GUEST COMMENTARY

Over the last few years I’ve noticed something interesting about our ongoing climate change discussions. It used to be that logic and knowledge were the keys. We looked at the best available science, weighed the predicted costs of action versus the predicted costs of inaction, and then considered the most appropriate alternatives. Businesses use this kind of approach all the time. It’s called a “cost-benefit analysis.”

Recently, though, our climate discussions have slowed and even stalled. Not because of the science, which remains irrefutable, or because of the proposed solutions, which are generally still feasible, but because so-called climate skeptics are doing their best to muddy the water and raise doubts about the issue.

Election 2010

With 18 states now part of a federal health care lawsuit, Idaho Democratic candidate for governor Keith Allred says the state should instead use a section of the new federal law to opt out of the requirements of the Health Care Reform Act.

A federal lawsuit which was filed March 23 by Florida’s Attorney General cites the states’ rights language in the 10th amendment to the Constitution. Indiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Nevada and Arizona just joined the suit, following Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington. Virginia is suing separately under different criteria.

“We could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a lawsuit that has a very low chance of success,” said Allred. “Governor Otter’s focus on lawsuits overlooks an important provision in the federal legislation. States can get a waiver from the federal requirements if they establish alternative programs that control costs and increase access better than the federal legislation itself. I’m here today to tell that when I’m elected governor, I’ll work to do just that,” Allred said.

HOPPY BIRTHDAY

We’ve all heard about the Tea Party and its politically conservative approach that blames government in general and Democrats in particular for all the nation’s problems.

Now, in response, we have the Coffee Party emerging to applaud more liberal views, such as viewing government as merely an expression of our collective will, so it sort of seems like it should be named the Espresso Party. Anyway, it already has 350 coffee shops signed up in 44 states.

Now, I’m hearing rumblings of another new political party starting up, one that might really solve the many troubles that threaten to sink the greatest nation on earth, the Microbrew Party. It doesn’t have a website yet, or staff, promotional webcasts, offices, or anything formal, so lots more news to break in coming months, but here’s what I’ve heard so far.

Election 2010

In Idaho, it is our choices—more than our circumstances—that determine our destiny. No matter how tough things get, we still have the opportunity to improve our circumstances or make them worse.

Of course, when times get really tough, it can feel like those options are slipping away. Maybe that’s what happened to Governor Butch Otter. At the beginning of the legislative session, he told us that our economic circumstances were so bad, the only thing we could do was make big cuts and hope things get better.

That just isn’t true. We always have choices.

But that’s not what we saw in Otter’s decision-making. Otter decided to go down in Idaho history as the first governor to spend less on our children’s education in the coming year than he spent in the last. And it’s not just a little bit less; it’s $128 million less. Most of us didn’t need Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna to tell us that Otter’s cuts will cause significant and lasting damage to student achievement. We knew it ourselves.

idaho legislature

Amidst a flurry of activity and a couple of more than ten-hour days, the Idaho Legislature has adjourned sine die, with a few interesting developments and surprises in its last few hours, as well as a whole pile of Strongly Worded Letters to send to the Federal government.

Factors speeding the Legislature on their way included it being an election year, the economy inducing them not to spend the $30,000 each legislative day costs, the urgency to get out of town before March tax revenue figures came in and possibly required yet another cut to the 2010 budget, and, perhaps, the desire to be out of session before April Fool’s Day.

Messing Around With Worly

I grew up getting the news from my father who interpreted Walter Cronkite broadcasts for the rest of the family. Dad would accept the details with which he agreed, reject those he didn’t, and that became inarguable fact around our home. For example; hippies were murdering drug addicts, draft dodgers were sub-human cowards, rock music was for San Francisco homosexuals and all Democrats were communists. Life was pretty cut and dried at my house in 1960s Eastern Idaho.

I offer this background because it’s 2010, we have sweeping change in our nation with the Health Care Reform Bill that was just passed, and I have absolutely no idea what the hell that even means. There are too many slanted sources of information to wade through. I know what my Dad would say, “Obama? He’s a goddamn communist and I wouldn’t believe a word the bastard says.”

Sorry Dad, at this point in my life that kind of wisdom really doesn’t help me get to the bottom of one of the largest and gooiest pieces of legislation ever signed into law. 

Idahoans in D.C.

Idahoan Bruce Reed has been appointed as executive director of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Reed, who is the son of longtime Democratic state senator Mary Lou Reed of Coeur d’Alene and environmental attorney Scott Reed, was director of President Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council for eight years. Since then he’s been CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist organization.

Reed’s most public achievement under Clinton was heading up a welfare reform initiative which was unpopular with liberal Democrats, and his other moderate views have sometimes put him at odds with that wing of the party. 

idaho legislature

Despite concern about how funding was being spent to develop network infrastructure for the Idaho Education Network—to the extent that a quarterly status report is now required, delineating how and where funds were being spent—in the end, money talked: Idaho’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted today to give $3 million in spending authority to the Department of Administration, based on a two-year grant from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson education foundation.

Despite concern about how funding was being spent to develop network infrastructure for the Idaho Education Network—to the extent that a quarterly status report is now required, delineating how and where funds were being spent—in the end, money talked: Idaho’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted today to give $3 million in spending authority to the Department of Administration, based on a two-year grant from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson education foundation.

Both Representatives Shirley Ringo (D-Moscow), who made the motion, and Fred Wood (R-Burley) conceded that the source of the funding was part of their decision. “If this were general fund money, we might be having a different discussion,” she said. For the state to turn down such private sources of funding, or even to put conditions on it, would not be appropriate, he said.

column

We get it all the time, by phone, paper, or online. “Would you like to take a survey?” Then, through the magic of statistics, we learn all sorts of amazing things.

Not so fast.

As Mark Twain (or Disraeli, depending on which Internet quote engine you use) once said, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. And it doesn’t take a lot of learning about surveys to realize how often and how easily statistics can be misused. 

Congress and Elections 2010

It took less than five minutes Sunday night after Congress passed the health care reform bill for the press releases to fly - a sure sign they were written well in advance. No surprise there.

Neither is it surprising that Idaho elected officials and candidates for those offices are unhappy with national health reform; they’ve been clear and consistent about it for months.