On Tax Day, thank Democrats for your lower tax bills

by folkbum

It may not seem like it, given the relative availability of pennies in your pocket to rub together in these recessed economic times, but unless you're one of the very, very wealthy few (and if you are, why the hell are you reading my blog?), your income tax rates are lower this year than in the past.

At the federal level, 98% of working Americans (99% in Wisconsin, pdf) are paying less in income taxes, with none of the other federal taxes increased either. The bulk of that reduction in taxes came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009, a bill no Republicans voted for.

At the state level, state tax rates and spending are lower than they have been in nearly 40 years. This, too, is the result of work by Democrats without support from Republicans.

The challenge, of course, is that this reality is not well publicized and, consequently, not well believed. For example, the new NYT/CBS poll (via) of the "tea party' people gathering, perhaps even as you read this, across the nation to protest their taxation with representation, finds that among the tea-party crowd, 64% think Democrats have raised their taxes. This corresponds well to what conservative apostate David Frum found that tea-drinkers overestimated, by a factor of eight, how high taxes really are.

What to do to overcome this reality is beyond my ken; the best I can offer is this post reminding people of the truth: Republicans talk tough on tax rhetoric, but Democrats deliver. Do not be deceived.

The first three things I would do, if I were the new guy

by folkbum

I have written endlessly about how much of what needs to change about the Milwaukee Public Schools is not so much problems in the schools but in Milwaukee--rampant poverty, parents who've checked out, health and addiction issues, and so on.

But as the new guy comes to town (he's visiting my school this morning, rumor has it) and prepares to take the reins, I am happy to offer three concrete steps that are actually within his power (pending board approval, which will be tough only for the first of these) to do that I think would improve MPS financially if not academically.

1. Shut down programs and consolidate schools. A decade ago, MPS had 20,000 more students and 20 fewer schools than it does now. We could shed 30 programs and not face overcrowding in schools. Cost savings would be minor, big picture-wise, but it would make management of the district easier.

2. Stop the "CO" merry-go-round. A "CO" is a central office suspension; when students, usually in the middle or high school, commits a significant infraction, they can face a disciplinary hearing that moves them from one school to another where, the theory goes, they might find a more suitable environment. But nothing happens to address the reasons behind students' misbehavior or motivate them to change. And kicking a bad seed out of a school, which could be good for the remaining students, just means a seat is open to accept another school's bad seed, which is no help at all. And it doesn't work--there is a core group of students who ride this train all year long, year after year, and just skate from school to school. The man-hours and money to maintain this system are wasted.

3. Settle the Jamie S. lawsuit. This is the special education lawsuit that has dragged on longer than most of our students have been in school. The appeal is a waste of money at this point, and a drag on the district.

There are other things that are not fully in the new guy's purview, but that are worth pursuing: Smaller class sizes and stronger interventions in key grades and subject areas, like middle-level reading and ninth-grade English; alternative schools that might take some of those "CO"-worthy students mentioned above; a fairer state-wide school funding formula; and renegotiating retiree benefits, to name a few. But the three above are a reasonable start and would set a tone that the new guy is serious about addressing behavioral, financial, and academic challenges in our schools.

I had my money on "Mid-Tier"

by folkbum

Sadly, they went with something more reasonable.

More about the new (same-old) voucher study

by folkbum

For those who need to catch up on the matter, see Friday's post.

Via Matt Yglesias, it seems that pro-voucher (and American Enterprise Institute think-tanker) Rick Hess is spinning and spinning what he calls the "non-effects" of Milwaukee's voucher program:

What to make of the results? First off, 20 years in, it's hard to argue that the nation's biggest and most established voucher experiment has "worked" if the measure is whether vouchers lead to higher reading and math scores. Happily, that's never been my preferred metric for structural reforms--both because I think it's the wrong way to study them [. . . and], more importantly, because choice-based reform shouldn't be understood as that kind of intervention. Rather, choice-based reform should be embraced as an opportunity for educators to create more focused and effective schools and for reformers to solve problems in smarter ways.

