Sunday, February 22, 2004

The Glow in the Dark IMF At my job I have often taken groups of students to visit the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and World Bank buildings for speeches. The first thing I noticed was how surprised I was at how different the the institution's public relations teams were. The P.R.people at the World Bank are intelligent, caring, proud, and often seem to be interested in improvng the World Bank. (They were willing to admit the that there might problems that could be fixed within the World Bank) Across the street at the IMF P.R. people while adapt at arguing for the the institution's position, but were always mechanical and unwilling to express personal opinions. As for flaws in the IMF? Well no organization is perfect. Last week I was talking to a student from California that went to the IMF building and resisted sleeping through the session. When I asked about the experience she told me that they had given them pens that they said would glow in the dark, but they didn't really glow in the dark. "They lied ..." Would you bank with a company that gave you bogus pens? 4:56:06 PM    comment []

	Saturday, February 14, 2004

The Road Bumps of Democracy   I have been spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill. For the past five weeks my job has required my presence about twice a week for spans of 2-7 hours. I am partially paid to convince people I know a lot about Capitol Hill, which I guess do a pretty good job of because know seems to notice I don’t know a lot that isn’t in a high school government textbook or the Washington Post.   What I remember most about this recent stint is trying to figure out what was going on when I visited the Senate gallery and heard what seriously the worst ‘debate’ ever. One Democrat and one Republican were debating and Elizabeth Dole was overseeing the chamber as they discussed the Highway bill. The Republican was seriously trying to argue that this bill was the most important bill in decades (war be damned we need highways) and the Democrat was pumped up about naming a highway after a recently deceased member of the Senate. It got worse when the Republican interrupted the Democrat to tell him the deceased member of congress was from his home state. Libby Dole earned a lot of credit from me that day because god knows I couldn’t have looked as concerned and alert as she did listening to that drivel.   The reason why neither of them was really talking about the bill is because the Highway bill is the kind of federal spending monster that no one completely understands and worse no one wants to pay for. In fact the primary goal is to be a state like South Dakota that gets four dollars of spending for every dollar paid in federal highway taxes.   I was actually spending a lot of time around Capitol Hill the week we went to war with Iraq and although it was definitely on everyone’s mind it is hard imagine that the members and their staff’s spent nearly as much time thinking about the war as the spent working on the highway bill.   If you don’t believe me, consider this Congressional Quarterly lead from Thursday:    “Brushing aside a veto threat, the Senate voted to limit debate on its $318 billion highway and mass transit reauthorization bill.” They got 86 votes to shut up and pass the damn bill with or without Bush’s approval.  I would have a lot of respect for Bush if he vetoed this bill because it is just the kind of bill they would seriously consider overriding.   They will probably come to some sort of compromise, like agreeing to wait till after the election to fight it out or Bush will just sign it, even though it is about likely to at least 50 billion dollars more then he said wanted.   Congress has many facets I don’t understand; I never worked directly on the hill or covered it for a newspaper. That said it I think if Congress had to give up control of Iraq funding or highway funding I am not sure which would go. Five weeks ago I would have thought it was a stupid question, maybe it still is.   When I watched Tom Daschle answer questions about what he was doing for South Dakota and then walk off to cast a vote to end debate on the highway bill last Wednesday it was hard not feel my wallet getting a little lighter and my ride home a little bumpier, but hey if my car doesn’t rattle apart on Pennsylvania Avenue I might want to check Mount Rushmore.   (P.S. check Daschle’s website for list of stuff he added to the bill.)   2:39:40 PM    comment []

