legislative session Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Makes me wanna cry

I hear all of this talk about how children are our future. We need to do this and that for our children. Then we cut funding to programs that have been proven to benefit children. This is why I’m balding. I’m pulling my hair out.

From NYT:

What is a humdrum routine for millions of students around the country — riding to and from school on a yellow bus — has become a thing of the past for Aubrey. Faced with a budget shortfall, the Hutto Independent School District stopped providing bus service to him and other students who live within a two-mile walk of a campus. The move saved the district $25,000.

Aubrey, a sophomore at Hutto High School, now spends 20 minutes walking one mile to school in the morning and another 20 minutes on the return trip in the afternoon.

“I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m not going to have a bus?’ ” he said. “I’ve walked home one time when it was raining. I didn’t like it at all. I was soaked.”

For Hutto and the 1,264 other public school districts in Texas, this has been the year of doing without. Texas lawmakers cut public education financing by roughly $5.4 billion to balance the state’s two-year budget during the last legislative session, with the cuts taking effect this school year and next.

The budget reductions that districts large and small have had to make have transformed school life in a host of ways — increasing class sizes, reducing services and supplies and thinning the ranks of teachers, custodians, librarians and others, school administrators said.

Like chief executives of struggling corporations, superintendents have been cutting back on everything from paper to nurses and have had to become increasingly creative about generating revenue. They are selling advertising space on the sides of buses and on district Web sites, scaling back summer school, charging parents if their children take part in athletics or cheerleading and adding periods in the school day so fewer teachers can accommodate more students.

I would just like to personally thank Governor Perry and the Texas legislature for screwing up the Texas school system even more than George W. Bush.

By ecthompsonmd|2013-11-03T17:13:09-04:00April 10th, 2012|Education|1 Comment

Listening to the American people

I love this. Listen to Congressman Schock as he starts out by qualifying who he needs to listen to.

From TP:

One of the Republican Party’s main electoral themes was that it was going to “listen to the American people,” as its “America Speaking Out” campaign claimed to do. In an op-ed published following the election, the incoming Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), exclaimed that “current representatives have an obligation to listen to the American people” during the “lame duck” legislative session.

Last night, Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) was asked about listening to the American people during an appearance on CNN’s The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer informed the congressman about a “brand new poll” from CNN that surveyed Americans about the Bush tax cuts. Blitzer explained that the poll found that only 35 percent of Americans want to extend the tax cuts across the board, including for the wealthiest Americans. Meanwhile, 49 percent of Americans want to extend the tax cuts just for Americans who make less than $250,000, and 15 percent want to extend them for no one. Having explained the poll results, Blitzer asked “So only a third according to this poll want all the tax rates to continue as is. You’re not listening to the American people right?”

Schock responded by saying he can only speak for the people in his district. He said “the message we heard in this election was we don’t want anyone’s taxes going up in a down economy.” Blitzer then adopted a mocking tone and asked, “And when you said do you want millionaires and billionaires to continue get the same tax rate, they said yes please make sure they get only 36 percent federal income tax rate as opposed to 39.6 percent?” Schock responded by saying that the president made that argument and that the American people “reject” it:

By ecthompsonmd|2013-10-27T20:25:15-04:00November 18th, 2010|Party Politics, Taxes|Comments Off

One of the Dumbest Moves in a VERY Long Time – Gov. Sanford (Update)

He was where? Seriously? This may be the dumbest move in the last five years. I can’t think of anything dumber off the top of my head.

~~I’m currently looking for video of Sanford’s news conference.~~ (I found it.) Although Sanford might not be the dumbest man alive, he is clearly in the running for the award. So if I don’t show up for work for five days… is that okay? If I don’t call or email to tell folks where I BE at, is that cool? All I have to do is give some tearful apology and I still have my job?

From the Daily Kos: From The (Columbia, SC) State:

Gov. Mark Sanford arrived in the Hartsville-Jackson International Airport Wednesday morning, having wrapped up a seven-day visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, he said. Sanford said he had not been hiking along the Appalachian Trail, as his staff said in a Tuesday statement to the media. Sanford’s whereabouts had been unknown since Thursday, and the mystery surrounding his absence fueled speculation about where he had been and who’s in charge in his absence. His emergence Wednesday ended the mystery. Sanford, in an exclusive interview with The State Media Company, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money. Sanford said he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail, an activity he said he has enjoyed since he was a high school student. “But I said ‘no’ I wanted to do something exotic,” Sanford said “… It’s a great city.”

This episode is unbecoming of a public leader.

OK, I get needing some R&R. I even understand wanting to go to Buenos Aires: I hear it’s a great city and has a ton of American ex-pats living there. But the governor of a state cannot just go incommunicado, have a staff sending out BS reports of whereabouts, and not let anyone know about it. Moreover, governors are potential targets for hostile entities abroad. Traveling without security in such an instance is an unnecessary risk.

More from The State:

Sanford said he left Thursday night from the Columbia Metropolitan airport. Media reports said a SLED SUV the governor drove that night was spotted in the airport’s parking lot. Sanford said he decided not to return via the Columbia airport to avoid the media. The State Media Company was the only media who greeted Sanford Wednesday morning. “I don’t know how this thing got blown out of proportion,” Sanford said. Sanford said he has taken adventure trips for years to unwind.

Emphasis added. Sanford’s bemusement reminds me of when Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) explained his inaction on the Mark Foley scandal by saying he took the matter to his “supervisor,” in that case, Denny Hastert. Jon Stewart mockingly remarked, “Tom Reynolds: United States Congressman, or Assistant Manager at Applebees?”

Update from the State:

“The bottom line is this: I have been unfaithful to my wife,” the two-term governor said before a mass of press in the State House outside the governor’s office. “Let me apologize to my wife Jenny and my four boys … for letting them down.”

Asked directly if he and first lady Jenny Sanford are separated, Sanford said: “I don’t know how you want to define that. I’m here and she’s there. I guess in a formal sense we are not.”

Sanford acknowledged he misled his staff earlier this week when he lead them to believe he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Sanford said he would resign as chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association — a platform he has used over the past few months to broadcast his opposition to President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package and fueling speculation that Sanford was considering a 2012 run for president.

By ecthompsonmd|2009-06-24T12:38:47-04:00June 24th, 2009|Domestic Issues, Economy|Comments Off