A Strong Economy Fosters Healthy Communities and Prosperous Families

Lt. Governor and Mrs. Bell; President Waddoups; Speaker Lockhart; members of the Utah Legislature; members of my Cabinet; Justices of the Utah Supreme Court; Utah’s First Lady, my beautiful wife, Jeanette; and my fellow Utahns:

It is an honor and a privilege to address you this evening. As we assemble in this beautiful and historic chamber, let us take time to acknowledge those who protect our freedoms and keep our homeland safe. This past August, I traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan to meet with some of our deployed Utah servicemen and women. It was a humbling experience. Our liberty – the free exercise of our God-given rights – is preserved by the men and women of our Armed Forces who willingly put themselves in harm’s way for God, family and country. This past year, in the span of just over a month, we lost six Utah soldiers, sailors and marines in Afghanistan. These brave servicemen made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of this nation and the ideals which make it great. We also acknowledge the loss of Agent Jared Francom, tragically killed in the Ogden shooting incident just a few short weeks ago.

Tonight, we have as honored guests in the gallery, family members of those we have lost at home and abroad. As they stand, please join with me to acknowledge them, and thank them for their loved one’s service and sacrifice.

As Governor of the great State of Utah, I am pleased to report that the state of our State is strong – and growing stronger. I want you to know I am very optimistic about Utah’s future. While our national economy continues to struggle, the economy in Utah surges ahead. Our unemployment rate continues to steadily fall. We currently have the second-fastest rate of job creation in the nation. Every sector in our economy is growing again, except one. And I’m proud to say the sector that is not growing is state government.

Utah’s success is not only consistently recognized, it is increasingly praised by those outside our borders. Now, some people have said I talk about our rankings a little too much – and it may be a fair observation. But I hope you are as proud of Utah as I am. We have a great state, we have a great message and we are making great progress. I believe Utah’s Governor should be the State’s chief advocate and champion, and I am simply not going to stop touting Utah’s accomplishments.

I should point out that our accolades have less to do with “me” and everything to do with “we.” Indeed, they reflect the efforts of individuals here in this room and many others across the state. Some of our recent recognitions include being named the state with the best economic outlook and the most dynamic economy. And, for the second consecutive year, Utah has been named the best state for business by Forbes Magazine. These rankings speak to Utah’s economic strength. But this is not just about rankings; it is about economic recovery for the people of Utah. My focus is on growing the economy because I know a strong economy fosters healthy communities and prosperous families.

While recognition is nice, the underlying reasons for that recognition are what are most important. Forbes wrote: “No state can match the consistent performance of Utah. It is the only state that ranks among the top 15 states in each of the six main categories [on which] we rate the states.” Those six categories are economic climate, growth prospects, labor supply, business costs, regulatory environment and quality of life. Tonight, I will use the criteria of those economic experts to highlight Utah’s progress and our prospects. Let’s start with our current economic climate. In 2011, we added more than 36,000 jobs to our economy. Our unemployment rate has dropped from 7.5% to 6.0% today – a full 2.5% lower than the national average. Gross domestic product, personal income and business income continue to steadily rise. Utah still leads the nation in export growth. You might remember in last year’s State of the State, I challenged our business community to further increase our export growth – and they have responded with vigor. In 2011, we saw a 41% increase in exports, breaking records we set in 2009 and 2010.

Utah’s economic climate is healthy, but we must not relent in our efforts to improve. I recognize there are many people who are still hurting financially. I have met with many of you throughout the state. I want you to know, I am committed to working for all of you. There are, in fact, approximately 80,000 Utahns who are looking for work, and I will not rest – and I know that you in the Legislature will not rest – until every Utahn who wants a job can find a job.

My goal is to accelerate private sector job creation of 100,000 jobs in 1,000 days (www.utahjobsplan.com). I emphasize private sector, because it is the private sector – not government – that creates wealth, creates jobs and creates opportunities for Utah’s citizens. Government must create an environment where free enterprise can succeed and then get out of the way.

Let me give just one of many examples where business is thriving in Utah’s fertile field. Started 25 years ago in a garage, Lifetime Products now employs more than 1,300 people in Utah and was recently courted by many other domestic and international locations for a planned expansion. Ultimately, Lifetime determined that its home state of Utah was the best place to invest. This story is repeating itself hundreds of times across our state.

Utah’s steady job growth reaches far beyond the Wasatch Front. Last year, I visited 28 of Utah’s 29 counties – and don’t worry, Daggett County, I am headed your way soon! In my travels, I have been amazed at the creativity and ingenuity of our rural employers. For example, in the tiny town of Grouse Creek, I met Heather Warr, who is here with her family tonight. To supplement her family’s ranching income, Heather started an e-commerce business, selling western apparel and footwear online. Her company, standupranchers.com, now employs seven people – making Heather a major employer in a community of 100 residents. From fiber optic communications providers, to hay exporters, to composite manufacturers, to online retailers – people are finding unique opportunities and advantages in rural Utah. And Heather Warr exemplifies the innovation and initiative inherent in Utah’s people.

The second criterion is growth prospects. Utah is a fertile field in which to grow a new company, or to relocate or expand an existing company. This past September, I went to New York to meet with executives from L-3 Communications – a $16 billion high-technology company with locations in 30 states and 20 countries. The purpose of my visit was to convince them to expand their Utah operations. And, I’ve got to admit, it wasn’t much of a “hard sell.” L-3 told me they love doing business in Utah. In fact, their Salt Lake City unit is one of their most successful and fastest-growing divisions. Not by coincidence, last month, L-3 announced it would be concentrating its growth here in Utah, building new office space and hiring hundreds of new employees. In the past year, expansions and new jobs have been announced not only by L-3, but by other international companies like eBay, Boeing, Morgan Stanley, IM Flash, and Pepperidge Farms, just to name a few.

I’m delighted to say something that not many Governors can say: Our state is growing now, and as we look to the horizon, Utah’s growth prospects are truly bright. Anyone who understands the free market knows that there are few things that hinder growth more than onerous taxation. As I did last year, and the year before that, in order to sustain our successful economic recovery, I say to you today and to the people of Utah – no new taxes!

And, in fact, I want to go one step further. Due to our wise trust fund management – and our nation-leading record of helping people move from unemployment back into the workforce – Utah is in a position to reduce our unemployment insurance tax rates. I call upon you, the Legislature, to support Senate Bill 129, sponsored by Senator Curt Bramble and Representative Jeremy Peterson, to provide this timely tax cut to all of Utah’s 85,000 employers, and allow them to create more jobs and hire more people.

The third criterion is labor supply, or, more aptly put, a skilled and educated workforce. I have said before – Utah is the best state for business because we have the best people for business. Utah has natural advantages with our young, fast-growing, tech-savvy, highly-educated, bilingual and industrious workforce. Utah is also a proud right-to-work state, and we are going to keep it that way. In today’s global marketplace, educating and graduating job-ready students is an economic imperative.

With the help of Representative Mel Brown and Senator Lyle Hillyard, we have expanded early intervention programs for our at-risk students, programs empirically proven to help reach our critical goal of reading proficiency by the end of the third grade. We will soon introduce additional online college courses, providing another avenue for high school students to earn college credit before graduation. We are also expanding utahfutures.org, which provides students with online career counseling to ensure the education they receive today will get them a job tomorrow. My message to students is simple: “If you want a good job, get a good education.” Now, it is up to us – assembled here – to make sure they can!

My top legislative priority is to fund the growth and continued innovation in our education system. My budget calls for maintaining base funding and for $111 million in NEW money for our public schools, including a modest, but well-deserved, pay increase for our teachers. Post-secondary education is also increasingly becoming a necessity in today’s global marketplace, so I have set a goal that 66% of Utah adults will have a degree or professional certification by the year 2020. This is an ambitious goal, but an essential one – remember 66 by 2020! And working together, we will reach it!

The fourth criterion the economic experts considered is the cost of doing business, particularly the cost of energy. Because Utah’s electricity costs are an impressive 31 percent below the national average, we have a major competitive advantage over other states. In order to protect that advantage for the future, we must secure Utah’s supply of stable, low-cost energy, and we must do it now.

With Utah’s first 10-Year Strategic Energy Plan that I put in place last year, we are creating the framework to secure our energy independence. My administration is aggressively promoting responsible energy development in Utah. We have demonstrated, in the Uintah Basin and elsewhere, that developing our energy resources and being good stewrds of the environment are not mutually exclusive propositions. One of the major challenges for energy development is that many of Utah’s natural resources must be extracted from federally-managed public lands. While we have made progress in persuading the federal government to site and permit oil and gas wells, there remain great challenges ahead. We cannot – and we will not – let the federal government halt responsible energy development in Utah.

And because we owe it to our children and their children, we must also innovate safer and cleaner ways to extract natural resources and utilize energy. As Governor, I am calling on the private sector and our major universities to lead out! Our goal is to create an “energy research triangle” that launches Utah into a new era of energy technology innovation! I firmly believe that all solutions and all opportunities must be based upon principles of free markets and free enterprise.

Therefore, we will partner with industry and caring citizens to tackle one of the greatest challenges we have with energy development in our state – the issue of air quality. We cannot control the weather, but neither can we ignore the human and economic consequences of poor air quality. I am taking the lead on this issue by building partnerships with Utah industries and households to set achievable and vital air quality goals. I will be announcing the details of my plan in the coming weeks. I can promise you this: The solutions to our unique Utah challenges with air quality will come from Utah. Together, we can all do something to improve Utah’s air.

The fifth category is state regulatory environment. Before they invest precious capital, entrepreneurs want a stable and predictable environment, and a responsible government. Utah boasts a long history of fiscally prudent governance. In contrast to the federal government, Utah has made the tough decisions to keep our fiscal house in order. We balance our budget and we save taxpayers millions every year by protecting our AAA credit rating. In addition, my budget proposal eliminates our remaining structural imbalance and calls for no additional borrowing. Those decisions provide the stable and steady environment the marketplace seeks and needs in order to thrive.

In my travels around the state, one of the most common concerns business owners share with me is the cost, complexity and uncertainty created by excessive government regulation. In last year’s State of the State address, you will remember I ordered a review of all of Utah’s business rules and regulations. It resulted in 368 proposed rule changes to improve Utah’s already laudable regulatory environment – and we will work with you, the Legislature, to modify or repeal those rules that no longer serve a compelling public interest. Now, frankly, the vast majority of regulations causing the most harm to Utah business come from Washington, D.C. – part of the regulatory colossus created by an overreaching, out-of-control, and out-of-touch federal government. I am firmly resolved to work with our Congressional delegation and my fellow Governors to tell the Washington bureaucrats to get out of the way of Utah’s economic recovery, and stop the senseless flow of onerous and misguided regulation from our nation’s capitol.

The last category by which Forbes judged Utah the best state for business is our quality of life. We are truly blessed to live in the Beehive State. Not only are we surrounded by unsurpassed natural beauty, we also enjoy the beauty of strong communities, strong families, and a culture of caring and service. Two months ago, a devastating wind storm tore through Davis and Weber counties leaving tons of debris and millions of dollars of damage in its wake. With a second storm threatening, local leaders were concerned debris could become airborne and cause even further damage. Tens of thousands of citizens sprang into action and fanned out across neighborhoods to assist in clean-up efforts. Volunteer crews accomplished in days what would have taken city and county crews months to do. It was a stunning and moving example of the spirit of volunteerism and love of neighbor which permeates Utah, and which contributes so greatly to Utah’s outstanding quality of life.

It is also an impressive example of another Utah trait – our self-sufficiency. In Utah, we do not expect others to solve our problems. As a sovereign state, we not only have an obligation to find Utah solutions to Utah problems, we have a right to do so. We will not capitulate to a federal government that refuses to be constrained by its proper and Constitutionally-limited role.

Whether fighting the federal government on ownership and control of our RS 2477 roads, restoring our mule deer population, defending multiple use of our public lands, ending the budget-busting drain of Medicaid, or challenging the constitutionality of mandatory nationalized healthcare in the Supreme Court, be assured that this Governor is firmly resolved to fortify our state as a bulwark against federal overreach. Last October, in a one-room schoolhouse in Grouse Creek, Utah, I met a young boy named Heston. He told me that he had been taking piano lessons for one year and two months, and that he was going to play something for me after we had lunch.

I asked Heston if he was named after Charlton Heston, the actor.

One of his classmates helpfully piped up and said, “No, he was named after the tractor.”

After lunch, Heston made his way to the piano. Frankly, I was expecting a simple diddy like “Chopsticks.” Instead, I got Beethoven-dynamic and intricate music emanating from an old upright piano in a town two hours from the nearest stop light.

After young Heston finished his piece, I asked one of his classmates, “Are you sure he’s only been playing for one year and two months?”

She assured me that was the case, adding, “He’s what they call a prodigy.”

And, by the way, this young prodigy will be playing for us in the Rotunda after my address.

Utah is a state full of gems like Heston. Gems that, when polished and made to sparkle through hard work and the desire to succeed, add brilliance to our landscape. In every corner of our state, Utah’s source of richness and strength is its people. I am optimistic about Utah’s future because I believe in Utah’s people. Utah’s best days still lie ahead because Utahns are willing to work hard to be the architects of our own destiny. Utah is leading the way and setting the example for the rest of the nation to follow. In the darkest days of the economic crisis, Utah stood true to the founding principles of our great nation, and we now see the fruits of our determination.

