'No' on jail bond, 'yes' on matching bonds for schools

Two key measures, one local and one statewide, are on the May 18 ballot.

Measure 9-77 is a $44 million bond to expand and remodel the Deschutes County Jail.

In light of the largely unused prison outside Madras, there is no reason to expand the local jail. (See previous post).

Naturally, the state says it won't let Deschutes County rent out space at Deer Ridge Correctional Institution because of prohibitive startup costs to the county. Yet, the state has worked with various counties over the years to take in their inmates. It should do so here. In fact, Deer Ridge should be the regional facility for the greater Central Oregon area. That is where a coordinated regional effort is needed now for when population and crime start to rise to unsustainable heights at the county level.

Still, the case hasn't been made that we must now further tax local property owners for a hypothetical need. The measure's description says it will tack on about $36 dollars a year on a home valued at $200,000.

The real estate boom and resultant population growth are over. Violent crime is declining as a result. The county has a Work Center in addition to the jail, but only about half of the 90 beds are used. That number was down to a third in December. Use what we have.

The Deschutes County sheriff's office, which runs the jail, is always trying to expand its empire but never shows much support for local school bond measures. This lack of support is another reason to reject the jail bond measure. Until the sheriff's office realizes that investing in education is a well-known crime deterrent, vote "no" on its grandiose jail plans.

For those non-voters out there, this money measure on the Primary Ballot is NOT subject to double majority voting. This means that the jail bond measure doesn't need more than a 50 percent voter turnout. It just needs more than 50 percent voting "yes." Primaries in Deschutes County rarely break the 50 percent threshold in off-presidential years. So, those who think if they don't vote that it gives them double the clout, forget it.

Vote and vote "no."

The statewide Measure 68 is a no-brainer. It "allows the state to issue bonds to match voter approved school district bonds for school capital costs. 'Yes' vote allows the state to issue bonds to match voter-approved school district bonds for school capital costs. Dedicates lottery

funds for matching funds and repayment."

A key note here is the fact that the state's matching bond includes "costs for acquisition, construction, repair and improvement, but not routine maintenance or supplies."

But, desks and bookcases are covered.

Also, it's not for operating expenses.

This measure was referred by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. It has no direct effect on property taxes or any other taxes.

It could mean, though, that school districts could ask local voters for half of what is truly needed because the state could issue matching bonds. To think that we would need a state Constitutional amendment for this is mind-boggling.

This is an easy "yes" vote. It will reduce local property taxes in the long run.

Corporate con game

A couple of quick notes on how corporations, and not the government, are the ones killing American workers while avoiding any responsibility to this country that has made them rich beyond all measure.

First, the coal-mining disaster in West Virginia where 25 miners lost their lives in a methane explosion with 4 more presumed dead. The Upper Big Branch mine, operated by the Performance Coal Company, but owned by Massey Energy Co., had 57 safety violations just last month. Read this piece for more info.

Or read this account in the New York Times, which contains this paragraph:

"In the past two months, miners had been evacuated three times from the Upper Big Branch because of dangerously high methane levels, according to two miners who asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs."

Losing 25 or 29 miners is just the cost of doing business for Massey. It's been fined $1.8 million in penalties for safety violations since 2006. It's only paid about $365,000.

Massey must figure that losing 29 miners would cost them maybe $1 million per worker or $29 million. It's annual net income is about $100 million.

What is unknown at this point is whether the company took out insurance policies on these dead miners, not to pay the victims' families, but merely as another source of profit. Wal-Mart is a pioneer in this sleazy, corporate tactic.

On another front, the biggest and most profitable American companies, like G.E. and ExxonMobil, don't pay much in taxes, which is the source of much of our deficit problems. Read this article for more info. ExxonMobil does pay a lot in taxes, just not to the U.S. government. Check out the Forbes story for more details.

Teabaggers need to go after the corporations who shirk their civic duties by not supporting this country through taxes. Again, freedom isn't free.

Build it and they won't come

Can you imagine a school district in Oregon building a new high school six years before it was needed?

No, that would be impossible because new high schools aren't built until they're desperately needed for at least 20 years.

But, thanks to anti-crime hysteria in Oregon, we've approved ballot measures in recent years for tougher prison sentences. With those measures come the need for more prisons, the thinking goes.

A $190-million prison called Deer Ridge Correctional Institution opened outside Madras in 2007, but only a third of the prison was needed for minimum-security inmates. The 1,233-bed medium-security portion of the prison for more serious offenders won't be needed now until 2013, the state estimates.

Isn't that wonderful. We've done such a great job in Oregon that crime is not what was anticipated.

Actually, it's another pathetic display of misplaced priorities by Oregonians. Yes, blame the government, but the government is you and me. We'd rather have unfilled prisons than uncrowded schools.

We asked for it and we got it. The teabagging crowd has been silent about this gross waste of taxpayers' money. They must think we're all safer because we have an empty prison in our midst.

