Why I Resist

People ask why I advocate for direct action against those who oppress us. Today is the 47th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre and the 57th anniversary of when the first Freedom Riders got on the bus. The issues raised in those events are still with us. #Resist

Support Public Education

Support the True Cost of Public Education

Congratulations to the new members of the West Bend School Board. Now comes the hard part, actually governing. Fulfilling campaign promises to bring increased transparency and accountability to district financial operations, giving teachers a greater voice in how and what they teach and the rest will be easy compared to the much larger issues of securing adequate funding, state imposed limits on local control of funding and local resistance to increased taxes.

Currently, our public school funding comes from a mix of state and federal funds and local property tax revenues, all of which change from year to year as the political winds blow in Madison and Washington. Locally, public school funding is complimented by a foundation that raises funds for things the district needs, private donations from local businesses (Stuff the Bus and McTeacher Nights), fundraisers by individual school Parent Teacher Organizations (PTOs), GoFundMe pages and contributions by individual teachers to their own classrooms. I have been unable to find an accounting of the last four. They are not part of the district's budgeting process. 

Local funding is further complicated by the open enrollment funding drain and voucher payments required by school choice legislation. If a West Bend District parent chooses to enroll her child in a neighboring district's public school, that student's portion of the state aid our district receives follows the student to his new district. Currently, West Bend pays much more to other districts than it receives with students who open enroll into our schools. If a West Bend parent chooses to enroll his child in a voucher eligible private school, our district pays that school a substantial amount through the voucher system. 

Our school board has little to no control over any of these funding mechanisms. It already levies the maximum allowed by law on local property taxpayers because we get penalized by the state if we under levy through reduced state aid in subsequent years. What is left to Wisconsin school boards that want to increase spending are two types of referenda, operational and capital. Operational referenda can be one time or recurring and fund day to day district operations. Capital referenda allow district to issue bonds to raise money to build new schools or renovate old ones. West Bend has had three capital referenda in the last decade. It has never tried to pass an operational referendum to add new or bring back lost educational programs, increase educator salaries, reduce class sizes or provide for other ongoing expenses.

Even though district costs have increased along with everything else such as transportation, food, utilities, insurance, legal fees and administrative costs, revenues from outside sources has gone down or remained flat for a long time. Act 10 was supposed to help by reigning in teacher salaries and healthcare costs, but those savings vanished into other inflationary pressures and declining revenues.

Our new board will have its work cut out for it and must start by educating the community on the importance of public education to the future of the Republic and the survival of our local way of life. Many have lost sight of the impact public schools have on local property values and economic vitality. Great schools make communities attractive to young families and the businesses looking for new employees. Bad schools, not so much. When public schools are allowed to fail, and that is a choice, businesses leave and communities fail. Even if you do not have school age children, supporting public education is an great investment in your community's future.

Dealing with the true costs of properly educating our kids will require examination of the PTO fundraisers, private business donations and individual teacher contributions to their classrooms and students. How much is involved, where do these funds come from, what are they used for and how should we incorporate these needs into the budgeting process? What are the hidden costs involved? These are just as important as state funding questions to our commitment to adequate funding.

Two examples come to mind, one corporate and one personal. McTeacher nights take place in local McDonald's with teachers serving fast food to students and parents lured their by their presence and a desire to donate. The restaurants give a portion of their profits back to the schools. The Los Angeles Unified School District just opted out of this program because it did not want teachers promoting unhealthy food choices. Should we follow that example? Local teachers provide food and supplies to needy students in their classes who have fallen through the social safety net. Should they feel the need to do that or should those needs be recognized and funded through the district's. budget?

The new school board will have to grapple with these thorny issues as it addresses how we choose to educate those who will become responsible for our future. Let them choose wisely.

Save Social Security

Save Social Security

Social Security was created during the Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and rescued many elderly Americans from the despair of the Great Depression. When jobs,  savings accounts and those few pensions that existed in the 1930s were wiped out in that upheaval, many seniors sank into poverty and had no support systems to fall back on.

Social Security was designed so the miseries visited on the elderly of low and moderate means after the stock market crashed would never happen again. Payroll taxes on working people and their employers who contribute, in equal amounts, about 12% of an employee’s gross wages, fund the system. These payroll taxes are placed in a separate Social Security Trust Fund administered by the government to maximize the returns payable to people when they reached the age of retirement. This was done purposefully to keep politicians from raiding the Fund for general revenue needs in times when the fund carried a surplus. Even back in the 1930s, we knew there would be fluctuations in the numbers needing benefits and a need to keep the Trust Fund solvent.