If that leaves you saying, "Wha?" then get in line behind me, Yglesias, and other observers like Kevin Carey:

Since “more focused and effective schools” are properly defined as “schools where students learn more” i.e. “schools with higher reading and math scores,” if vouchers didn’t result in more such schools then vouchers failed. One might argue that vouchers created the opportunity for educators to create such schools and educators didn’t take advantage of it, but what’s the difference? The whole point of structural reform is to change incentives and conditions; if the change was insufficient to create desired behavior then ipso facto the reform failed. A purely structural metric for evaluating purely structural reforms misses the point altogether.

What Hess is attempting to do is what Milwaukee's pro-voucher faction did for many years: define mere existence as success. Back when no real metrics were available to gauge vouchers' success--the bulk of the middle of the program's 20-year history--supporters would point to growing enrollment as evidence that the program worked. "See?" they asked. "If the voucher program were such a massive failure, parents wouldn't be choosing these schools, would they?"

This, of course, overlooked a number of factors, many of which have been made plain by the Public Policy Forum's work on vouchers over the years. For example, it became clear that market forces never shut school doors: Even when huge waves of parents would abandon bad schools (most years there was turnover between 1/4 and 1/3 of the students), there was a bigger wave of parents behind them willing to sign up. Parents, it was revealed, did little if any research to determine what voucher school to send their children to, or even if the voucher school they wanted was really any better than the local public school. And PPF has consistently found than many voucher parents would be sending their children to religious schools regardless of the existence of the program. In fact, in years when enrollment requirements changed and numbers soared (after the 1998 court decision, after the 2006 deal raising the enrollment cap), the biggest growth in enrollment came from students already attending voucher schools but paying previously paying tuition.

So even trying to claim existence as success was a misleading effort.

(The current, and getting very tired, effort to redefine success as something other than success is the whole "voucher schools do it for half price" myth--which Hess even tosses into his post. But, again, see what I have written previously on that.)

Thankfully, Carey and others, including the authors of the study that was out last week, recognize that defining success down--defining success as anything other than solid student achievement--is a fruitless exercise.

One Paul Ryan lie to start your week

by folkbum

Undoubtedly, there will be others, but here's a good one to chew on as Monday rolls in:

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. (floor speech, March 21): There is an individual mandate. It mandates individuals purchase government-approved health insurance or face a fine to be collected by the IRS which will need $10 billion additional and 16,500 new IRS agents to police and enforce this mandate.

This "16,000 IRS agents" lie is absurd on its face, worse once you get into the details, and yet it is pretty much accepted as gospel now among the ignorati on the right because it keeps getting repeated by the likes of Ryan and Newt Gingrich (who claimed the call for new agents was actually in the bill, which is patently false), not to mention the vast right-wing echo chamber of FOX, talk radio, and badly formatted email forwards from your aunt in Palm Beach. Ezra Klein helps explain why it's bogus:

[L]et's track how an estimate becomes spin becomes a lie becomes a sound bite. First, the estimate: The CBO predicted that costs related to the Affordable Care Act would "probably include an estimated $5 billion to $10 billion over 10 years for administrative costs of the Internal Revenue Service." This money, incidentally, isn't to audit people or go door-to-door enforcing the individual mandate. It's primarily to give subsidies to qualifying small businesses and individuals.

But that didn't stop Republicans; no, their Ways and Means members--Ways and Means is Ryan's big committee assignment, you know, as the Republicans' chief budget writer--simply divided the larger number from the CBO--$10 billion--by the average salary of an IRS agaent, and came up with the 16,500 estimate, and put out a statement that said the IRS "may" hire that many new agents. The money is not even primarily for IRS employees, let alone the "agents" who do the auditing and the catching of Al Capone and whatnot.

