It's game time. With the intra-party Republican battle unfortunately over, the President is starting to ramp up with his own ads. He's been catching flak lately for the Bain ad in which he attacks Romney's record in private equity, using it as part of a larger message about Romney's disregard for the middle and working classes.
But in the most recently released ads from the Obama campaign, the message is much more positive. Focusing on Medicare and veterans, these ads bring attention back to the President's record:
"Personal" highlights the President's commitment to preserving Medicare. It reminds us that he was raised by his grandparents and thus understands the importance of the entitlement and of fighting Medicare fraud - not just on a political level, but on a personal one too. In contrast to Republicans trying to cut spending on the backs of the most vulnerable, the ad draws attention to Obama's crackdown on Medicare fraud, which recovered $4.1 billion (up 50% from 2009) by better screening providers and requiring stronger enrollment requirements. This ad comes in the wake of Romney announcing support for the Ryan budget, which includes major cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
The ads on the recovery of the auto industry, jobs, education and energy are available on the site as well. And presumably some more attack ads will surface again soon. But for today, it's all positivity from the Obama campaign.
With primary season in full swing, Obama for America launched GottaVote.org, a bilingual resource to help navigate voting laws, deadlines and other important details by state.
On the page for Texas, you can see that you need to register 30 days before the election, what to bring to the polls (and the forms that substitute for a voter registration card), find your polling place and hours, learn how to vote early or by mail, and sign up for reminders about voting deadlines and important dates.
Aside from being practically useful, it's interesting (and sometimes disturbing) to compare the voting laws and requirements between states. In the past year alone, Republican legislatures in eight states have passed some form of a law requiring voter ID:
The claim is of course that voter ID laws would protect voter fraud - a thinly veiled excuse for keeping the traditionally disenfranchised groups who vote Democrat from voting. Attorney General Eric Holder tells it like it is:
"Each of these lawsuits claims that we've attained a new era of electoral equality, that America in 2012 has moved beyond the challenges of 1965, and that Section 5 [which requires the sixteen states or parts of states with a history of discrimination to receive federal approval before changing their voting laws] is no longer necessary. I wish this were the case. But the reality is that - in jurisdictions across the country - both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common - and have not yet been relegated to the pages of history."
Texas' own version of the voter ID law was blocked by the U.S. Department of Justice for disproportionately targeting Hispanics. Thanks to the Obama Administration, the law did not go into effect for the 2012 primary elections. But it's still a mess, with a court case pending over pronouncements on the back of voter registration cards suggesting the law has actually been approved.
The Obama Administration has blocked other similar laws as well, including one in South Carolina that disproportionately targeted African Americans. And the battle isn't just limited to voter ID - sixteen states are also considering laws that would end voter registration on Election Day.
In the wake of all of the attacks on voting rights, it's nice to see that one party is still interested in allowing - nay, encouraging - everyone to vote.
The Republicans in the House of Representatives recently voted to cut $36 billion in spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, a.k.a. food stamps) - all while the need for food stamps is increasing at an unprecedented rate.
An unfortunate (but unsurprising) byproduct of the current economic reality, food stamp enrollment reached an all-time high in 2011: 45 million people across the U.S. - or one in seven people - received SNAP benefits, showing an increase of 70 percent between 2007 and 2011. Three-quarters of these households include a child, a person age 60 or older, or a disabled person. And in a sign of the times, even advanced degree holders have had an increase in need for food stamps: "Of the 22 million Americans with master's degrees or higher in 2010, about 360,000 were receiving some kind of public assistance."
When funding for nutrition assistance falls short, people in need turn to food banks. But they don't have enough to go around either. Celia Cole, CEO of the Texas Food Bank Network, spoke out against the cuts:
"Feeding our neighbors is a shared responsibility. Food banks will not be able to make up the difference from this proposed cut, and Texas families will suffer the consequences if it becomes law."
Fortunately, despite the popularity of cutting spending generally, most people actually don't want it cut from SNAP: a recent public opinion poll found that 77% of voters (and 63% of Republican voters) oppose cutting SNAP to reduce government spending. So perhaps there is hope that the funding cuts won't come to fruition, or at least won't be as dire.
SNAP only provides about $1.50 a meal, or roughly $30 per week per person. As far as government benefits go, it's not a lot of money. You may have heard about Mario Batali joining the ranks of those who attempted the food stamp challenge this week, which involves eating only what food stamps can cover. The answer: not much.