Conservative republicans hate the Social Security system. It embodies all that deemed wrong with big government doing what private business could do better. Those on Wall Street cast a covetous eye on the large surpluses in the Trust Fund that they cannot manage or use for investments or rape for profit. They cast aspersions on such a social safety net, demanding that people take control over their own retirement savings and investments or suffer the consequences. They have forgotten the trials and tribulations families faced during the Great Depression when elderly parents starved and died for lack of money.

Over time, conservatives in Congress have whittled away at the Social Security System by raising the age at which a retiree could start collecting benefits, capping the amount of an employee’s wages subject to withholding, imposing means testing for some benefits, limiting disability and spousal benefits, capping cost of living increases by tying them to less than relevant consumer price indexes and others. The biggest betrayal came during the Bush years when Congress took huge sums out of the Trust Fund surpluses in order to pay for other government programs and wars.

The ultimate result set up the big lie that Social Security needs to be scrapped and replaced because the current system will not be able to meet the benefit demands that will arrive as the baby boomer generation hits retirement and current payroll tax revenues decline because there are fewer people working. That date is currently somewhere in the 2030 range and changes as does the economy.

Conservative republicans tell us that Social Security is not sustainable in its current form. They have made it that way. Their solution is, of course, to give the Trust Fund to Wall Street to manage and then pay seniors what might be left after the profiteers take their cut, assuming the managers investments make a decent return.

Political campaigns for Congress and the Presidency depend upon the votes from seniors. They vote in higher numbers than other age groups in the electorate. Candidate Trump and many members of Congress promised not to touch Social Security for those already retired or close to retirement, thinking that would be enough to secure senior support.

Democrats of the populist ilk recognized and campaigned on other positions. Raising or eliminating the cap on payroll taxable income is the easiest fix. It would pump enough money into the Trust Fund to make it solvent for decades. It is only fair that wealthy wage earners continue to pay into the system on wage incomes over $115,000 per year. Bolder folks also campaigned on cost of living increases being tied to price indices more aligned with those items seniors actually buy like food, housing and medications. They also championed increasing benefits to a more sustainable level than the average current $1,400 monthly stipend.

With the failure of the republican repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act effort, conservatives now turn to tax reform looking for more ways to cut taxes for the wealthy.

One of the current proposed  “reforms” is to completely eliminate Social Security payroll tax withholding. The short-term benefit will be to put that money back into employee paychecks and employer bank accounts. That is a very attractive incentive. Who would not want what amounts to a $3500 plus annual wage boost?  What they don’t tell you is that it will kill the Social Security revenue stream and bankrupt the system for sure and much sooner than currently predicted.

As you communicate with your member of Congress at one of his town halls, call or write to him, please let him know that further damage to Social Security is not acceptable and that the system needs to be fixed by repaying the money taken from the Trust Fund and raising the cap on payroll taxes subject to withholding to at least $500,000 per year. Your elderly relatives will appreciate it and so will you when you retire.

War is not the answer

Violence and killing are not the appropriate response to violence and killing. Finding ways to achieve peace is the appropriate response to violence and killing.

Governing is Complicated

Very Complicated

The complete collapse of the American Health Care Act shows that Republicans in Washington are still stuck on being the party of "No" and have not learned how to govern.

When you have solid majorities in both houses of Congress and a sympathetic, but unaware, president, it should be easy to pass legislation you think important. Speaker Ryan learned that "just say no," does not translate into legislative enactments that actually accomplish something.

The AHCA was flawed from the beginning. It was not a bill designed to provide Americans with affordable health care coverage with lower premiums, but one designed to continue the GOP redistribution of wealth to the rich by means of more tax credits. It was designed to put more money back into the Treasury to help fund even more tax credits to the rich when the GOP tries to tackle tax reform.

Given the ideological fractures in the House of Representatives' Republican caucus and their inability to compromise even among themselves, there was little hope that the bill would pass. The far-right Freedom Caucus would never vote for anything short of a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act that leaves everyone to fund their own health care without government assistance or involvement. They held their ground, leaving those in the GOP's center and center-right with no place to go. Without significant shifts towards an actual universal healthcare bill, there was not going to be any help from Democrats.

Speaker Ryan, who has had seven years to draft a workable alternative to the Affordable Care Act, did not even start until this year. He pinned his hopes on the ultimate deal maker sitting in the White House to strong arm and cajole those opposed into falling in line. Try as he might, President Trump could not close the deal.