And here's Ryan, the golden boy, the future of the GOP, deliberately lying about the Affordable Care Act, a lie that he is quite likely responsible for originating from his own committee through shoddy math and unashamed twisting of the language of the bill.

It is unconscionable that Ryan should be allowed to get away with this; he is purposefully turning needed small-business subsidies into menacing G-Men in the imaginations of people already too disconnected from reality to recognize the absurdity of it. Of course, since Ryan seems more and more to be living in said fantasy world, we perhaps shouldn't be surprised.

iPad blogging

by folkbum

Well, I finally have my hands on one, and I have to say that the thing is absolutely beautiful. (And I have to say that by "have my hands on one," I mean that I'm standing here at the Apple store playing with one.)

The interface Is clean and smooth, and the web looks absolutely gorgeous. The books look great too. This keyboard is a whole lot better to use than my iPod touch's, though not a reasonable substitute for a laptop keyboard.

I think I can live without one, at least as long as it remains primarily a media consumption tool, as opposed to a media creation tool. My MacBook wins this round.

Reminder: Food Pantry Benefit Friday

(this post is sticky; scroll down for new content)

by folkbum

Don't forget that Friday, 8 PM, I will be performing a set of songs by Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne at the Coffee House. In these times, of course, food pantries need all the help they can get. If you have four spare bucks and some cans of food, please come on down and enjoy the show.

Not only will there be three other great acts on the bill with me tomorrow, my set will feature some extra-special guests, including a couple of very talented folks (cough) who will be making their Coffee House debuts and could use your support, too.

Tax Hell becomes Tax Median

by folkbum

BizTimes (via): "Wisconsin’s state and local tax ranking has dropped to its lowest level since 1961, according to an annual report released today by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. [. . .] When considering all revenue sources, Wisconsin ranks 24th per $1,000 personal income and 25th per capita."

Darn those Democrats for ruining a perfectly good Republican talking point!

FriTunes: A preview of tonight's entertainment

by folkbum

Here are the original versions of two songs I will be singing at tonight's food pantry benefit at the Coffee House:





(Watch for my wicked harmonica solo on that last one.)

Our annual voucher study post

by folkbum

Sing with me ... third verse, same as the first two!

The state-mandated study is out comparing students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice (voucher) Program with students in the Milwaukee Public Schools and their performance on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam, and, the topline numbers reveal, there is little substantive difference between the two groups.

There are some other interesting things hinted at beyond those topline (pdf) numbers, but the really interesting part is, again, the right-wing insistence that the report vindicates the voucher program because MPCP does an equivalently mediocre job with difficult-to-educate students as MPS does, but at half the price or so.

As I have explained here before, and last year in the Compass (with a graph!), this is a misleading, if not completely false, sentiment. The cost of education your average MPS child is approximately the same as the cost of a choice voucher. The difference comes almost entirely in the costs associated with being a large public school district: busing, programs for the academically talented and expensive college-prep programs, bureaucracy to meet state and federal mandates that voucher schools are not required to comply with, summer and after-school programs required by law, services for English language learners, and--the big one--special education services. None of these things are costs voucher schools must incur, but MPS must by law.

Still, the usual suspects--McIlheran at the daily paper and Schneider at WPRI--play up the half-price myth. Here's Schneider (skipping over his bizarre psycho-sexual fantasies about store clerks):

[C]hoice schools are spending 46% as much to get the same results as the public schools. This is not insignificant, given the constant pressure applied by public schools to tax more in the name of “the kids.”

At which point the goal of all of this becomes clear, defunding public schools in the name of WPRI's ever-present mission to shrink government and save all the poor, poor rich folk from the burden of taxes.

Schneider goes on to get a number of other things utterly wrong: "The report demonstrates," he writes, "that fourth graders in the MPCP actually enter the program with lower reading and math skills than their MPS counterparts. By the eighth grade, that disparity has flipped, with the MPCP students scoring slightly better." Not so; the fourth-grade WKCE results are not some kind of entrance exam; instead, they measure the amount students learn as third-graders--a result which actually is damning for the (voucher) schools that produce the lower results. On the other hand, these results show what I as a high school teacher have known for a long time, that middle school is a giant black hole in MPS.

