One week ago yesterday, I was exiting the parking ramp at 7th and Grand Ave. in Des Moines at 7 a.m. Having parked free all weekend, I wanted to get out before I raked up any parking fees. As I approached the exit, I noticed the gate down and the attendant booth empty.
As I pulled to a stop, I scanned the messages and buttons across the self-serve terminal. Nothing fit except the “Press for assistance” button. So I did.
I immediately heard a dial tone and dialing. Moments later, I was talking to a nameless voice in an office who knows where. I explained my situation and he replied, “OK, I’ll let you out.” After listening to keys punching, I saw the arm rise and exited. Last time I’d used this parking ramp, an attendant had been present to answer my questions and let me through the gate.
This incident brought to mind a response I received to my column about living wages for workers. The reader stated wages reflect the value of the work and claimed the minimum wage drove small businesses to close their doors. His example was the loss of full service gas stations.
I found it a strange coincidence that when I shared this reader’s views the next day with a friend from Clarinda, she retorted, “It wasn’t the minimum wage. It was Casey’s. People decided they wanted soda and cigarettes instead of service.”
She came to her conclusion via the experience of her father and grandfather who owned several service stations in southwest Iowa during the period we went from full to self service gas stations.
Which leads me to ask, who sets our priorities? Did we really decide we wanted to pump our own gas or did someone else decide there was more profit in selling soda and cigarettes? Did the parking company decide they could increase profits with fewer employees? Because I know from my days as a corporate manager and school board director, people (employees) are usually one of the biggest expenses.
But I think maybe we are hitting the law of diminishing returns. If we don’t employ people to work, people will not have money to purchase goods and services.
Unfortunately, Americans have come to see business as the economy, rather than as one sector. Healthy economies also have healthy government, military, non-profit and religious sectors. But we’ve been led to believe business drives everything.
Likewise, we’ve been taught to believe government has a spending problem; in fact, that government IS our problem. But as a recent Facebook infographic of the lastest collapsed bridge notes, “We DON’T have a spending problem. We DO have a priorities problem.”
So maybe we should ask who is setting those priorities. Are we citizens demanding fair wages and government policies to benefit people? Or are we allowing someone else to call the shots? Because as my husband once said to me, “Cherie, I can’t read your mind.”
What we do matters. We can choose to shop locally at stores that employ people to bag our groceries and at farmers markets with products from local growers. We can read news from many sources instead of listening to or watching only our favorite talking heads. We can vote. We can contact our government representatives – local, state and federal – about matters that concern us. If our church and other organizations are important to us, we can support them with our time and money. If we believe workers should be treated fairly, we can join a union.
Simply put, we can act. So, what are you doing to help set our priorities?
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Friday, June 21, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
What do we owe each other?
This question was penned recently by a high school student in Austin, Texas and shared by a friend on Facebook.
Deb’s students come from varied ethnic and economic backgrounds, many with numerous challenges to overcome, and she works diligently with love to give them a safe place to learn, grow and become themselves. She often posts about her classroom encounters.
But this question really stopped me. It echoed a question that popped out of my husband’s mouth during a discussion one evening: “Are we all in this alone?”
Well, are we?
Citizens, we know via polling, want to preserve social insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare and unemployment. But to hear politicians, pundits and even some of these same citizens, talk about these programs, they only serve deadbeat freeloaders.
In addition, plenty of citizens complain about income taxes without recognizing they pay for vital government services. Too many don’t understand our progressive tax system was designed to prevent income inequality because rates rise incrementally according to each level’s ability to pay.
Yet our progressive tax system has been systematically eroded over the last 40 years to benefit the wealthy. So today, we hear proposals for flat taxes as a way to “simplify” the tax code. (It’s a trap, people!)
And to get back to the original question, what’s wrong with paying taxes to help build our national, state or local community? Do we really all go it alone?
Did you build the road you drive to work on? Do you put out your own fires? Do you have your own hospital and school? Do you check your own food supply and develop your own vaccines? Or do you take advantage of all these services via your government?