When Ryan ended up pulling the bill before there could even be a vote, he announced that "Obamacare remains the law of the land." The reactions were swift and merciless. Repeal and replace was the single unifying theme of the last election cycle and they just could not pull it off. The blame game looked to deflect responsibility away from Trump and Ryan but appeared to fall on deaf ears. The Freedom Caucus refused to accept any part of the responsibility, claiming Ryan just is not conservative enough. Democrats rallied and pushed again for a single payer, Medicare for all plan. Trump has declared war on the Freedom Caucus and Ryan rejected Trump's suggestion that they could work with Democrats on health care. Trump and Ryan turned their backs on the failure and vowed to move on to tax reform legislation.

Tax code reform has been on everyone's radar for over 30 years with nothing getting done except minor tweaks and more loop holes for corporate interests. With no one willing to seriously look at military spending or any of the other required costs of running the country, there is an insatiable demand for revenue. The government has already taxed and regulated  the middle class into a terminal condition so there is no help to be found there. Businesses, corporations and the wealthy keep demanding bigger slices of the pie so there is no help there either. The vanished savings from repeal and replace will make the task even more difficult. It is no wonder that Trump's claims that tax reform will be easy are being received with more than a little skepticism. 

Tax reform will bring out more dark money from lobbyists and super PACs than ever before. All will pitch their entitlements to this tax benefit or the next and the congressional lackeys who have not met a lobbyist with a check they did not like will swoon once more before delivering more back to these benefactors. The end result will add volumes to the tax code making the rich richer and the poor and working stiffs poorer.

The GOP agenda has run aground on the rocks of governing. Even with majorities, our system of government requires compromise in the middle before progress can be made. If he is to survive the meat grinder, Speaker Ryan is going to be forced to forge coalitions in the center in both parties. Hopefully, he will be up to the task. If not, it will be a rough pull to avoid a GOP disaster in the 2018 mid-terms.

Support Tony Evers

DPI Superintendent Evers Deserves Re-election

Holtz is Wrong for Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction provides institutional and financial support to the state’s public schools. It is led by a non-partisan superintendent who gets elected every four years. Tony Evers is the current superintendent and is running for re-election on April 4^th.

Superintendent Evers has done a great job negotiating the troubled waters post-Act 10, trying to keep public education afloat while school budgets were slashed, teachers vilified and local control obliterated by Governor Walker and the GOP controlled legislature. Evers’ steady leadership has been the only bright light in the wholesale assault on public education, especially in urban areas.

Evers has a solid plan to rescue public education and to stand up against the forces that would continue the slide into privatization and profiteering now led by Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s wholly unqualified pick to lead the U.S. Department of Education.

Make no mistake, the privatizers here in Wisconsin and nationally have their sights on the money we spend to educate our children. They sell it grandly through claims about the wonders of school choice, competition and “free markets.”

School choice has been and continues to be a disaster, siphoning money out of public schools and giving it to religious private schools in the form of vouchers to parents. The voucher, when presented to the private school, takes the student’s state funding from her former public school and gives it to the private one. Vouchers rob the public schools of the economies of scale that make them manageable financially. Take a student’s $7,000 state aid out of a public school and they still have to hire the same number of teachers because that one or two students less in a classroom does not mean the remaining students should not be taught. 

The privatizers for choice also siphon money out of public schools through charter schools. They too are funded with tax dollars that would otherwise go to neighborhood public schools. Neither charter nor voucher schools are held to the same standards as public schools. Neither has to offer the help or services special needs students require. These private schools do not have to take every student who applies and can kick students they do not like out mid-year. Those students return to public schools without the public money given to the private schools returning with them, further stretching the already thin public school budgets. Study after study shows that private charter schools do not produce better performing students than public schools.

Vouchers and charters are the new form of school segregation. They appeal to many who don’t want their kids mingling with students of color, those with special needs or those with multi-colored hair.

Superintendent Evers has called for an end to this drain on public school funding as part of his package to completely redo public funding of public education. He correctly observes that the current school funding formula cannot support our public school system, much less one that includes vouchers and charters.

Evers calls for a drastic overhaul of the current school funding formula to correct for the disparities between urban and rural schools. He wants more resources for underperforming schools, not less, and opposes turning them over to private school operators who will take out profits at the expense of students learning. Evers wants to provide support to rural districts facing enrollment declines so they can continue to provide quality education to all who come through the doors.

Superintendent Evers supports educators, recognizing they are the lifeblood of our public schools. Public schools need adequate funding in order to retain and support experienced teachers who not only teach our kids but mentor young teachers just starting out. He is very concerned about the significant drop off in students entering schools of education and wants to make teaching attractive as a profession once more. 

