The Blast will be on hiatus Columbus Day and will return Tuesday.
AROUND NEW HAMPSHIRE
1. This and That
Revenues look good in state budget
THE SNIPING over the state's $11.35 billion budget has not stopped although all sides reached agreement and lawmakers put the two-year spending plan in place last month.
Last week, the Senate Finance Committee met to hear Mike Kane, legislative budget assistant, parse the numbers submitted by the executive branch for the 2015 fiscal year that ended June 30.
The good news, despite the dire warnings from Gov. Maggie Hassan in June when she vetoed the budget, is that there is more than enough money to balance the current budget.
Lawmakers used $49 million of the then-projected $63.5 million surplus to help balance the 2016-2017 budget. The latest figures indicate the money is real, with a little extra — $73.2 million — which will put nearly $10 million more into the rainy day fund, which now totals $33.5 million.
And despite other warnings a year ago about potential shortfalls in the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency's lapse — or money appropriated but not spent — was higher than anticipated, as was total savings from all government agencies.
The $14 million in unspent money for developmentally disability services is well known, but HHS saved about $25 million more and Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, wanted to know if the LBA had the breakdown from the administration for HHS and other state agencies.
Kane said he had wanted to have the information for the meeting but had not received it from Administrative Services. He hoped to have the tallies by this week.
Morse also wanted to know how much money the state saved operating under a continuing resolution that held spending to 2015 levels for nearly three months after the governor's veto. Budget writers expect to use the savings to pay for state employee pay raises.
“That's a little more difficult to get at,” Kane said, but noted he is working with the governor's budget director and Administrative Services to obtain that figure.
“(The veto and continuing resolution) shouldn't have happened,” Morse said, “but it did happen,”
How the state saved under the continuing resolution is the most important information for the committee, Morse said, although Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester, said the lapse figures are also important.
The budget may be settled but the political ramifications continue.
Annual financial report
The state's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report overflows with useful information. It is much like a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. It discusses such things as ongoing litigation and potential issues the state may have to address.
The report is usually released by the end of the year, but in recent years it has been a little late. The problem usually is due to one or two agencies that have difficulty finalizing the books. In the past the Department of Transportation was the culprit, but in recent years it has been the Liquor Commission.
This year the administration has not asked for an extension, but Kane told the Senate Finance Committee that the Liquor Commission numbers may delay the report's release.
But with the Liquor Commission supplying about $145 million in revenue annually, a little delay in releasing the report will be overlooked by budget writers if the agency can meet its revenue targets.
Sununu Center
Although business tax cuts, state employee raises and Medicaid expansion received most of the attention during the budget standoff, there was no less disagreement between Hassan and GOP leaders Morse and House Speaker Shawn Jasper, R-Hudson, over what to do with the youth detention center at the John H. Sununu Youth Services Center off River Road in Manchester.
Built with federal money, the center has never been fully used and its attempts to institute specialized programs, such as treating teenage fire bugs, have rattled the city's North End residents.
This year, the House version of the budget would have forced the Division of Juvenile Justice Services to move the residents to private facilities that Republican Finance Committee members said could provide the services for far less money than the per-pupil cost at the state-run center.
The Senate funded the first year of operation for the center, but not the second while a study was done to determine both the best use of the facility and how best to handle treatment for the troubled youth at the center.
The budget stalemate jump started the study, and the work group looking at the center's transformation meets Monday to try to develop a plan for the facility and treatment program.
Sen. John Reagan, R-Deerfield, said the director of the facility has agreed the program could be operated for $10 million a year, a savings of about $4 million.
He said the work group found there is really no place to send young people within the facility, so a plan needs to be developed that controls the costs to keep them more in line with private treatment.
The work group will continue to review the options.
Drug Court
As New Hampshire and the Queen City struggle with the growing heroin/opioid crisis, the state's drug courts have proved to be useful in funneling addicts into treatment instead of jail.
Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas pushed for a drug court for his city like the one in Nashua but the Hillsborough delegation decided not to back the plan, and it failed.
Now several state senators, including Gatsas's replacement in District 16 David Boutin, R-Hooksett, and Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, will join Gatsas and others on Tuesday at City Hall to announce a legislative proposal for a statewide grant program to allow counties to create new drug courts at their superior courts as well as sustain existing ones.
The press conference begins at 10:30 a.m.
Joining those three will be Manchester Reps. Will Infantine, Pat Long and Joseph LaChance; Hillsborough County North Superior Court Judge Kenneth Brown; Manchester Police Chief Nick Willard, Assistant Chief Carlo Capano, Fire Chief James Burkush and Public Health Director Tim Soucy, and Christopher Stawasz of American Medical Response Inc.
Hassan announcement
Before she was governor, Hassan was a state senator, including serving as Senate Majority Leader under then Senate President Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord.
Her announcement last week that she will not seek a third term as governor and instead will challenge Sen. Kelly Ayotte for the U.S. Senate, could have a profound effect on the state Senate.
At least two, if not four senators are looking at a gubernatorial run, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Jeanie Forrester, R-Meredith, and Sen. Andrew Hosmer, D-Laconia, who have both said they are giving a run serious consideration.
Others thought to at least be thinking about a run for governor are Morse and Bradley, although both may end up running for Congress: Bradley to reclaim the seat he lost to Carol Shea Porter in the Democratic sweep in 2006, and Morse in the 2nd District to take on Democratic incumbent Annie Kuster.
Now two Executive Council seats will be open as both District 3 Councilor Chris Sununu, R-Newfields, and District 2 Councilor Colin Van Ostern, D-Concord, each announced they will run for governor.
Sununu made his announcement Labor Day while Van Ostern announced on Thursday.
The District 2 seat is likely to go to a Democrat, as the last redistricting put every major Democratic stronghold in the state in the district with the possible exceptions of Hanover and Portsmouth.
On the other hand, in District 3, Republicans significantly outnumber Democrats, which makes it difficult for a Democrat to win, although a presidential election year makes it slightly more competitive.
Two Republican state senators are considering a run for District 3, Nancy Stiles, R-Hampton, and Russell Prescott, R-Kingston.
For the District 2 seat, Sen. Molly Kelly, D-Keene, is considering a run.
Former state senators also mentioned as good candidates for the seat include Larsen and Amanda Merrill, D-Durham.
Former District 2 Councilor John Shea, D-Nelson, is also considering running for the seat.
The 2016 election cycle is likely to bring major changes to the state Senate.
Last week, the Senate Finance Committee met to hear Mike Kane, legislative budget assistant, parse the numbers submitted by the executive branch for the 2015 fiscal year that ended June 30.
The good news, despite the dire warnings from Gov. Maggie Hassan in June when she vetoed the budget, is that there is more than enough money to balance the current budget.