I have spoken tonight of some of my goals and plans for the state. Having these goals and plans is important, but frankly writing things down on paper is the easy part. Making it work – the implementation and the execution – is what counts. Hard work demands dedication, determination, and discipline. Everything I do as Governor is examined through the lens of whether it helps grow the economy and create opportunity for Utah’s citizens.

That continues to be my commitment to you. I will keep my eye on the ball, and I will fight for sound and correct principles of fiscal prudence, limited government, and individual liberty, coupled with personal responsibility. Whether preparing a household budget or a state budget, whether you are the Governor or a small business owner – and I have been both – the principles are the same. By adhering to sound principles now, we will build a bright future for tomorrow. Not only will Utah be the best state for business, we will continue to be a place where communities and families will thrive and prosper.

The State of our State is strong. I am committed to making it stronger. I am honored to serve as your Governor.

May God continue to bless you, our great nation, and the Great State of Utah.

As Prepared for Delivery –

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought — and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

We can do this. I know we can, because we’ve done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known. My grandfather, a veteran of Patton’s Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.

The two of them shared the optimism of a Nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism. They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share — the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.

Let’s remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren’t, and personal debt that kept piling up.

In 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behavior.

It was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt, and left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag. In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect.

Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, we’ve agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And we’ve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again.

The state of our Union is getting stronger. And we’ve come too far to turn back now. As long as I’m President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.

No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last – an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.

This blueprint begins with American manufacturing.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.

What’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. It can happen in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Raleigh. We can’t bring back every job that’s left our shores. But right now, it’s getting more expensive to do business in places like China. Meanwhile, America is more productive. A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in fifteen years, Master Lock’s unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity.

So we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.

We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.

So let’s change it. First, if you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.

Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here.

Third, if you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.

My message is simple. It’s time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I’ll sign them right away.

We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements I signed into law, we are on track to meet that goal — ahead of schedule. Soon, there will be millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Soon, there will be new cars on the streets of Seoul imported from Detroit, and Toledo, and Chicago.

I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules. We’ve brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration — and it’s made a difference. Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires. But we need to do more. It’s not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.

Tonight, I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like Russia. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you — America will always win.

I also hear from many business leaders who want to hire in the United States but can’t find workers with the right skills. Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Think about that — openings at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work.

That’s inexcusable. And we know how to fix it.

Jackie Bray is a single mom from North Carolina who was laid off from her job as a mechanic. Then Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte, and formed a partnership with Central Piedmont Community College. The company helped the college design courses in laser and robotics training. It paid Jackie’s tuition, then hired her to help operate their plant.

I want every American looking for work to have the same opportunity as Jackie did. Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My Administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando, and Louisville are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers — places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.

And I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people like Jackie have one program, one website, and one place to go for all the information and help they need. It’s time to turn our unemployment system into a reemployment system that puts people to work.

These reforms will help people get jobs that are open today. But to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earlier.

For less than one percent of what our Nation spends on education each year, we’ve convinced nearly every State in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning — the first time that’s happened in a generation.

But challenges remain. And we know how to solve them.

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies — just to make a difference.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.

We also know that when students aren’t allowed to walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma. So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.

When kids do graduate, the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college. At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.

Of course, it’s not enough for us to increase student aid. We can’t just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we’ll run out of money. States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets. And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down. Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who’ve done just that. Some schools re-design courses to help students finish more quickly. Some use better technology. The point is, it’s possible. So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can’t be a luxury — it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

Let’s also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else.

That doesn’t make sense.

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country. That means women should earn equal pay for equal work. It means we should support everyone who’s willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.

After all, innovation is what America has always been about. Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses. So let’s pass an agenda that helps them succeed. Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow. Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs. Both parties agree on these ideas. So put them in a bill, and get it on my desk this year.

Innovation also demands basic research. Today, the discoveries taking place in our federally-financed labs and universities could lead to new treatments that kill cancer cells but leave healthy ones untouched. New lightweight vests for cops and soldiers that can stop any bullet. Don’t gut these investments in our budget. Don’t let other countries win the race for the future. Support the same kind of research and innovation that led to the computer chip and the Internet; to new American jobs and new American industries.

Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right — eight years. Not only that — last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.

But with only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy — a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.

The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock — reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.

What’s true for natural gas is true for clean energy. In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries. Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.

When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it’s hiring workers like Bryan, who said, “I’m proud to be working in the industry of the future.”

Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away. Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan. I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well tonight, I will. I’m directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history — with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.

Of course, the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy. So here’s another proposal: Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, and more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs.

Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader agenda to repair America’s infrastructure. So much of America needs to be rebuilt. We’ve got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid that wastes too much energy. An incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from selling her products all over the world.

During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. After World War II, we connected our States with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

There’s never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest-hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren’t the only ones hurt. So were millions of innocent Americans who’ve seen their home values decline. And while Government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.

That’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.

Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a Government and a financial system that do the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.

We’ve all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn’t afford them. That’s why we need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior. Rules to prevent financial fraud, or toxic dumping, or faulty medical devices, don’t destroy the free market. They make the free market work better.

There is no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his. I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense. We’ve already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill — because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.

I’m confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a federal agency looking over his shoulder. But I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago. I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury pollution, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean. I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women differently from men.

And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules. The new rules we passed restore what should be any financial system’s core purpose: Getting funding to entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and getting loans to responsible families who want to buy a home, start a business, or send a kid to college.

So if you’re a big bank or financial institution, you are no longer allowed to make risky bets with your customers’ deposits. You’re required to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail — because the rest of us aren’t bailing you out ever again. And if you’re a mortgage lender or a payday lender or a credit card company, the days of signing people up for products they can’t afford with confusing forms and deceptive practices are over. Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray with one job: To look out for them.

We will also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people’s investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That’s bad for consumers, and it’s bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count.

And tonight, I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.
A return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help us protect our people and our economy. But it should also guide us as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future.

Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.

When it comes to the deficit, we’ve already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else – like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.

The American people know what the right choice is. So do I. As I told the Speaker this summer, I’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.

But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up. You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. It’s because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference — like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That’s not right. Americans know it’s not right. They know that this generation’s success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country’s future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That’s how we’ll reduce our deficit. That’s an America built to last.

I recognize that people watching tonight have differing views about taxes and debt; energy and health care. But no matter what party they belong to, I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right now: Nothing will get done this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken.

Can you blame them for feeling a little cynical?

The greatest blow to confidence in our economy last year didn’t come from events beyond our control. It came from a debate in Washington over whether the United States would pay its bills or not. Who benefited from that fiasco?

I’ve talked tonight about the deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. But the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad — and it seems to get worse every year.

Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics. So together, let’s take some steps to fix that. Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow. Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact. Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa — an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.

Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything — even routine business — passed through the Senate. Neither party has been blameless in these tactics. Now both parties should put an end to it. For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.

The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated and remote. That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.

Finally, none of these reforms can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas.

I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That’s why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That’s why we’re getting rid of regulations that don’t work. That’s why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program.

On the other hand, even my Republican friends who complain the most about Government spending have supported federally-financed roads, and clean energy projects, and federal offices for the folks back home.

The point is, we should all want a smarter, more effective Government. And while we may not be able to bridge our biggest philosophical differences this year, we can make real progress. With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow. But I can do a whole lot more with your help. Because when we act together, there is nothing the United States of America can’t achieve.

That is the lesson we’ve learned from our actions abroad over the last few years.

Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.

From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.

As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana’a to Tripoli. A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world’s longest-serving dictators — a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone. And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can’t be reversed, and that human dignity can’t be denied.

How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain. But we have a huge stake in the outcome. And while it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings – men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.

And we will safeguard America’s own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever. Our ties to the Americas are deeper. Our iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history. We’ve made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we’ve built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve led against hunger and disease; from the blows we’ve dealt to our enemies; to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.

Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about. That’s not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years. Yes, the world is changing; no, we can’t control every event. But America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs — and as long as I’m President, I intend to keep it that way.

That’s why, working with our military leaders, I have proposed a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world, while saving nearly half a trillion dollars in our budget. To stay one step ahead of our adversaries, I have already sent this Congress legislation that will secure our country from the growing danger of cyber-threats.

Above all, our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it. As they come home, we must serve them as well as they served us. That includes giving them the care and benefits they have earned — which is why we’ve increased annual VA spending every year I’ve been President. And it means enlisting our veterans in the work of rebuilding our Nation.

With the bipartisan support of this Congress, we are providing new tax credits to companies that hire vets. Michelle and Jill Biden have worked with American businesses to secure a pledge of 135,000 jobs for veterans and their families. And tonight, I’m proposing a Veterans Job Corps that will help our communities hire veterans as cops and firefighters, so that America is as strong as those who defend her.

Which brings me back to where I began. Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn from the service of our troops. When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight. When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one Nation, leaving no one behind.

One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates – a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.

All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job — the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other – because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we’re joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

This was his acceptance speech at the nominating convention:

Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson Accepting Justice Party Nomination for Candidacy for President of the United States (website)

I am proud to accept the nomination of the Justice Party to run as its candidate for President of the United States.

This is not my campaign.  This is a campaign of, for, and by the people.  We join together in this endeavor for the sake of justice – social justice, environmental justice, and economic justice.   We pledge to organize and act, tenaciously and over the long haul, for the sake of the public interest, to enhance and protect freedom for all, and to vindicate the sacred promise of justice for all.

Those who understand that our great nation and its people have been harmed severely, and are at tremendous risk for even greater damage in the future, can be powerful agents of positive change.  We need not settle for governance by the Republican and Democratic parties, which thrive on the corrupt money machine, nor do we have to confine ourselves to voting for the lesser of two evils, if indeed there is a lesser evil among the common choices.

If we have the vision, the courage, and the will, we can, together, forge a very different way – a way that will lead to a future of fiscal responsibility and respectful regard for the economic burdens we leave for later generations; secure jobs and fair compensation; decency and rationality in our cruel, self-destructive criminal justice system that is largely based on an irrational rage to punish; an investment in our nation’s infrastructure, education, and innovation that is as substantial as our need to re-gain our global competitive edge; compassionate and rational immigration reform; respect for fundamental human and civil rights; victory over the stranglehold of the military-industrial-congressional complex; protection of our air, water, and wild lands; essential health care for all, as in every other nation in the industrialized world; protection against and condemnation of illegal wars of aggression, pursuant to the United Nations Charter and the Kellogg-Briand Pact; international leadership on the urgent challenge of climate change; and restoration of the rule of law, including full accountability for crimes, regardless of the wealth or status of the perpetrators.

Men, women, and children across the United States, and throughout the world, are suffering horrendously because of the corruption of our government, the timidity of much of the public, and criminality that is rewarded rather than rectified.  Lives have been taken, lifetime injuries inflicted, life savings decimated, essential health care rendered more elusive for millions of people, jobs lost, and the damage inflicted by our nation’s debt increased exponentially — all because of crimes committed with impunity, public policy guided by bribery, and a crooked two-tiered economic and justice system that rewards a narrow class of rich and powerful people while devastating the rest.

The root of this disaster is systemic corruption fed by money from the few who have benefited.  The public’s interest in catching up with the rest of the industrialized world and providing essential health care to every man, woman, and child has been undermined by the corrupting influence of money flowing from the medical and insurance industries.

The public’s interest in reducing the outrageous cost of prescription drugs has been frustrated by the corrupting influence of money flowing from the pharmaceutical industry.

The public’s interest in reducing our deficits and the crushing burden of our accumulated debt, as well as reprioritizing the ways in which our government spends our money, has been frustrated by the corrupting influence of money flowing from military contractors, the beneficiaries of the military-industrial complex about which President Eisenhower warned our nation in his last presidential address.

Perhaps most outrageous and tragic over the long-term, the public’s interest in energy independence and the avoidance of the most catastrophic impacts of climate disruption has been frustrated by the corrupting influence of money flowing from the fossil fuel industry – the coal, oil, and gas companies.

Whether these calamities continue is our choice. Bringing integrity and competence to our government is within our power. That’s why people across the nation are supporting our campaign, which limits contributions to $100 per person and engages in grassroots strategies rather than billion dollar television campaigns financed by the wealthy.

The American people can ensure that the public interest, not simply the interests of politicians and campaign contributors, is protected. We the people are powerful enough to end the perverse government-to-the-highest-bidder system sustaining, and sustained by, the two dominant parties.

With the complicity of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Bush administration marched our nation off a cliff — morally, legally, and economically — by perpetrating a disastrous war of aggression against Iraq.  President Obama, for his political advantage, simply shrugged off war crimes committed in conjunction with that war, with the excuse that we “need to look forward not backward.”  It is a trademark reminder — in the spirit of President Ford’s ignominious pardon of Richard M. Nixon — that, in our two-tiered system of injustice, the rich and powerful are above the law, which is applied, often with a crushing vengeance, against the rest of us.