You can learn more at www.tonyforwisconsin.com and https://dpi.wi.gov/statesupt/about

Evers’ opponent is Dr. Lowell Holtz. Holtz’ website is full of buzzwords, but short on substance which is surprising given his years in public education. He appears to favor the privatization views of his conservative supporters and refuses to answer questions from those he does not like. He also seems short on integrity having been involved with the meeting with anonymous business leaders and his former rival, John Humphries, where there was discussion of six figure employment should Humphries drop out of the race. Then there was his use of a school district email to Republican donors seeking financial support which was followed by complaints from one of the school boards where he worked about his unauthorized donation of the school’s bleachers to the private school Holtz’ children attended.

Holtz website can be found at www.kidservative.org.

The choice on April 4^th is clear. Please support the reelection of Tony Evers as DPI Superintendent and help him keep public schools public and make them strong again. They are, after all, the bedrock of democracy.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired attorney and vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Washington County.

Save Our Air and Water

Environmental Deregulation Fails

There is no Planet B

I grew up in Southern California in the 50s and 60s and remember well smog alerts caused by air quality so poor that my eyes watered when I played outside. I remember clearly flying into Los Angeles and seeing the basin filled with thick brown air from auto pollution. I remember seeing rivers in the Eastern U.S. clogged with waste and polluted from sewage and acid mine drainage. I recall standing on a street corner in Chicago in the 1970s and watching my shirt get dirty from flakes of ash dropping out of the sky.

After people complained about and died from dirty air and polluted water, governments finally stepped in, passing laws and creating agencies to start cleaning up our air and water resources. States and the Federal Government took aggressive action to eliminate or greatly reduce pollution from auto emissions, the dumpling of waste and pollutants into our lakes, rivers and oceans and started to regulate the industrial sources of many pollutants.

Generations reaped the benefits of cleaner air and water as a result of government imposed regulations. Unfortunately, we have let our guard down, secure in the belief that our governments will continue to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink as they have in the past.

After years of misleading and deceptive ads protesting the so-called job killing regulations that protect our water and air and promoting crackpot theories that people have no impact on climate change, the folks who currently control our state and federal governments are poised to undo the water and air protections in place in pursuit of profit and ideological purity.

In Wisconsin, Governor Walker and his climate change denier cronies in the legislature have already cut back funding for the environmental protection work done by the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Justice. Enforcement of existing clean air and clean water regulations has been curtailed. New regulations are being written by the regulated or legislators in their employ. Walker’s proposed budget will shift regulation of large-scale animal farm operations away from the DNR and its rules limiting manure runoff into water sources. Instead, he proposes to move them to the much more farm friendly Department of Agriculture. Scientific study of pollution sources has been drastically curtailed. Walker even proposes to eliminate future publication of the DNR Magazine, once a valued source of pubic information about the DNR’s efforts to protect our environment.

At the federal level, environmental protection is being dealt an even worse hand. 45’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, is the poster child for White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s regulatory deconstruction program. Pruitt is the craven handmaiden for the fossil fuel industry and earned his chops suing the EPA for doing what Congress and the American people want it to do. He sued the EPA over a dozen times to block air pollution controls, to prevent fracking bans and, immediately after he was confirmed, vowed to aggressively roll back Obama era clean water and air regulations.

Pruitt has already directed EPA staff to begin work on rolling back regulations governing which waterways can be regulated, Clean Power regulations designed to cut back on power plant emissions, methane emissions on federal lands and many others. He praised the recent Executive Order allowing coalmine ash to be dumped into protected waterways, threating drinking water for millions.

45’s decisions to approve both the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines over legitimate environmental concerns further demonstrates his callous disregard for our health and safe water.

We have come full circle back to the environmental consequences ignorance of my childhood. Left unregulated, many of the polluters from yesteryear will be back. It will not take long to see the consequences in our air and water resources.

Those of us who see the connection between human activity, greed and climate change and believe that science, not profit, should drive how we treat the planet we inhabit need to work together to save our air and water. Pick an environmental advocacy group like the Natural Resources Defense Council, Clean Water Action, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, Earth Island Institute, Greenpeace USA, Friends of the Earth or League of Conservation Voters and join up. Write letters to our editors and legislators demanding clean air and water.

We know that business, industry and environmental protection can co-exist. We will not go back unbreathable air and undrinkable water.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired attorney and vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Washington County.