Perhaps we should put it on our tourist map. We should give tours of Deer Ridge showing how spotless we can keep an empty prison. Perhaps we could book cells for a night or two. Our tourist slogan is, afterall, "We Love Dreamers."

We sure do. We apparently love people who dream about prisons. That does sound weird. How about, we love people who have nightmares about wasteful prison spending.

Because that is what Deer Ridge represents: a classic nightmare.

Like many other states, we'd rather spend more on empty prisons than our schools, particularly institutes of higher learning.

We just don't get it. If we put more money into prevention, i.e. public schools and universities, we wouldn't need more empty prisons.

Just a thought. Just a dream.

Rich foment class warfare

In tough economic times, it's popular for the middle classes to war between themselves or have the middle and lower classes go at it.

The so-called "liberal media" is all too eager to see the middle and lower classes mix it up.

Our local paper today ran a story on the top of the front page about how "everyone" is mad at teachers' unions in Central Oregon. A few weeks ago, the paper's editor declared war on the unions in this latest round of class warfare. Of course, police and firefighters' unions don't receive similar scrutiny.

It's bizarre to be attacking unions when less than 12 percent of the workforce is unionized. Even if two people were left in a union, the "liberal media" would still attack them.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party portrayed black women, representing the welfare state, as the great enemy of the free market system. Also, by firing the air traffic controllers, Reagan showed it was open season on the American worker. So, naturally, the culture, particularly the "liberal media" picked up the cue and highlighted the differences between working Americans and welfare America. Also, it pitted union versus non-union worker.

Consequently, the middle and lower classes fought among themselves while the rich got richer than ever.

The ratio of average CEO compensation to the average worker pay in 1965 was 24:1. By 2005 it was 262:1.

Census data show that since 1979 median income has increased just 12 percent, but that for the ultra rich it went up by nearly 400 percent. See a column here for more startling numbers.

The middle and lower classes don't understand the very rich and have the mistaken belief that they'll be one of them someday. That's like saying someone reading this blog will star in the NBA some day. Fat chance.

And yet, whenever anyone holds up data to show the growing disparity between rich and poor, the rich whimper that they're being picked on. It's just class warfare.

So, the goal of the rich is to have classes below them duke it out, while the rich cheer on the sidelines.

The local daily's piece on teachers' unions doesn't show that when the economy is robust, teachers are extremely lucky if they get a 1 percent or 2 percent raise. In bad times, such as now, teachers are taking pay cuts through furlough days plus no increases in pay. But, since it isn't as great a cut as the rich would like to see, they stir up the masses to oppose teachers.

No one complains about a Realtor making a $1 million in one year in Central Oregon, which many did during the last real estate bubble. And what exactly did these "professionals" contribute to society aside from land speculation? Not much.

It is way past time for the middle and lower classes to stop squabbling among themselves for the scraps thrown their way by the rich elites.

Look upwards, to the class at the top, for the source of your current financial woes. It is there that battles should be waged. We are in our current economic crisis due to the very rich destroying the economy but blaming people for securing home loans they shouldn't have qualified for. It's a classic class warfare tactic of the rich.

The stock market has surged over the past year, but, more than likely, your portfolio hasn't kept pace. Don't wonder why, because the rich are just taking candy from us babies.

If teabaggers want to make any difference, they need to first recognize the enemy. It is not your government but your CEOs and bailed-out bankers making billions in bonuses who need to be stopped. Don't listen to them, or the "liberal media," when they say it's all the government's fault.

Demand greater government oversight over the lords of capitalism. Demand that companies who ship jobs overseas do not get government subsidies for doing so. Demand that CEO compensation be capped. Demand that the media does its job by reporting the truth about the ongoing war by the rich against everyone else.

Fight the power.

And Happy Easter.

'Big Tent' becomes a pup tent

The amazing thing about the Republican Party is how disciplined it is.

Republican politicians all think alike and act alike. When Congress voted to expand health care to almost all Americans, all Republicans voted "no."

Critics from the left and center shook their heads. And so did one notable Republican, David Frum, former speechwriter to George W. Bush.

Frum did more than that, though. He had the audacity to actually criticize members of his own party. For this he lost his job at a Republican "think tank." The Wall Street Journal even slammed him.

Frum had been living on the Republican edge for awhile now, so it's not totally surprising. He was critical of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck last year. He also didn't think Sarah Palin was a good vice-presidential choice and doesn't think she would be a worthy presidential candidate in 2012.

But on the health care bill, Frum met his "Waterloo."

He wrote a critical piece March 21 on his blog, frumforum.com titled, "Waterloo." Below is an excerpt:

"Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now."

The Republican Party boasted that it was the "big tent" party, made up America's "melting pot" inviting those with opposing views.

Well, that big tent is shrinking to the size of a pup tent.

The Republican Party doesn't want African-Americans or Mexican-Americans or any other persons who use a hyphen to describe themselves. They don't want homosexuals or women. Christians are preferred, but not Mormons.

With Richard Nixon's victory in 1968, the party went after the white Southern Democrats. Ronald Reagan captured them all in the 1980s. On the Democratic side, we said "thank you" for taking away the racists.

