The recent crisis involving state budget shortfalls has once again spilled over into the debate about whether government is too inefficient, or whether it is simply under-funded. As usual, schools will be asked to take the biggest cuts, and the governor has gone so far as to ask teachers to take a pay cut by working a number of days for free.
As a teacher that recently paid $40,000 in student loans to get my masters degree so that I could become a teacher, I find this suggestion outrageous. Teachers are already paid far below other professionals with similar experience and education. Some argue that this is because teachers have summers off, but in reality teachers are paid for a 180 day (or thereabouts) contract, so this is a non-issue.
The real issue is the blatant hypocrisy and myopic disregard with which education is regularly treated. Politicians know that the general public believes a good education to be a laudable goal, so they trumpet it throughout their campaigns, but as soon as they take office, education resumes its usual role: the first budgetary item to get cut, the last to get more funding. Likewise, the general public says that they want a good education for their kids, but heaven forbid they have to pay for it—and every time the teacher’s union threatens to strike or refuses to take a pay cut, they call us greedy and mock our profession. Funding for public education is the classic case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
Let me make a couple of points perfectly clear: 1) the teachers union, as with most unions, exists because the nature of the relationship between employee and employer (the state) is such that the employee would be paid as little as possible (well evidenced by recent events) if it were totally under the employer’s control. This, in general, is actually a positive thing for parents and taxpayers, because a union contract ensures that teachers are well-trained, licensed professionals.
2) Many teachers, myself included, chose the profession because it is relatively stable, knowing that with low risk (job security) comes low reward (small salary). Asking teachers to sacrifice their salaries, because other people entered professions with high risk and high reward, is like penalizing the shop keeper that locked his doors because the butcher next door left his open. I’m sorry that people have lost their jobs, but to quote the rich entrepreneur in Jurassic Park, “I don’t blame people for their problems, but I do ask that they pay for them.”
3) If people want to reduce the budget for schools, how about evicting the thousands of illegal immigrants that have flooded this nation whose children we are now educating. Look, I care about all of my students, but if we are forced to make tough decisions about the cost of public education, we could drastically reduce class sizes and the need for a large number of resources by eliminating students that are not citizens of this country. Philanthropy is wonderful—if you can pay for it. I would argue that in our current crisis, we cannot. I cannot stress enough that this has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with money.
4) Teachers already spend more time than they are paid for helping students in our system of public education. People say we’re greedy for not wanting to work for free, but if that same person pointing their finger was asked to do the same, my guess would be that his answer would be, “no.” But you know what? I will work for free. Absolutely. If Willamette University forgives my student loans; if the banks want to forgive my credit card debt; if my landlord agrees to lower my rent, the electric company lowers my rate, and I can get cable and gasoline for free. If they all agree to “stop being greedy,” then yes, of course, I will work for free. Until that day, however, I say no, I will not work for free. Not until everyone else does.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Putting the Process First
Any action, in the basic, philosophical sense, has two parts. There is the process, that is, the actual carrying out of an act and how it is performed (the means), and there is the result, the change, gain, loss, or alteration that was made to the previously existing state of whatever was acted upon (the end). While no one would dispute that results eventually have to matter, I believe that our current economic crisis has a lot to do with our society’s obsession with the end, rather than the means.
Take the housing crisis for example. Why should a house in 2007, that was in no way different than it was 5 years ago, suddenly be worth $100,000 more than it was in 2002? As we all know now, there is no good reason, because there was no means by which that value was added, yet if people went along with the end, they stood to make a lot of money…so no one said anything. Now our banks are failing, foreclosures are up, and many people have lost thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, in the stock market.
Unfortunately, this is not the only area in our society where the end has outweighed the means. Look at No Child Left Behind’s effect on schools. Instead of hiring the best teachers and using the most effective means of instruction in the classroom, schools are in a state of constant change because they are measured by arbitrary standards that don’t account for changes or variations in student demographics. Look at our automobile industry. Look at the loss of blue collar manufacturing jobs in general. Putting the ends before the means can explain nearly every product recall (the recent peanut butter fiasco), every sacrifice of product quality, every occurrence of poor customer service, and every industry that moves overseas instead of employing U.S. workers.