Wall Street criminals have raked in billions of dollars while eviscerating the U.S economy through their fraudulent schemes.  Goldman Sachs sold clients on perverse investments while secretly betting billions of dollars against them.  Several Wall Street firms bundled toxic mortgages and fraudulently sold them as top-rated investments, ultimately devastating the U.S. economy, including the housing market and the retirement plans of millions of men and women throughout the U.S. This was all aided and abetted by occupants of the White House and by a de-regulating Congress that have acted as if they are on retainer by Wall Street banks. Just recently, President Obama appointed a new Chief of Staff who was COO at CitiGroup and who oversaw investments in a hedge fund that bet on the housing market collapse.  We need a president who will surround himself not by the Goldman Sachs crowd, but by those who have a record of caring about, and acting to protect, the public interest.

Remarkably, some pundits are still puzzled about what the nation’s Occupiers – and now the international Occupiers – are angry about. The appropriate inquiry is “Why have we put up with this for so long?”

Most Americans are far less financially secure – some are wiped out and many have lost their homes – because of these crimes.  The plutocracy is now fully exposed.  While drug offenders are being incarcerated for decades under contemptible minimum-mandatory sentences, not one day has been served in prison by the perpetrators, who, along with their Wall Street colleagues, gave unprecedented contributions to President Obama’s last campaign. Goldman Sachs’s political action committee and individual contributors employed by Goldman Sachs donated over $1 million to Obama’s last election. They’ve enjoyed an enormous return on their investment, to the enormous detriment of the rest of us.

Please thoughtfully consider this fact, then be appropriately outraged:  22% of children are now living in poverty in the United States. The skids toward the economic disaster, including the resulting loss of jobs and skyrocketing poverty, were greased by the unconscionable deregulation of the financial industry, made possible through the collusion of Republicans and Democrats.  Again, that deregulation came about not because of the promotion of the public interest, but because of the corrupting influence of multi-national corporations that took us to the cleaners, then received bail-outs because they were considered by our economic policy-makers – themselves part of the corrupt financial class – as “too big to fail.”  The Republican Party pursues deregulation as a priority in its increasingly bizarre ideology, even when it puts most Americans at tremendous risk, while President Obama and most of Congress gorge themselves at the trough of special interest money, then act accordingly.

We will fight to make certain that, in the future, no banks will be “too large to fail” and that the only thing we will consider to be “too large to fail” is the interests of the American people.

We must set aside our fear-based notion that a candidate other than a Republican or Democrat can be a “spoiler” for the lesser of two evils and, instead, help make real change happen, for our good, for the good of our country, and for the good of our children and later generations.  We can be responsible, ethical stewards for the future by drawing the line now and committing to “no more” of what the two dominant parties have done to our nation.

Win or lose, we can, through this campaign, make a tremendous positive difference in our nation and our world.

Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, in their remarkable book That Used to Be Us, make the argument about the vast difference a third party or independent candidacy can make for our nation.  Here is what they say:

Now [the Democrats] have become the most conservative force in American politics. . . .Now the [Republicans] are the party of fiscal radicalism and recklessness, cutting taxes without reducing spending and thereby pushing the United States ever deeper into debt.  The two parties are, however, united on two things – unfortunately.  Neither has the courage to take the necessary serious steps to address the dangerously high budget deficit . . . : And neither has the courage to reduce America’s, and therefore the world’s, ruinous dependence on oil by raising the price of gasoline. . . .

Business as usual in American politics is a recipe for national decline. . .

The American political system does not need blowing up, but it does need shaking up. . . . It needs political shock therapy. . . .

We hope that [such a shock] will come from within – from a combination of grassroots and high politics.  We mean by this a serious independent presidential candidate. . . .

The only way around all these ideological and structural obstacles is a third-party or independent candidate, who can not only articulate a hybrid politics that addresses our major challenges and restores our formula for success but . . . does this in a way that enough Americans find so compelling that they are willing to leave their respective Democratic and Republican camps . . . Only that could change a political system that rewards our politicians for postponing hard decisions and blaming the other party rather than making those decisions.

Because third parties do not win elections, voters expect them not to win and thus do not vote for them so as not to waste their votes.  This calculation, a major reason for the weakness of third parties (and thus the strength of the Republicans and Democrats), can, however, be seriously mistaken.  A vote for a third-party presidential candidate can be an effective way to change the direction of American national policy – and that is the strategy we are advocating.[1]

Friedman and Mandelbaum then describe recent polls, reflecting that people in the United States will support a third-party candidate:  A Pew poll finding that more voters identify themselves as independents than as Democrats or Republicans; another Pew survey finding that 72 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with the condition of our country; a Washington Post-ABC News poll reporting in 2010 that only 34 percent of the respondents believed that Democratic candidates deserved reelection, and only 31 percent believed that Republicans deserved reelection; and an Ipsos Public Affairs 2010 poll in which 71 percent of respondents said they would like to see more than just the Democratic and Republican Parties on the presidential ballot.[2]

Friedman and Mandelbaum continue as follows:

An independent presidential candidate who did all these things – describing, more vividly and accurately than the two major parties have yet done, the world in which its citizens are living and are destined to live in this century; prescribing the policies that will make it possible for Americans to thrive in that world and for America to exercise global influence in this century, as they did in the last one; and galvanizing the country to adopt these policies – could provide the shock therapy we need.

[I]t’s the best shot we have.  Sticking with the status quo, by contrast, is a sure thing – a sure pathway to decline.[3]

As Friedman and Mandelbaum conclude, win or lose, “an independent presidential candidacy can change America – and therefore the world – for the better. . . [O]ver the long term it would probably have a greater impact on the course of American history than the person who [won the election].”[4]

Let us embrace this historic opportunity.  For an end to the corruption and impunity for the privileged elite, and a fair shake for all Americans, we can reject the Republican/Democratic duopoly that has brought our nation to its current sad state.  We now have the choice to support a party and a candidate offering genuine hope for a safer, healthier, more just world.

[1] Friedman and Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us, pp. 329, 330, 331, 334, 335.

[2] Id. at 340.

[3] Id. at 346.

[4] Id. at 347.

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Waking Up in Wisconsin

by David Michael Green

Whodathunkit, eh?

Insignificant, backwater, third world banana republics like Tunisia and Egypt pioneering the way for the greatest superpower and richest country on the planet.

That’s not supposed to happen.

I mean, we pay for a military that costs as much as every other one in the world, combined, even though it can’t win endless wars against insignificant, backwater, third world banana republics.  They can’t say that about their militaries!  We’ve got annual deficits that are bigger than their entire economies.  The size of our economy is half-again bigger than the number two in the world (with one-fourth the population), and we’ve managed to produce a health care system that ranks 39th globally.  Who else can claim that badge of honor?  No doubt that ranking partially explains why our life expectancy figures are lower than just about every country in the developed world.  Our education system, once the envy of the world, is crumbling, along with the size of our college enrollments.  Ditto our infrastructure, much of which hasn’t been maintained in decades.  Who can touch that?  We have the highest polarization of wealth in the entire developed world, and more than any country in the Arab world too.  Sweet!  Another cool thing is our incarceration rate.  It’s 743 per hundred thousand people.  The next highest country has less than half that figure.  Our use of torture and rendition and the remote-controlled aerial bombings of civilians has earned us the scorn and hatred of the world, while our political leaders, unmatched in their capacity for hypocrisy and buffoonery, have made us a laughingstock that few puffy-chested, medal-covered third world dictators can match.  You got Mugabe?  We got Palin.  You got Charles Taylor?  We got George W. Bush, in a democracy no less.

So, with a record like that, who in the world are these punky backwater countries to teach high and mighty America anything about anything?!?!

Darned if it hasn’t happened, though.  I mean, you can say it’s a coincidence if you want, and you may even be right.  But I can’t help thinking that the people of Wisconsin have been inspired by the people of Egypt.  Who were themselves inspired by the people of Tunisia.  Both of whom have inspired the people of Bahrain, Jordan, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and beyond.  Meanwhile, Wisconsin seems to be inspiring Americans in other states finally to fight back.

It would seem that people power is in the air in early 2011, and that it’s quite contagious.

Whatever is the explanation for the Cheesehead version of Tahrir Square, it is unbelievably welcome, and just barely in time.

It’s crucial to understand what the regressive initiative that our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin are right now fighting is really all about, and how that fits into the context of our era.  This is just the latest, and nearly the last, in a succession of efforts in America over the last three decades to move money from the hands of non-elites to those of oligarchs. Make no mistake, that program constitutes essentially the sum total of American politics at its core over the last generation.  All else is a sideshow or, more likely and more ominously, an intentional diversion, just as a skilled magician is careful to give your eye something else to focus on as he moves the ball from under the cup.

That money-shifting effort has been relentless, and it has been fantastically successful.  We have witnessed the greatest transfer of wealth in human history over this period of time.  More astonishing, here in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, is that it went the wrong way – from ordinary folk who need the money to wealthy elites, many of whom actually couldn’t even find ways to spend those enormous quantities flooding their accounts if they wanted to.  Most astonishing of all is that this happened in a functioning democracy, where the votes of rip-offees vastly outnumber the votes of rip-offers.  If anyone you meet ever doubts the capacity of human stupidity, tell them this tale.  It’s an amazing story.  It’s also the most significant single fact of American politics in our time. And we don’t even talk about it.

That’s because of the stunning success of the thieves in executing their heist.  As oft-noted, the perfect crime is one that is not even detected.  Welcome to America.

You gotta hand it to these guys.  They have been smart, thorough, ruthless, tenacious, patient and ruthless.  Did I mention ruthless?  They have attacked New Deal America – the set of policies that created a vast middle class for the first time and dramatically improved people’s quality of life en masse – in every way possible, and have managed to beat it into near submission.

They’ve been very clever about it, too.  They fabricated think tanks whose product at any other time would have seemed absurdly laughable.  They created a whole new media for themselves, and intimidated the parts they didn’t outright own.  They dumbed down education, making sure that any knowledge of history or civics or – god forbid – comparative politics was eliminated from the curriculum, thus producing nice, docile worker bees who know just enough to do their ill-paid jobs, but not enough to even know that they’re ill-paid.  They allied with regressive forces like religious institutions, the military and the Republican Party.  Then they bought the Democrats too, not least of which including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, whose economic policies are fundamentally indistinguishable from the GOP’s.  They infiltrated the courts with corporate hacks so corrupt that they steal elections and sit on cases even when they’ve received contributions from litigants in the matter.  They smashed labor unions at every opportunity.  They drove the country deep into debt with the express purpose of making it then seem that any further social spending was no longer sustainable.  They tore down even the thin veneer of campaign finance reform from the prior era.  They shredded the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and have bullied any opponents with thuggish acts of verbal and other forms of personal assault.  They made voting more difficult, wrongly purged masses of voters from the rolls, and used rigged machines to steal elections.  They have poisoned the minds of Americans with diversionary bogeymen ranging from Saddam Hussein to marrying gays to the War on Christmas.

And so on.  The complete list is extensive enough to fill the pages of this essay and several more.  The upshot of the story is that there has been a concerted, multipronged attack on a system of political economy that was, when they began, already just about the least fair to working people of any in the developed world, but nevertheless a whole lot more fair than it ever had been previously.  Or is now.

The purpose of all these efforts, however, was always the same, and typically had little to do with culture conflicts, endless Middle Eastern wars, or televised Hannity and Colmes style pissing matches.  It was always about the money.  Always.  It remains about the money today.

That’s why the malignant disease better known as Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker is now doing what he is doing.  He claims that the state is broke and that he has no choice but to roll back public sector salaries and benefits.  Everything about that claim is a lie. The state is not nearly as far in the red as other states that are not doing what he is doing.  The state could increase taxes if it wanted to solve its problem, rather than exploiting workers. In fact, the state just got done creating the very deficit Walker claims to be the problem by slashing $177 million from its tax rolls. State employees are underpaid compared to equivalent private sector workers, not overpaid as he claims.  And despite all this, the unions have nevertheless publicly agreed to negotiate givebacks with the Governor.  And so on.

But, of course, the biggest lie of all is the biggest lie of all.  That is that the premise for what he is doing is the pursuit of fiscal rectitude.  Let’s leave aside for the moment the fact that, nationally, the same party that claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility is precisely the gang of folks who got us into the mess we’re in. Of the fourteen trillion dollars or so of current national debt, almost all of it was created under Republican presidents, including the saintly Ronald of Nazareth, who tripled the national debt and started the process of dismantling America’s middle class (with a jaunty smile, of course, so it felt better and was less noticeable). It is true that borrowing has gone up under Barack Obama (who, anyhow, is one of them, not one of us), but how much would that have been the case had he not inherited Bush’s wars, Bush’s ‘defense’ budget, Bush’s non-defense discretionary spending increases, Bush’s unfunded prescription drug bill, Bush’s decimation of incoming federal revenue in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush’s TARP, and Bush’s recession, the biggest since the Great Depression and therefore requiring massive stimulus spending? To answer that question, just look at what spending looked like on the day Bush was inaugurated.  In fact, he inherited the greatest budget surplus in all of history.