But for 45 million people, it can mean the difference between having a complete meal or going hungry.
The youth sent to the Texas Juvenile Justice System are some of the most chronic delinquent offenders in the state. Ninety-three percent are boys, 79 percent have unmarried parents, 78 percent are Hispanic or African-American, 62 percent need alcohol or drug treatment, 56 percent are from low-income families, 42 percent need mental health treatment and 36 percent have been abused or neglected. And they also have really good ideas about how to improve the juvenile justice system.
In late April, a group of youth with experience in the juvenile justice system spoke at the Capitol about their recommendations to make the system more effective. The Texas Network of Youth Services (TNOYS), a nonprofit association of organizations that serve youth in at-risk situations, hired this team of young people who met at the Capitol every other Saturday throughout the school year to learn about advocacy, brainstorm ideas and practice public speaking. To inform their recommendations, they attended state-level policy meetings, read professional reports, interviewed practitioners involved in the juvenile justice system and surveyed their peers.
After several months of training and preparation to become advocates, the youth presented their ideas to policymakers and practitioners involved in juvenile justice at the Texas State Capitol. Their recommendations addressed topics including family conflict, law enforcement, the intake process at lock-up facilities, the court system, mental health services and re-entry services for when youth are transitioning back home:
Offer youth sufficient opportunities to talk with their parents over the phone when they are detained, prior to a court hearing. This will give them time to resolve conflicts with their parents and help ensure their parents will support them in the courtroom and upon release.
Youth should be provided with life skills and job training opportunities while in the system, as many face the reality of finding work difficult once they are released. As one of the young people said during a training meeting, "We don't know how to do the things that you need to know to be adults. I don't know how to write a check or talk in an interview."
Lack of skills, coupled with returning to tough environments, are among the reasons they cite for youth returning to the juvenile justice system or to adult prison.
Probation officers should work with youth to ensure that terms of their probation (for example, ankle monitors and meeting times) do not exclude them from participation in sports or other extracurricular activities. Those activities may be key to staying out of trouble.
Assist youth with obtaining important identification documents and reaching milestones related to adulthood. For example, help youth complete driver's education and obtain a driver's license.
Youth should be allowed to admit themselves into emergency shelters without parent/guardian approval.
Though common-sense, these ideas are the types that may not come to light unless the people experiencing the system actually speak up about it.
TNOYS will be working with the Austin nonprofit Media Awareness Project to get the youths' presentations on film so they can continue to share their ideas with people who were not able to attend the Capitol event. In the meantime, it's worth thinking about how many policy areas would be improved if the people experiencing broken systems were empowered to speak up.
Yesterday was a great day for equality, and many of us are still celebrating/recovering from celebrating the President's announcement that he personally supports gay marriage. A mere sixteen years from passing the Defense of Marriage Act under a Democratic President, we've come a long way.
Though an historic moment for gay rights, the announcement notably stopped at personal support, without calling for any legislative or executive action. Despite his personal convictions, Obama still believes the legality of marriage should be left to the states. And, well, some states are better than others.
The graphic shows where states stand on marriage, hospital visits, adoption, employment, housing, hate crime and school discrimination/bullying. The states with maximum rights in these areas are appropriately represented as a rainbow. Unfortunately, even though 52 percent of Americans support gay marriage, there is not a corresponding number of rainbows.
Some highlights:
Eight states plus the District of Columbia allow gay marriage. Ten states allow civil unions or domestic partnerships. But that leaves thirty-two states legally that have either legally defined marriage to be between a man and a woman or amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
By following the link to the graphic, you can see the states weighted equally, or weighted according to population. Things look better when weighted according to population, largely because of California, New York and Illinois's more progressive policies. On the other hand, the Southeast and the Midwest make the whole country look bad.
Almost every state allows adoption by a single person, with 19 allowing adoption by same-sex couples as well. But three states (Utah, Mississippi and Michigan) actually allow adoption by single people, but do not allow adoption by same-sex couples. Because one loving parent is always better than two?
Texas isn't necessarily the worst state for equality, but only because of legislation that addresses hate crimes related to sexual orientation. Oklahoma and Alabama, for instance, lag behind - but barely.
Hopefully the President's support for equal rights will help tip some of these states, especially the ones already beginning to adopt some more progressive policies. (Wisconsin? Minnesota? Nevada?). Because as it stands now, his announcement comes at a time when public support for equality is not reflected in either state or federal policy.