Schneider, again:

MPCP schools can be much more nimble in reacting to the data presented in the report. Need to improve test scores? Fire some teachers and hire better ones. Are schools underperforming? Close them down or pull them out of the program. Are there programs out there statistically proven to increase student achievement? Get off your butt and implement them. All of these options are unavailable to the monolithic public school system, which is suffocating itself with bureaucracy and cumbersome teacher union contracts.

And again, not so. The report pointedly does not disaggregate results by school, so no one voucher school has any idea whether it is failing as a result of this report. And he's also wrong that MPS doesn't have the wherewithal to make changes, as recent work on math initiatives and the new literacy plan show. (Also showing in this comment: Schneider and WPRI's long-standing disdain of the working-class union families who built this country into what it is.)

This is not, of course, the first time I have had to lay some reality on WPRI related to vouchers. In fact, the last time I did it, WPRI honcho George Lightburn was busy complaining that voucher schools might be asked to meet some of the very same mandates that public schools have to, mandates that make the half-price myth just that, a myth.

At any rate, I don't suspect that next year's results will be much different, either in test scores or in continued promulgation of falsehood and myth from pro-voucher, anti-public school forces.

Have I mentioned that I read it for the comments?

by folkbum

This morning McIlheran rehashes one crazy conservative myth that we've already dispensed with here, but it only took one comment for more of the crazy myths to appear: "Today we also learn approximately 50% of the US household will not pay a dime in taxes," writes this poor deluded man. Which, of course, is not true: Everyone who works, buys anything, or lives anywhere pays taxes. They may not pay income taxes, which are progressively structured such that the greatest burden falls on those with the most income to spare.

Here's a previous post of mine on the subject, complete with pretty graph; but even the right-wing Tax Foundation notes (see the chart on page 5) that the lowest quintile of households by income still pays about a fifth of their income in taxes at some level.

Still just reading for the comments

by folkbum

Marvelously entertaining, starting with a bunch of people free enough during the day to comment on newspaper stories complaining that a bunch of people free enough to attend a mid-day rally should shut up and get a job.

But this comment bothered me:

At every turn it seems I am being told "if you make more than $200,000k (which I don't, but hope to one day) we will tax you more". Or "this will only impact the "rich"", "the top 10%" "the upper class" etc...As the trend of increased taxes on "the rich" ($200-250k/yr is NOT rich) continues [. . .]

He thinks "$200-250k/yr is NOT rich"? Seriously? The median household income in the US for 2009--meaning an equal number of households earned above and below that number--was $50,303 in 2008, meaning someone earning $200-250k is earning four or five times the median. In fact (note these are 2005 numbers, but I doubt much has changed), only the top 2.5% of households in the country earn $200k or more. It boggles my mind that someone could possibly believe that if they are one of the richest 2.5% of Americans that they are not rich.

And yet I'm the one they won't take seriously

by folkbum

Several things conspired to make last week's April Fools possible: One, I have student teachers this semester, and supervising their grading of papers takes significantly less time than actually grading the papers myself. Two, I still have very little voice, and thus my creative juices went into the typing, not the singing or whatnot. I had fun, and all of these fake blogs are available if you've ever wanted to start one of of your own.

And it's not like I expected anyone to take it for real (though this may have been in earnest); even the straight-up announcement was not that straight-up. But I was in fact trying to make some serious points, in particular about Paul Ryan his platform, such as it is. Yet the April-Foolsy nature of the project means I am not too bothered that those few conservatives who noted the campaign didn't actually address the substance that was there.

(Though I would like to know what of my writing Kevin Binversie thinks would make good ammo for the RNC.)