Lawmakers used $49 million of the then-projected $63.5 million surplus to help balance the 2016-2017 budget. The latest figures indicate the money is real, with a little extra — $73.2 million — which will put nearly $10 million more into the rainy day fund, which now totals $33.5 million.
And despite other warnings a year ago about potential shortfalls in the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency's lapse — or money appropriated but not spent — was higher than anticipated, as was total savings from all government agencies.
The $14 million in unspent money for developmentally disability services is well known, but HHS saved about $25 million more and Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, wanted to know if the LBA had the breakdown from the administration for HHS and other state agencies.
Kane said he had wanted to have the information for the meeting but had not received it from Administrative Services. He hoped to have the tallies by this week.
Morse also wanted to know how much money the state saved operating under a continuing resolution that held spending to 2015 levels for nearly three months after the governor's veto. Budget writers expect to use the savings to pay for state employee pay raises.
“That's a little more difficult to get at,” Kane said, but noted he is working with the governor's budget director and Administrative Services to obtain that figure.
“(The veto and continuing resolution) shouldn't have happened,” Morse said, “but it did happen,”
How the state saved under the continuing resolution is the most important information for the committee, Morse said, although Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester, said the lapse figures are also important.
The budget may be settled but the political ramifications continue.
Annual financial report
The state's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report overflows with useful information. It is much like a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. It discusses such things as ongoing litigation and potential issues the state may have to address.
The report is usually released by the end of the year, but in recent years it has been a little late. The problem usually is due to one or two agencies that have difficulty finalizing the books. In the past the Department of Transportation was the culprit, but in recent years it has been the Liquor Commission.
This year the administration has not asked for an extension, but Kane told the Senate Finance Committee that the Liquor Commission numbers may delay the report's release.
But with the Liquor Commission supplying about $145 million in revenue annually, a little delay in releasing the report will be overlooked by budget writers if the agency can meet its revenue targets.
Sununu Center
Although business tax cuts, state employee raises and Medicaid expansion received most of the attention during the budget standoff, there was no less disagreement between Hassan and GOP leaders Morse and House Speaker Shawn Jasper, R-Hudson, over what to do with the youth detention center at the John H. Sununu Youth Services Center off River Road in Manchester.
Built with federal money, the center has never been fully used and its attempts to institute specialized programs, such as treating teenage fire bugs, have rattled the city's North End residents.
This year, the House version of the budget would have forced the Division of Juvenile Justice Services to move the residents to private facilities that Republican Finance Committee members said could provide the services for far less money than the per-pupil cost at the state-run center.
The Senate funded the first year of operation for the center, but not the second while a study was done to determine both the best use of the facility and how best to handle treatment for the troubled youth at the center.
The budget stalemate jump started the study, and the work group looking at the center's transformation meets Monday to try to develop a plan for the facility and treatment program.
Sen. John Reagan, R-Deerfield, said the director of the facility has agreed the program could be operated for $10 million a year, a savings of about $4 million.
He said the work group found there is really no place to send young people within the facility, so a plan needs to be developed that controls the costs to keep them more in line with private treatment.
The work group will continue to review the options.
Drug Court
As New Hampshire and the Queen City struggle with the growing heroin/opioid crisis, the state's drug courts have proved to be useful in funneling addicts into treatment instead of jail.
Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas pushed for a drug court for his city like the one in Nashua but the Hillsborough delegation decided not to back the plan, and it failed.
Now several state senators, including Gatsas's replacement in District 16 David Boutin, R-Hooksett, and Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, will join Gatsas and others on Tuesday at City Hall to announce a legislative proposal for a statewide grant program to allow counties to create new drug courts at their superior courts as well as sustain existing ones.
The press conference begins at 10:30 a.m.
Joining those three will be Manchester Reps. Will Infantine, Pat Long and Joseph LaChance; Hillsborough County North Superior Court Judge Kenneth Brown; Manchester Police Chief Nick Willard, Assistant Chief Carlo Capano, Fire Chief James Burkush and Public Health Director Tim Soucy, and Christopher Stawasz of American Medical Response Inc.
Hassan announcement
Before she was governor, Hassan was a state senator, including serving as Senate Majority Leader under then Senate President Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord.
Her announcement last week that she will not seek a third term as governor and instead will challenge Sen. Kelly Ayotte for the U.S. Senate, could have a profound effect on the state Senate.
At least two, if not four senators are looking at a gubernatorial run, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Jeanie Forrester, R-Meredith, and Sen. Andrew Hosmer, D-Laconia, who have both said they are giving a run serious consideration.
Others thought to at least be thinking about a run for governor are Morse and Bradley, although both may end up running for Congress: Bradley to reclaim the seat he lost to Carol Shea Porter in the Democratic sweep in 2006, and Morse in the 2nd District to take on Democratic incumbent Annie Kuster.
Now two Executive Council seats will be open as both District 3 Councilor Chris Sununu, R-Newfields, and District 2 Councilor Colin Van Ostern, D-Concord, each announced they will run for governor.
Sununu made his announcement Labor Day while Van Ostern announced on Thursday.
The District 2 seat is likely to go to a Democrat, as the last redistricting put every major Democratic stronghold in the state in the district with the possible exceptions of Hanover and Portsmouth.
On the other hand, in District 3, Republicans significantly outnumber Democrats, which makes it difficult for a Democrat to win, although a presidential election year makes it slightly more competitive.
Two Republican state senators are considering a run for District 3, Nancy Stiles, R-Hampton, and Russell Prescott, R-Kingston.
For the District 2 seat, Sen. Molly Kelly, D-Keene, is considering a run.
Former state senators also mentioned as good candidates for the seat include Larsen and Amanda Merrill, D-Durham.
Former District 2 Councilor John Shea, D-Nelson, is also considering running for the seat.
The 2016 election cycle is likely to bring major changes to the state Senate.
Senate race between Ayotte, Hassan shaping up to be one of the most competitive in the country
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is feeling pressure to protect Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a trusted adviser, from possibly losing her seat in 2016. According to a report from the Hill , he is seeking a win on new defense spending to give Ayotte a boost in her re-election campaign.
Meanwhile, EMILY’s List, a group that supports pro-abortion rights women, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee are already lining up behind Ayotte’s challenger, Maggie Hassan. More than a year before voters head to the polls, the second-term governor announced her plan last week to run for U.S. Senate.
Now in Washington, political trackers are labeling the election a toss-up.
It’s all foreshadowing what is poised to become one of the most competitive races in the country this cycle, between New Hampshire’s only Republican senator and the sitting Democratic governor.
The election has the potential to tip the balance of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, as Democrats seek to pick up five seats they need to regain a majority in the chamber.
The New Hampshire match-up will likely draw millions of dollars in outside money, in what some are predicting will be the state’s most expensive U.S. Senate race in history.
So voters, fasten your seat belts.
It’s not yet clear what issues will dominate the campaign, but the national mood will have a guiding hand in the race. In a presidential year, candidates running for the nation’s highest office can set the tone for contenders all the way down the ballot.