In case we had forgotten that Mitt Romney is a businessman, his callous solution to rapidly mounting tuition costs and student debt serves as a salient reminder that he prefers free market principles to reality - and that knowing how to run a business doesn't mean you know how to run a country.
Romney understands that tuition and student debt are out of control. But he thinks it's the government's fault for stepping in to help people go to college if they can't afford it on their own. In a recent interview, Romney said:
"If the government starts writing checks for people to go to a university, they will just keep raising their rates because there will be no incentive to say we'll have to hold our rates down in order to attract the best students. Now, of course some of the big institutions have great scholarship programs that keep the costs down through those charitable contributions. But, I'm not in favor of having the federal government start spending money which would only in my view raise the cost of tuition."
That's because Romney thinks hope is on the way - the free market is going to bring down costs until college is affordable for all. At the Youngstown Town Hall in March, he said, "I know that it would be popular for me to just stand up and say I'm going to give you government money to make sure to pay for your college. But I'm not going to promise that. What I'm going to tell you is: Shop around, get a good price." According to Romney, if students just start attending the top-tier universities that somehow don't require them to take on any debt (even without student aid), other schools will have to lower costs to compete.
But in just the past year, the average in-state tuition and fees at a four-year public college increased by 8 percent, so that it's now at an all-time high of over $8,000. Romney would be hard pressed to blame federal investment in student aid for this drastic jump in the course of just one year. It also shows that even with "shopping around," a responsible student whose parents aren't able to pitch in would still take out easily over $30,000 in debt just for tuition, not to mention cost of living.
The prospect of a president who doesn't support the interests of students who can't fork out tens of thousands of dollars for college comes at a particularly troubling time. The rates on Stafford loans are set to double in July unless Congress acts soon. Just yesterday, Senate Republicans actually filibustered the Democratic bill to prevent the increase in rates. The reason? The Democrats wanted to help offset the cost of the one -year extension by fixing a loophole in the tax system that allows very wealthy people to classify their income as dividends to avoid paying taxes. According to Rep. Lamar Alexander, "They want to raise taxes on people who are creating jobs when we are still recovering from the greatest recession since the Great Depression." His even more disturbing solution: pay for the extension by eliminating a fund for preventive health care that was established as part of the Affordable Care Act.
As Republicans hold student loan rates hostage as a weapon against health care reform, Romney has remained silent. But he has found other ways to show contempt for student aid by calling Paul Ryan's budget plan, which targets Pell grants for funding cuts and would allow student loans to double, "bold," "exciting" and "excellent." And as governor of Massachusetts, he presided over a state that was 47th in terms of spending on higher education.
The most troubling aspect of Romney's rhetoric may be the fact that he talks about taking on student debt as if it's an irresponsible choice made by people living outside their means. Except he's not talking about taking out an adjustable rate mortgage or buying a yacht with a payday loan - he's talking about education.
Last week, the Texas Association of Business (TAB) joined a lawsuit in support of charter schools as a roundabout way of fixing public education. Texans for Real Efficiency and Equity in Education, the group filing the lawsuit, has charged that "the lack of outside competition to Texas public schools has rendered the state education system inefficient and thus unconstitutional." There is currently a statewide cap of 215 charter schools, which the lawsuit is seeking to lift.
TAB is one of the most influential business groups in the state. By joining the lawsuit, TAB President and CEO Bill Hammond hopes there will be more pressure on the court to act.
I think we can all agree school finance in Texas is a mess. But a lack of funding - not a lack of competition - is the more pressing problem, which is why it's concerning that the groups condemning public education are the same groups opposing taxes to help fund schools.
In a recent column called Why don't state's business leaders stand up to Perry?, Patricia Hart asks why business groups who appear to recognize the importance of education (in particular, the Greater Houston Partnership) still stand with Perry, especially in light of his budget compact to agree to no new taxes in the next legislative session. Her argument is that these groups get enough payout from Perry in other ways (read: the Texas Enterprise Fund) that it prevents them from standing up to him in any meaningful ways. It's easy for them to pass resolutions about their noble intentions, but when those principles conflict with the governor's, they're notably silent.
TAB isn't really any different. When asked about the next eduction commissioner in Texas, Hammond said, "You need someone who is in line with the governor - that is critically important." His group did call on Perry to use funding from Texas' rainy day fund to bolster school finance, but would not go so far as to support anything sustainable like a new revenue stream.
