandatory for all that received benefits from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).  This bill was signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott on last week.  This law, which will begin on July 1, makes Florida the only state that will make drug testing mandatory for its TANF recipients to obtain program benefits.  If a person tests positive for drug use, they will be denied benefits for a year. 

Beginning in July of 1997, TANF provides cash assistance to indigent American families with dependent children, for a maximum period of 60 months.  This program is administered through the United State Department of Health and Human Services.  TANF has its beginnings in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which was created during the New Deal.  This program was reformed into TANF following the debates which stated that the issuing of welfare benefits, over a long period of time and without having to work, decreases any efforts to obtain full-time employment and self-sufficiency. 

TANF sets forward the following work requirements necessary for benefits: (1) Recipients (with few exceptions) must work as soon as they are job ready or no later than two years after coming on assistance; (2) Single parents are required to participate in work activities for at least 30 hours per week. Two-parent families must participate in work activities 35 or 55 hours a week, depending upon circumstances; (3) Failure to participate in work requirements can result in a reduction or termination of benefits to the family; and (4) States have to ensure that 50 percent of all families and 90 percent of two-parent families are participating in work activities.

For the sake of clarity, I want to make it known that I want to and I hope to live in a drug-free America.  Also, I hope that people can pull themselves out a poverty ridden circumstance, get trained or educated, get gainfully employed, and raise their families in healthy environments.  With that being said, I don’t exactly see what problems this law solves.

Proponents of this law argue that they don’t want public assistance money spent on extra-curricular drug use.  There is nothing wrong with addressing this, but I think the framers of this law failed to realize that public assistance money isn’t the only money that is used to purchase drugs.  Habitual drug users will find a way to purchase drugs.  Not to be outdone, drug dealers will find a way to sell drugs.  The point I’m making is that no one is addressing the drug problem.  Many of the drugs consumed in the United States come from outside of the United States.  It seems that cracking down on interstate and international drug cartels may be the best way to solve the drug problem.  Eventually no drugs will equate to no drug users.

Secondly, this law targets drug use among poor and low-income people.  I will admit that I am not an expert on equal opportunity, but this just might be discriminatory and insulting.  It insinuates that only poor people should be drug tested to receive benefits.  To make a law like this equal and fair, we would have to require drug testing for all that receive public assistance.  This would include: college students with federal financial aid, farmers that receive federal subsidies, AIG and other Wall Street executives, retirees that receive social security, homeowners that purchase homes through USDA or FHA programs, and elected officials and public employees that receive grant funds from other public entities.  Public funds are intertwined in more than we can imagine.  However, the abuse of public funds does not begin and end with low-income assistance programs.

In 2003, there was a ruling by a federal appeals court that covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee which ruled that states cannot drug test public assistance recipients because it’s unconstitutional.  Ironically, in 2001, a pilot drug testing program in Florida was abandoned because it was not cost effective and it found that welfare recipients were not using drugs more than those who were not on welfare. 

The common issues that are present in this whole discussion are drug use and poverty.  By drafting reactive laws that stand to be overturned in a few years, we are only slowing down any real progress to address these issues.  The sizes of our solutions need to match or exceed the size of our problems. 

Running from Conversations on Race

A few weeks ago, I wrote an opinion column about celebrating the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.  And as celebrations and remembrances go, different stories will be told and opinions will be established based on these stories.  With many Civil War discussions, the arguments and opinions are based on a number of issues.  The most popular issues would have to be states’ rights and the institution of slavery.  Inevitably, I discussed three causes of the Civil War and how slavery was the underlying theme. 

However, in identifying slavery as the underlying theme, I did not allow myself to go any further.  I didn’t see a reason to do so.  I did what many of us when approached with discussing race.  I ran from it. 

In my haste, I didn’t realize what America will be celebrating and remembering over the next 2 to 4 years.  In addition to the Civil War and its many battles, (some of) America will be remembering the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s.  And I don’t believe this will be some random, thrown together celebration.  This country will be remembering the 50th anniversary of some of our most defining moments.  And everyone knows that 50th anniversaries are grand events in our American culture.  If a program or project is going strong for 50 years, and has a track record of positivity, we will applaud it and hope that is continues for 50 more years. 