“Inevitably the top of the ticket is going to put some boundary markers on how this race is going to go,” said University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala. The other variable? Which issues will rise to the top of voters’ minds. “Will they be in one candidates wheelhouse or the other?” Scala said.
Protecting Social Security and abortion rights tend to favor Democrats in New Hampshire, he said. Hassan focused on both issues in her campaign announcement, speaking out against recent debates to defund Planned Parenthood and “special interests” that “prey” on Medicare benefits and Social Security.
Discussions of national security and foreign policy could play in Ayotte’s favor. The Republican serves on the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, and she has recently been a vocal critic of the Iran nuclear deal.
And it’s a different landscape. Ayotte was elected as part of a national Republican wave in the 2010 midterm election. Presidential elections in New Hampshire have tended to draw more Democrats to polls. But it’s just a tilt, Scala said.
In the meantime, the money is already starting to pour into New Hampshire. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the state’s U.S. Senate race has already garnered $1.6 million in outside spending, the third-highest sum so far this election cycle after the presidential and Ohio U.S. Senate races.
The center found $600,000 of the total sum was put up by super PACs opposing Republicans, while just shy of $1 million was spent backing the GOP. That will change now that Hassan has emerged as a Democratic challenger.
Aside from the outside dollars, both campaigns will have their own resources to run a competitive race.
In the state’s 2014 U.S. Senate race, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen raised more than $16.5 million, compared with the $9.2 million Republican Scott Brown brought in, according to the center. That race drew more than $30 million in third-party money.
You can expect that number only to rise as Ayotte and Hassan square off. So prepare for the deluge of ads.
A familiar fight
It was a surprise when U.S. House Speaker John Boehner announced he would resign at the end of the month. It was a bigger surprise when his assumed successor Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy dropped out the of the race last week. Now Republicans in Washington are scrambling to select a speaker, and the process is complicated by divided factions in the House GOP. It’s a similar plot line to what New Hampshire lived over the past year, as Republican Speaker Shawn Jasper battled with fellow Republican Bill O’Brien.
Boehner, who was set to leave before November, said he will remain speaker until another option emerges. But it’s not clear when an election will take place, and it may not happen this month, said U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta, a Manchester Republican. “We have to kind of talk that out, we may just want some time to let this sit,” he said.
The election could take one of two tracts, Guinta said. The caucus could elect a placeholder, who is retiring at the end of the term and could steer the ship until the next election is complete. Or Republicans could find someone who can unify all of the party’s ideological groups.
“My gut tells me it’s going to be somebody that has not been in the current leadership races,” he said.
But if Republicans can’t decide on one of their own, they can always look outside of the Capitol. The speaker isn’t required to be an elected member of Congress. In fact, former secretary of state Colin Powell earned a vote for speaker this year.
Perhaps lawmakers could turn to Concord, where, for now, Jasper seems to have support from a majority of his caucus.
Appearances
It certainly doesn’t look like a lot of Republican state senators are against a Hassan run for U.S. Senate.
News of Hassan’s decision rippled through the State House last week, but Jeanie Forrester was the only senator to show at an anti-Hassan press conference organized by Republicans. Former governor Steve Merrill, who was supposed to lead the event, didn’t come; Forrester said he couldn’t be there. Still, she took aim at Hassan, saying the governor depends on the Republican-controlled Senate for policies.
“I fear if Gov. Hassan goes to Washington as a senator, she is not going to have the New Hampshire Senate to rely on to do her work for her, so who’s going to tell her what to do?” said Forrester, a Meredith Republican.
Facing a question from the press about a lack of attendance, Forrester responded: “It’s a matter of who’s available.”
A cadre of Democrats waited in the wings. And once the presser wrapped, it turned into a mud-slinging match between senators.
“Those of us who have been at the table negotiating these things will tell you, Jeanie Forrester has not been at the table because of her toxic partisanship,” said Minority Leader Jeff Woodburn, a Dalton Democrat.
Overhearing the comments, Forrester offered her own counterpoint.
“It’s not ‘toxic Jeanie,’ ” she said. “It’s hazardous-waste Jeanie, that’s our business.”
If the press conference is any indication, brace for attack ads.
What’s in a name
It was the week for nicknames, apparently. Hassan picked up a new one from national and state Republicans that are pummeling her Senate campaign: Governor Gridlock.
A different kind of race
The election isn’t until November 2016, but Ayotte and Hassan could face off as soon as today.
Both women will attend a Footrace for the Fallen 5K in Manchester that benefits the city’s Police Athletic League. Ayotte, who often participates in road races, plans to run today. Hassan bought a new pair of sneakers at Runner’s Alley in Concord on Friday. While she is scheduled to speak at the event, Hassan’s office said she has other things scheduled afterward, and she will decide the day of whether to run.
Fad of the future?
Some presidential candidates have grown fond of the video campaign announcement, as opposed to the traditional rally. And now it looks like the strategy is trickling down the ballot. Hassan took a page from the pre-recorded book, announcing her own campaign from U.S. Senate via YouTube.
“People have been asking me about what decision I am making,” she said, when the Monitorasked about the choice to go with a video. “I made the decision just very recently, and decided the best thing to do is let people know and for me to keep working.”
The appeal of a video, over a rally, is that the candidate can completely control and script the message, said Wayne Lesperance, political science professor at New England College.
“A rally is a way to go if you are a particularly good speaker, can get people really fired up and ready to go,” he said. “The value of a video is absolutely controlled, there’s no chance of a mistake, no chance of a misspoken word.”
Going forward, we’ll see whether the candidates continue to favor pre-taped message. In the last U.S. Senate election, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen came under fire from the right, who accused her of not holding enough town halls, where voters of both parties can question the candidate.
Dominoes down
Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern was the latest candidate to announce a campaign last week. The Concord Democrat will run for governor. Executive Councilor Chris Sununu, a Republican, is already in the race. It means there are two openings on the five-member Executive Council. Who’s interested?
For a little fun
The state parties have certainly been gearing up for elections this past week, sending out searing releases on a daily basis that slam candidates of the opposing party. To give them a break, Capital Beat put together a mad lib of sorts using language pulled from the releases (mostly), so you too can write your own venomous attack with a candidate of your choice. Enjoy!
New Hampshire deserves better than (pick a name, any name), an unaccomplished (back-bencher / career politician / party hack / inept leader/ empty suit / nose-picker), who has always (been a rubber stamp for partisan politics / voted in lockstep with party bosses / dodged questions / refused to publicly take a stand).
Once elected, (candidate) will only (represent Washington special interests / stand with the Koch brothers / rely on polling numbers to make decisions / sell New Hampshire to the Canadians) and (introduce sham bills / peddle failed policies / create more partisan gridlock / trick and spin in typical Washington fashion).
Make no mistake (candidate) (is in lockstep support with party leaders’ harmful partisanship / has a reckless tax-and-spend agenda / is dangerously out of touch / plans to decorate the office to look like Downton Abbey).
To be sure, (he / she) (would take New Hampshire in the wrong direction / is clearly unfit for higher office / doesn’t even live here.)
*Insert “shameful hypocrisy” as needed.
2. 60,000 More Covered in NH Due to Obamacare
Outreach group estimates 93 percent of New Hampshire insured
by the Associated Press, seacoastonline.com, October 11, 2015
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — An estimated 7 percent of New Hampshire's population remains uninsured as a new sign-up season nears, according to the consumer outreach organization Covering New Hampshire.
The third enrollment period under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law opens Nov. 1 for coverage taking effect in January. Based on federal and state enrollment information and survey data, Covering New Hampshire estimates that 93,106 residents still lack health insurance. That's down from the roughly 155,000 who were uninsured in October 2013, when the insurance marketplaces created by the law launched.
"We have reduced that number by more than 60,000 and gotten more comprehensive wellness plans into the marketplace," said Michael Degnan, director of the New Hampshire Health Plan, the agency that manages Covering New Hampshire. "That means peace of mind to thousands of New Hampshire families, and it has helped countless businesses to have a healthy, productive workforce."
Covering New Hampshire estimates that 53,000 individuals were enrolled in the marketplace by the end of the second enrollment period in February, and of those surveyed, 44 percent were previously uninsured. After the state expanded its Medicaid program, about 42,000 individuals enrolled either through the state's managed care program for Medicaid or through a program that subsidizes employer coverage. Covering New Hampshire estimates that 27,000 of that total were previously uninsured.
The expanded Medicaid program is projected to cost $340 million a year when fully implemented and would use 100 percent federal funding through 2017. Coverage will end if federal funding drops below 100 percent and ends regardless at the end of 2016 if the Legislature doesn't reauthorize it.
"While some may wish to continue debating the merits of these programs, it is difficult to deny the solid return on investment they offer our state," Degnan said.
3. 65 by 25
Let’s send more graduates to college
by Rep. Wayne Burton, concordmonitor.com, October 10, 2015
Experts estimate that the percentage of New Hampshire jobs requiring post-secondary credentials will approach 68 percent by the year 2020. To meet this challenge, a statewide goal has been set, whereby 65 percent of the population would hold a post-secondary credential or degree by the year 2025.
With competitor states ramping up their efforts to develop a workforce holding post-secondary credentials, meeting the demands of the 21st century, New Hampshire risks relegation to the economic backwater if the status quo beats back calls to action.
Forty-six distinguished leaders from both the public and private sectors have already signed on to that goal through their membership on the New Hampshire Coalition for Business and Education. The coalition chairman, Tom Raffio, president and CEO of Delta Dental, who also chairs the state Board of Education, has indicated that, “The 65/25 goal will be the overarching direction for the coalition going forward, and will include all the education stepping stones that lead to college, including early childhood learning and secondary school education.”
Adding further perspective, reaching 65 percent from our current rate of about 45 percent will require adding about 95,500 people with post-secondary credentials by 2025. If we do nothing differently, our current rate will increase very little. Unfortunately, our historically strong ability to attract educated individuals from outside New Hampshire has leveled, and roughly 4,000 of the 7,000 graduates of our public high schools seeking a four-year degree attend higher education institutions outside the state. Less than half of them return to live and work here.
Of the 2,100 students who attend public colleges in New Hampshire, approximately 70 percent will remain to live and work in their native state.
For those seeking something other than a four-year degree, the news is much better. Of the 3,500 New Hampshire high school graduates initially seeking other than a four-year degree, well over half attend a college in the New Hampshire Community Technical College System with a much higher propensity to remain here, with many transferring on to a campus in the University System of New Hampshire.
Clearly, increasing the percentage of our high school graduates attending public colleges and universities in this state offers the most promising strategy toward accomplishing the 65/25 goal.
To that end, and consistent with a major recommendation in the NHCBE draft report, “securing financial aid to keep people in-state,” I have filed legislation creating a scholarship program named for Molly and General John Stark, through whose heroism our state was created during the Revolutionary War. This program will guarantee half-tuition scholarships for three years at any public higher education institution in the Granite State to those graduating in the top 20 percent of their New Hampshire public high school class.
This program would raise aspirations, incentivizing a larger percentage of our residents to attend college here, taking advantage of the propensity of New Hampshire natives graduating from our public colleges and universities to remain here. The legislation is intended as a starting point to spark discussion as to how we climb this mountain of a challenge.
Yes, it will require a financial investment, the size of which will depend on the parameters of the final program package. But we must compare this cost with the economic loss the state faces if we choose to non-compete with neighboring states that are actively pursuing the same type of goal. Already our neighbor to the south has launched the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship with essentially the same purpose as the one I am proposing. Will Molly and John Stark rest quietly while Abigail and John Adams eat our economic lunch? I think not.
I have filed three bills: a resolution that, if passed, will put the New Hampshire Legislature on record as acknowledging the challenge ahead, leaving tactics to be developed. The second bill proposes a strategy, the John and Molly Stark Scholarship program. The third bill calls for a study to ensure we are appropriately organized to meet the 65/25 goal. It also adds accountability to the initiative, possibly creating a commission with a mandate to monitor progress toward the goal of 65/25 working with the Coalition for Business and Education and other organizations
Make no mistake, to succeed this must be a bipartisan effort. Failure to close the looming skill deficit of 15 percent to 25 percent will negatively affect every New Hampshire resident regardless of party and political persuasion. Please view this as an invitation to join in changing New Hampshire’s future. Embracing the status quo will deny us the summit we must reach to be competitive in the 21st century and leave our generational responsibility unfilled to those following us.
(Rep. Wayne Burton, a Democrat, lives in Durham and represents Strafford District 6.)
4. Need for Affordable Rentals: NH and Nationally
Housing costs hurt families
by Doug Bibby, nashuatelegraph.com, October 11, 2015
America's housing crisis is making it impossible for millions of families nationwide, including thousands in New Hampshire, to find quality, affordable housing. For many, the shortage of affordable rental housing creates significant hurdles that make it even more difficult to pay for basic necessities like food and transportation. Ultimately, this also impacts their future financial success.
According to a recently released report by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, in 2013 more than one in four renter households - approximately 11.2 million - paid more than half of their income for rental housing.
In addition, a 2015 New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority study on residential costs illustrates that "renter household incomes are not keeping pace with the steady increase in rents" in the state. "A renter would have to earn 124 percent of the median income, or more than $46,000 a year, to be able to afford the statewide median cost of a typical two-bedroom apartment with utilities." This is unacceptable.
Setting aside that real incomes in the U.S. have not risen in over three decades - a key factor driving the affordability crisis - housing industry leaders agree that promoting construction is a vital way to meet the surging demand for apartment homes.
Today, 38 million Americans call an apartment home. Over the next decade, there could be as many as 4 million-6 million additional renter households. It takes between 300,000 and 400,000 newly constructed apartments each year to keep up with demand, yet just 255,600 apartments were delivered in 2014. While this is up 37 percent from 2013, it remains a far cry from the number of apartments needed to meet a growing and serious shortage of rental housing across the country.
Building more apartment homes will help improve the supply-demand imbalance that drives these affordability challenges, but developers and localities must work together to remove obstacles to development. Even if local officials and planning boards agree that new, affordable apartments must be built, land costs, entitlement expenditures, labor expenses and property taxes all contribute to making their construction extremely costly.
There are also too many instances where communities acknowledge that they have an affordability problem, but then hide behind "Not in My Back Yard" rhetoric to prevent the development of much-needed apartment homes.
States and local communities can work together with the private sector to identify and quantify the costs associated with building affordable rental housing. Then, local officials and developers can help reduce the barriers and encourage new construction.
For example, localities could provide developers with a combination of density bonuses, tax abatements, expedited land entitlements or other incentives. This could greatly increase the number of new apartment homes developed to meet the growing need.
Congress can also play an important role. In the short term, lawmakers can pass tax extenders legislation that would renew several key provisions to support affordable housing. This includes making the development of affordable rental housing more possible by modifying and enhancing the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program.
Since 1986, the LIHTC program has leveraged federal dollars with private investment to produce nearly 2.8 million affordable units. It remains the most successful federal program for creating affordable housing.
Beyond tax extenders, Congress should look to further strengthen the program by increasing program resources so that additional affordable rental housing can be built. Additionally, lawmakers should modify LIHTC rules to help enable more households that earn less than the area median income to qualify for the program.
Again, developers are itching to be part of the solution, but they need some assistance to help make a difference when it comes to meeting the need for more affordable rental homes.
America is facing a crisis when it comes to providing our citizens with affordable housing. Although there might be no magic bullet that will help solve the problem by itself, a combination of strategies designed to drive the construction of new units could make a significant dent.
The apartment industry has pledged to be at the forefront of driving solutions and we invite all stakeholders, and policymakers to work together with us to provide much-needed affordable rental housing nationwide.
Doug Bibby serves as the president of the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) based in Washington, D.C. He is a panelist at Friday's New Hampshire Housing Summit at the N.H. Institute of Politics.
5. Manufacturing and Worker Shortages in NH
When Will NH Manufacturers Quit Fabricating Stories About Not Having Qualified Workers
by NH Labor News, nhlabornews.com, October 11, 2015
This morning the Union Leader posted an article about New Hampshire manufacturers, like GE, who are looking for highly skilled, highly educated workers to fill vacant jobs.
“Signal processing, navigation, optics and measurement are particularly advantaged in New Hampshire,” she said. “No other state is doing this type of advanced manufacturing to the same degree as New Hampshire.”
The state also shines in semi-conductors, complex electronics, precision machining, aerospace and defense, medical devices and technology. But there’s a problem.
“Take precision machining,” said Lands. “We found the average age of a worker in that field is in the mid-50s, which means that precision machining knowledge is walking out the door, and is not easily replaced. It is not something that can be learned from a textbook. It is something that has to be apprenticed at the hands of an experienced machinist.”
Folsum from GE Aviation pointed out that the average age at his plant is 50, and he is trying to hire 300 people. “I think we are representative of a lot of manufacturers,” he said. “That’s why we’re here.”…”Employers are not expecting high schools or community colleges to turn out master machinists. They’re looking for entry-level employees with the basic skills needed to succeed in an apprenticeship program.”
Two things jump out at me instantly when I read this article.
1. Your aging workforce has probably been working there for decades and those workers started when manufacturing paid workers well and was the gateway to the middle class. They started when working in a manufacturing plant was a prestigious, well respected position for many people and especially for those who choose not to go to college or were unable to make it.
Manufacturers would hire workers, and in partnership with the union, train them to do the job. Together the union and the employer would continue to train workers so they could move up and make better money and stay right inside the plant.
Now manufacturing has changed. It is highly technical and many employers require college degrees before they will even consider an employee. This leads into my second question.
2. What are you paying these “apprentices” in your manufacturing plants?
You cannot expect college graduates, most likely with massive student loan debt, to jump up and take a job in a manufacturing plant at rock-bottom wages. Now I do not know what GE, or the others, offer in starting pay (because they do not post it on their jobs listings), but I would venture a guess that it is not high enough.
For a long time now New Hampshire has had a problem with our young workers leaving the state and our population growing older and older. The “graying” of the workforce is a combination of low-wages offered by employers and high cost of living, so young people are fleeing the state. (This is also in part to our extremely high cost of college.) They go off to find jobs in cheaper places to live. They are not finding better jobs, but they feel they are making more because they spend less to live.
I am glad the Governor, Colleges and Universities, and business leaders are coming together to talk about the needs of the business community, however you have to stop telling us that there are no workers with the education you require.
According to national data from EPI, the unemployment rate of 2015 college graduates is 7.9% and an under-employment rate of 14.9%.
The people are out there but what are NH manufactures willing to do to attract them here? The simple solution is to raise the wages and you will attract highly educated, highly qualified individuals who would like to live and work in New Hampshire.
Manufacturing’s problem is not that there are not enough educated workers out there to do the job, it is there are not enough college educated adults willing to do the work for the wages you offer.
AND NATIONALLY
6. Remember His Record
Paul Ryan: Why He's Everything That’s Wrong With the GOP
The minute Representative Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the race for House Speaker, a flurry of reports began circulating about renewed efforts to draft Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and House Ways and Means Committee chair.
Ryan has stoked the excitement with a series of remarks which, as CNN put it, mean he's “refused to rule out a run.” Republicans who have been lobbying him include departing speaker John Boehner and colleagues including Deputy Majority Whip Tom Cole, who has taken to the talk shows to say he’s sure Ryan will "do the right thing” and run.
“He’s the only one that can do the job,” House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes, Republican of California, told reporters.
In New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait seconded that, writing that the GOP needs Ryan: “No other figure within the party combines Ryan’s philosophical radicalism and tactical pragmatism,” and calling him “the president of Republican America.”
Republicans are understandably desperate, as they face Boehner’s sudden departure, the threat of an imminent government shutdown, and the unexpected collapse of McCarthy’s bid to be the next speaker. There is no clear path to the speakership for any of the declared would-be leaders of the fractious Republican caucus. Enter Paul Ryan, rightwing messiah.
Conservative commentators, including longtime Washington insider and former Bush administration White House staffer David Frum have predicted that the current chaos could even lead to the splitting off of a third rightwing party.
But the idea that Paul Ryan is the answer to the GOP’s troubles is not a healthy sign. A closer look at Ryan shows that he embodies many of the problems plaguing the GOP, causing them to alienate voters and lose elections.
The Progressive has covered Paul Ryan since he emerged from the ashes of the collapse of manufacturing, the black middle class, and strong unions in his once-progressive Janesville, Wisconsin district. We followed his rise as a chief proponent of Social Security privatization and Medicare vouchers and his loss, with Mitt Romney, in the 2012 presidential election, in which Ryan failed to carry his home district.
Here are a few reasons to be cautious about Paul Ryan:
1. Before he put on his “budget genius” costume, Ryan came to power by representing the “partial-birth abortion” crowd, running a lurid campaign with heavy support from the most extreme anti-women’s-health wing of the Republican party in Wisconsin. His Todd Akin-like comments on rape might please his base, but are a big turnoff to women.
2. Ryan moved on from his abortion obsession to become an advocate for Social Security privatization and a chief cheerleader for the War in Iraq - neither of which have turned out to be winners with the public.
3. Ryan’s next stab at seizing national recognition was his famous budget blueprint which earned a loud and public rebuke from Catholic leaders for its harshness toward the poor. That policy document, which landed with a thud when Ryan first produced it, was revived as evidence of his brilliance within the Republican party establishment when he became Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012. Ultimately, Ryan’s budget vision helped lead to Romney’s defeat, cementing the ticket’s image as a campaign for the 1%, trickledown economics, big tax breaks for corporations and the rich, and austerity for the poor.
4. Ryan lost his home state in 2012 and arguably helped Obama win, nationwide. He even lost his home district, where he lives in the Parker Pen mansion.
5. On race, Ryan personifies the Republicans’ tone-deafness. He held a party, when he won his race for Congress, at a restaurant called The Cottonpicker in Burlington, Wisconsin. It’s possible that residents of small-town, white Burlington overlooked the racist implications of that name. Back in Janesville, Racine, and Kenosha, a hard-hit blue-collar African American community did not miss the implications. This is no accident. Paul Ryan has deliberately exploited racial divisions, the collapse of unions, and economic anxiety in his rust belt district. If there were still union jobs in his district, if he had prevented the closing of the GM plant in Janesville (which he tried, laughably, to blame on Obama who wasn’t even president when the plant closed), things would be different. This, after all, was liberal lion Les Aspin’s district before Paul Ryan. Ryan not only promotes a dystopian Ayn Rand vision of economics, he has staked his political career on a divisive “makers and takers” rhetoric that resonates with an angry, disaffected white working class that sees jobs and economic security slipping away—with no help from Paul Ryan.
6. On immigration, Ryan is reading from the same script as Donald Trump. He has talked about the “catch and release” of Mexican immigrants, as if they were animals, derided immigrant women for having “anchor babies,” and made a long list of other insensitive and inflammatory remarks in his town hall meetings and campaign appearances.
Ryan is both a proponent of radical rightwing ideology and a careerist. Depending on your perspective, that is either the perfect formula for reuniting the Republicans’ fractured coalition or a recipe for disaster at the polls. In fact, it might just be both.
7. The Intentional Ignorance Machine
Secrets of the GOP Science War: How Spin-Masters and Pundits Confuse Conservatives About Facts
Conservatives have become much less trusting of science. A cynical right-wing campaign is behind that
by Paul Rosenberg, alternet.org, October 3, 2015
When scientists announced the discovery of water on Mars recently, Rush Limbaugh drew the obvious conclusion: It was all part of a conspiratorial plot:
LIMBAUGH: If there was once all that water on Mars, and there is a lot of water here on earth, what’s going to happen to our ocean? How did the water vanish?
My point is, they’re presenting all this stuff to you as fact just like they’re presenting everything involving global warming as scientific fact. It`s nothing but wild guesses. It’s nothing but based on computer models which is the result of data input that who knows if it’s legit or not.
That’s to be expected from Limbaugh, I suppose. If you’re a huckster by trade, the truth is your enemy—and not just the truth, but the very possibility of truth. The veryexistence of science is a threat to you. So naturally, if you’ve got as much time to fill as Limbaugh does, you engage in war on science. But the real problem isn’t Rush Limbaugh, it’s the way that the entirety of the GOP adapts to him in various different ways—especially those who are deemed “sensible” in the world of bipartisan consensus, whose job it is to make plausible excuses for their sorry party.
Case in point: GOP strategist Liz Mair, who back in March was abruptly fired after just one day as a Scott Walker online strategist, in response to outrage over an earlier set of tweets critical of Iowa during a January forum. After her firing, Mair fired off a long tweet storm clarifying her views, which she did again—with a more critical edge—just after Walker left the race a few weeks ago. In short, if there’s anyone working inside the GOP likely to be honestly critical of its problems, it’s Mair. Which presumably is why MSNBC likes having her on. But Limbaugh’s anti-science conspiracism clearly illuminates the limits of such critical honesty.
Thus, when Chris Matthews played that clip of Limbaugh and opened up a discussion on “Hardball” on Sept. 29 [transcript], Mair didn’t come to Limbaugh’s defense, but she did find a way to confuse matters further, taking the heat off the science-fearing, science-hating GOP base and blame-shifting to society at large. Before she spoke up, Jonathan Chait made a sensible point:
CHAIT: So, conservatives, in general, have grown more and more distrustful in polls of science over the course of the last four decades. They used to be more trusting of science than liberals now, they’re much less. And specifically with global warming, what they have is a conspiracy theory. They don’t have an alternative scientific theory.
So it fell to Mair to obfuscate, to undo that degree of clarity. “Science has worked for mankind across the board,” Matthews said. “When did it become the enemy of the hard right?” And Mair responded:
MAIR: I don’t think it’s just the enemy of the hard right. I actually think that we’re in a period in society where there are a lot of people who are very skeptical of discovery and science in general. I mean, when we had the debate about vaccines, right, and we were looking at the resurgence of awful illnesses because people weren’t having their kids vaccinated, a lot of that was center centered in very, very liberal enclaves of California. I think unfortunate —
MATTHEWS: They were afraid to get their kids vaccinated —
MAIR: They believe it’s going to give them autism, right?
I think we’ve reached a place in society, and maybe Rush Limbaugh’s comments are manifestation of this, where a lot of people just don’t prioritize discovery or science anymore. I mean, remember in the 2012 election how much Newt Gingrich was derided for all of his talk about moon bases and space exploration, right?
So as Mair is framing things, “a lot of people just don’t prioritize discovery or science anymore,” and they’re all over the map ideologically. She says that “maybe Rush Limbaugh’s comments are manifestation of this” [my emphasis], and maybe they’re not, I guess. “Who knows?” as Rush himself would say.
But there are a two major flaws in her argument. First, there’s actual data supporting Chait’s claim that conservatives alone have become much less trusting of science, and it’s not very scientific of Mair to just ignore that data, because she doesn’t like it, and try to counter it with anecdotes.