Some of the school finance battles actually have a shot at making things more fair in Texas. Over half of the school districts in Texas are suing for adequate funding. But this charter school lawsuit, if successful, would continue to send the message that Texas has given up on public schools. If TAB and the Texans for Real Efficiency and Equity in Education really want to foster an environment of healthy competition in the Texas education system, they need to recognize that Perry and the state legislature have put a major handicap on public schools.
The Association of Texas Professional Educators (ATPE) just launched teachthevote.org, a useful website to help you learn where candidates for the Legislature and the State Board of Education stand on public education issues.
ATPE does a lot of nonpartisan advocacy to fully fund public education, reduce classroom size, get better benefits for teachers and make schools safer, to name of a few of their issues. Though they don't formally endorse candidates, they do let you know where each of the candidates stands on public education issues.
The site lets you search by district maps or by typing in your address to see who's running in your area. There's a profile for each candidate, which includes bios, responses to a survey, etc. So, for instance, one of the questions in the survey asks, "Under what circumstances should the State Board of Education be able to reject a textbook?" It's now that easy to find out if your local candidates are of the "if it has factual errors" camp or the "if it acknowledges non-Christian viewpoints or does not adequately emphasize patriotism" camp.
According to ATPE State President Cheryl Buchanan:
"If the people we elect to represent us do not actively support our public schools, they do not support our children," said. "Our state legislators cut $5.4 billion from public school funding last session. We desperately need to elect pro-public education candidates... Turning out to support candidates who are public education-friendly during the primary election is especially important because many primary winners will face no general election opponent."
Let's end the week with some more good news about the impact of the Recovery Act in Texas. A new study from Texans for Public Justice finds that:
"Federal spending through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) saved or created at least 264,459 Texas jobs by the end of 2010... This number is equivalent to two percent of the total Texas workforce, which then boasted 11.2 million workers according to the Texas Workforce Commission."
The TPJ study attempted to strike a balance between reports of job creation that underestimate the stimulus's impact by only counting direct job creation (without any economic multipliers), and reports that overestimate by counting jobs that probably already would have existed otherwise and by failing to account for layoffs and short-term employment. In the end, TPJ's numbers were slightly higher than the government's report of 243,814 new jobs in Texas as a result of the stimulus.
The report also shows that growth in Texas surpassed growth in the rest of the nation, largely as a result of federal spending the state:
Although Texas breeds state and federal politicians who rail against government spending... federal, state and local government employment has grown much faster in Texas than it has in the nation as a whole. Moreover, Texas' dependence on federal funding increases with every passing year... Federal spending in Texas has far outstripped the overall growth in U.S. federal spending over the past decade.
In addition to showing how important the stimulus was in preventing an even worse recession, it's a fun juxtaposition against everything Rick Perry has said about the stimulus. Like the time that Perry famously said the stimulus created "zero jobs." Regardless of the economic model used to determine job creation, it's clear he was off, as with so many things, by a few orders of magnitude.
Well, this is awkward. After complaining about the media's love affair with Obama, turns out Romney has actually been getting more positive media coverage.
A recent study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows that Obama hasn't been able to catch a break, while Romney has actually had a pretty easy ride:
"The president's media coverage in 2012 has been consistently negative while his Republican challenger has experienced a more mixed narrative. Obama's negative coverage exceeded positive coverage in 14 of 15 weeks studied, while positive coverage outweighed negative coverage for Romney in six of the 15 weeks and was fairly evenly divided in four more."
This is the same guy who said that, "many in the media are inclined to do the president's bidding and I know that's an uphill battle we fight with the media generally." If by uphill battle, he means free pass.
The study also looked at what kinds of coverage the election is getting. Sixty-four percent is about strategy and the campaign horserace. That leaves policy issues, personal issues and public record crammed into the remaining 36 percent, as seen in this disturbing graph:
This is actually an improvement from the 2008 election, when an astonishing 80 percent of coverage was about strategy and the horserace. The focus on strategy over policy even holds true for the sitting President: "[Obama's] coverage that focused on the strategic frame exceeded that relating to policy issues by 3:1."
It's not exactly surprising that election coverage focuses on the fight rather than on substance. But it is surprising to see by what a huge margin the coverage favors Romney over Obama. Maybe the talking points about Obama as liberal media darling worked in 2008. But now, it seems outdated and desperate.