These are the folks who bill themselves as the grownups in the room, the ones who are being responsible, the ones who are slashing social spending because we absolutely have to do so, even while further fattening a military already bloated on useless spending, even while continuing completely unabated lavish corporate welfare programs for Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Pharma and the rest, and even while slashing taxes on the wealthy down to nearly zero, transferring those liabilities to the rest of us.  That’s what the Scott Walkers of this country have been doing in Washington for three decades now.

But even if Governor Walker is not responsible for the lies and destruction of his party at the national level, he is practicing precisely the same behavior in Wisconsin (while, no doubt, licking his chops at his prospects for a subsequent presidential bid, based on making this name for himself at the state level).  This is not about balancing the state budget, anymore than Republicans can be the party of fiscal responsibility anywhere other than in the Alice’s-Wonderland-on-steroid-laced-irradiated-hyper-concentrated-LSD that calls itself America. This is about completing the piracy mission, knocking down one of the last remaining barriers preventing the wholesale transfer of middle class wealth to the oligarchy.  This initiative is entirely about breaking public sector unions.

You can tell that’s true because those provisions in the bill have absolutely zero impact on the state’s budget.  Whether unions have to be recertified every year, whether their dues are collected from paychecks, and whether they can bargain over non-salary issues – none of these factors alter Wisconsin’s fiscal condition by a single penny.  You can tell that’s true because the unions are willing to talk with the governor about givebacks – and thus address the problem he claims the legislation is meant to solve – if he’ll strip out the union-busting language.  And you can tell that’s true because he’s not even slightly interested in their offer.  By refusing to take yes for an answer from the unions on the question that he offers as a pretext for the legislation, he reveals the pretext to be just that.  This is entirely about breaking public sector unions.

It is, once again, clever in its staging.  Having driven the American people to the wall through the use of job-exporting trade policy, unfair taxation policy, wage-undermining private sector union-busting, and budget-busting deficit spending, the Klepto-Plutocracy has now positioned itself quite handsomely for purposes of presenting the next and near-final act in its multi-decade play.  First they put economic pressure on all Americans by shipping jobs overseas.  Then they enact policies that bring on massive levels of state and federal debt.  Then they give us a devastating recession to ratchet up economic insecurity.  Then they make sure the Democratic alternative to the Republican recession-makers is in fact no alternative at all, bringing no relief to workers whatsoever.  This then clears the way, a mere two years later, for a Lazarus-like resuscitation of the nearly-dead recession-creating Republican Party.  But an even worse version this time, sending tea party social spending slasher freaks to Congress and producing aggressive predatory monsters like Chris Christie and Scott Walker at the state level.  Then they argue to a bunch of politically illiterate American voters the all these fat gubmint workers have got it too goddam good, what with their wages that people can sorta actually live off of an’ all.  Worse, these lazy bums are not only living high on the hog, but they’re living high on your nickel, Mr. Taxpayer Moron!  As storms go, that recipe is good for producing a near perfect one in order to crush public sector unions.

We’ll see if it works.  There are reasons not to be hopeful.  Right now, as of this writing, success for the predators requires just one of fourteen Democrats in the state Senate to come in from hiding out-of-state, giving Republicans a quorum, and sealing the deal.  Moreover, Wisconsin – a state that pioneered unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, the eight hour work week, the weekend, and other triumphs of actual humane treatment for humans, appears to have taken a big deep dive into Lake Stupidity of late.  Once a bastion of progressivism, more lately a purple state, in 2010 it went overwhelmingly Republican, not least by producing the nation’s single most shameful act of that election cycle, the purging of Russ Feingold from the US Senate.

But there are also reasons to be hopeful, too.  It seems that this may just be the Basta! moment for middle class Wisconsinites sick of being ground into poverty.  Every day, the crowds of demonstrators grow larger, at last count up to 70,000.  They seem really pissed off.  When was the last time we saw this?

And maybe this is the Basta! moment for the country, too.  Maybe people have finally had Enough! not just in Wisconsin, but elsewhere too.  Already there are similar reactions in other states, as other Republicans attempt the same fiscal coup strategy.

Altogether, it may not be hyperbolic to say that Wisconsin’s fate is the country’s fate.  If the thieves win, it will empower and encourage thieves nationally.  If the people win, that victory may produce a Tunisia effect, getting folks to realize, as Egyptians did, that you’re really only captive to the power of thugs for precisely as long as you believe yourself to be captive to the power of thugs.

This could be the first step of an American awakening.  But even if it does occur, it will only be the first step.  There is so much more to be done.  Most of the initial work is purely in the domain of framing.  People need to understand what Warren Buffett understands, that there has been a class war going on for three decades now, and that his team is winning.  People need to understand that all the other nonsense that forms the content of American politics is diversionary bullshit.  People need to understand that, yes, American exceptionalism is alive and well in 2011, only it is alive and well in how poorly the country does on almost every measure of quality of life.  Especially compared to those horrid socialists in Europe and elsewhere, who suffer every day under the crushing burdens of better health, longer life, higher quality education, more equal distribution of wealth, better working conditions, less crime, less stress, less war and more happiness.

From there, once the Zeitgeist is changed, the policy changes can fall like dominos.  It’s not that hard to figure what to do.  We had it mostly right before the Reagan Era began.  2011 is not 1981, so some things will have to change, but most will not.  You either provide Social Security or you don’t.  You either protect worker safety or you don’t.  You either respect unions and the environment or not.  You either protect people’s civil rights or you don’t.

Things can also get better than they were thirty years ago.  We never had a national health care system, and we still don’t.  The one we’re slated to get in 2014 is lame, brought to us by our fake-progressive DINO corporate shill of a president.  We can do lots better.  Ditto on taxation, spending, industrial policy, workers rights and benefits, foreign policy and so on.  The great news about the multi-headed, cataclysmic, across-the-board disaster of policymaking in the United States today is that it leaves you plenty of room for improvement.  It will be a long time before we run out of ideas for how to make things better here in Ronald Reagan’s America.

I don’t know if this is finally the moment when America wakes up and turns the corner to emerge from this long national nightmare.  That’s probably too much to ask when tea party Republicans dominate the Congress, a faux Democratic president, just like the last one, does the bidding of the national oligarchy, and not a single prominent political figure is out there pitching the narrative that would help Americans to understand who their real enemies are.

On the other hand, who could have imagined a month or two ago that the thirty year-old Mubarak dictatorship would be swept away over the period of a couple of weeks, and with minimal bloodshed to boot?

If that can happen, anything can happen.

Wake up, America!

On, Wisconsin.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers’ reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.

The Utah Legislature has a history of starving public schools and then criticizing them for failures. Bills in the current session would label struggling schools with D or F grades but offer no resources to help them improve and would funnel scarce public funds to private online schools.

Thus, legislators continue to encourage parents to abandon traditional public schools for private or charter schools. Obviously, despite the resounding defeat in 2007 of a voucher law that would have sent public money to private schools, the Legislature has not given up that battle.

In Senate Bill 65, Sen. Howard Stephenson would set up a statewide online education program that would direct taxpayer money to private providers of online courses. It has passed the Senate.

Sen. Wayne L. Niederhauser and Rep. Greg Hughes are sponsoring a bill to have public schools graded, based on statewide assessments, and for high schools, the graduation rate. They are modeling this legislation on a similar program in Florida. It would provide parents with information to justify abandoning those schools.

That is the Republican agenda–do away with government! And the biggest part of local government is public education! And it has been systematically dismantled by the Republican legislature for the past two decades. If we keep electing them the demise of public education is inevitable. The for-profit scavengers are already groveling up the pieces, hawking their wares and wiles without any regulation. They make glorious offers and promises and leave their innocent, gullible students drowning in debt.

This might be useful, provided that, once these struggling schools are identified, they at least can plead their case for funding to implement remedial courses or in other ways improve. Florida, after all, offers financial incentives to schools. Florida also has a constitutional amendment limiting class sizes. In Utah teachers must deal with the largest class sizes in the nation.

Florida also spends nearly twice as much per student on education as Utah, which sits dead last in that category. If we’re looking at Florida as a model, let’s start with financial commitment.

Legislators know that Utahns are devoted to their neighborhood public schools, and so, during election campaigns, candidates proclaim they are pro-education. But what many of them mean is that they support education only as long as educators and school officials do as the Legislature demands.

Thus we get a proposed constitutional amendment to take the election of Utah State Board of Education members away from voters and put the board under control of the governor and state Senate. Then there are bills that dictate the smallest details of school curriculum, such as mandating that schools teach that the United States is a republic, not a democracy, and requiring “civic and character” education.

Legislators’ penchant for micro-managing education and undermining public schools is not the way to help Utah’s youth prepare for jobs and help Utah prepare for the future.

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© 2011 The Salt Lake Tribune

By Doug Robinson

Deseret News

Published: Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011 12:49 a.m. MST

Memo to state legislators: Butt out.

Stay out of high school sports.

Find something else to meddle with.

Oh, wait, we’re supposed to tone down the rhetoric.

Butt out … pa-lease.

Remember the little drama that began last summer when the state Legislature, led by Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, wanted to turn the high school transfer rule on its head by having NO RULES WHATSOEVER? A kid could transfer anytime, anywhere. He could play three different sports for three different schools in one school year.

That was a doozie, wasn’t it? Which is why legislators went back to work on the bill and modified it. The hope was that common sense would prevail, and they’d forget the whole business when the Legislature reconvened last month.

No such luck.

The Legislature has come back with another dopey proposal called Senate Bill 53, this time with a new starting quarterback, Mark Madsen, R-Eagle Mountain.

Now they’re proposing that students — and by this we mean “athletes” — have a certain time frame in which they can transfer. Between Dec. 1 and June 30 of each school year, students can request a transfer to another school. Which means student-athletes (or, in this case, “athlete-students”) could play for four high schools in four years.

I’ve been a high school track coach for 20 years, and I can’t think of a worse proposal for high school sports, period. I believe most coaches would agree.

The Utah High School Activities Association — remember them, the experts who are paid to do this sort of thing? — are also unhappy about it, and you would be, too, if you care about a level playing field. I do.

This is the sort of maneuver that UHSAA officials expect from stage parents, not their own legislators. They’re supposed to be on the same team.

Last June, the UHSAA’s board of trustees passed a rule, effective Sept. 1, that students could attend any high school upon first entry, but after that they would lose one year of athletic eligibility if they transfer (with the usual exception for hardship cases). It formalized the way the transfer rule had been working for years anyway, since it was nearly impossible to stop kids from choosing an out-of-boundary school upon initial entry under the open enrollment law.

Now, four months after the rule took effect, the Legislature has thrown down a challenge to the rule by coming up with its own proposal, and one that is naive at best.

Ever notice that politicians like to get involved in athletic matters? They like to think they can remedy the college bowl system and the high school transfer problem and the IOC and steroids in pro sports. If you were keeping a record of their swings and misses, they’d have a batting average of about .000.

That doesn’t stop them from swinging. In their minds, they are Barry Bonds on ‘roids and every pitched ball looks like a watermelon.

Fortunately, they have time to meddle in the sports world because, let’s face it, everything else is going so well. Immigration is sailing along smoothly, the deficit is under control, the health care debate is solved, the economy is soaring, everyone has jobs. So they turn their deft touch to sports.

Don’t you wish they wouldn’t?

Well, the legislators’ rationale for meddling with the transfer rule is to give complete control of a student’s school choices to parents. Unfortunately, we live on planet Earth and we deal with human beings and, although parental-control is a nice theory, it doesn’t work well for sports. Ever seen a little league dad? A stage mom? It’s not a pretty picture. Parents do most of the lying and deceit that the UHSAA deals with regularly.

Look, sports is different than, say, art class or a special academic program. There isn’t a sport at any level, from little league to pros, that doesn’t restrict player movement. It fosters competitive balance. A transfer-free-for-all might be good for a handful of elite kids, but not for the greater good, not for everyone’s kids. Without restrictions, the strong teams get stronger, the weak teams get weaker; dynasties form. Instead of giving many teams a chance to contend for a region or state title — and thus producing a better experience for more students and athletes — only a handful enjoy that experience. It turns the high school athletic system into a platform for elite athletes.

The transfer free-for-all has other ramifications. Every time a coach scolds or corrects or benches a player, the player can simply go to another school and run from problems and challenges instead of dealing with them.

The UHSAA board of trustees is made of 28 members who were elected to those positions. They represent every area of the state. They have been delegated to oversee extracurricular activities for high schools, and they’ve been doing it for 84 years. They know a lot more about their business than legislators. Know what the vote was on the UHSAA’s latest transfer rule: 116-6. It wasn’t even close.

“They represent the feelings of our schools out there,” says UHSAA director Rob Cuff.

Kids can transfer freely for academic reasons, but if they want to play sports, that’s another matter. Colorado tried suspending its transfer rule and it was a disaster; now the state has transfer restrictions in place.

“All states have restrictions,” says Cuff. If SB53 passes, Cuff notes, “This would be one of the most lax (rules), if not the most lax in the country.”

There’s a modern analogy to the old proverb “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” It’s paying your Visa bill with your Mastercard.

No matter what idiom you use, moving money around is not the same as increasing the amount in the pot. But Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, and Rep. Merlynn Newbold, R-South Jordan, convinced the Legislature to do just that. And then to claim they have provided the new money needed to educate an expected influx of more than 14,000 new students in Utah schools next year. That’s pure baloney.