	Tuesday, December 23, 2003

A real letter to my congressmen Requesting he propose a law requiring members of congress to attend an adivisory session with Washington D.C. resident before overturn a law we established. Dear Congressmen Van Hollen,   I am writing to request that you propose a bill that would require the sponsors of any bills that would overturn District of Columbia laws, to participate in an advisory session with District residents. Since the District has no members of Congress with full voting rights and is not protected from federal intrusion by the standard limits of our federalist system, it seems only fair that District have a right to discuss any law that would overturn laws passed by their own elected officials.   Currently almost all members of the House of Representatives and most Senators will only accept mail from their own constituents, so residents of the District of Colombia are locked out the customary means of communicating with voting members of Congress. Many residents of your district have lived in the in D.C. and understand and sympathize with the difficult situation of District residents. Since there is great back and forth between your district and Washington D.C supporting the district would be in the best interests of your constituents.    A model for this advisory session bill would include the following: 1. Upon presenting a bill that would overturn existing local law passed by the District of Columbia government, any member of congress who sponsors the aforementioned bill must participate in a ninety-minute advisory session open to all residents of Washington D.C. 2. At least half the advisory session must be devoted to question and answer discussion of the bill. 3.  The member or members of Congress must notify the members of the city council, and the mayor’s office of the location and time of the advisory session ten days in advance. 4. The location of the advisory sessions must be within the District of Columbia. 5. All sponsors of a bill that would overturn a District of Columbia law would be obligated to accept and respond to mail about the aforementioned bill from residents of Washington D.C. 6. The advisory session must be held in Washington D.C., in a location able to hold at least fifty residents. If the District Government is unable to provide an adequate space, the member of Congress hosting the advisory session must provide the space for advisory session. A committee room would adequate. 7:50:42 PM    comment []

	Thursday, December 18, 2003

Letter No. 1 That I don't expect to get a reply from the recipent   (Sent via E-mail two weeks ago) Dear Vice President  Richard Cheney I recently read that while a member of Congress Vice-President Richard Cheney voted against a resolution that called for the South African government to release Nelson Mandela. Is it still the Vice President's position that the resolution was in error? If so what was the reason for the vote. If it is no longer the Vice President's position that the resolution was incorrect, has the Vice-President ever explained why he changed his mind?  Could you please write or E-mail a response to the question of the 1986 resolution. Thank you very much for the time spent answering the concerns and questions of the many citizens of this great country 4:45:10 PM    comment []

	Tuesday, December 16, 2003

My idea of a model student Last post I wrote, "public policy concerning public schools is too strongly affected by overly negative media portrayals." This is most true in the urban school system, in Washington D.C. for example the Washington Post has run about one negative story about the District of Columbia school system a week for as long as I can remember. I don't doubt the truthfulness of the stories but rather the completeness of the coverage. This isn't the old complaint that the media never covers all the planes that land safely, or in this case writing a story about all the students that don't get shoot. There are many exceptional things that happened in the public school system, and they are rarely reported and when they are they never given the extensive coverage that any event concerning violence or corruption gets. Some students I recently finished working with attended a Washington D.C. school board meeting yesterday. They came to protest deep cuts in the number of teachers. They got their 30 seconds on the evening news, and mention in the Washington Post, but look at the article, there is only one sentence about what the students did and they basically cut and paste the school board's view of the cut backs. No pictures, no actual story, no quotes. Protesting at the school board might not be your idea of a model student, but taking the lead and fighting for your right to a quality education is my idea of a model student, and yesterday the two activities looked pretty similar. 8:04:49 PM    comment []

	Sunday, December 14, 2003

Lean on me one more time ... I finished my short stint working with students from the District of Columbia public school system last week. I learned a great deal about the school system since I worked with students from ten different high schools instead just one. The most interesting stuff however was certainly the individual stories about each school.   One of the simpler stories was that at Anacostia Senior High school, a school in very poor part of the city,  the last principle was fired for locking some of the doors, which is a fire code violation, shut because they didn’t enough security guards to monitor each door. A city wide student government member told me they are looking into getting doors that can lock and unlock automatically, instead manually.   If this sounds familiar, it might be because this is same scenario that was the climax of “Lean on Me”, the 1989 movie based on real events staring Morgan Freeman. The reason for chaining the doors in the movie was to keep out drug dealers. I know another big factor at Anacostia was keeping students from leaving early. In the movie Freeman’s character says if  he had been in a richer white school he wouldn't have this problem because they all have doors that can be unlocked automatically, in the event of a fire.     I wouldn’t want you to think all the stories I heard were negative, in fact public policy concerning public schools is too strongly affected by overly negative media portrayals. However in this case it seems a sad statement for the world to hear of an old problem recurring more then fifteen years later. 8:43:42 PM    comment []

