A Comment on a Colleagues Work

Our Lone Star Texas blog had a nice little piece on Austin's plastic bag ban.They made very strong points. I find it slightly amusing that the City of Austin has probably made the better decision in the long run to ban plastic bags, and yet our State Government (who's buisness is conducted in Austin) are laying plans to ban city bans (I couldn't resist the word play). Plastic bags and other non-biodegrading plastics also litter our oceans and kill wildlife. Texas, with it's miles and miles of coast line, should be learning from Austin instead of undermining it out of convenience.

Sue or Support?

KUT, Austin's public radio station, recently had a report on truancy in Austin schools. Cuurently under Texas law, truant students, as well as their parents can be taken to court by the School. Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston) has filed a bill that would protect students from legal charges, but not their parents.

   In our imperfect world, with it's inequality and inequity, education might be the single most important resource a person has in order to live the life we Americans dream of, which is why in Texas its a constitutional right to have access to public education. Yet there are vast numbers of children who forfeit that right for an equally numerous number of reasons. Truancy is a symptom of more fundamental problems in student's lives.   These causes of truancy are what must be dealt with, and taking students and their families to court solve nothing... unless the purpose of that court case is to help provide the family with resources that can address the underlying causes of truancy. Admonishment changes nothing unless there is a sense of support along with it.

Whole-hearted Justice

In response to an article on Deep In The Heart Of Texas supporting the trial of 17 year olds as adults:
      Tipping my hat, I shall say that I am very critical of our Nation's Justice system in general, with a particular vehemence for our system of incarceration. As a country, we imprison more of our own people than any other . Many of the crimes these prisoners are convicted of are victimless crimes. While I fully support holding people accountable for their actions, I do not think unproductive punishment is always the best approach. It seems to me, that rehabilitation through social/personal support are what changes peoples lives regardless of their age. Specifically with minors, their brains are not finished developing. If we throw these young people in with other, more veteran criminals, we run the risk of solidifying their future as inmates in our prisons. We have the option, if we're willing to do the one-on-one, interpersonal work, to support offenders in such a way as to reform them into contributing members of society. In fact the $383 difference in the price per day for Prison and Juvenile detention helps to fund such programs. Obviously there are certain criminal acts (murder, sexual assault come immediately to mind) that might require more than just some counseling and support, but these cases could be looked at by Judicial authorities on a case-to-case basis. In a country this big, and in a State that is so big on Rule of Law as Texas its unsurprising, and even commendable that we chase after delinquency (adult or juvenile) so whole-heartedly. But we need to then approach the delinquent themselves in the same way, with our whole hearts.

 "There, but for the Grace of God, go I"

A Formal Rejection of the Rejection to Expand Medicaid in Texas

With the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and the subsequent Supreme Court case in 2012, institution of the law was ready to go into effect by 2013. Ideally, States would set up their own insurance marketplaces, and the Federal Government would subsidize rates so that millions of uninsured Americans could have access to affordable health care. Obviously, there's much more to it than this, but essentially this is the purpose of the law. If the situation is less than ideal, it always is, and some States wished to opt out of expanding Medicaid for whatever reason, the Federal Government would set up a marketplace for them but would not fund that State's Medicaid expansion, and could not compel the State to do so on it's own.
 
Unsurprisingly, Texas, or rather it's elected leaders, opted out of the Federally funded, named-after-our-enemy, evil plan to bring healthcare to all. Essentially, the reasons for opting out boil down to two very stubborn points:
 1) Due to the Supreme Court ruling and complications in the law that arose from it, Obamacare is a very perilous financial endeavour. With a National debt of 16 trillion dollars, financial recklessness raises Republican eyebrows.

2) Obama's election, the passage of the ACA, and the general liberal tide of the country, evoked in this most red of States a "last stand" feeling about Obamacare and we would do nothing to make it seem as though we accept it. Not even accept an offer to insure our people. Accepting it would give too much control to the Federal Government over Texans' choices for healthcare.

To the first point, it is quite true that in 2013 the ACA was financially tremulous. Over the past two years, however, it has gained confidence and merit. It's initial offer remains intact. The Federal Government would fund an expansion of Medicaid such that 1.5 million currently uninsured Texans could have access to affordable healthcare. It would fund 100% the program for the first 3 years, and would decrease that amount over time, though it would never fall below 90%. It would also bring much needed appropriations to public Hospitals throughout the State. As it is, some County Hospitals are closing because they can not  continue without the funds the Federal Government would provide.

