A Brief, Recent History of the US Congress!

In November of 2000 the voters elected a Republican president to join Republican majorities in the US Senate and House.  The federal budget surplus, inherited from the Clinton administration, was returned to deficit and anything progressive was to stop for years to come.

In November of 2006 the voters elected a Democratic majority to the US House of Representatives.  Progressive legislation went to the Senate to die; still unable to clear the legislature.

The miracle of 2008, when voters elected a Democrat to the Presidency, a greater Democratic majority to the US House and a Democratic majority (not the requisite 60 vote super majority an altogether too easy to do filibuster process necessitated) to the Senate; progressive legislation still tends to die in the Senate.

The new President attempted to work in a bi-partisan fashion in Washington, DC.  Democrat/Liberal/Progressive (DLP) elements of the voting population were unimpressed; they had apparently thought that it was our turn to play the spoiled brat in charge.

Unable to convince the new President that he should press his advantage, in a manner similar to how the Republicans had in the first few years of the 21^st century, the DLP voters stayed home in droves during the elections of November 2010.  Thus did the majority in the US House return to the Republicans!  This was, however, not the same old right wing, in your face Republican Party majority in the House!  It was a newer, more radically right wing-nut, Tea Party controlled, Republican majority; progressive ideas were relegated to bills with no hope of passage.

We, once again, find the DLP prone folks in an uproar over the audacity of a President still proposing legislation of a bi-partisan nature.  The DLP folks are certain that government, social insurance programs should exist in an impregnable bubble and that the President’s ideas threatened to create a pin-prick leak in that bubble.  Thus disregarding the fact that the largest, longest lived generation in US history is starting to retire: 74 million baby boomers (my, my, my g-generation).  Consider that the surplus collected for Social Security, starting in 1983, has been spent; by Republicans (who would use, "bankruptcy," as an excuse to try to kill a program they never liked) and by Democrats (who had not considered that there might be difficulty getting those borrowed funds repaid).  

The DLP must increase the Democratic majority in the US Senate and return the US House to a Democratic majority in the 2014 elections!

If we, who are the DLP, repeat the elections of 2010, take our ball and go home to pout, the legacy we guarantee the Obama administration is literally NADA!!!

Think!  Register, any and everybody.  Vote!!!

The Chain CPI Debate Misses the Boat…

The President's budget proposal was rejected by the Republican's (R's) House and Senate leaders before it was officially introduced; as was intended.   The President offered cuts to the Democrat/Liberal/Progressive's (DLP) sacred cow only to be told it was somehow insufficient, even before all the details were known.  The President clearly set the R's (the party of NO!) leaders up to demonstrate that they can not take yes for an answer.  It appears that the NO! want the President to do what they would do, if it wouldn't upset the crazy right wing of the party that owns the primaries, and eliminate the social insurance programs (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid).

The Progressive Caucus in the US House has created an excellent budget proposal: the Back to Work (BTW) Plan.  It is the best proposal for a budget so far this year and it might be able to pass in the US Senate, but is dead on arrival (DOA) in the US House.  This BTW budget has too much for the DLP and will, therefore, not make it to the president’s desk via this congress!

A continuing budget resolution is quite possibly the only thing that can pass the legislature in these, almost, unbelievably partisan times in Washington, DC.

The folks in the center and left who are, "having a cow, man," need to take a deep breath and make sure they are upset for the correct reasons.  Then get themselves (and everyone else that they can) registered to vote.  Get out and VOTE in every local, state and federal election, because for good, bad or indifference the only way forward is through Democratic majorities in congress. 

The dominant force in the party of NO! appears destined for the 50s; the 1850s.  If, like a sane person, you’re not interested in going with them then they need to be made irrelevant.  Only voting their elected officials out of office can accomplish that goal.

In 2010 we Democrats dropped the ball and the US House acquired a Republican majority.  This Republican Party is driven by cantankerous, old, white people that have nothing useful, by choice, to add to the Obama legacy.  This extremely far right branch of the Republican party would prefer that there had never been a black person in the White House; to say naught about two terms!  When folks have nothing useful to add but still want to feel decisive, there is the power of NO!

If the NO! keeps the US House and/or regains a majority in the Senate the Obama legacy will literally be: NADA!!! 

Is this really what you want?