Some of the key Civil Right moments that are up for 50th year anniversaries include: the Freedom Riders of 1961(which have been interviewed on a PBS documentary and the Oprah Winfrey Show); the March on Washington in which Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream Speech” in 1963; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the admittance of James Meredith into the University of Mississippi in 1962; the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination in employment and public places; and, sadly, the death of 3 civil rights workers in Philadelphia, MS in 1964. 

Since the Civil Rights Movement in America was largely, although not entirely, based on racial equality, we are going to have conversations that involve race while these historical events are being remembered.  It’s almost impossible to remember the Civil Rights movement without remembering why people were kept out of public institutions in the first place.  The challenge to having conversations based on race is that key groups are identified as being a part of the racial problem.  First, there are the victims that are affected by racist practices and attitudes.  Second, there are the oppressors that actively work toward keeping things the same and sometimes are oblivious to what is incorrect.  Lastly, you have the enablers that have the ability to impact and create changes, but they don’t.  The problem then becomes the realization of what group you belong to. 

I have been a part of and listened to numerous conversations on race.  Being from the Mississippi Delta, it can almost be considered a rite of passage.  But all the conversations I have been a part of play out the same way.  Glenn Singleton, who is an educator that promotes honesty and courage in conversations about race, explains it like this: “Typically, white people have a fear that something they say will be taken out of context or will be viewed as offensive by people of color.  I believe that it is important that white people move past their fear of offending and being corrected toward a place where they can understand the points of view being expressed by black people.  At the same time, black people need to recognize that their experiences are unique and to have patience and compassion as these points are translated to a white audience.”   

The key word is “understanding”.  We all understand that race is, quite possibly, the hardest topic to discuss in our society.  However, we have to allow ourselves to understand that we don’t all have the same American experience. 

Over these next few years, we need to get to a place where our true thoughts and experiences can be shared with each other.  At this place, difficult questions will be asked and they need to be truthfully answered.  I hope I see you there. 

Being Realistic About Education Reform

We are quickly approaching that familiar time of year: the summer break.  Although it may have been shortened because of snow days and inclement weather, this is a tradition that school children in America have enjoyed for a little more than a century.  For many seniors, in either high school or college, this will be their last summer vacation before they move on the next great chapter of their lives.  For academic faculty and staff and the remaining students, this is a well-deserved time off to recharge the batteries. 

However, in recent years there has been a re-examination of the American academic calendar.  Particularly, as it relates to competitive student performance on the global scale, there is the debate that we are not spending enough time in school.  The standard school year in America is 180 days and children in America spend approximately 1,146 instructional hours in the classroom. 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international organization, comprised of 34 countries, that works to stimulate economic progress and world trade.  Every three years they work in tandem with the Program for International Student Assessment.  In their most recent study, it measured the performance of 15 year olds of its member nations in Reading, Science, and Math.  These results showed that 15 year olds in the United States are not leading the pack.  Our scores show that we are ranked 14^th in Reading, ranked 17^th in Science, and ranked 25^th in Math. 

Another number that stood out was the 180 days that American children are in school.  This shows us to have one of the shortest school years for all the countries tested.  I don’t think that eliminating summer vacation would solve all our problems, especially since most research shows that teacher quality is the biggest influencer, but maybe a little more class time could help.  From a comparative standpoint, South Korea has 220 days and a number 2 ranking in Math.  But Finland has the first place ranking in Math and Science with a school year of 190 days.  Is ten extra days keeping us from a first place showdown with Finland?

And while I endorse time off and much-needed breaks, I am also compelled to share some reasons why the summer break slows our children’s educational progress.

1)  Kids forget what they been taught.  Our brains forget what we don’t use.  On average, kids lose about a month of math skills during the summer.  Low income children lose as much as three months of reading comprehension.  A few studies have suggested that two-thirds of the achievement gap that separates income groups can be attributed to 9^th grade summer learning loss. 

