By MARSHA MERCER
Every 10 years since 1790, the federal government has counted Americans, and every 10 years some of us wail that the census is a new and nefarious plot to invade our privacy.
And so, every 10 years the government seeks creative ways to sell us on filling out a census form.
The 2010 Census is the most accommodating and, at $14.7 billion over 10 years, the most expensive ever. Its questionnaire is one of the shortest in history.
Now, after its TV ads during the Super Bowl and the Olympics, the census hopes to ride the popularity of NASCAR. This Sunday, Greg Biffle will drive the 2010 Census-sponsored No. 16 Ford Fusion at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. Next stop: the Martinsville (Va.) Speedway March 28.
The $1.2 million NASCAR sponsorship is part of a $300 million communications campaign aimed at prodding people to answer 10 inoffensive questions, a task that takes about 10 minutes, and then mail in the questionnaire.
Of the $300 million budget for communications, $140.4 million will go to paid media advertising, up from $110 million 10 years ago. This is stunningly costly outreach at a time of soaring federal budget deficits.
For some perspective, however, consider that Microsoft spent $300 million on a 2008 ad campaign to counter Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads. And $140.4 million is how much the tobacco industry spends marketing in West Virginia in one year, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Still, can spending so much on census ads possibly be worth it? We won’t know until all the data are in, but it appears that people are getting the message.
In 2000, the census participation rate was about 72 percent, an increase from the mid-60 range.
Today, almost everybody knows about the census, almost nine in 10 people say the census is very or somewhat important to the country and that they plan to send in the form, according to a survey the Pew Research Center released Tuesday.
The proportion of people saying they’ll definitely participate has increased 12 points since January, Pew reported. That’s good news because the Census Bureau says each 1 percent rise in household participation saves $85 million.
Those who want to resist the census should remember that it's going to count you -- or keep spending money trying. After mailing each household an announcement letter, a census form and a reminder postcard, the census eventually will send enumerators to the homes of non-respondents. This personal service cost about $57 per visit in 2000 and could cost $72 per visit in 2010.
No electronic census reporting is yet available because the Census Bureau hasn’t worked out the technology, which is odd. We file taxes and bank electronically, and people eagerly spill their innermost secrets online.
Even in our tell-all society, though, when the government asks once a decade who lives in the house, it goes against the grain. Among those who threaten to boycott the 2010 Census are tea party activists, Libertarians, Hispanic groups and even a few outliers in Congress. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., declared last year she wouldn’t fill out a form, but she changed her mind. Bachmann now supports a House resolution urging participation.
Some Hispanic groups fear that undocumented residents could be identified, but the census can’t ask – there’s no question about immigration status -- and can’t tell. Under federal law, the census cannot share any information – not names, addresses or GPS coordinates, phone numbers, anything – with anyone. This includes the FBI, CIA, IRS and law enforcement. Census employees take an oath for life to protect privacy.
The main function of the census is to reapportion members of the House of Representatives. It also determines how to allocate $400 billion in federal funds annually. Ads stress sending in the forms as a way of bringing back money for hospitals, schools, bridges and tunnels and other goodies.
Self-interest isn’t the only motivator, of course. Eight in 10 people told Pew participating in the census was a civic responsibility, although the sentiment was far stronger among older people. The decennial census is required by the Constitution.
My guess is most people would participate without Greg Biffle and his No. 16 Ford Fusion. I hope NASCAR gets others on track.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
On Obama, the grumpy chief justice and cake -- March 11, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
First, President Barack Obama scolded the Supreme Court in his State of the Union Address. Then, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that the annual address has “degenerated into a political pep rally,” and he might stop attending.
Sounds like it’s time for another “beer summit” at the White House.
Last summer, Obama invited a black Harvard historian and a white Boston police officer to talk over glasses of Sam Adams and Blue Moon. Maybe the president should invite Roberts to the White House – but the refreshment of choice could be birthday cake.
Yes, birthday cake. Overlooked in the news coverage of Roberts’ remarks is a personal detail that may help explain his ruffled feathers. Obama’s State of the Union address took place on Jan. 27. That was John Roberts’ birthday. He turned 55.
It’s not hard to imagine the chief justice feeling grumpy as he put on his black robes that Wednesday night. The State of the Union gives the president an hour or so in prime time to pitch his legislative goals before a joint session. Members of Congress turn it into partisan theatre with their high-spirited whoops, cheers and jeers. Front and center throughout are the Supreme Court justices, sitting impassively.
Justices like to think of themselves and the court as apolitical. That’s a fiction, of course, but it’s their fiction. Being a justice must be the best job in government. It’s a lifetime appointment, and they answer to no one. There are no TV cameras in the courtroom, so most Americans don’t know what justices do or even what they look like. Occasionally, a high-profile case grabs people’s attention, but the justices remain distant
Roberts may have thought he had better ways to spend his birthday than making a cameo walk-on appearance on the undignified political stage.
As he later described it, the scene was uncomfortable even before Obama said of the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, “With all due deference to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.”
At that, Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and seemed to say, “not true.” The chief justice and the four other justices just sat.