As Paul Ryan comes into his own in the GOP and declares his intentions to retire to a different state, it's getting clearer and clearer that he has no interest in serving the needs of his constituents, and instead is just saying whatever he needs to in order to get elected and pursue a path of deregulatory Randianism that enriches his wealthy friends at the expense of those who actually work for a living.

Don't believe me? Take a look at this paragraph from a recent speech of his that is getting a lot of attention (e.g.) from the right:

The drama that brought this creature [he means the Affordable Care Act] to life was unedifying ... part tragedy and part farce. Ethical categories went out the window. Never in history have the deliberations of Congress been subverted on this scale. The secrecy, the lack of transparency, the half-truths were stunning. The votes called at midnight ... the 2 and 3 thousand page bills members of Congress had no time to read before the votes ... the sordid backroom deals, the Cornhusker Kickback that shamed Nebraska, the Louisiana Purchase, the "Gator Aid" Medicare privilege for Florida, the additional Medicare dollars for states whose wavering representatives only yesterday were ferociously denouncing earmarks ... the federal judgeship dangled for one lawmaker's brother ... the raid on the Medicare piggy bank ... the lie that $250 billion for "doc fix" shouldn't count as a Health Care cost ... the double-counted deficit estimate scam that would land any accountant in jail ... the proposed Slaughter rule that Congressmen not record a vote on a bill their constituents hate, just "deem" it passed and vote on the amendments...and to complete the farce, the phony Executive Order pretending not to fund abortions when the Health Care bill, as "the supreme law of the land," does fund abortions. The level of political corruption to buy the votes for this debacle makes all past examples look penny ante by comparison.

There is not one sentence in this paragraph that isn't either a blatant falsehood or deeply hypocritical. To suggest that the "deliberations" on the health care bill that is now law were not transparent is absurd. This was the most debated, most over-hashed, most talk-about bill in recent memory. CSPAN ratings were through the roof. There was no line of the bill that was not public and posted and puzzled over long before any votes. Not like, say, the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, which of course Paul Ryan voted for without having read it. The health care bill? Come on. The Senate passed the bill three months before it was taken up in the house. If Paul Ryan didn't have time to read it, it's his own damn fault.

It's also remarkable that Ryan would lambast, for example, the "Cornhusker Kickback." Because when Ryan had the chance to vote to remove that provision, he voted no--just like the rest of his caucus. The "judgeship dangled" is of course a complete lie, according to the WND-approved judge who previously held the position.

I've written before about Ryan's hypocritical complaints about Medicare; the "doc fix" has been a separate bill for, literally, years; and Ryan is the only one who knows what he's talking about with that "scam" talk, as the non-partisan analysts all found nothing like it. And the "Slaughter Rule"? When Paul Ryan was voting on rules just like it, it was known as "deem and pass"--a decades-old procedure.

[Updated to add, because I can't believe I forgot it, that Paul Ryan voted for Medicare Part D, which, if there was ever a Congressional vote that was truly corrupt--I mean, read the story!--this was it. Ryan's got a lot of nerve to talk about bribery and corruption of process after he participated in that mess.]

And for abortion? Ryan seems to have bought into that lie, too. Here's the text of the bill:

(A) IN GENERAL- If a qualified health plan provides coverage of services described in paragraph (1)(B)(i) [i.e., ABORTIONS FOR WHICH PUBLIC FUNDING IS PROHIBITED], the issuer of the plan shall not use any amount attributable to any of the following for purposes of paying for such services.

You can believe Paul Ryan, or you can believe the text of the bill. Your call.

So here's the situation: Paul Ryan gives a lauded speech peppered with his own dishonesty and hypocrisy, and yet we are supposed to take him and his support seriously. Why? What possible value is there is puffing up a fabulist with a schoolboy crush on Ayn Rand? What makes him a more serious candidate that I would have been?

"American workers have already sacrificed too much"

by folkbum

Don Blankenship apparently didn't believe that, since he said it before his flagrant disregard for basic safety killed 25 men in his mine.

Also, note the desecration of the flag.