Think.  Register.  Vote!!!

Debating the 2nd Amendment without the 2nd Amendment!!!

If one visits the NRA website, reads magazines about guns and gun issues or listens to folks claiming to defend 2^nd Amendment rights there is one thing you will not hear or see…  The 2^nd Amendment itself!!!

This is the 2^nd Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Why wouldn’t they tell or show this?  My perspective is here:

http://www.blueboomerhd.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-control-guns.html

Think about it. 

TAB's Education Misinformation

Bill Hammond, Texas Association of Business' (TAB) President and CEO, wrote that, “Schools are broken, not broke.” In the editorial he clearly demonstrates a need to walk in the shoes of a public school teacher. Please, Bill, feel free to take an unpaid leave from your current job to become a school teacher for five years, at a school teacher's salary.

I dare you!

Teachers get to raise and educate every kid, without regard for how prepared or supported they are at home. A Dr. (of what is not reported) Eric Hanushek's testimony during the current court case, the most recent in over thirty years of court cases about financing education in Texas, was that we need to remove the bottom 8% of unproductive teachers... To have a Doctorate degree and demonstrate such a lack of understanding suggests that the Doc should also invest some quality time on the other side of the lectern.

Why aren't plenty of private schools available? Why has educating the masses always been done in public institutions?

The answer is simple, unless (like Bill) you're actively trying to avoid it.  Educating everyone is not easy or inexpensive; doing it really well is even less so. Yes, it costs money, because it requires you pay enough to get, and retain, great teachers (folks who can best convey what they know to all others)! It also requires you provide proper environs and supplies for classrooms.

Testing and testing, when you've demonstrated repeatedly that you're unwilling to do what is required to educate students, is as big a waste of time, money and effort as one can imagine! Also, trying to hide statewide taxation, even insufficient quantities thereof, via locally collected property and sales taxes is just plain fraud!

The TAB is one of the groups that have shown, time and again, that they aren't willing to do what is needed, while criticizing the current education system and its results. Serious consideration about investing for education is available at: UT, A&M and Rice Universities, here in TX. Also from the dedicated souls who have done their best, with what they've been provided, in the public pre-K through secondary schools of Texas!

Bill, and his ilk, are entitled to their opinion, but there are others (at the sources listed above) who are actually trying to effect working solutions. Bill Hammond, and company, are some of the anchors that keep us standing still.

Sequester/Austerity Formula for Second Dip...

The 'sequester' is a bill that was passed by the US House and Senate before the President could sign it.

The Republicans on Capital Hill won't understand that the President won re-election on increased revenue and moderate spending cuts. The Republicans are not going to get the cuts they want from the President, because those of us who recently re-elected him said plainly, "NO!"

The 'sequester' is a law that can be repealed the same way it was passed: a bill, to repeal the 'sequester,' is introduced and passed by both the US House and Senate, then sent to the White House for the President's signature.

Austerity, too many government spending cuts, is bringing all the countries of the Eurozone, 17 countries in Europe using the Euro as currency, down into the second dip of a double dip recession; the United Kingdom (not in the Eurozone) is going down for a third dip by doing extraordinary government spending cuts.

The Republicans in Washington, DC are willing to create a second dip into recession for the US economy, just so they can blame it on our President.

Doing the Tea Potty Tango!

The president has been criticized for a federal budget that is too reliant on increased revenue to reduce deficits.

The Republicans in congress are angry that the president will not list the spending they want to cut in his budget; they are apparently not willing to do it for themselves!

The president is being criticized for a federal budget too reliant on increased revenue…

Conservatives re-imagine an HHS report about Head Start’s impacts!

THIRD GRADE FOLLOW-UP TO THE HEAD START IMPACT STUDY,   FINAL REPORT, OPRE (Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation

Administration for Children and Families U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), Report 2012-45

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/head_start_report.pdf

This HHS report has been misinterpreted to have documented that by third grade the benefit of having attended a Head Start program is negligible.

That selectively ignores that this report is only about 3 or 4 year olds in and out of Head Start programs through 3^rd grade only.  Other studies, quite a few listed in the report (skip to the Executive Summary’s Final Thoughts), suggest that there is significant longer term benefit to having attended a Head Start program as a child.

You can get some really interesting results by editing based on one’s ideological biases!!!