On Tuesday, Roberts was at the University of Alabama law school in Tuscaloosa when someone asked during a Q&A whether the State of the Union address was the “proper venue” for the president to chide the court.
Roberts said anyone can criticize the court at any time and “some people have an obligation to criticize what we do, given their office, if they think we’ve done something wrong.”
But, he went on, “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court – according to the requirements of protocol – has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”
Roberts didn’t pick the fight. He didn’t bring up the State of the Union in his lecture, and he declined to answer a question about the Citizens United case. Nor did he mention his birthday.
Chosen by President George W. Bush, Roberts joined the court two days after his 50th birthday in 2005. He attended Bush’s State of the Union addresses, none of which fell on Jan. 27.
People often say that turning 50 gives them the freedom to say no to things they don’t want to do.
“I’m not sure why we’re there,” Roberts said about the State of the Union speeches. Justice Antonin Scalia already ducks them.
Tradition is a large part of it. Aside from presidential inaugurations, the State of the Union is one of the rare times the three branches of government gather. The picture from the House chamber every year is a reassuring tableau of the unity of government, even if the event itself is more of a show.
The world would not end if Roberts and other justices stayed home. But it would be another sign that the government is fractured. Bring on the birthday cake summit.
(c) 2010 Marsha Mercer. All Rights Reserved.
First, President Barack Obama scolded the Supreme Court in his State of the Union Address. Then, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that the annual address has “degenerated into a political pep rally,” and he might stop attending.
Sounds like it’s time for another “beer summit” at the White House.
Last summer, Obama invited a black Harvard historian and a white Boston police officer to talk over glasses of Sam Adams and Blue Moon. Maybe the president should invite Roberts to the White House – but the refreshment of choice could be birthday cake.
Yes, birthday cake. Overlooked in the news coverage of Roberts’ remarks is a personal detail that may help explain his ruffled feathers. Obama’s State of the Union address took place on Jan. 27. That was John Roberts’ birthday. He turned 55.
It’s not hard to imagine the chief justice feeling grumpy as he put on his black robes that Wednesday night. The State of the Union gives the president an hour or so in prime time to pitch his legislative goals before a joint session. Members of Congress turn it into partisan theatre with their high-spirited whoops, cheers and jeers. Front and center throughout are the Supreme Court justices, sitting impassively.
Justices like to think of themselves and the court as apolitical. That’s a fiction, of course, but it’s their fiction. Being a justice must be the best job in government. It’s a lifetime appointment, and they answer to no one. There are no TV cameras in the courtroom, so most Americans don’t know what justices do or even what they look like. Occasionally, a high-profile case grabs people’s attention, but the justices remain distant
Roberts may have thought he had better ways to spend his birthday than making a cameo walk-on appearance on the undignified political stage.
As he later described it, the scene was uncomfortable even before Obama said of the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, “With all due deference to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.”
At that, Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and seemed to say, “not true.” The chief justice and the four other justices just sat.
On Tuesday, Roberts was at the University of Alabama law school in Tuscaloosa when someone asked during a Q&A whether the State of the Union address was the “proper venue” for the president to chide the court.
Roberts said anyone can criticize the court at any time and “some people have an obligation to criticize what we do, given their office, if they think we’ve done something wrong.”
But, he went on, “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court – according to the requirements of protocol – has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”
Roberts didn’t pick the fight. He didn’t bring up the State of the Union in his lecture, and he declined to answer a question about the Citizens United case. Nor did he mention his birthday.
Chosen by President George W. Bush, Roberts joined the court two days after his 50th birthday in 2005. He attended Bush’s State of the Union addresses, none of which fell on Jan. 27.
People often say that turning 50 gives them the freedom to say no to things they don’t want to do.
“I’m not sure why we’re there,” Roberts said about the State of the Union speeches. Justice Antonin Scalia already ducks them.
Tradition is a large part of it. Aside from presidential inaugurations, the State of the Union is one of the rare times the three branches of government gather. The picture from the House chamber every year is a reassuring tableau of the unity of government, even if the event itself is more of a show.
The world would not end if Roberts and other justices stayed home. But it would be another sign that the government is fractured. Bring on the birthday cake summit.
(c) 2010 Marsha Mercer. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Why no-mail Saturdays should be a dead letter--March 4, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
I’m surprised how easily people embraced the idea of no-mail Saturdays.
In news reports since the U.S. Postal Service announced March 2 it would try – again – to stop Saturday delivery, the consensus among customers around the country has been, sure, why not? Who needs it?
It’s as though everybody’s afraid of being called a Luddite. But wait a minute. This isn’t about the joys of e-mail.
Stopping Saturday delivery may be a good way for the Postal Service to save money, but it’s a bad civic idea. The last thing we need in the 21st century is a new disconnect between Americans and the federal government.
Since the Continental Congress named Benjamin Franklin postmaster general in 1775, the government has been helping us keep in touch. For many people, mail delivery is the only tangible sign the government is working for them.
OK, the Postal Service isn’t, strictly speaking, the federal government. It’s an independent agency of the executive branch. Its operating budget comes from the sale of stamps and other products, not tax dollars, but this is a quibble.