Generally speaking, we all do better when we ALL do better, including, as they are called in the Good Book, the least among us. In fact, most major faiths call for hospitality or care of others.
How does America do by this standard? According to an article by Paul Buchhelt titled, “Five Ugly Extremes of Inequality in America,” out of 141 countries, we have the 4th highest degree of wealth inequality, ranking behind only Russia, Ukraine and Lebanon.
And a recent YouTube Video titled “Wealth Inequality in America,” laid bare the difference between our beliefs about wealth distribution and the reality. As the video notes, the top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the nation’s wealth; the bottom 80 percent only has 7 percent between them.
So to answer “What do we owe each other?” I think we, first, have to acknowledge our common life. We are connected.
In a recent blog post titled, “On God’s Side: For the Common Good,” Rev. Jim Wallis writes: “That old but always new ethic simply says we must care for more than just ourselves or our own group. We must care for our neighbor as well, and for the health of the life we share with one another. It echoes a very basic tenet of Christianity and other faiths — love your neighbor as yourself — still the most transformational ethic in history.”
Because as Wallis concludes, “Our life together can be better.”
Deb’s students come from varied ethnic and economic backgrounds, many with numerous challenges to overcome, and she works diligently with love to give them a safe place to learn, grow and become themselves. She often posts about her classroom encounters.
But this question really stopped me. It echoed a question that popped out of my husband’s mouth during a discussion one evening: “Are we all in this alone?”
Well, are we?
Citizens, we know via polling, want to preserve social insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare and unemployment. But to hear politicians, pundits and even some of these same citizens, talk about these programs, they only serve deadbeat freeloaders.
In addition, plenty of citizens complain about income taxes without recognizing they pay for vital government services. Too many don’t understand our progressive tax system was designed to prevent income inequality because rates rise incrementally according to each level’s ability to pay.
Yet our progressive tax system has been systematically eroded over the last 40 years to benefit the wealthy. So today, we hear proposals for flat taxes as a way to “simplify” the tax code. (It’s a trap, people!)
And to get back to the original question, what’s wrong with paying taxes to help build our national, state or local community? Do we really all go it alone?
Did you build the road you drive to work on? Do you put out your own fires? Do you have your own hospital and school? Do you check your own food supply and develop your own vaccines? Or do you take advantage of all these services via your government?
Generally speaking, we all do better when we ALL do better, including, as they are called in the Good Book, the least among us. In fact, most major faiths call for hospitality or care of others.
How does America do by this standard? According to an article by Paul Buchhelt titled, “Five Ugly Extremes of Inequality in America,” out of 141 countries, we have the 4th highest degree of wealth inequality, ranking behind only Russia, Ukraine and Lebanon.
And a recent YouTube Video titled “Wealth Inequality in America,” laid bare the difference between our beliefs about wealth distribution and the reality. As the video notes, the top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the nation’s wealth; the bottom 80 percent only has 7 percent between them.
So to answer “What do we owe each other?” I think we, first, have to acknowledge our common life. We are connected.
In a recent blog post titled, “On God’s Side: For the Common Good,” Rev. Jim Wallis writes: “That old but always new ethic simply says we must care for more than just ourselves or our own group. We must care for our neighbor as well, and for the health of the life we share with one another. It echoes a very basic tenet of Christianity and other faiths — love your neighbor as yourself — still the most transformational ethic in history.”
Because as Wallis concludes, “Our life together can be better.”
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Do we want government run like a business?
One of my nephews posted a clip on Facebook last week from The Daily Show’s coverage of the Republican National Convention. In it, the Daily Show decides to streamline America, running government like a business.
Hilarity ensues as Daily Show correspondents confront delegates from states receiving the most federal budget assistance while paying the least in federal taxes. As they tell a delegate from Mississippi who opines the market should decide if an organization succeeds or fails: “Whoa, dead last in per capita income — you are costing the government $20 billion!”
“Suddenly, when actually faced with the numbers, running America like a business didn’t seem like a good idea after all,” deadpans Daily Show correspondent John Oliver. “And it was every state for themselves.”