Alternately, in the areas where it would make sense to examine the ends, our society obsesses about the means for ideological reasons. We can’t have universal health care, because that would be socialism, never mind that the cost in the end is astronomical and is one of the reasons U.S. industries can’t compete with foreign competitors. Likewise, we have to harshly punish criminals because they broke the law, never mind that our prisons are absolutely bursting with people convicted for non-violent crimes or parole violations, or that we have the largest prison population in the world.
There’s the old question about whether the ends justify the means, and I think that regardless of what we are doing, we need to examine both to see if they are really serving our interests. Coaches emphasize the process, the means their athletes use to compete. I think that our society would be wise to do the same. We need to get back to emphasizing quality during the process, rather than justifying a shoddy process because it produces the results we desire, or because we are ideologically attached to the process, as in health care and criminal justice. Eventually, bad means come home to roost and produce bad results.
After all, who do you want at the plate in the ninth inning with runners in scoring position: a baseball player that has hit a screaming line drive to the shortstop three times in a game but has a zero batting average, or the awkward second baseman who got lucky once on a swinging bunt and is batting .333?
Take the housing crisis for example. Why should a house in 2007, that was in no way different than it was 5 years ago, suddenly be worth $100,000 more than it was in 2002? As we all know now, there is no good reason, because there was no means by which that value was added, yet if people went along with the end, they stood to make a lot of money…so no one said anything. Now our banks are failing, foreclosures are up, and many people have lost thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, in the stock market.
Unfortunately, this is not the only area in our society where the end has outweighed the means. Look at No Child Left Behind’s effect on schools. Instead of hiring the best teachers and using the most effective means of instruction in the classroom, schools are in a state of constant change because they are measured by arbitrary standards that don’t account for changes or variations in student demographics. Look at our automobile industry. Look at the loss of blue collar manufacturing jobs in general. Putting the ends before the means can explain nearly every product recall (the recent peanut butter fiasco), every sacrifice of product quality, every occurrence of poor customer service, and every industry that moves overseas instead of employing U.S. workers.
Alternately, in the areas where it would make sense to examine the ends, our society obsesses about the means for ideological reasons. We can’t have universal health care, because that would be socialism, never mind that the cost in the end is astronomical and is one of the reasons U.S. industries can’t compete with foreign competitors. Likewise, we have to harshly punish criminals because they broke the law, never mind that our prisons are absolutely bursting with people convicted for non-violent crimes or parole violations, or that we have the largest prison population in the world.
There’s the old question about whether the ends justify the means, and I think that regardless of what we are doing, we need to examine both to see if they are really serving our interests. Coaches emphasize the process, the means their athletes use to compete. I think that our society would be wise to do the same. We need to get back to emphasizing quality during the process, rather than justifying a shoddy process because it produces the results we desire, or because we are ideologically attached to the process, as in health care and criminal justice. Eventually, bad means come home to roost and produce bad results.
After all, who do you want at the plate in the ninth inning with runners in scoring position: a baseball player that has hit a screaming line drive to the shortstop three times in a game but has a zero batting average, or the awkward second baseman who got lucky once on a swinging bunt and is batting .333?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The Death of the Republican Party
We are currently witnessing congressional actions that will lead to the death of the Republican Party. It seems that Republicans are so used to being nay-sayers that they just can’t help but oppose the stimulus package. It also seems that they may have found their true platform a little too late.
See, in a booming economy, the tax and spending cuts that the Republicans are now proposing (I guess the lesson is that you get to spend money on war and pet projects for your buddies, but not when that money is slated for the creation of jobs) work well—the government can afford to give up some revenue and doesn’t need to spend as much money to create demand. Ideally, in a good economy, the government should run a surplus (I don’t think Republicans are even aware of what ‘surplus’ means). In a bad economy, however, this is ass backwards. If the government cuts spending, then demand for consumer goods and services drops, as do wages, leading ultimately to a loss of production, which leads to a greater loss of job and so on and so forth…this is the downward spiral of a recession and it is a difficult cycle to break without some kind of stimulus from outside sources i.e. the government.