  The fact the the second issue is ideological in nature, in many ways makes it extremely hard to argue with, though it doesn't hold much rhetorical value. In many ways there are some very commendable things to be said about the Republican tenacity on this issue. Yet, if we put ideals and dogmatic political philosophy aside,  the key question then, is this: Are the political ideals of the State, however good and right they may be, to be considered more heavily than the well being of the people in that State?

5 years after the ACA became law, and 3 after it's been implemented, I hope Texan leaders can put aside what may be valid political convictions, and seek what will best care for the People of Texas in the long run. Reevaluate Texas' rejection of the Affordable Care Act.

Are You Muslim or 'Merican?

        I became quite incensed over a blog post by The TexasFred Blog. Essentially it is a tactless, and illogical attack on the Muslim community in Texas, and the United States. While it was evidently written to support both Irving, Texas Mayor Beth Van Duyne and the State bill "American Laws for American Courts", it only shows the sad ignorance and intolerance of it's author. The State bill forbids the use of foreign laws in the judgments of American judges, something which is already against the law. Though not stated explicitly, this bill is intended to target the Islamic Tribunals which have recently become popular among Muslims in areas including the DFW metro-plex. The tribunals are voluntary, non-binding mediators which use Shariah law to inform their decisions, and would be completely unaffected by the state bill, though they oppose it on the basis that it targets their religion and free expression of it.

         I could create a whole sepreate blog dedicated to explaining how ridiculous the bill is and makes its supporters look. "TexasFred"'s handling of  it is adolescently asinine. The vast majority amounts to yelling at people as he sits on his porch drinking Natural Light out of a 24 can pack. The only real argument he makes in his post is that Muslims are "liars to the core". As evidence he provides only a mishmash of decontextualized versus from the Quran, a whole host of grammatical exclaimatories, and American patriotism a facist would aspire too. It edifies absolutely no one in any possible way. It is an uninformative though passionate rant, on an issue that is extremely compelling when debated with logic and general good will towards people even if they are a little different. 

Texas spending on Pre-K

An editorial written in The Dallas Morning News caught my eye today, it discussed two proposals in the State Legislature in regards to funding Pre-Kindergarten. The author of the editorial very clearly favoured the more expensive bipartisan plan put forth by Eric Johnson (D, Dallas) and Marsha Farney (R, Georgetown), as oppose to the proposal made by Governor Abbott. Despite being clear about their position, the author does a very good job of explaining why theirs is the right position without slinging mud. In fact they even praise Governor Abbott for focusing on the issue at all. The use of diplomacy in this piece was surprisingly refreshing. Essentially, the only real issue with Abbott's proposal is that it doesn't go far enough. Though they didn't provide any hard data, nor do they cite any specific studies, they do provide very intuitive, logical evidence for spending more when it comes to Pre-K in Texas.
  Of course, one of the main stays of the majority Republican party is low taxes, and presumably, spending more money requires bringing in more money. Despite the bipartisan authorship of the more expensive but more assertive proposal, I'm not sure the Republican legislators will see a need to spend the extra money if they have the option of an only adequate, but more affordable system. Perhaps though, the data that does exist, showing that Texan students are falling behind, will incline law makers to rethink either the amount of money they tax the citizens, or as a compromise, re-purpose already existing funds to the increasingly important sector of Education. Texas has had a very business-friendly tax environment for many years, and it's served us well; it's very likely helped Texas stay on the top end of the economic metrics throughout the recent recession. However, perhaps it's time to refocus our State's investment from big business, and into the education of its citizens.        

Hay! I Found Some Water!

     In scanning the Texas Tribune, I came across this article written on February 11th, 2015. Summarily, it's about an unregulated patch of underground water that is essentially up for grabs in Hays County. A large Houston company, wants to pump the water from the ground, and sell it to the rapidly expanding City of Buda. But of course it's never as simple as that. Residents of Hays County, and particularly those who live near where the pumping would occur, are worried that by pumping excessive amounts of water from the aquifer, it will place too heavy a strain on an already burdened water supply.
      While it raises the obvious issue of natural resources, this article also touches on an equally important issue in politics, namely the public interest vs. business profits debate. But until the question of how exactly the pumping will effect the residents of Hays County, the larger, more ideological, debate will go around in conjecture driven circles.