It’s not like the Tribune to call ‘baloney’ on Senator Lyle Hillyard. He is the best the hill has got on state budgeting and financial matters. However, it appears that nothing has been done to fund the increase in students and the status quo isn’t good enough let alone continue to fall farther behind.

The base budget for education passed by the Legislature last week would take $76 million from one education-fund pot, called the flexible allocation WPU (weighted pupil unit) distribution, and use it to fund enrollment growth. The problem with that is that the flexible allocation distribution is money Utah schools are already allotted and are using to help pay for mandatory retirement and Social Security costs.

If the flexible allocation distribution is used to hire teachers or buy supplies for the thousands of new students, then school districts will have to cut their budgets for such programs and services as reading, remedial assistance, busing and school nurses in order to make up the difference.

Sen. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, calls the maneuver “smoke and mirrors,” and we agree with her. To claim that this base budget is providing the funds necessary to educate 14,000 new students is the same as a family believing it has plenty of cash for food to feed an additional child, when the money has been taken out of the mortgage fund. Family members might not go hungry, but there’s a good chance they could get put out on the street.

State Superintendent Larry Shumway said the budget figures agreed to last week really translate into a reduction of $291 per student. And that’s quite a hit to a state education system that already operates on less state money per-student than any other state. Utah is not just at the bottom, below all states and the District of Columbia, it spends far less than the next-lowest state. And the gap grows every year.

Some legislators say the base budget is no more than a starting point and that final figures likely will be much different. Updated revenue numbers could reduce the need for cuts. But so would revenue-enhancing proposals, including one to change income-tax filing deadlines for the self-employed that was endorsed by Gov. Gary Herbert, who also reasonably recommends taking more money from the state Rainy Day Fund to shore up education.

Simply moving money around and failing to fund growth for the third straight year is no budget plan at all. It’s a shell game.

By Brian Slade

Published: February 7, 2011 12:15AM

This past year I kept reading about the report that two-thirds of Utah third-graders don’t read at grade level, and how this benchmark is critical because through third grade, students learn to read. After that, they read to learn. If we fail them by the third grade, we’ve failed them for the rest of their lives.

The noise about this was so loud, tragic and embarrassing that I thought surely the 2011 Legislature would address this pivotal problem upon which turns so much else, from classroom cohesion to dropout rates to crime and a vibrant Utah workforce.

This is a problem that is solvable: by not promoting students who don’t read at grade level, by paying for tutors or by making students do summer school.

If an epidemic of a life-damaging disease affected two-thirds of our children, there would be a massive, compulsory public health program to stop it. But nothing from our Legislature to stop this reading disease.

We just tread water with more of the same. Since this problem can be solved now, it should be solved now. We can’t wait 10 years and fail hundreds of thousands more children.

Brian Slade

Salt Lake City

Voucher Program Would Undermine Civil Rights And Civil Liberties And Add To The Budget Deficit

by Barry Lynn, Executive Director, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to subsidize religious schools in the District of Columbia would undercut civil rights and civil liberties and add to the federal budget deficit, while failing to improve education, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Boehner has announced that today he will unveil a bill that would resurrect and expand the controversial experimental D.C. voucher program, which pays for tuition at private schools for some students in Washington, D.C.

Americans United says the Boehner move is seriously misguided.

There is a great big DETOUR sign that warns of danger whenever government wanders into the religious realm—but reading isn’t one of the Tea Party’s favorite things to do, and danger is just their call to arms.

The country survived the John Birch Society and we will survive its reincarnation in the form of the Tea Party, but not without lots of cuts and bruises. These guys intend to do some damage.

“I can’t imagine a worse time to unveil a new federal subsidy for religious schools,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “This proposal would add to the federal budget deficit while subsidizing schools that indoctrinate and discriminate in hiring.

“Public funds should be directed toward improving public schools, not private schools that are unaccountable to the American people,” Lynn continued. “I hope members of Congress see just how wrong-headed the Boehner proposal is.”

Lynn noted that the D.C. voucher experiment proved to be a failure.

Four studies of the program by the U.S. Department of Education have concluded that it does not improve academic achievement. The final report confirmed that the use of a voucher had no statistically significant impact on overall student achievement in math or reading.

In addition, all four studies found that students from “schools in need of improvement,” which are the students targeted by the program, have shown no improvement in reading or math due to the voucher program

Lynn noted that most of the private schools that are likely to get funding under the Boehner plan are operated by the Catholic Church. However, Baptist, Adventist and Islamic schools are also expected to participate. Diversion of federal funds to these schools, he said, effectively forces taxpayers to subsidize religion.

“All Americans are free to donate to the churches and church schools of their choice,” said Lynn. “But no American should be forced to support a church or church school by the government.”

Lynn noted that religious schools play by different rules than public schools.

Religious schools funded by the D.C. voucher experiment were free to discriminate in admission on the basis of academic ability, disability, economic status and a wide variety of other factors. Moreover, voucher program participants attending religious schools are not afforded other important civil rights protections that public school students get.

At religious schools, teachers, administrators and other staff can be chosen on the basis of religious affiliation, marital status, sexual orientation and other factors totally unrelated to their professional merits.

Religious schools also often require students to participate in worship and make curriculum decisions that reflect denominational teachings. Biology, history and sex education courses, for example, reflect the sponsoring faith’s doctrines, even if they do not conform to broadly accepted scientific, scholarly and medical standards.

Concluded AU’s Lynn, “Religious schools serve the interests of their religious communities, and taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill for them.”

Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.

By PATRICIA COHEN

When the Harvard historian James T. Kloppenberg decided to write about the influences that shaped President Obama’s view of the world, he interviewed the president’s former professors and classmates, combed through his books, essays, and speeches, and even read every article published during the three years Mr. Obama was involved with the Harvard Law Review (“a superb cure for insomnia,” Mr. Kloppenberg said). What he did not do was speak to President Obama.

This article was written by Patricia Cohen of the New York Times and is a brief book review of Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition written by Harvard history professor James T. Kloppenberg. Interested readers can also get a glimpse of the book by reading an article by Professor Kloppenberg that appeared in Harvard Magazine, November-December issue. The link is www.harvardmagazine.com and entitled ‘A Nation Arguing With Its Conscience.”

“He would have had to deny every word,” Mr. Kloppenberg said with a smile. The reason, he explained, is his conclusion that President Obama is a true intellectual — a word that is frequently considered an epithet among populists with a robust suspicion of Ivy League elites.

In New York City last week to give a standing-room-only lecture about his forthcoming intellectual biography, “Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition,” Mr. Kloppenberg explained that he sees Mr. Obama as a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history.

“There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln and in the 20th century just Woodrow Wilson,” he said.

To Mr. Kloppenberg the philosophy that has guided President Obama most consistently is pragmatism, a uniquely American system of thought developed at the end of the 19th century by William James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce. It is a philosophy that grew up after Darwin published his theory of evolution and the Civil War reached its bloody end. More and more people were coming to believe that chance rather than providence guided human affairs, and that dogged certainty led to violence.

Pragmatism maintains that people are constantly devising and updating ideas to navigate the world in which they live; it embraces open-minded experimentation and continuing debate. “It is a philosophy for skeptics, not true believers,” Mr. Kloppenberg said.

Those who heard Mr. Kloppenberg present his argument at a conference on intellectual history at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center responded with prolonged applause. “The way he traced Obama’s intellectual influences was fascinating for us, given that Obama’s academic background seems so similar to ours,” said Andrew Hartman, a historian at Illinois State University who helped organize the conference.

Mr. Kloppenberg’s interest in the education of Barack Obama began from a distance. He spent 2008, the election year, at the University of Cambridge in England and found himself in lecture halls and at dinner tables trying to explain who this man was.

Race, temperament and family history are all crucial to understanding the White House’s current occupant, but Mr. Kloppenberg said he chose to focus on one slice of the president’s makeup: his ideas.

In the professor’s analysis the president’s worldview is the product of the country’s long history of extending democracy to disenfranchised groups, as well as the specific ideological upheavals that struck campuses in the 1980s and 1990s. He mentions, for example, that Mr. Obama was at Harvard during “the greatest intellectual ferment in law schools in the 20th century,” when competing theories about race, feminism, realism and constitutional original intent were all battling for ground.

Mr. Obama was ultimately drawn to a cluster of ideas known as civic republicanism or deliberative democracy, Mr. Kloppenberg argues in the book, which Princeton University Press will publish on Sunday. In this view the founding fathers cared as much about continuing a discussion over how to advance the common good as they did about ensuring freedom.

Taking his cue from Madison, Mr. Obama writes in his 2006 book “The Audacity of Hope” that the constitutional framework is “designed to force us into a conversation,” that it offers “a way by which we argue about our future.” This notion of a living document is directly at odds with the conception of Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court, who has spoken of “the good, old dead Constitution.”

Mr. Kloppenberg compiled a long list of people who he said helped shape Mr. Obama’s thinking and writing, including Weber and Nietzsche, Thoreau and Emerson, Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison. Contemporary scholars like the historian Gordon Wood, the philosophers John Rawls and Hilary Putnam, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz and the legal theorists Martha Minow and Cass Sunstein (who is now working at the White House) also have a place.

Despite the detailed examination, Mr. Kloppenberg concedes that President Obama remains something of a mystery.

“To critics on the left he seems a tragic failure, a man with so much potential who has not fulfilled the promise of change that partisans predicted for his presidency,” he said. “To the right he is a frightening success, a man who has transformed the federal government and ruined the economy.”

He finds both assessments flawed. Conservatives who argue that Mr. Obama is a socialist or an anti-colonialist (as Dinesh D’Souza does in his book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage”) are far off the mark, he said.

“Adams and Jefferson were the only anti-colonialists whom Obama has been affected by,” he told the audience in New York. “He has a profound love of America.”

And his opposition to inequality stems from Puritan preachers and the social gospel rather than socialism.

As for liberal critics, Mr. Kloppenberg took pains to differentiate the president’s philosophical pragmatism, which assumes that change emerges over decades, from the kind of “vulgar pragmatism” practiced by politicians looking only for expedient compromise. (He gave former President Bill Clinton’s strategy of “triangulation” as an example.)

Not all of the disappointed liberals who attended the lecture in New York were convinced that that distinction can be made so easily. T. J. Jackson Lears, a historian at Rutgers University, wrote in an e-mail that by “showing that Obama comes out of a tradition of philosophical pragmatism, he actually provided a basis for criticizing Obama’s slide into vulgar pragmatism.”

And despite Mr. Kloppenberg’s focus on the president’s intellectual evolution, most listeners wanted to talk about his political record.

“There seemed to be skepticism regarding whether Obama’s intellectual background actually translated into policies that the mostly left-leaning audience could get behind,” Mr. Hartman said. “Several audience members, myself included, probably view Obama the president as a centrist like Clinton rather than a progressive intellectual as painted by Kloppenberg.”

Published: Monday, Dec. 20, 2010 6:40 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Orrin Hatch said he skipped a vote on the failed DREAM Act over the weekend because it was a “cynical exercise in political charades” by the Senate’s Democratic leadership.

The act, intended to help undocumented youths earn citizenship by attending college or serving in the military, failed 55-41 on Saturday with the support of just three Republicans, including Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

In today’s Senate where Republicans are filibustering everything, the 55 vote majority is not enough for the bill to pass the 60 vote requirement.

Bennett was one of three Republicans who could do the right thing—simply because he is through as a senator. His conservative, knee-jerk, Tea Party base turned on him because he was ‘thoughtful’ too often.

Hatch chose to skip the vote and earned ire from all sides. Based on the comment letters in The Deseret News, the core of which have been Hatch supporters for years, he is in for a serious election battle in 2012. There was not one letter out of 20 that supported Hatch’s non-vote.

Hatch, also R-Utah, was an original sponsor of the act first introduced years ago but said he would have voted against it had he not been in Missouri attending a grandson’s college graduation.

“The American people sent a clear message in the November elections that they want Congress to focus on getting the economy moving,” he said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, Senate majority leaders have opted instead to move ahead with show votes aimed at currying favor with their far left political constituencies.”

Just six months ago, Hatch spoke in favor of the act at a town hall meeting in Layton. On July 7, the senator told the audience he’s against amnesty for the children of illegal immigrants but supports the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.

“A lot of these kids are brought in as infants. They don’t even know that they’re not citizens until they graduate from high school,” Hatch said. “If they’ve lived good lives and they’ve done good things, why would we penalize them and not let them at least go to school?”

Hatch spokesman Mark Eddington said the quote is taken out of context. He said the senator was not suggesting he held a different position on this issue but “is acknowledging there is a problem here.”

Eddington said Hatch believes “there’s no way we can or should do anything on immigration until the American people have confidence that our borders are secure. And the fact is they aren’t.”

Drugs like meth come into Utah from Mexico, Eddington said, “and with those drugs come violence, murder, drug and human trafficking. This is serious. So there’s no change here — his position is a recognition of a basic reality.”

Hatch is up for re-election in 2012 and, after seeing Bennett defeated by conservatives at the GOP state convention last May, is anticipating a tough fight. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has said he is considering challenging the senator.

Immigration is a “nettlesome issue for politicians these days, particularly in the state of Utah,” said Kelly Patterson, head of BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy.

Patterson said the act has already been “characterized as amnesty” for illegal immigrants. “Those are not labels that help him in any effort to seek re-nomination.”

But had Hatch cast a vote against the act, he may well have been criticized for changing his position. “What’s more likely to hurt you, being labeled a flip-flopper or being too soft on immigration?”

By not voting, Patterson said Hatch was attempting to find some middle ground.

“The more you have to explain yourself to voters, the worse off you are,” he said.

A number of Utahns had backed the act and expressed disappointment at its defeat. Bishop John Wester of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake said he was saddened by the vote.

“It is tragic for these bright, young immigrants and a loss for our country,” Wester said in a statement. He thanked Bennett “for his courage and leadership in voting for the DREAM Act” and said he will continue to advocate for both the act “and for humane reform of our broken immigration system.”

E-mail: lisa@desnews.com

Published: December 18, 2010 01:01AM

A 3rd District judge was right about one thing when he ruled that in choosing candidates for this year’s state school board election, “The nominating committee clearly violated the state’s Open Meetings Act on numerous occasions.”

But we take issue with his conclusion that those violations “only moderately damaged the act’s policies of conducting the public’s business openly.” The Utah Open Meetings Act is not simply a set of policies; it is state law. And if the committee did not sufficiently break the law in this case, it would be difficult to imagine one in which Judge Anthony Quinn would say the law had been more than “moderately” broken.

The judge ruled that the law was broken, but offered no remedy. The undemocratic election was allowed to stand. The judge in essence said, “Democracy be damned, it is just too big a nuisance.”

Once again the community is enlightened by a vigilant press—The Salt Lake Tribune.

The nominating committee failed to give public notice of at least a half-dozen meetings in 2009 and 2010, including a meeting in May in which it selected candidates whose names were sent to Gov. Gary Herbert. The board voted by secret ballot and only put names to votes when forced by local media, under state law. It illegally closed a portion of the May meeting without giving reason or proper notice, again by secret ballot, and during the closed meeting chose candidates, again by secret ballot.

Yet Quinn refers to all those illegal actions as only “moderate” mangling of the law, nothing serious.

While Quinn admits “these violations undoubtedly interfered to some degree with the public’s access to the process,” he decided to let the election that was the result of the illegal process stand. At issue was board member Denis Morrill’s claim that he was illegally and unconstitutionally ousted from his seat by a board of private citizens instead of being allow to stand for a vote of his constituents.

Despite Quinn’s opinion, we believe Morrill is right. And while the board’s flouting of the law should be enough to invalidate the election, the more troubling issue is that the nominating process itself takes the selection of state school board members out of the hands of the voters in local districts. Instead, the 12-member board, appointed by the governor, selects candidates for open board seats and sends those names to Herbert, who picks two for the ballot.

Morrill is not the first popular sitting board member to be sent packing. But his case shows particularly blatant bias since among the names sent to the governor was a 26-year-old assistant custodian with no experience in education as required under the law. Morrill is a 10-year incumbent.

Voters once were able to choose candidates in an open primary. If Morrill’s constituents were dissatisfied, they should have had the chance to vote him out or to retain him if they liked his work. They never got that chance.

WikiLeaks: The Emperor Wears No Clothes

Now WikiLeaks has laid bare the lies and collusion, we pledge to not just witness but actively participate in its fight for democracy

by John Pilger and Others

We are writing this statement in support of democracy.

Since Sunday, 28 November, WikiLeaks and five major newspapers from around the world (the Guardian [1], the New York Times [2], Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pais) have been publishing redacted versions of leaked US diplomatic cables in an ongoing story that has become known as “Cablegate”. The identity of the original leaker is – as yet – unconfirmed.

As this Wikileaks melodrama unfolds we shall see whether Barack Obama really believes in transparency. We shall see! We are adding our name to this statement. Join with us by adding a comment. There is a place to add comments at the end of the story.

This is not the first leak of confidential documentation that exposes governmental lies – and it won’t be the last. Secret information has long been used by elites to build and maintain power over huge populations of citizens, workers, armed forces and others. But when the secrets of the elite are revealed, the power they represent can be confronted and reversed.

Nor is this the first time that state (and other) forces of power have acted to prevent dissemination of information on the internet – and it won’t be the last.

Sites have been removed by their hosting companies [3], servers seized by police or other governmental authorities, take-down requests issued under the rule of law: none of these prevented information spreading.

But the issues run deeper than this. As former US president Thomas Jefferson once stated, “information is the currency of democracy”. Democracy – the rule of the people – as currently understood and practiced is, and has long been, severely restricted.

Power is abused in our name by governments and transnational corporations around the world: they fight illegal wars; abuse and kill people; pillage property and planet. The powerful accumulate wealth and force the majority – the rest of us – to pay for it: with our health, our freedom, our time, our money and with our lives. For a long time, we have been deceived about the reasons for this: it is our right for the truth to be known. Without that right, democracy cannot and does not exist. The current assault on WikiLeaks is yet another instance of democracy-hating by elites.

Now, we find we are witnessing a new level of info-struggle. We are witnessing how the emperor wears no clothes. We can see the lies made bare, we can see the posturing and propositioning that our governments participate in. We can see the collusion that occurs with transnational corporations and with global media giants. WikiLeaks and others are battling against powerful institutions bent on curtailing our knowledge of and influence over policies and structures that impact our lives: they are information heroes, not information villains. We see all this being done in our name, and we condemn it.

Thus, we pledge to not simply bear witness but to actively participate in this fight – for freedom of speech, for real democracy and for justice. We know this is only the beginning: de-masking the puppeteers facilitates action towards fairer and more just societies. We demand that the truth be heard. We stand at the doorway to a new, just and democratic world: a doorway we pledge to keep open and to march through. We stand with all the inhabitants of this world who are affected daily by governments that oppress the right to free speech and obstruct the path to true democracy.

Signed:

Andrei Morgan

Michael Albert

Jamie McClelland

Daniel Kahn Gillmor

Tachanka! [4] collective

London Indymedia [5]

John Pilger

Donnacha Delong, vice-president, National Union of Journalists

Yvonne Ridley, founder, Women In Journalism

Hessom Razavi

Mike Holderness, freelance journalist

Pennie Quinton, freelance journalist and human rights campaigner

May First/People Link [6]

Phil Edwards

Sheffield Indymedia [7]

Chris Grollman

Chris Anderson

David Graeber, reader in social anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London

Toile-Libre [8]

Plentyfact [9] collective

Koumbit Worker’s Committee [10]

Sasha Costanza-Chock, fellow, Berkman Centre for Internet & Society, Harvard University

Added Names

Joe Watts, Watts Cookin’ Blog

Published: Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010 1:09 a.m. MST

So, what are we paying college football coaches these days.

And why? USA Today came up with its annual report on the salaries of the nation’s major college football coaches. The newspaper obtained tax records and other information to decipher base salaries, outside university income and maximum bonuses paid. There were private schools, including BYU, Boston College and Notre Dame, where no information was available.

You might be interested in a few of these paychecks and who is paying for what.

This article is not a legitimate study of the relationship between college football salaries and their won-lost records. A much more scholarly study would be interesting.

Nevertheless, the salary numbers mentioned in this article should be enough to startle the good sense of Americans.

College presidents and governing boards have let the collegiate athletic programs get out of control. State legislative bodies need to bring these programs back into a proper perspective. Reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic should come first.

It is absolutely outrageous that an offensive line coach (true of almost any college football position) at the university level who instructs no more than ten players for an entire year gets paid enough to finance at least 20 first grade reading teachers with responsibility for 30 students in the most fundamentally important part of education. Our sense of values is upside down.

The idea that we have full time teachers getting paid to teach six players for a whole year  whether to put a block on the guy to his left or his right is just, well, unbelievable. The student-teacher ratio in college athletics is about one teacher for every six students, and children in the prime reading development the ratio is more like one for 25 or 30.

As a people we need to call our legislators all across this country and demand a re-structuring of our educational priorities.

Our athletic programs will not suffer in the slightest by bringing it back into perspective.

For instance, New Mexico’s coach Mike Locksley has had a heck of a time getting things rolling since he took over for Rocky Long, posting one of the worst win/loss records among 120 Division I programs, and his stay in Albuquerque has been steeped in controversy. Yet Locksley’s $750,00 salary is equal to Troy Calhoun at Air Force and more than bowl-bound San Diego State coach Brady Hoke ($675,000), whose standard of living costs are significantly higher.

The highest-paid Mountain West coach is Big East-bound TCU coach Gary Patterson, who makes $1.6 million, somewhat more than Utah’s Kyle Whittingham at $1.1 million. But if the numbers are correct, it takes about that much to hire Dave Christensen to work at Wyoming ($861,000), and the Cowboys/Christensen were Locksley’s only win this year at UNM.

Chris Peterson at Boise State, bound to meet Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl, makes $1.4 million, yet in one of the most thrilling games of the season, the Broncos lost to Nevada and Hall of Fame coach Chris Ault, who is paid $443,093. And that’s less than UNLV’s Bobby Hauk ($500,000), who finished his first year for the Rebels at 2-11.

Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops, who lost to Bronco Mendenhall and BYU last year in Dallas, makes $4.2 million, one of the highest salaries in the country, but it is not as much as Texas coach Mack Brown ($5.1 million), who couldn’t get the Longhorns in a bowl game this fall.

Some perspective: Ohio State president Gordon Gee, a former University of Utah student and BYU law professor, is the highest-paid public university president in the U.S. with a base salary of $802,125 and total compensation package of $1.6 million. But his football coach, Jim Tressel, makes twice as much ($3.5 million) in the land of bow ties and vests.

BYU plays UTEP in the New Mexico Bowl a week from Saturday, and one of the Miners’ best wins this year came over SMU, whose coach, June Jones, makes $2.1 million in Conference USA. Price, the victor in that game, makes $383,346.

When Utah defeated Alabama in the 2008 Sugar Bowl, Whittingham took down one of the highest-paid football coaches in the country, Nick Saban ($5.1 million), who makes a few shekels more than recently resigned Urban Meyer at Florida ($4.1 million).

When Oregon’s Chip Kelly ($2.4 million) takes on Auburn’s Gene Chizik ($2.1 million) in the BCS national championship game, it’ll be about an even match of bank accounts. But does Auburn hold the edge in alleged paid-players over Nike University? Mendenhall’s salary at BYU is not available, but it is surely competitive in the MWC. As an independent, Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo makes $926,434. But how big was it for Utah State’s Gary Anderson ($352,400) to defeat the Cougars in Logan? At Temple University, Al Golden ($513,000) defeated Fiesta Bowl-bound UConn coach Randy Edsall ($1.5 million) and has an 8-4 record but is not going to a bowl.

In the Pac-10, teams were stumbling over one another to become bowl eligible and failed. Those include Cal’s Jeff Telford ($2.3 million), who finished with a 5-7 record, and UCLA’s Rick Neuheisel ($1.2 million), who wound up 4-8. Washington’s Steve Sarkisian ($1.8 million) barely made it in at 6-6 with a season-opening loss to two-headed QB BYU.

The Bruins, Bears and Huskies might be well to look at Nevada’s Chris Ault and save more than a million bucks.

But that’s looking at things as strictly money, of course, as I wonder how Locksley is making off like a bandit.

e-mail: dharmon@desnews.com

© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

The following editorial appeared in the New York Times Dec. 4.

Not all the political news this year involves the rise of partisan extremism and government by rage. There has been lots of that. But maybe there is a limit, a point when people of good sense and good will band together to say no. As they have just done in Utah.

Political, business, law-enforcement and religious leaders there have endorsed what they call the Utah Compact. It is a statement of principles meant to address, with moderation and civility, “the complex challenges associated with a broken national immigration system.” What a welcome contrast it draws with the xenophobic radicalism of places like Arizona.

The signers, who hope to influence the shape of state immigration policy, include the mayors of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, the state attorney general, two Republican former governors, a former United States senator, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, the Chamber of Commerce and a host of other civic groups and citizens. The prominent and powerful Mormon Church did not sign on but issued a “statement of support” calling the compact “a responsible approach to the urgent challenge of immigration reform.”

A clearer expression of good sense and sanity than Utah’s would be hard to find. It says immigration is an issue between the federal government and other countries — “not Utah and other countries.” It says local police agencies should focus on fighting crime, “not civil violations of federal code.” Because “strong families are the foundation of successful communities,” it opposes policies that unnecessarily separate them. It recognizes immigrants’ value as workers and taxpayers.

It ends by urging a humane approach to the reality of immigration: “Utah should always be a place that welcomes people of good will.”

South of Utah in Arizona, the political establishment, top law-enforcement officers and voters have lined up behind a radical go-it-alone strategy to uproot and terrorize unwanted immigrants. That hard-line fever is spreading, with lawmakers in other states scrambling to pass their versions of the infamous Arizona law that empowers the police to demand people’s papers.

Immigration hard-liners are used to using the harshest words possible for newcomers, and condemning calls for restraint and humane behavior — as the Utah Minutemen already have — as the same old liberal, pro-amnesty mush. But red-state Utah is nobody’s idea of an open-borders fantasyland. The architects of the compact are conservative Republicans who have simply decided not to toe the simplistic party line.

This page has always insisted that reform can be — must be — pro-immigrant, pro-business, pro-family, pro-law-enforcement, all at the same time. These values are complementary. Law enforcement is strengthened by bolstering immigrants’ rights. Assimilation is more American than mass expulsion. It is also cheaper: a new study by the liberal Center for American Progress calculated that Arizona had lost hundreds of millions of dollars in convention and other business, thanks to the notoriety from its immigration crackdown.

Deseret News

Published: Monday, Dec. 6, 2010 11:16 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — The New York Times’ gushing support of the Utah Compact on Sunday may win the state public relations points with the nation, but most agree it’s unlikely to affect the state’s immigration discussion.

In its editorial the New York Times pointed to Utah as a place where “people of good sense and good will” have banded together to call for an end to “government by rage.” It goes on to praise the Utah Compact, a policy document designed to guide the state’s immigration debate toward civility, as a “clear expression of good sense and sanity.” It condemns Arizona-style immigration law enforcement as “xenophobic” and radical.

Such a pat on the back from one of the “most influential papers in the world” may help Utah’s image, said Kirk Jowers, director of the Hinckley institute of Politics at the University of Utah.

“Utah rightly or wrongly is maligned and misunderstood nationally and internationally,” said Jowers. “The positive impact of this editorial on Utah business, tourism and education cannot be underestimated. It is very important and very positive.”

States have a certain “caricature” that impacts their ability to attract tourists and businesses, Jowers said. Arizona, which has garnered a lot of national scrutiny for its tough stance on immigration enforcement, has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in business because of too much negative attention, according to a recent study by the Center for American Progress.

“Reading an editorial like this one will make people reexamine their views of Utah,” Jowers said.

Within the state, however, Jowers said he doubts the editorial will have much impact on how the immigration debate plays out.

“It will be used for and against legislation but probably ultimately will not change any votes,” he said.

Those who support Orem Republican Rep. Stephen Sandstrom’s proposed immigration legislation, which closely mirrors Arizona’s controversial law, agreed.

“I don’t think the New York Times has any influence over the people of Utah,” said Sandstrom. Rep. Curtis Oda, R-Clearfield, added that the “extreme” liberal newspaper “doesn’t represent a lot of the same values we do in Utah.”

Sandstrom said he had “no problem” with the Times endorsing the Utah Compact, which champions keeping families intact and recognizing immigrant contributions to the economy, because he personally supports the principles outlined in the document — at least when it comes to dealing with legal immigrants. When people come to the country illegally, they should be prepared to pay the consequences, he said.

Sandstrom took offense at the New York Times description of immigration law enforcement as a means to “uproot and terrorize unwanted immigrants.”

“To say that simply enforcing the law is radical and terrorizes people, boy, I think that’s totally repugnant,” he said. “What are we supposed to do, throw our hands in the air and let people make a mockery of our laws?”

Supporters of the Utah Compact agreed that the New York Times endorsement will likely have little political influence in Utah.

“The average person might say, ‘wow,’ but Utah’s legislators aren’t making their decisions based on the opinions of liberal East coast papers,” said Paul Mero, president of the Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank that helped to draft the Utah Compact.

An editorial in the far away New York Times carries much more credibility than anything that comes out of the mouth of the Sutherland Institute. The only negative thing that can be said about the Utah Compact is that the Sutherland Institute has somehow attached its name to it while philosophically being absolutely opposed to cooperation with anything liberal (sensible).

The Utah Compact is a group of responsible Utah citizens trying to thwart the radical immigration policies proposed by the ultra right wing conservatives, i.e. the Sutherland Institute.

The Sutherland Institute, always looking for ways to link itself to the LDS Church, caved on radicalized immigration enforcement when it discovered that the church was not in that camp. The Sutherland Institute thrives on the appearance of church approval.

Nonetheless, supporters were thrilled by the editorial.

“Any day you get a glowing review from one of the most influential publications in the world, is a good day,” said Marty Carpenter, spokesman for the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce, which also helped to draft the compact.

Dee Rowland, government liaison for the Catholic Diocese, which supports the Compact, called the editorial a “great tribute to the state of Utah.”

“Our state was held up as a model for a civil attitude on immigration issues,” she said. “We couldn’t possibly be presented in a more positive light. The tourist bureau and chamber of commerce couldn’t buy such good publicity.”

The Utah Compact deserves the nation’s attention, said Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake City, because “It’s feasible. It makes sense.”

Though he acknowledged that the New York Times stamp of approval was unlikely to “give us a lot of help here in Utah,” Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said he hoped it would inspire others in the nation to take a more compassionate approach to immigration reform. More than 20 states have filed law-enforcement focused immigration bills since Arizona passed its law.

“If Utah can be a model for other states who want to do something different than what Arizona is doing, then I’m very pleased,” Shurtleff said. “I really believe we have a better way of approaching this problem than just rounding them up and shipping them out. There’s a comprehensive, reasoned, compassionate way we can deal with this issue.”

The Utah Compact was authored by a group of political, business, religious and law-enforcement leaders to guide the state’s immigration discussion. So far it has gathered about 2,500 signatures. Among the signers are the mayors of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, former Governor Olene Walker and former U.S. Senator Jake Garn. To get more information about the compact, visit utahcompact.com.

e-mail: estuart@desnews.com

© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

By Lois M. Collins

Deseret News

Published: Monday, Nov. 29, 2010 11:02 p.m. MST

This is the final part of a Deseret News series that examines how Utahns are empowering our poor in three areas: homelessness, education and health care.

SALT LAKE — It’s 8 a.m. on a freezing-cold Sunday beneath the 500 South viaduct. Under the shelter of the overpass, a line of volunteers, their breaths clearly visible in the cold air, are serving breakfast on cardboard plates to the homeless.

But not everyone’s focused on the tempting aroma of the hot buttermilk pancakes and meaty gravy that’s being scooped over mashed potatoes. Bob, a tall, skinny man in a tattered gray coat, is searching for the nurse who sometimes shows up. He’s got a bad rash, he says, pushing up his sleeve to show a volunteer the angry red bumps from his wrist to his elbow. Sometimes the nurse gives him ointment that helps.

A few minutes later, a harried mom pushing an overstuffed stroller with a toddler sitting beside what looks like a trash bag full of clothes makes the same request. Did the nurse come?

Not today.

When you’re poor and uninsured or underinsured, health care can be a vexing problem.

Last year in Utah there were 387,100 people without insurance, including 100,500 children, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of those, 71 percent were in families with at least one full-time worker. Another 12 percent were in families where someone worked part-time. Most of the uninsured are poor.

And even when there’s help, it may not be complete. While 10 percent of the state’s population has Medicaid, there are gaps in what it covers. Many low-income folks don’t qualify for Medicaid or for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Barring the ability to get health insurance through an employer or afford it on their own, they slip through some good-sized cracks when it comes to accessing medical care.

It’s particularly true for poor working-age men and women, many of whom work for wages low enough they can’t rise above the federal poverty guidelines. They compound the problem by putting off going to a doctor or getting screenings because they can’t afford it. Some only go when they have more advanced and costly medical needs. Or they may use emergency rooms, which are a great deal more expensive than nearly any other option, as an entry point into the health care system. Some go there because the medical problem becomes a crisis, while others may not know where else to go. And if they cannot afford to pay for the care, some of the cost gets passed on to the paying customers in the form of higher costs.

Community answers

That ER utilization is one reason government agencies and health care providers support or offer health fairs and clinics in the community, from the Fourth Street Clinic to serve the homeless to the network of Community Health Centers like Midtown in Ogden and Central City in Salt Lake. A powerful line of care for the poor, they leverage local and federal money, as well as donations, and provide service based on a patient’s ability to pay, using a sliding fee. But clinics can’t just operate on fumes and good wishes. They must be what Intermountain Healthcare’s community clinics director Terry Foust calls “financially viable” if they’re to stay open. They can’t just see patients who need free service, he said. There are real costs associated with stitching arms and treating disease.

School might seem a funny place to establish a medical home, but that has proven to be an effective and accessible choice for low-income inner-city residents in the neighborhoods around Rose Park and Lincoln elementary schools, where Intermountain Healthcare has done just that. A string of community and school-based clinics stretches from Logan to St. George, said Foust. There’s a clinic in Dixon Middle School in Provo and they’ve teamed up with a community health clinic in Ogden to provide services at James Madison Elementary, which also hosts a major community-wide health screening event over a couple of days each year. In most cases, charges are based on income level.

A clinic in an alternative high school in St. George focuses on at-risk teens. The school is also home to an early Head Start program for the children of the teen parents. Such tools are, along with the education components, key to the high rate of graduation and college placement the school enjoys despite the challenges the students face.

But with numerous efforts to make care accessible and affordable for the poor, Foust said, people still fall through the cracks. Intermountain runs seven clinics statewide for low-income, homeless and uninsured patients and provides financial and volunteer support to independent medical clinics for the uninsured and medically under-served. Between them, they support a quarter-million patient visits. “We run about 92 percent uninsured. It used to be between 72 and 78 percent that had no other payment source.”

The clinics focus on primary health care, flu and chronic conditions like diabetes, he said. The big change has been who needs the low- or no-cost care. “We’re seeing patients who had insurance who lost a job, the under-employed and those who are working for quite a bit less. Their income has changed. And there’s another group. In an attempt to not cut anyone’s job, some employers cut back hours, leading to a loss of benefits. We see a lot of those.”

The medical needs have become more complex, too, he said. It’s more apt to be uncontrolled diabetes than a sort throat.

Monday, Derrick Joseph, 11, and Tyler Pollock, 12, waited patiently in the butterfly-themed waiting area of the Main Street Clinic, run by Salt Lake Valley Health Department, to get immunization shots that would let them go to school. They didn’t know each other, but represent the spectrum local health department clinics serve: Troy Pollock said his son Tyler has good insurance. Vini Joseph said her son, Derrick, has no insurance at all yet. The boys agreed, though, that the shots didn’t hurt much.

Besides providing low-cost or free vaccinations for children, public health clinics on a sliding scale also do prenatal care, women’s cancer screening, testing for sexually-transmitted diseases and more.

United Way in Utah County operates a program that provides mentors to first-time moms.

“A calling”

With so many needs, it’s fortunate that health care and charity have been intertwined in Utah since Mormon pioneers entered the valley. In 1868, Brigham Young, leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called Eliza R. Snow to help organize Relief Societies. President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency of the LDS Church, recently recounted the history in a talk: “Under the leadership of women of great vision and capacity, the Relief Society took the lead in starting charitable services which did not exist on the frontier for those in need. They created a small hospital. They supported women in going to the East to get medical training to staff it. That was the beginning of one of the great hospital systems in the United States.”

He’s referring to the creation of LDS Hospital and Primary Children’s Medical Center, later spun off by the LDS Church into Intermountain Healthcare, which the church gave to the community several decades ago when the church stopped providing direct care, although it continues to contribute to health care projects.

“You pass the heritage along as you help others receive the gift of charity in their hearts,” Eyring said. “They will then be able to pass it to others. The history of Relief Society is recorded in words and numbers, but the heritage is passed heart to heart.”

Nearly a century and a half after Snow was called to organize LDS women, volunteers of all faiths play an important role in the patchwork of care. Unless they’re actually medical providers, they can’t provide direct care, but they help with related tasks like setting up or registering patients. “If you call any clinic number, most of us can explain what our volunteer needs are. And we often know what the others need,” Foust said.

Volunteers are front and center in Provo, which solved part of its uninsured problem with the twice-a-week Volunteer Care Clinic that deals with acute medical problems that require just one to three visits. Overhead is slight because it’s open Tuesday and Thursday nights in space normally used by a daytime clinic. Its supplies are basic, like paper towels and over-the-counter drugs. There are no prescription drugs.

But while cost is low, how do you put a price tag on the gift of time and skills by doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, students, translators and greeters who just show up because they’re needed? What’s the going rate for a pair of strong arms to brace you when you’re injured or ill and uninsured?

The clinic shares space with Mountainlands Clinic, a community health care clinic that offers acute and chronic care, as well as some dental. The building also houses Community Health Connect.

The doors to the Volunteer Care Clinic open at 5 p.m. and within an hour there are 40 to 45 people filling out paperwork and waiting for help. Patients must have an income less than 150 percent of poverty — currently $33,075 for a family of four — and no access to Medicaid or Medicare. For some, the wait will be several hours, said Stuart Collyer, co-director, a volunteer who spent 32 years as a Department of Veterans Affairs administrator and now co-directs the center with his wife, Cindy. The waiting rooms are large, with a place where children can draw or watch a video. The clinic is also exploring ways to fill the space and time by teaching families about screenings and preventive health practices, perhaps using some of the student nurse volunteers, he said.

The LDS Church provided some initial money and Collyer can call for help from LDS congregations in Provo if more volunteers are needed on a given night. United Way pays for the over-the-counter drugs that are given to the patients.

Intermountain Healthcare provides needed MRIs and ultrasounds or similar tests as needed. Many of the support volunteers, who are mostly pre-med and pre-nursing students who want experience helping real people, come from BYU Service Learning Center. Some volunteers are trained to take vital signs; others help with registration and other paperwork.

Davis County has a similar clinic. In both cases, the volunteer efforts are complemented by the logistical and in-kind support of organizations.

“Rather than expect the state or federal government to solve all the problems, they pulled together and started this. It’s a small group of people that get served, but it’s a gap that gets taken care of,” said Collyer. “I think ultimately, significant health care problems in this country are going to be solved partially like this. For me, it’s a twice-a-week reminder that there are really very giving people who, once they know there’s a need, are willing to help. And it’s a strong indication of how we can resolve issues in our community.”

Student aid

BYU nursing students “participate pretty vigorously” at the Volunteer Care Clinic, said dean of the College of Nursing Beth Cole. They also work with community health clinics and pubic health agencies on projects like flu shot campaigns.

The program’s efforts stretch well beyond campus. Cole said nursing students develop newborn kits they take to hospitals and shelters to new mothers. They screen for high blood pressure and diabetes at health fairs. They provide information about diet and nutrition, exercise and more. And nursing students will help those without resources find them.

The same is true of all the programs that teach and equip young medical practitioners, from physician’s assistants to physical therapists, clear across the state.

One of the biggest challenges for the poor and uninsured is getting the medicine they need.

“It’s heartbreaking when you diagnose somebody with something and they need expensive medication and can’t get it,” said Foust, who suggests that donating money to a voucher fund for such cases is a great way to help. Voucher programs also need volunteers to help patients fill out applications for drug company pharmacy assistance programs. At Lincoln Elementary’s clinic in Provo, for example, they’ve processed applications for more than $240,000 in high-cost medications. When a doctor prescribes a medication that a patient will likely have trouble affording, that patient can apply for some relief from the drug company. Drug company programs commonly give income-qualified patients a 90-day supply of a medication for free.

The ability to buy many common generic medications for $4 at various pharmacies has been a boon, as well. The Information and Referral line at 211, which is run by the Utah Food Bank, is a good place for people to start if they don’t know where to get help with prescription costs or health care access.

The Maliheh Free Clinic in South Salt Lake also relies on the community. Volunteer health care providers staff the clinic, which was started by and still receives support from the Semnani Foundation. Community donations help keep ongoing care flowing.

There’s a compelling link between health issues and homelessness, the one often leading to the others, experts say. Families and individuals teetering on the brink of financial meltdown can be pushed over by costly medical issues. And those without homes and resources are, similarly, more vulnerable to dire medical conditions because of a lack of care.

The VA Hospital makes an extensive effort to help homeless veterans with their health care needs, said Al Hernandez, homeless coordinator. They have residential treatment programs for homeless veterans and provide transitional housing and treatment for up to two years for mental health or substance abuse issues. They also have shorter-term residential treatment programs like the Ark of Eagle Mountain.

Hernandez said every housing program the VA Hospital is involved with has a treatment/case management component. Veterans go to the VA clinics or hospital for other types of care, too.

And the volunteers who help those seeking care? Most of them are veterans, too, he said.

e-mail: lois@desnews.com

© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: November 20, 2010 01:01AM

Utah Republicans, like their counterparts throughout the nation, had a stellar election year in 2010, but the conservative armada failed to slay one of its most coveted targets — Utah State School Board member Kim Burningham.

The fact that the right-wing arm of the Republican Party spent so much time and resources trying to defeat a school board member — who used to be a Republican legislator — in a nonpartisan race says much about the priorities and the agenda of that cabal. The fact that all its might could not defeat the incumbent board member speaks to the disconnect between that conservative wing and rank-and-file Republicans when it comes to education issues.

Burningham has been a target of the Republican Party power base since, as school board chairman, he opposed the Legislature’s attempt to give tax-credit vouchers to parents who enroll their children in private schools. He supported the citizens referendum that repealed that legislation in 2007.

But there are other reasons not related to education that made the GOP want Burningham’s scalp.

He is hated by the right wing in the Legislature for his leadership role in Utahns for Ethical Government, which is attempting to put an initiative on the ballot to create an independent ethics commission. To counter that effort, the Legislature passed its own ethics reform legislation that voters approved Nov. 2 as a constitutional amendment.

And he supported an initiative to take the authority to create legislative and congressional districts out of the hands of the Legislature.

Tea Party Republicans revile Democrats, but they reserve their most vitriolic words for what they call RINOs (Republicans In Name Only.) They consider centrist Republican Kim Burningham to be a RINO, but even worse, he is against vouchers, in favor of ethics, and wants fair boundaries to determine our congressional districts. Fairness is Burningham’s greatest quality—and the Tea Party wants none of that.

A tip of the hat to Kim Burningham and all his friends in Davis County that stood for fairness and ethics.

Sadly, he is one of the few who has survived the purging of centrist Republicans. The Republican Party in Utah has always been conservative, but now it is dangerously extreme.

The very foundations of good government are in jeopardy.

Burningham represents Bountiful’s District 5 on the school board, and his opponent, Nicole Toomey Davis, benefited from the vast resources of the Republican Party and its right-wing auxiliaries such as the Eagle Forum and Parents for Choice in Education.

He earlier survived an attempt by that right-wing coalition to keep him from even appearing on the ballot through the state’s flawed nominating process.

Then, shortly before the election, a memo went out to Republican legislative chairs in Davis County ordering them to distribute a meet-the-candidate invitation to all the precinct chairs with Davis as the guest of honor.

The call to battle was sent by Dalane England, vice president of the Utah Eagle Forum. She also hosted the event at her home.

Davis also was a guest on the Saturday morning Red Meat Radio program on K-TALK. The show’s conservative co-hosts, Sen. Howard Stephenson and Rep. Greg Hughes, both R-Draper, lavished praise on her and heaped vitriol on the despised Burningham.

Davis also was the beneficiary of an e-mail sent to Davis County constituents by Sen. Dan Liljenquist, R-Bountiful, urging them to vote for the challenger against Burningham. Because the e-mail was sent just two days before the election and Liljenquist was actively campaigning among his Republican Senate colleagues to replace Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, as Senate president, the last-minute endorsement was seen by some as an attempt by Liljenquist to endear himself to the GOP’s right wing.

Davis’ campaign received $1,000 from House Speaker David Clark, $500 from Arena Communications, run by long-time Republican Party operative Peter Valcarce, and $2,500 from the Utah Tech PAC, whose board members include former Republican legislator and Eagle Forum darling Jeff Alexander and former GOP State Chairman Stan Lockhart.

Despite all that, Burningham won with nearly 60 percent of the vote in a county that elected Republicans by a wide margin in every partisan race. The voters, just as they did in the voucher referendum three years ago, rejected their own party’s position on education, choosing instead to stick with those, like Burningham, who argue for ways to increase revenues to bolster public education.

Email Paul Rolly at prolly@sltrib.com

I just finished Ron Chernow’s acclaimed Washington: A Life. I was struck how George Washington was consistently for a strong national government to solve national problems.

Washington was for a national debt when needed, and he definitely believed in national intervention to solve economic problems.

He had no sympathy for those who wanted to put states’ rights before the federal government.

Those who claim that the Founding Fathers didn’t intend to create a strong, pre-eminent federal government conveniently ignore the father of our country, who only led the Constitutional Convention and ran for president to create a strong national government.

Given Washington’s deference to elected legislatures as general and as president, amazingly, his opponents, those who championed states’ rights — Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, whose writings gave justification to the South in the Civil War — labeled Washington as a “monarchist.” Incredible.

You can’t read Chernow’s book without seeing contemporary parallels. Only today those who champion a national government solving national problems like health care, climate change and regulation of Wall Street aren’t called monarchists, they’re smeared as socialists, anti-Constitution and worse.

But just as before, it’s the anti-government name-callers who are leading the nation down a path of destruction.

Billy C. Hanson

Park City

© 2010 The Salt Lake Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: November 15, 2010 09:35AM

Ten years from now the senior year of high school could serve as a freshman year in college. Need-based aid might be more widely available. Attendance could be required at certain “gateway” college courses, currently plagued with failure rates approaching 40 percent. And taxing districts might support two-year instruction.

Those are among ideas the state Board of Regents is floating in its HighEd 2020 Plan, assembled in recent months in response to Gov. Gary Herbert’s instructions to better align higher education with Utah’s economic needs. The foremost goal is to increase the portion of the state’s adult population with college degrees from 39 percent to at least 55 percent, and another 11 percent with some kind of post-secondary certification.

The Board of Regents has set forth an agenda based on what we as a state need in higher education, but it will be up to the legislature and the governor to figure out a way to provide the finances to make the plan succeed.

With a right-wing, anti-government legislature don’t count on it. In fact, you can count on a significant decline in education at all levels.  The legislature is not only anti-government, but anti-science as well, and while the governor may have good intentions he has little control over the radicals on the right that have clear dominance.

The Republican Party in Utah is happy with Utah being a backward southern state in the west. We have been moving in that direction for quite sometime.

Finally the LDS Church is becoming aware of the problem that it has helped create as indicated by its aggressive effort to change the direction of immigration policy that was headed down an extremist right-wing direction.

The encouragement by the church of a one-party state has clearly moved Utah out of the mainstream and into backwater country.

“That’s not a goal driven by an educational need. That’s a goal driven by a business need. The best research in the country says we are going to need the eighth-most educated work force by 2020,” Regents Chairman David Jordan said. “If we are going to be prepared for the knowledge-based economy of the future, we need to increase the output of higher education. We have to attract both more students to the system and have to increase our completion percentage.”

Some 66 percent of jobs will soon require some type of post-secondary certification, according to a study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

“We have a large gap to fill,” Commissioner of Higher Education William Sederburg warned at recent Regents meeting.

To achieve the goals spelled out in the draft plan, which will be finalized at the Regents’ Dec. 9 meeting, Utah’s system of higher education has to enlarge its “pipeline” of students and patch its many “leaks.”

That means better preparing high school students for college; getting more students, especially women, enrolled; and ensuring they stay through graduation. College enrollments will need to grow by 109,000 by 2020, a 66 percent increase.

Fewer than half of those additional students could be accommodated on Utah campuses under current conditions, so that kind of growth will require the equivalent capacity of two more Utah Valley University campuses, according to the Regents’ draft plan.

Officials say Utah must send many more of its high school graduates directly to college. Now, only 44 percent enroll within a year of graduation. Enrollment among the state’s 19-year-olds has actually dropped 14 percent since the early 1990s, versus a nationwide increase of 8 percent.

“If you have fewer high school graduates going to college, you’re going to produce less college graduates,” Jordan said. “As the economy of Utah transforms itself, people who don’t have the skills won’t be prepared for the work force of the future.”

The Regents plan hopes to build a “college-going culture,” but that could require hiring hundreds of counselors to help middle and high schoolers prepare themselves academically and financially for college. Counselors are particularly important for low-income and minority students, whose parents are less likely to have college experience.

The state currently employs one counselor per 772 students, about one-third the staffing level recommended by the National College Board.

Sederburg said gains could be made by restructuring concurrent enrollment to better align with students’ college aspirations. Thousands of high school students earn college credit through this program, but many find later that the credits do not advance them toward a degree in their desired major.

Meanwhile, Utah can do a better job of graduating students once they get on campus. Some 370,000 Utah residents, or 28 percent of the adult population, completed some college without earning a degree.

Less than half of the state’s first-time, full-time freshman complete a bachelor’s degree within six years. For those seeking associate’s degrees, only 40 percent graduate within three years. UVU, destined to be Utah’s largest institution, has one of the nation’s worst graduation rates, chronically below 20 percent, according to federal data. Officials expect that will change as UVU settles into its new role as a “comprehensive regional university” and makes its commuter campus more amenable to student life.

Sederburg expects Utah’s regional campuses — UVU, Weber State University and Dixie State College — to preserve their two-year missions in “community college centers” within their campuses as they rapidly expand their four-year offerings.

Students fail to complete college because they are not well prepared academically, are poorly advised, short on financial aid, can’t transfer credit and can’t find courses that fit their schedules. Patching these leaks and accommodating the resulting influx of students, of course, would cost real money, which is scarce in state coffers.

“We don’t have to do this in one bite. This is a decade-long effort,” Jordan said. “You can’t just build more buildings to house all the students coming into the system. You have to make more efficient use of your existing brick and mortar infrastructure.”

Increased use of technology will play a part, but Jordan does not foresee entire curricula delivered online, but rather classroom experiences combined with Internet-delivered content.

bmaffly@sltrib.com

—

Board of Regents’ 2020 plan for higher education

To meet the state’s projected work force needs, the Utah Board of Regents wants to dramatically increase the number of degree-holding Utahns to at least 55 percent of the adult population. That would result in an enrollment gain of 109,000 during the next decade. Meeting the Regents’ goals may require these steps:

Expanding need-based financial aid.

Imposing property taxes earmarked for two-year education.

Improving student advising.

Distributing state funds to schools according to their missions, rather than enrollment.

Overhauling remedial education and dual-enrollment programs.

To see a summary of the draft plan and weigh in on its proposals, go to www.higheredutah2020.org.