	Sunday, December 07, 2003

The Nation and its Capital One month ago I started working with students in the Washington D.C. public high school system, DCPS. I’ve meet students from almost all of the DCPS schools. One of those schools, M. M. Washington recently staged a walkout over cut backs in their school. M. M. Washington is a vocational school and a program cut means free access to a career path is removed. Every school had a similar story, no books, cuts in programs, and wide spread disrepair were the most common complaints. Ultimately the cause of many of these problems was the city wide budget cuts. So what can be blamed for the problems of the schools?   Really what we need to ask is why is D.C. is facing a projected deficit of 323 millions dollars. In the past, Washington D.C was a punching bag for critics of Marion Barry’s liberal policies. While Barry’s policies often included hiring large numbers people more or less solely to reduce unemployment, today Barry’s programs are dismantled and cannot be blamed for the deficits.   Our current mayor, Anthony Williams has adopted completely different policies but was stuck with the difficult task of closing a deficit of 200 millions last year and despite eventually balancing the budget is facing another deficit of 323 million this year.  The occurrence of financial problems despite the fiscally conservative leadership of Williams has lead many to conclude that Washington D.C. faces a structural deficit.   What is a structural deficit and why is it important? A structural deficit means that the way D.C. gets its money is inherently flawed. It’s important because Congress decides the way D.C. gets its money and no matter what the local government does it won’t be able to fix things.   D.C. gets most of its money from its citizens just any state does. D.C. also gets money in the form of a federal payment to make up for the fact that D.C. can’t tax the many government buildings in the District. The logic is that every city has a business core they tax, except D.C. which many has federal buildings so the federal government needs to help out. The biggest question in the structural debate is if the federal payment is the proper size.  It now seems clear that it is not even close to enough. A recent study shows that D.C. in fact does not even get more money then the average state does. So despite a payment a designed to give D.C. extra money, they actually get less   The problems goes deeper then just the fact that D.C. is sort changed by the federal government. D.C. both attracts large numbers of nontaxable nonprofits organizations and is limited by the federal government zoning regulations. It’s great to have non-profits in town to work, but they take land away from people that would pay taxes to the D.C. government. Further D.C. can’t have any buildings that are taller then the Washington monument, which costs the city a lot of money.   Beyond the lack of money going into D.C., we also have to spend extra money on a variety of unique problems. When the president drives around town half the D.C. police force is part of the convoy and not policing the streets. Like New York city, the D.C. area was the victim September 11th, and currently spends larger sums of money on emergency preparations.   Why should you care if all this messes up my city and keeps the students here in the district from having properly maintained schools? These issues might not mess up your life, but the phenomenon I am describing is really about how happens when a community has no political power. The same thing would happen to any state if federalism didn't give them guaranteed powers. Congress only operates in its own self-interest, which means serving 50 states and no more, even if that means contributing to failure of D.C. public schools.   If you think I am wrong about that I have one more story. There is one area D.C. does get a lot of help, that area is emergency preparations. Why? If there is a bombing on Capital Hill guess how they have to call? The D.C. emergency and fire departments. If they had to send their kids to D.C. public schools can you seriously tell me they wouldn't allocate more money to D.C. public schools?       Think of somewhere in your life where you don't have power to control things. Ask your yourself if you have been screwed over? If the answer is no wait.   5:23:32 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Christopher Brown. Last update: 2/22/2004; 4:56:26 PM.