Tax cuts are more complicated. Realistically, tax cuts are not a bad idea during a poor economy, because again, the government should want to increase the supply of money, leading to greater demand. This means, that again, ideally, we should have tax increases during times of prosperity. Of course this is assuming that we want tax rates to regulate the economic cycle of recession, depression, recovery, prosperity. I’d rather just have a fair tax code that taxed wealth rather than work, but that’s another argument entirely.
Getting back to the demise of the Republican Party, their problem lies primarily in the fact that they just say the same thing all the time, like a child throwing a fit, “What do you want to eat Rushy?”
“I want a peanut butter sandwich!”
“We don’t have any peanut butter.”
“Peanut Butter Sandwich!”
“Rushy, you’re allergic to peanut butter.”
“PEANUT BUTTER!”
“Rushy, how about an oxycodon and a prostitute?”
“Yaaaaaaaaay!”
Like little Rushy, who desperately wants a PBJ, Republicans constantly want tax cuts. No matter what the economic, social, or political problem is, the solution is simply to have more tax cuts. But no matter how much they beg, plead, and use the corporate media microphone, the plain truth is that tax cuts aren’t going to work when Americans are buying Chinese products, our government allows illegal immigrants across the border unabated, we continue to lead the world in prison population, our healthcare system is bloated and inefficient, our schools are poorly funded, and our public infrastructure is crumbling to the ground. None of these problems are going to be solved by tax cuts, nor is any simple increase in money supply, because these problems are systemic products of years of bipartisan ignorance. They require leadership, dynamic problem solving, and the word that is anathema to politicians: action.
If Republicans want to criticize the Democrats for not addressing these issues, and start offering solutions and plans of action to boot, they will have my vote in coming elections, and I would guess the votes of many other Americans. If, however, they continue down this path of small government, tax cuts, and social conservatism (an issue I won’t even begin to discuss here), they are going to continue to lose, and finally, they are going to die. And America isn’t going to shed a tear when they do.
See, in a booming economy, the tax and spending cuts that the Republicans are now proposing (I guess the lesson is that you get to spend money on war and pet projects for your buddies, but not when that money is slated for the creation of jobs) work well—the government can afford to give up some revenue and doesn’t need to spend as much money to create demand. Ideally, in a good economy, the government should run a surplus (I don’t think Republicans are even aware of what ‘surplus’ means). In a bad economy, however, this is ass backwards. If the government cuts spending, then demand for consumer goods and services drops, as do wages, leading ultimately to a loss of production, which leads to a greater loss of job and so on and so forth…this is the downward spiral of a recession and it is a difficult cycle to break without some kind of stimulus from outside sources i.e. the government.
Tax cuts are more complicated. Realistically, tax cuts are not a bad idea during a poor economy, because again, the government should want to increase the supply of money, leading to greater demand. This means, that again, ideally, we should have tax increases during times of prosperity. Of course this is assuming that we want tax rates to regulate the economic cycle of recession, depression, recovery, prosperity. I’d rather just have a fair tax code that taxed wealth rather than work, but that’s another argument entirely.
Getting back to the demise of the Republican Party, their problem lies primarily in the fact that they just say the same thing all the time, like a child throwing a fit, “What do you want to eat Rushy?”
“I want a peanut butter sandwich!”
“We don’t have any peanut butter.”
“Peanut Butter Sandwich!”
“Rushy, you’re allergic to peanut butter.”
“PEANUT BUTTER!”
“Rushy, how about an oxycodon and a prostitute?”
“Yaaaaaaaaay!”
Like little Rushy, who desperately wants a PBJ, Republicans constantly want tax cuts. No matter what the economic, social, or political problem is, the solution is simply to have more tax cuts. But no matter how much they beg, plead, and use the corporate media microphone, the plain truth is that tax cuts aren’t going to work when Americans are buying Chinese products, our government allows illegal immigrants across the border unabated, we continue to lead the world in prison population, our healthcare system is bloated and inefficient, our schools are poorly funded, and our public infrastructure is crumbling to the ground. None of these problems are going to be solved by tax cuts, nor is any simple increase in money supply, because these problems are systemic products of years of bipartisan ignorance. They require leadership, dynamic problem solving, and the word that is anathema to politicians: action.