The Republican Party is now mostly white, mostly male and still corners the market on the wealthy.

The Tea Party movement aligns with Republicans and vice versa.

The Republican Party has thrown its lot in with the "hate radio" crowd and unfair and imbalanced Fox News.

Frum had a good line recently when he said, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox."

Republicans are also discovering that bigotry and intolerance are not the ways to attract more members. Republicans, by refusing to work with Democrats, reveal that the party is not worthy of governance.

And, the party doesn't much care for Republicans who disagree with their orthodoxy. People like David Frum.

To close on an upbeat note, Stephen Colbert had a brilliant interview with Frum the other night. Watch it here for a good laugh.

Teabonics, Teabagistan, TeaKKKlanistan

A new poll for Republicans lets them know who the Teabaggers are, what they stand for and how to tap into their anger. Check out the story here and the data here.

One has taken the Teabagging anger to new lows. A Florida urologist puts up a sign on his door that says those who voted for Obama are not welcomed there. Check out the story here.

Freedom.

April Fools - A Republican backs tax hikes

I thought it was an April Fool's joke when I read a column by Charles Krauthammer that advocates a "value-added tax" in this country modeled after what is used throughout Europe.

But nope, it was real. An extreme right-winger pushing for higher taxes on everyone.

And pigs fly.

Go figure.

Well, a little research shows that Republicans do like taxes, regressive taxes. In fact, the patron saint of Republicans, Ronald Reagan, jacked up taxes throughout his presidency. Don't believe me? Check out these stories from sources favored by Republicans. A 2003 article is by Bruce Bartlett and the other is a 1988 piece by Sheldon Richman. Another piece takes a more critical look at Reagan's "liberal" legacy.

On Forbes.com last year, Bartlett wrote about President Obama's first budget to assuage the fears of Republicans:

"(On Feb. 26, 2009), President Obama issued his first detailed budget. Among its most controversial proposals is a significant increase in taxes, especially on those with upper incomes. Obama also proposes a cap-and-trade system to reduce pollution that is in essence a broad-based energy tax.

Republicans will undoubtedly make extravagant claims about the detrimental economic effect of these higher taxes. When one hears these claims, however, it is worth remembering that they said the same things in years past and none of their dire predictions came to pass.

According to a recent Treasury Department study, Ronald Reagan proposed the largest peacetime tax increase in American history as part of a budget deal to get the federal deficit under control. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) of 1982 was signed into law on Sept. 3, and most of its provisions took effect on Jan. 1, 1983.

During debate on TEFRA, many conservatives predicted economic disaster. They argued that raising taxes in the midst of a severe recession was exactly the wrong thing to do. "Every school child knows you don't raise taxes in a recession unless you want to make it worse," The Wall Street Journal's editorial page warned. Said Rep. Newt Gingrich, "I think it will make the economy sicker." The Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. said it had "no doubt that it will curb the economic recovery everyone wants."

Looking at the data, however, it is very hard to see any evidence that TEFRA had a negative effect on growth. Indeed, one could easily make a case that its enactment stimulated growth. As one can see, the economy's growth rates after TEFRA took effect were among the fastest in history."

The brilliance of Reagan, though, was to push the tax burden away from the very rich and down to the unwashed masses. It was called the "trickle-down theory."

If you're a waitress at an IHOP, that 8 percent set aside for taxes on your paycheck comes from the Reagan era. For that IHOP waitress, her "profits" trickle down the drain.

Some columnists think Obama's health care reform and other tax proposals signal a reversal of Reagan's reverse Robin Hood syndrome: take from the poor and give to the rich.

In a recent New York Times article, David Leonhardt writes:

"For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on (Feb. 23) is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.

Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor.

Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction. This fact helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to spend so much political capital on the issue, even though it did not appear to be his top priority as a presidential candidate. Beyond the health reform’s effect on the medical system, it is the centerpiece of his deliberate effort to end what historians have called the age of Reagan."

Well, ending the age of Reagan is going to take a lot more than this health care reform bill. As billionaire Warren Buffett said a few years ago when Democrats were accused of inciting "class warfare," Buffett said there is no class warfare, we won. We, meaning of course, the ultra rich.

That is why conservatives like Krauthammer push for a regressive tax like a "value-added tax" (VAT), which is essentially another sales tax. Krauthammer calls it the most fair tax, but it really means that those on the lower end of the tax spectrum will pay a greater share of their income than the super rich will from this VAT.

Now, I'm not advocating returning to the days of 90 percent tax on the rich. Nor do I think the VAT is inherently wrong.

The crux of the matter is this: We want to wage war, educate all our kids through college, take care of everyone's health and give social security to our seniors, but we don't want to pay for much of it.

That is Reagan's true legacy: We can have it all, because deficits don't matter.

Well, we're finding out that they do, particularly when our former adversaries, the Chinese, control our deficit destiny.

The truth is that if we want something, we should be willing to pay for it because freedom isn't free.

Or as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization."