Hmm! During a visit to a West Philadelphia charter school yesterday, Mr. Romney informed a group of veteran teachers that class sizes had no effect on students' achievement. He specifically cited a school in Massachusetts with an 18:1 student-teacher ratio, insisting that it ranked near the bottom in performance test results.
It just so happens that The Young Master Romney was an alumnus of the veddy exclusive Cranbrook School in the toney Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. The student-teacher ratio there is 8:1! Citing the impeccable logic of the above Massachusetts example, what should we conclude regarding Mr. Romney's abilities and aptitudes?
Perhaps he should have apprenticed as a barber. After all, he did get some practice! * Just sayin'!
* According to several of Mr. Romney's former classmates, The Young Master led a brigade of his chums on a hunting expedition while armed with a pair of scissors. Their intended prey was a gay student with unacceptably long hair. While his young accomplices held the student down, the Mittster reportedly snipped away at his lengthy locks.
Oh well, boys will be boys. (hah-hah-hah!)
Friday, May 25, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
Legislative Violence
Last week, the House approved a draconian bill, HR 5652: The Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012.
Toward the end of last year, Congress mandated the creation of a special bipartisan committee to produce a blueprint for balancing the budget. Spending cuts were mandated across the board except for Medicare and Social Security. However, the three Republicans and three Democrats assigned to this "super-committee", the Simpson-Bowles Commission, were unable to devise a plan that Congress was willing to sign off on regarding distribution of these cuts, even after a lengthy period of sequestration.
Owing to the lack of such consensus, automatic cuts have been scheduled in equal portions from the social and the military sides of the ledger. HR 5652 would largely spare the military from the fiscal chopping block, instead imposing those scheduled cuts on the social side in addition to the already-mandated ones. This would further eviscerate such lifeline-sustaining programs as food stamps, Medicaid, and children's health care, as well as nutrition programs. Grants to states would also get butchered, affecting among other things, education. And of course, raising taxes for the very wealthy would be unthinkable!
Neither HR 5652 nor the Republican budget, The Path to Prosperity, would currently survive a vote in the Senate or a Presidential veto. But if either of these items was to ever be enacted, the consequences could be potentially lethal for many Americans --- akin to legislative violence: Not violence by the sword nor violence by the gun, but instead, violence by the stroke of a legislative pen!
Millions of families and individuals could well be condemned to living out their days under a toxic shroud of hopelessness and despair --- and, in some cases, dying long before their time. Their deaths might arrive not as swiftly as a bullet between the eyes, but often just as surely.
Is this the future that too many Republicans envision for us?
Have they no shame?
Toward the end of last year, Congress mandated the creation of a special bipartisan committee to produce a blueprint for balancing the budget. Spending cuts were mandated across the board except for Medicare and Social Security. However, the three Republicans and three Democrats assigned to this "super-committee", the Simpson-Bowles Commission, were unable to devise a plan that Congress was willing to sign off on regarding distribution of these cuts, even after a lengthy period of sequestration.
Owing to the lack of such consensus, automatic cuts have been scheduled in equal portions from the social and the military sides of the ledger. HR 5652 would largely spare the military from the fiscal chopping block, instead imposing those scheduled cuts on the social side in addition to the already-mandated ones. This would further eviscerate such lifeline-sustaining programs as food stamps, Medicaid, and children's health care, as well as nutrition programs. Grants to states would also get butchered, affecting among other things, education. And of course, raising taxes for the very wealthy would be unthinkable!
Neither HR 5652 nor the Republican budget, The Path to Prosperity, would currently survive a vote in the Senate or a Presidential veto. But if either of these items was to ever be enacted, the consequences could be potentially lethal for many Americans --- akin to legislative violence: Not violence by the sword nor violence by the gun, but instead, violence by the stroke of a legislative pen!
Millions of families and individuals could well be condemned to living out their days under a toxic shroud of hopelessness and despair --- and, in some cases, dying long before their time. Their deaths might arrive not as swiftly as a bullet between the eyes, but often just as surely.
Is this the future that too many Republicans envision for us?
Have they no shame?
Thursday, May 3, 2012
A Budget that Deficit Hawks Should Love
Is it the Republican budget, The Path to Prosperity? Not really. How about The President's Budget? Closer, but still no cigar. There's actually a third option <drum roll please>: The Congressional Progressive Caucus's Budget for All.