A 2012 paper by Gordon Gauchat in the American Sociological Review, using data from the 1974 to 2010 General Social Survey—the gold standard for public opinion research—found that “group differences in trust in science are largely stable over the period, except for respondents identifying as conservative. Conservatives began the period with the highest trust in science, relative to liberals and moderates, and ended the period with the lowest.”
There’s also much broader evidence that liberalism is correlated with one of the “big five” personality traits, “openness to experience,” as discussed by Chris Mooney in his 2012 book, “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality” and in my review of it. Thus, to the extent that science involves prioritizing discovery, Mair is arguing against an impressive range of data.
Second, both of Mair’s anecdotes misrepresent the actual stories of what was going. In California, elected Democrats didn’t indulge the anti-vaxxers, they pushed back, and passed a law requiring all schoolchildren to be vaccinated—over GOP opposition, by the way. As for Gingrich’s space-talk in 2012, folks weren’t laughing at the idea of space exploration, they were laughing at Gingrich’s snake oil routine and his pretense of being a serious thoughtful leader.
The real stories surrounding both anecdotes are illuminating, so let’s take a closer look at each in turn. First off, while it’s true that a lot of anti-vaccine sentiment was seen in liberal enclaves around Hollywood, as the Hollywood Reporter explained in detail last year, the reasons cited weren’t that those not vaccinating their children “just don’t prioritize discovery or science.” It was much more complicated than that:
Today, on the Westside, those who abstain from vaccinating their kids see refusal through their own socio-anthropological lens. “They’re well intended — the people that only want to do the best for their child. They want only natural products, organic foods, attachment parenting, family beds,” says Dr. Lisa Stern, a Santa Monica pediatrician. Observes Dr. Neal Baer, a trained pediatrician and veteran TV writer-producer (ER) who wrote an episode of Law & Order: SVU about the public health consequences of vaccine refusal, “It’s about not wanting to have anything that isn’t ‘natural’ in your child — this whole notion of the natural and holistic versus the scientific.”
Baer’s framing of “the natural and holistic versus the scientific” reflects a broader cultural construct, but it’s inaccurate. Using products of scientific discovery without adequate risk-assessment is more properly described as “the technocratic” approach, rather than “the scientific,” or even as “the techno-corporate.” Determining where “the scientific” leaves off and “the technocratic” or “the techno-corporate” begins may not be so easy to discern. The story continued:
According to those on both sides of the issue, this demographic is unafraid to take on the medical establishment. “They are not intimidated by the authority of the doctor,” says Brendan Nyhan, Ph.D, a political scientist at Dartmouth who has studied parents who are vaccine skeptics. “Educated, high-income people are more likely to feel confident in standing up to doctors or seeking out ones who are more favorable to alternative schedules and selective vaccination.”
So, the irony here is that some of what’s motivating anti-vaxxers is actually a personalwillingness to discover, however flawed their execution might be, which may then be taken advantage of by people with various different agendas. In short, it’s nothing like the clear-cut, simplistic picture casually tossed out by Mair.
But what was remarkably clear-cut was what happened once the issue entered the public policy realm: Democratic politicians overwhelmingly looked to the science, while Republicans ignored and fought against it. A bill that would ban personal, religious exemptions for vaccinations, co-written by a pediatrician in the state Senate, Richard Pan, was passed by the state Legislature with strong Democratic support, and was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. In the California Senate, Legiscan–which tracks legislation in all 50 states—identified the bill on the political spectrum as “Strong Partisan Bill (Democrat 27-2).” The overall vote on its third reading was 46-31, so a substantial majority of Republicans opposed it. In the California Assembly, just a handful of Democrats abstained (3) or voted no (5), while just two Republicans voted for the bill. An effort to overturn the law through the referendum process, just filed in late September, was led by former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Republican, and former member of the anti-immigration Minuteman organization, who placed third in California’s open primary governor’s race in 2014.
Collectively, what all this shows is how differently organized liberals and conservatives respond when questions are raised involving science. Liberal Democrats could haveplayed to the anti-vaxxer fears of parents, the same way that conservative Republicans have played to the anti-science fears of their base, but overwhelminglythey chose not to.
Mair’s second anecdotal example is even more misleading. Again, here’s what she said:
I think we’ve reached a place in society, and maybe Rush Limbaugh’s comments are manifestation of this, where a lot of people just don’t prioritize discovery or science anymore. I mean, remember in the 2012 election how much Newt Gingrich was derided for all of his talk about moon bases and space exploration, right?
But what did those with actual knowledge of space technology have to say back then, when Gingrich promised a permanent lunar base by 2020, along with “the first continuous propulsion system in space capable of getting to Mars”? Were they all gung-ho in support of Newt? Well, not exactly. The problem was a lack of realism on Newt’s part, both about what it would take technologically and financially. Not to mention what it would take legally and constitutionally: Gingrich also promised that the American colony could eventually become a state—a direct violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, as was noted at the time.
Although space exploration was anything but a new concern of Newt’s, he had never delivered much of anything in the past, so his pronouncements in advance of the Florida primary drew a lot of skepticism from industry experts, as the Daily News reported (“Newt Gingrich’s moon base plan a ‘cheap trick’ to get votes, space experts say”):
“It’s a gimmick,” said Howard Chipman, CEO of Aurora Aerospace, a facility near Tampa that offers astronaut training. “It’s a cheap trick to get some Florida voters because of all of the space jobs here.”
Chipman said that while the idea of a lunar colony is laudable, the project would cost billions upon billions more than American taxpayers are willing to pay.
“Bush promised for us to go to the moon. The politicians promise to make goals but they don’t back it up with funding and resources to back the task,” he added….
Frank DiBello, CEO of Space Florida, the state’s economic development agency for the aerospace industry, said Gingrich’s timeline is “a little implausible,” noting the technology to support long duration space flights to Mars does not exist.
As the Guardian’s science correspondent Alok Jha noted, the problem wasn’t science, it was money. “In 2004, President George Bush called for a return to the moon, followed by Mars expeditions. NASA duly came up with the Constellation programmme,” but neither Bush nor the Congress ever came close to funding it. Its timeline was instructive, though, for placing Gingrich’s grandiose handwaving in perspective:
Two years later [2006], the space agency unveiled plans to build a permanent moon base within 20 years [2026], which could be used as a launch site for future missions to Mars….
NASA’s plan was that, by 2020, four-person crews would make week-long trips while power supplies, rovers and living quarters were being built on the lunar surface. In the mid-2020s, when the base was fully-built, people would stay for up to six months at a time to prepare for longer journeys to Mars. By the end of the decade pressurized roving vehicles could take people on long exploratory trips across the lunar surface.