And, Central West Virginia Red Cross.

Wrap Your Brain Around This One

By Keith R. Schmitz

How would anyone know the difference?

Tea parties targeted for disruption by anarchists?

I just read it for the comments

by folkbum

On the one hand, hilarious. On the other, scary what they believe to be true.

FriTunes: Easter Sunday Edition

by folkbum

It's also April 4:

Campaign update

by folkbum

I'm so glad I have a capable staff who have remained on top of things. Excelsior!

UPDATE to the UPDATE: It's over ... I've had to drop out. Details at the above link. Sigh.

Yes! I'm running for Congress!

by folkbum

See the post below or go here for up-to-the minute updates about my campaign against Paul Ryan!

Special Announcement: I'm running for Congress!

by folkbum

To visit my campaign website, to sign up, contribute, and see campaign updates, click here.

As most of you know, the few readers I have left anyway, I have spent much of the last year attacking Wisconsin 1st CD Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Ayn Rand). The fact is that Ryan is an incredibly poor representative for his district, and the fact that he has risen to a position of leadership in his party points is a significant danger not just to the good folks of Wisconsin but the nation as a whole.

All along, people have been telling me, "Quit your whining and do something about it."

I haven't always known exactly what they had in mind when they said that--raise money to defeat him? throw a bucket of paint on him while shouting "Meat is murder"?--but their words have been weighing heavily on my mind for some time.

That is why, beginning today, I am doing "something."

Beginning today, I am running for Congress against Paul Ryan, seeking the 1st CD nomination for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Now, some of you are probably already starting to catalogue the reasons why this is a bad idea, perhaps starting with the fact that I insist on spelling catalogue with the -ue at the end. And it's true that there are a number of seemingly insurmountable barriers to my entry into this race. But let's take a closer look at them, shall we?

For one, I do not presently live in Wisconsin's 1st district. I am only a few miles away, though, and if the Doug Hoffman (I-Teabagger) campaign in upstate New York taught us anything in the past year, it's that out-of-district insurgents can still legitimately run for a seat in Congress. In addition, I spent my college years in Rock County, where Ryan was born and raised, when it was a part of the 1st CD (Beloit has since been re-districted to the 2nd CD). This is only fair, since Ryan spent his college years at Miami of Ohio, which is one county up from where I was born and raised and, ironically, the only other college I applied to besides Beloit College.

For another, I have no elected experience. Oh, come on. You know this one: If every job requires you to have experience, how can you get a job to gain that experience? Consider that Paul Ryan had not been elected to any office before he ran for Congress in 1998. Sure, he slummed around Washington, DC, working for some of the archest of arch-conservative elected officials. How is that different from me, slumming around Milwaukee, working for the Milwaukee Public Schools?

For a third, I have no money. Paul Ryan, as even a cursory glance at his financials will tell you, has more money than any likely opponent. That I have been living on a public servant's salary while Ryan's sugar-daddies in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries fed Ryan's campaign coffers should not disqualify me from running. I am also not intimidated by the fact that Ryan is willing to spend millions--he spent $2.25 million in 2008, outspending his opponent 17-1, because nothing kills like overkill!--in this election. In fact, the more money he spends now, the less he has to run for Senate in 2012.

In all, the reasons for my not running are hardly enough to stop me. That is why, beginning today, I am asking for your support. This goal--sending the GOP's golden boy packing--will not be easy, and it will not be something I can do without you. Here is my simple, five-point platform, and I hope these are all things you can believe in, too:

• No more economic policies based on the fiction of Ayn Rand
  
• No more social policies based on the hypocrisy of Catholic bishops
  
• No more international relations policies based on the movie Red Dawn
  
• No more education policies based on phony "miracles," be they in Houston or in Chicago
  
• No more environmental policies based on the philosophy of C. Montgomery Burns

If these are reforms that you can get behind, sign up today to support me in my quest to take Wisconsin back from the forces of political terpitude and the party of "no."