Despite their expressed concern about the deficit, the Republicans' The Path to Prosperity doesn't seriously address this issue. In fact, according to their own projections, the GOP's budget wouldn't be balanced until 2040: 28 years forward! This, despite a devastating attack on the social safety net. Congressional Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R - Wisconsin), the principal spokesman for this plan, also insists that more money is needed for the military, despite prevailing sentiment from within the Pentagon, that expenditures can be substantially reduced without compromising the nation's defense. (Sidebar: The Government Accountability Office [GAO], for at least the past 20 years, has periodically tried to make financial sense of the Pentagon's budget, but has found it "inauditable". Even Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged the problem during a recent appearance before the Senate Budget Committee).
The President's Budget by contrast, is more merciful regarding social programs. It also provides a revenue increase by allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest households to expire. However, it too ramps up the military budget between 2015 and 2022 for more advanced weaponry (including drones) while phasing out arms programs deemed obsolete. Projections beyond 2022 don't seem to be available. While the deficit appears to decrease more quickly than the GOP's budget, neither option eliminates it.
Enter <stage left> the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). Their Budget for All documents how the deficit can be eliminated by 2022 --- without hurting anyone.
For starters, it advocates an end to nation-building outside the United States. The focus would be on reducing our military domination of the planet, while still maintaining a necessary level of security. (Over the past decade, the military budget has doubled).
Other highlights of the CPC budget include expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts as specified in The President's Budget. However, the Budget for All also mandates progressively higher tax rates for households with multi-million and billion-dollar-plus incomes. (The highest marginal rate would be 49% for incomes of over a billion, still far lower than pre-1980s tax rates). Additionally, there are proposals for taxes on high-end stock transactions and elimination of many corporate subsidies, especially ones that encourage the out-sourcing of domestic jobs. (For greater detail, a link is available by googling budget for all 2013 ).
In any event, the CPC's Budget for All seems to offer a --- uh --- path to prosperity: a genuine one that's not designed just for an anointed few. And, just as an afterthought, it might also succeed in balancing the budget sooner rather than later.
Despite their expressed concern about the deficit, the Republicans' The Path to Prosperity doesn't seriously address this issue. In fact, according to their own projections, the GOP's budget wouldn't be balanced until 2040: 28 years forward! This, despite a devastating attack on the social safety net. Congressional Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R - Wisconsin), the principal spokesman for this plan, also insists that more money is needed for the military, despite prevailing sentiment from within the Pentagon, that expenditures can be substantially reduced without compromising the nation's defense. (Sidebar: The Government Accountability Office [GAO], for at least the past 20 years, has periodically tried to make financial sense of the Pentagon's budget, but has found it "inauditable". Even Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged the problem during a recent appearance before the Senate Budget Committee).
The President's Budget by contrast, is more merciful regarding social programs. It also provides a revenue increase by allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest households to expire. However, it too ramps up the military budget between 2015 and 2022 for more advanced weaponry (including drones) while phasing out arms programs deemed obsolete. Projections beyond 2022 don't seem to be available. While the deficit appears to decrease more quickly than the GOP's budget, neither option eliminates it.
Enter <stage left> the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). Their Budget for All documents how the deficit can be eliminated by 2022 --- without hurting anyone.
For starters, it advocates an end to nation-building outside the United States. The focus would be on reducing our military domination of the planet, while still maintaining a necessary level of security. (Over the past decade, the military budget has doubled).
Other highlights of the CPC budget include expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts as specified in The President's Budget. However, the Budget for All also mandates progressively higher tax rates for households with multi-million and billion-dollar-plus incomes. (The highest marginal rate would be 49% for incomes of over a billion, still far lower than pre-1980s tax rates). Additionally, there are proposals for taxes on high-end stock transactions and elimination of many corporate subsidies, especially ones that encourage the out-sourcing of domestic jobs. (For greater detail, a link is available by googling budget for all 2013 ).
In any event, the CPC's Budget for All seems to offer a --- uh --- path to prosperity: a genuine one that's not designed just for an anointed few. And, just as an afterthought, it might also succeed in balancing the budget sooner rather than later.
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