If Republicans want to criticize the Democrats for not addressing these issues, and start offering solutions and plans of action to boot, they will have my vote in coming elections, and I would guess the votes of many other Americans. If, however, they continue down this path of small government, tax cuts, and social conservatism (an issue I won’t even begin to discuss here), they are going to continue to lose, and finally, they are going to die. And America isn’t going to shed a tear when they do.
Monday, February 2, 2009
We have to pay for this!
Friends, as I was watching the news this evening, I saw a story about a law that would lengthen the penalty for child abuse by a coach, but not for the average citizen. Perhaps for the average moron, this seems like a great idea, because after all, and as many of the interviewees (1) said, "A coach has a special relationship with a player, and is intentionally putting themselves in the arena with kids." True, but that means that the person that isn't working with kids went especially out of their way to abuse a child, which in a way is worse. In any case the point is moot--I'm not arguing that we should allow child abuse, or that it shouldn't be strongly punished.
No, the problem with this whole rationale is that strengthening prison sentences has little effect on reducing crime. Think about it--it's not as if a person that is mentally deranged enough to abuse a child is going to say to himself, "well, raping little Johnny really made sense when the penalty was only 6 months, but now that its 18, its just not worth it anymore." No, in all likelihood, unfortunately, the child molester is going to do it anyway, because he probably either believes he won't get caught, or he's simply too far gone not to engage in said behavior. Constantly legislating stronger punishments is the basic flaw in our solution to crime, because for the vast majority of crimes, the principal does not believe they will get caught. So passing stronger sentencing guidelines accomplishes nothing but saddling the taxpayer with a larger bill to pay.
As I've noted in previous blogs, the United States is currently the worlds #1 jailor. At the end of 2007, the Bureau of Justice found that "2,293,157 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails." This amounts to about $73 billion a year in direct cost, not taking into account the costs of privately or publicly funded lawyers, police officers, parole officers, etc.
The first, typically barbaric, response I usually get to this is "just kill them all!" No you can't do that--it costs more for the courts to bear the costs of the appeals process in order to get a death sentence upheld than it does simply to house that criminal for life in prison. Second, "Well, then just end the appeals process." The constitution prevents that. "Well, then..." It's actually almost hilarious in a very morbid way, the extent to which people will go to reverse current U.S. law and the protections afforded to citizens in the constitution so that they can justify executing prisoners.
Again, our society's entire frame of thought on this process is completely flawed. There are four basic reasons to put someone in jail: 1) incapacitation, 2) deterrence 3) rehabilitation, and 4) retribution/restitution. Our current system focuses primarily on 1, 2, and 4. Our rationale tends to be that: 1) we want to remove criminals from society so that they cannot commit more crimes, 2) we want to pass tough laws in order to deter people from committing crimes, and 4) we want to appropriately punish people that commit crimes.
I have no beef with incapacitation as a rationale for the incarceration of violent criminals, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to incapacitate petty thieves, drug dealers, etc. At least not for a very long time. That we pass laws to deter crime is pretty silly, and moreover, ineffectual. In general, white collar crime is the only type that can be effectively deterred, because then we are dealing with rational people. Even so, the fact that the vast majority of criminals don't believe they'll be caught should still play heavy in our minds. Restitution or retribution, while understandable from the victim's point of view, is shockingly anti-pragmatic. Punishing someone for the sake of justice and justice alone is nothing more than a psychological ploy that works for the kind of people who get in bar fights and think that Jesus cares about whether a person is a virgin when they go to the wedding bed. In other words, just because someone deserves to be punished, doesn't mean they ought to be; I know of a lot of people that should be beaten senseless with a sack of rocks because they live like troglodytes, but that doesn't mean we should all grab burlap sacks and head for the local quarry.
The other reason for incarceration--rehabilitation--is barely even considered in this supposedly Christian nation. For anyone that doesn't believe some criminals, even those convicted with life sentences for committing violent crimes, deserve to be rehabilitated and given a second chance, check out "When Kids Get Life" by Frontline, available for free on the PBS website.
In sum, we cannot continue to think that we can legislate crime out of society, and we certainly can't do it by strengthening crime sentences for the purposes of deterrence or retribution; or, we can, but then we can expect to keep having to pay for it too.