2)  Kids need to be re-taught what they have forgotten.  Reteaching forgotten lessons can consume as much as the first month of the fall semester. 

3)  Kids gain weight.  Kids can gain body mass twice as fast during the summer as compared to the school year. 

In this age of reduced budgets, I understand that we don’t have the funds to pay teachers for more days, nor do we have money to keep school buildings open all year.  However, we have to find a way to step out this box we have been in for the last 100 or more years.  Our biggest obstacle is our love for what we are familiar with. 

I can remember reading an article about the “space race” of the late 1950s.  The Soviet Union was the first country to put an artificial satellite in orbit.  Upon feeling the sting of this “defeat”, our political leaders promised to have a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.  As a result of this Sputnik moment, our schools and universities ramped up their curriculum and made our children competitively smarter.  During this time, the United States was the dominant country with the better technology. 

Are we waiting on another Sputnik moment?  What does it take for us to become innovative once more?

FYI – The International Monetary Fund recently reported that China would surpass the United States as the largest economy in 2016.  Shanghai, which is China’s most populous city, ranks number one in the OECD education reports. 

Tough on Crime is Tough on Taxpayers

American politics is full on commonly used (and overused) clichés. If you think hard enough, you may have many of them on many different occasions. Whether it was a stumping politician shaking hands and kissing babies or whether you attended a town hall meeting, you have heard “I represent the little guy” or “I want to work for you”. In the most recent election cycle, the most used cliché had to be “we’re taking our country back”. But the universal phrase that has been most frequently on either side of the aisle is “I’m tough on crime”.

Being tough on crime had its start as a GOP campaigning point. Drugs were becoming a major problem. And after that, guns were added to the drug problem. The final part of the equation was the addition of gang activity. The evening news reported crime after crime after crime and it seemed not enough was being done to curb the problem. The best solution, it seemed, was to get “tough on crime”. The plan for being tough on crime became catch the drug users (as opposed to drug dealers), put them in jail, and throw away the key. Being tough on crime did not begin and end with drug-related offenses. Other offenses, most notably those involving handguns, were included in the “tough on crime” category, as well.

As various election cycles arrived, it became time for the GOP to talk about being tough on crime. They now had numbers to validate how dangerous people with their deadly handguns and illegal drugs had been taken off the streets, presumably making the streets safer. This provided the track record they need to establish their “tough on crime” policies. And by making voters feel safe, this pretty much guaranteed their re-election. Democrats eventually took notice of how creating and drafting tough on crime policies turned into re-election victories. They, too, began to draft their own policies, make their own speeches, and lock up drug users, as well. Thus, the cliché of being “tough on crime” become a fixture in American political discourse.

Now, let’s fast forward to 2010. The United States population is roughly estimated at around 360 million people, which is roughly 5% of the population of the entire world. The United States prison population exceeds 2.1 million people…which is 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. Our prison population is twice that of China and their population exceeds 1 billion people.

Also in 2010, there was born an intense focus on government spending. Many citizens, along with advocacy and grassroots began to question where their tax dollars were going. In an effort to establish common ground on this issue, some unlikely partnerships began to take shape. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Former Secretary of Education Rod Paige, and David Keene, formerly of the American Conservative Union joined NAACP President Ben Jealous to launch a campaign to influence state budgets and federal policy in order to reduce incarceration.

Recently the NAACP released a report entitled, Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate. The report offers details on how our habit of excessive spending on incarceration ultimately undermines the ability to fund educational opportunity. One of the more surprising figures given in the report shows that during the last two decades, state spending on prisons grew at six times the rate of state spending on higher education. NAACP President Ben Jealous offers being “smart on crime” as the alternative to being “tough on crime”.

In Arkansas, we expend almost $24,000 per prisoner compared to approximately $8,000 per public school pupil. It would seem that the state of Arkansas was paying close attention to those expenditures. In this most recent legislative session, Democratic and Republican lawmakers, along with prosecuting attorneys from across the state worked to draft a bill that decreased the recidivism rate, lowered the prison population, and kept violent offenders behind bars.