So, six years later, Gingrich was proposing to get a full-time moon colony up and running six years earlier than NASA had projected in 2006? A delivery schedule cut by 60 percent? Paid for… how, exactly? Sorry, Liz, but folks weren’t laughing at the idea of exploration. They were laughing at Newt’s P.T. Barnum-style of pandering about it.
Newt, of course, had a long history of proposing grandiose techno-schemes to make himself seem like a “visionary.” At the time, Mother Jones dredged up some examples, mostly from his first book, “Window of Opportunity,” published in 1984. These included ideas like cutting the food stamp budget to buy space shuttles (“Food stamps crowded out space shuttles”); cutting farm subsidies and sending farmers to space (“If we’d spent as much on space as we’ve spent on farm programs, we could have taken all the extra farmers and put them on space stations working for a living in orbiting factories”); and mining the moon (“The moon is an enormous natural resource, possessed of more than enough minerals and materials to provide everything a self-replicating system needs”); not to mention using mirrors to create man-made climate change…and fight crime!
The problem with Newt’s schemes is that almost all of them were harebrained. So, when he became speaker of the House, one of his top agenda items was getting rid of folks knowledgeable enough to see through his BS. I’ve told this story several times before (here and here, for example), so I’ll cut to the chase. When Gingrich was riding high in late 2011, Bruce Bartlett, a top economic adviser to presidents Reagan and Bush I, wrote a piece titled “Gingrich and the Destruction of Congressional Expertise,” where he explained:
Because Mr Gingrich does know more than most politicians, the main obstacles to his grandiose schemes have always been Congress’ professional staff members, many among the leading authorities anywhere in their areas of expertise.
To remove this obstacle, Mr Gingrich did everything in his power to dismantle Congressional institutions that employed people with the knowledge, training and experience to know a harebrained idea when they saw it.
On becoming speaker, Gingrich slashed the professional staffs of the House committees, and completely abolished two congressional agencies, the Office of Technology Assessment and the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. The OTA is what concerns us here, because it was the worldwide model agency for in-depth evaluation of scientific and technological questions: the best BS-detecting government agency on the planet. Naturally Gingrich wanted it dead, because invention alone is only one part of science. It’s not nearly enough to just brainstorm ideas, you’ve got to winnow out the ones with the best chance of standing the test of time.
That’s the thing about science. It really does depend on imagination. As Einstein said,it is more important than knowledge. Yet, at the same time, imagination has to pass the test of nature: It has to prove itself in the real world. The very rigor of this test helps to invigorate the scientific imagination. And so, the truly imaginative, truly daring thinkers welcome the testing of their ideas.
That is what liberals have done. They created the OTA in the first place, in 1972, after 40 years of almost uninterrupted control of the House. Conservatives destroyed it in 1995, within a year of taking it over for the first time since 1954. And our country has been much poorer for it ever since—much poorer, and more filled with foolishness. There’s the massive, flamboyant foolishness of figures like Limbaugh and Gingrich (and more recently, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina), which shapes the grand outlines of one mass delusion after another. And then there’s the infill foolishness of operatives like Liz Mair, working overtime to obfuscate the most basic of fundamental facts.
8. Need for a Positive Message Too
Watching Republicans Flail is not a Strategy
by Ruth Conniff, progressive.org, October 2, 2015
It’s pretty amazing to watch the disaster unfolding in the Republican Party on both the home front and the national stage. Scott Walker, the “unintimidated” governor, has returned from the triumphant launch of his presidential campaign with his tail between his legs, House Speaker John Boehner is departing in a river of tears, and the Republicans are scrambling to figure out how to fire Donald Trump, their frontrunner in the 2016 presidential race, before he blows up any chance the party has to win the White House.
Rubbernecking at the Republican debates was fun. See Donald Trump do what a million citizens who signed recall petitions and tens of thousands more who marched in the streets could not accomplish, dispatching Walker with a couple of deft put-downs. Watch Carly Fiorina, with her beautifully slick appeal to women, put Trump in his place. Giggle along as your friends on Twitter take up Rand Paul’s challenge to the other candidates to come clean about their drug use.
But seriously, as much as the 2016 sideshow is more entertaining and distracting than any I can remember, we have drifted an awfully long way from any meaningful democratic exercise.
I can’t help but worry that watching all of this is bad for progressives, Democrats and anyone who is not a card-carrying member of the burn-down-the-government, to-hell-with-civilization wing of the Republican Party.
Yes, the Republicans seem to be on the brink of self-destruction. But waiting for them to self-destruct is not a political strategy.
Any productive activity on our side is going to involve getting people engaged in the issues that matter to them. All the razzle-dazzle of the presidential race is a good way to make people stop paying attention, and, in the end, that’s better for the party that wants to sneak some really bad policies past us.
The Republican brand is now all about not governing. It’s about shutting down the entire federal government over some phony propaganda videos about Planned Parenthood. It’s about obsessively attacking a modest health-care expansion and giving big tax breaks to corporations and billionaires at the expense of our schools and roads and state parks.
Most of all, the Republican brand is about a lot of destructive anger — at immigrants, at the government and civil servants, at black people and poor people and Muslim Americans.
Some of that destructive energy is taking a toll on Republican politicians like Walker and Boehner. And it threatens to immolate the party itself.
Mike McCabe, who started Blue Jean Nation to try to re-energize progressive politics, likes to say that we have one party that’s scary and another one that’s scared.
The Republican destruction machine is opening up an opportunity. Democrats and progressives should start talking about what we are for.
Here is what we are for: great public institutions that serve the common good.
For decades, a right-wing propaganda campaign has been claiming, falsely, that our public institutions are no good, inefficient and wasteful, and that they should be handed over to private business. Part of the reason that message resonates with the public is that everyone has had a bad experience with bureaucracy; waiting in line at the DMV.
But here is something else Americans know from experience: In the deregulated private market, con artistry abounds. That’s why Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have struck a chord with their criticism of hucksterism on Wall Street. Credit card companies routinely take advantage of their customers. And millions of Americans know what it’s like to be ripped off by big banks and jerked around by health insurance companies. Fly-by-night voucher schools and shady charter-school operators are cashing in on public education funds by shortchanging students.
If the privatizers have their way, soon millions of Americans will be sending our kids to school at private academies in the same strip malls where we use the privatized postal services, bank at the check-cashing joint and shop at the deregulated rent-to-own shop.
Progressives need to stand up to this dystopian vision with better values: great public schools for each and every child, a well-maintained infrastructure and communities that are a great place to live for everybody — not just those rich enough to send their kids to private schools, buy up the prettiest land and build big walls to keep the rest of us out.
A more positive, generous message leads to more progressive politics.
And, as Bernie Sanders show, with a campaign that is now catching up to Hillary Clinton in fundraising, but without a super PAC or a stable of big donors, progressive politics can still get serious traction in our country. Maybe there’s hope for democracy after all.
FINALLY
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