(1) By the way, I think most news organizations miss the point when it comes to choosing their subjects. The general public would like to see intelligent people interviewed, not whoever they happen to stumble upon outside of a halfway house, the welfare line, or the DMV. I'd rather have someone with a legitimate job and an education speak for us than the half-witted pockmarked idiot I had to suffer through this evening. Instead, they find someone that will offer the basic "no" position, someone else to offer the basic "yes" position, and then roll off in the news van so they can get home in time to flirt with the dumb weather girl.
No, the problem with this whole rationale is that strengthening prison sentences has little effect on reducing crime. Think about it--it's not as if a person that is mentally deranged enough to abuse a child is going to say to himself, "well, raping little Johnny really made sense when the penalty was only 6 months, but now that its 18, its just not worth it anymore." No, in all likelihood, unfortunately, the child molester is going to do it anyway, because he probably either believes he won't get caught, or he's simply too far gone not to engage in said behavior. Constantly legislating stronger punishments is the basic flaw in our solution to crime, because for the vast majority of crimes, the principal does not believe they will get caught. So passing stronger sentencing guidelines accomplishes nothing but saddling the taxpayer with a larger bill to pay.
As I've noted in previous blogs, the United States is currently the worlds #1 jailor. At the end of 2007, the Bureau of Justice found that "2,293,157 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails." This amounts to about $73 billion a year in direct cost, not taking into account the costs of privately or publicly funded lawyers, police officers, parole officers, etc.
The first, typically barbaric, response I usually get to this is "just kill them all!" No you can't do that--it costs more for the courts to bear the costs of the appeals process in order to get a death sentence upheld than it does simply to house that criminal for life in prison. Second, "Well, then just end the appeals process." The constitution prevents that. "Well, then..." It's actually almost hilarious in a very morbid way, the extent to which people will go to reverse current U.S. law and the protections afforded to citizens in the constitution so that they can justify executing prisoners.
Again, our society's entire frame of thought on this process is completely flawed. There are four basic reasons to put someone in jail: 1) incapacitation, 2) deterrence 3) rehabilitation, and 4) retribution/restitution. Our current system focuses primarily on 1, 2, and 4. Our rationale tends to be that: 1) we want to remove criminals from society so that they cannot commit more crimes, 2) we want to pass tough laws in order to deter people from committing crimes, and 4) we want to appropriately punish people that commit crimes.
I have no beef with incapacitation as a rationale for the incarceration of violent criminals, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to incapacitate petty thieves, drug dealers, etc. At least not for a very long time. That we pass laws to deter crime is pretty silly, and moreover, ineffectual. In general, white collar crime is the only type that can be effectively deterred, because then we are dealing with rational people. Even so, the fact that the vast majority of criminals don't believe they'll be caught should still play heavy in our minds. Restitution or retribution, while understandable from the victim's point of view, is shockingly anti-pragmatic. Punishing someone for the sake of justice and justice alone is nothing more than a psychological ploy that works for the kind of people who get in bar fights and think that Jesus cares about whether a person is a virgin when they go to the wedding bed. In other words, just because someone deserves to be punished, doesn't mean they ought to be; I know of a lot of people that should be beaten senseless with a sack of rocks because they live like troglodytes, but that doesn't mean we should all grab burlap sacks and head for the local quarry.
The other reason for incarceration--rehabilitation--is barely even considered in this supposedly Christian nation. For anyone that doesn't believe some criminals, even those convicted with life sentences for committing violent crimes, deserve to be rehabilitated and given a second chance, check out "When Kids Get Life" by Frontline, available for free on the PBS website.
In sum, we cannot continue to think that we can legislate crime out of society, and we certainly can't do it by strengthening crime sentences for the purposes of deterrence or retribution; or, we can, but then we can expect to keep having to pay for it too.
(1) By the way, I think most news organizations miss the point when it comes to choosing their subjects. The general public would like to see intelligent people interviewed, not whoever they happen to stumble upon outside of a halfway house, the welfare line, or the DMV. I'd rather have someone with a legitimate job and an education speak for us than the half-witted pockmarked idiot I had to suffer through this evening. Instead, they find someone that will offer the basic "no" position, someone else to offer the basic "yes" position, and then roll off in the news van so they can get home in time to flirt with the dumb weather girl.
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