According to surveys from the Pew Center on the States, Arkansas is second to only Alaska with a recidivism rate of about 44%. This meant that in 2004, almost 2,772 offenders returned to prison within three years of their release. Just in case you were wondering, footing the bill for these 2,772 prisoners is roughly $66,528,000.

What began as a common cliché to address a common issue has now become the common ground for which lawmakers from both parties can develop solutions that work for everyone.

Civil Discourse and the Civil War

Across the country, many will gather to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. It was on April 12, 1861 that Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter. Shortly after that, 11 states seceded from the United States of America to form the Confederate States of America.

It’s been recorded that no one died during the artillery battle before Fort Sumter surrendered, but the Civil War would claim the lives of more than 600,000 Americans during its four year span. To date, the American Civil War remains one the bloodiest American conflicts of all time.

During this week, all across America, there will be many re-enactments of famous battles of the Civil War. These re-enactments have become the norm during this time of year. Over the last few decades it has become a tradition. We are reminded of the heroes of the war and the roles they played. We will be reminded of Sherman’s March to the Sea, the sacrifice of David O. Dodd, the professionalism of Robert E. Lee, and the strategy of Ulysses S. Grant. In a few instances, we may even be reminded of the services of black soldiers and slaves in the Civil War. More than 170,000 black soldiers fought on behalf of the Union. And there is information that support black soldiers served in the Confederate army, as well.

Another tradition within the remembrance of the Civil War is the debate over why the war was fought in the first place. As I’ve read about and studied wars throughout school and the many documentaries I’ve seen, I have always concluded that wars were fought over the following reasons: (1) territory and (2) economics. I would guess that the American Civil War is no different. Territory was an issue, as evidenced by the secession of 11 states. Economics can also be seen as a reason, as the South was primarily agricultural and the industrial revolution was slowly coming over the horizon.

The debate for the Civil War usually hinges on slavery. There are some that completely place the reason as slavery and others that base the reason as states’ rights. With the rise of revisionist history, political conservatives make the claim that the Civil War is only about the interference of big government. Not to be outdone, there is a liberal who will state that the use of humans as personal property tugged at the heartstrings of elected officials. As I did my own search, via the Internet, I couldn’t help but notice that slavery was an ever present theme. Without slavery there would have been no Civil War. Slavery may not have been THE issue, but it drove the debate on every issue.

The following are also mentioned as causes of the Civil War:

(1) Economic and social differences between the North and the South
The cotton gin was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of slave labor. As a result, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery.

(2) States Rights versus Federal Rights
This is essentially a battle that has been waged since the founding of the United States. States believed that they had the right to decide if they wanted to accept certain federal acts. The federal government denied the states the right of nullification, in which the states would rule certain federal acts as unconstitutional. States felt that since they could not nullify federal acts, they were not respected. In a nutshell, the states wanted to act independently and exercise their right to continue owning slaves. The federal government didn’t agree.

(3) The Election of Abraham Lincoln
When Lincoln was elected in 1860, South Carolina issued its Declaration of the Causes of Secession. Many southern states believed that Lincoln was anti-slavery and in favor of Northern interests. Before Lincoln moved into the White House, seven states had seceded from the Union.

And if these reasons don’t convince you that slavery was the central cause of the Civil War, ask yourself this question…what was the almost immediate result of the Union’s victory? The immediate result was the emancipation of almost 4 million slaves. Additionally, as the war neared its end, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were added to the United States constitution.

The common ground that we have to reach with this discussion depends on each of us having an open mind and reviewing the root cause of this great conflict. But the happy ending is that this “peculiar institution” no longer exists and many of us share many freedoms.

I think Jon Meacham said it best with this quote: “At such a charged moment, we must remember our nation’s history fully, and not selectively. If we truly want to be faithful stewards of the past, we must recall what the Civil War was about – slavery and the definition of human liberty.”

The Civil War was fought so that we could do away with what is one of the darkest chapters in American history. But as that chapter ended, it helped us write new chapters in which the future is not always determined by your skin color or your gender. We now have the chance to write chapters that place everyone on a level playing field. These new chapters involve finding the common ground that allows us to participate in a civil discourse which will determine our brightest futures.