The final scene pitted Minnesota, Wyoming and Mississippi against each other to “keep their job,” with one of their delegates making the pitch to stay in the union.
This comic theater asks a serious question. Do we really want our government run like a business? Because the goal of business is profit.
As an example, let’s take schools. Our schools were developed to educate our children. Is this goal compatible with making a profit?
I know as a former school board member that schools make business decisions: from which vendor to purchase milk, bread and gasoline or how to cost-effectively air condition a building. But the first and foremost concern is providing the best education for kids. Do we really want to sacrifice that goal for profit?
Do we want to hire the least expensive teachers i.e. the least experienced, less educated teachers and perhaps fewer of them – to ensure a profit? Because that is the choice we’ll make if we run a school like a business.
And that’s one of the problems with some of the new privatized educational models being pushed, such as online schools. In states like Iowa, where school is financed on a per pupil basis, online schools will receive the per pupil amount. But any money they save by cutting expenses will go directly toward their profit. See how that works? From taxpayers’ pockets to private profit – instead of to educating students.
Results for online schooling to date are mixed at best, certainly indicating a need for at least more research. In an article last December titled “Online Schools Score Better on Wall Street than in Classrooms,” Stephanie Saul of the New York Times wrote of the leading online education company, K12 Inc.: “Instead, a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards.”
I’d note the same business model is used plenty of other places. Again, google “Iraq no-bid contracts.” Google Enron. Or, MF Global. Heck, read George W. Bush’s resume, and check out Matt Taibbi’s latest Rolling Stone article titled: “Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.”
In fact, the last few years have given us one example after another of businesses run into the ground, yet we’re still insisting business operates better than government.
Americans have lost sight of the social compact we make to act in community for the benefit of all – or at least as many as possible. Certain things are too important to be driven by something as mercenary as money.
Hilarity ensues as Daily Show correspondents confront delegates from states receiving the most federal budget assistance while paying the least in federal taxes. As they tell a delegate from Mississippi who opines the market should decide if an organization succeeds or fails: “Whoa, dead last in per capita income — you are costing the government $20 billion!”
“Suddenly, when actually faced with the numbers, running America like a business didn’t seem like a good idea after all,” deadpans Daily Show correspondent John Oliver. “And it was every state for themselves.”
The final scene pitted Minnesota, Wyoming and Mississippi against each other to “keep their job,” with one of their delegates making the pitch to stay in the union.
This comic theater asks a serious question. Do we really want our government run like a business? Because the goal of business is profit.
As an example, let’s take schools. Our schools were developed to educate our children. Is this goal compatible with making a profit?
I know as a former school board member that schools make business decisions: from which vendor to purchase milk, bread and gasoline or how to cost-effectively air condition a building. But the first and foremost concern is providing the best education for kids. Do we really want to sacrifice that goal for profit?
Do we want to hire the least expensive teachers i.e. the least experienced, less educated teachers and perhaps fewer of them – to ensure a profit? Because that is the choice we’ll make if we run a school like a business.
And that’s one of the problems with some of the new privatized educational models being pushed, such as online schools. In states like Iowa, where school is financed on a per pupil basis, online schools will receive the per pupil amount. But any money they save by cutting expenses will go directly toward their profit. See how that works? From taxpayers’ pockets to private profit – instead of to educating students.
Results for online schooling to date are mixed at best, certainly indicating a need for at least more research. In an article last December titled “Online Schools Score Better on Wall Street than in Classrooms,” Stephanie Saul of the New York Times wrote of the leading online education company, K12 Inc.: “Instead, a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards.”
I’d note the same business model is used plenty of other places. Again, google “Iraq no-bid contracts.” Google Enron. Or, MF Global. Heck, read George W. Bush’s resume, and check out Matt Taibbi’s latest Rolling Stone article titled: “Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.”
In fact, the last few years have given us one example after another of businesses run into the ground, yet we’re still insisting business operates better than government.
Americans have lost sight of the social compact we make to act in community for the benefit of all – or at least as many as possible. Certain things are too important to be driven by something as mercenary as money.
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