E-mail, while ubiquitous, is not yet universal. Snail mail remains the shared American experience. No matter how rich or poor people are or where they live, the government brings us our mail. Senior citizens especially rely on it.
It’s no news flash that many people don’t trust Washington. What may surprise is that they do trust the Postal Service. In surveys over the last five years, the Postal Service has ranked as the most trusted government agency for protecting personal information.
Unfortunately, the Postal Service has been losing money since 2007. The volume of mail processed has dropped 17 percent decline in three years. The Postal Service is projected to lose $238 billion over the next decade. It has cut costs by $43 billion since 2002, causing long lines and frustration at post offices.
The next proposal will ask Congress to approve cutting Saturday delivery for everybody, everywhere. Eliminating delivery on the lightest day would save $40 billion over 10 years, officials say. Besides workforce reductions, the Postal Service’s financial plan involves raising stamp prices and mailing fees and closing more post offices.
For some rural communities, though, the post office is the federal government’s stamp of approval. When the post office closes, the Zip code goes, and the community’s identity is lost.
Life’s hard, you say, so what’s new? This is a slippery slope. If we don’t need mail on Saturday, do we need it on Wednesday? Maybe we could do with delivery three days a week, or two.
When Congress began a national mail system in the early 1800s, mail was delivered seven days a week. That continued until 1912, when religious leaders complained, according to author Garry Wills. Until the early 1950s, postmen, as they all were then, delivered mail twice a day.
What will be up for discussion next – the quaint notion of free delivery to every address?
People who live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon get free mail service, same as people in a high-rise apartment building in New York. And yet, because some mail going into the canyon is perishable, the Postal Service keeps freezers to store packages at the Peach Springs, Ariz., post office.
Members of Congress have enough trouble with angry voters without taking on mail delivery issues. There are other ways for the Postal Service to save money besides lopping off letter carrier jobs in a recession.
Congress should first stop requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay retiree health benefits. That alone will cost the Postal Service $5 billion a year through 2016, the postmaster general says, and it’s something no other federal agency or business does.
Congress also needs to look at compensation at the top.
Postmaster General John E. Potter received 40 percent in pay raises between 2006 and 2008 for a total compensation package of more than $800,000, the Washington Times reported last year. That’s more than twice President Barack Obama’s salary of $400,000.
To be fair, if the Postal Service were a business, it would be the sixth largest in the country. We know what CEOs make.
But this is not any big business. This is our business. This is our mail.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
I’m surprised how easily people embraced the idea of no-mail Saturdays.
In news reports since the U.S. Postal Service announced March 2 it would try – again – to stop Saturday delivery, the consensus among customers around the country has been, sure, why not? Who needs it?
It’s as though everybody’s afraid of being called a Luddite. But wait a minute. This isn’t about the joys of e-mail.
Stopping Saturday delivery may be a good way for the Postal Service to save money, but it’s a bad civic idea. The last thing we need in the 21st century is a new disconnect between Americans and the federal government.
Since the Continental Congress named Benjamin Franklin postmaster general in 1775, the government has been helping us keep in touch. For many people, mail delivery is the only tangible sign the government is working for them.
OK, the Postal Service isn’t, strictly speaking, the federal government. It’s an independent agency of the executive branch. Its operating budget comes from the sale of stamps and other products, not tax dollars, but this is a quibble.
E-mail, while ubiquitous, is not yet universal. Snail mail remains the shared American experience. No matter how rich or poor people are or where they live, the government brings us our mail. Senior citizens especially rely on it.
It’s no news flash that many people don’t trust Washington. What may surprise is that they do trust the Postal Service. In surveys over the last five years, the Postal Service has ranked as the most trusted government agency for protecting personal information.
Unfortunately, the Postal Service has been losing money since 2007. The volume of mail processed has dropped 17 percent decline in three years. The Postal Service is projected to lose $238 billion over the next decade. It has cut costs by $43 billion since 2002, causing long lines and frustration at post offices.
The next proposal will ask Congress to approve cutting Saturday delivery for everybody, everywhere. Eliminating delivery on the lightest day would save $40 billion over 10 years, officials say. Besides workforce reductions, the Postal Service’s financial plan involves raising stamp prices and mailing fees and closing more post offices.
For some rural communities, though, the post office is the federal government’s stamp of approval. When the post office closes, the Zip code goes, and the community’s identity is lost.
Life’s hard, you say, so what’s new? This is a slippery slope. If we don’t need mail on Saturday, do we need it on Wednesday? Maybe we could do with delivery three days a week, or two.
When Congress began a national mail system in the early 1800s, mail was delivered seven days a week. That continued until 1912, when religious leaders complained, according to author Garry Wills. Until the early 1950s, postmen, as they all were then, delivered mail twice a day.
What will be up for discussion next – the quaint notion of free delivery to every address?
People who live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon get free mail service, same as people in a high-rise apartment building in New York. And yet, because some mail going into the canyon is perishable, the Postal Service keeps freezers to store packages at the Peach Springs, Ariz., post office.
Members of Congress have enough trouble with angry voters without taking on mail delivery issues. There are other ways for the Postal Service to save money besides lopping off letter carrier jobs in a recession.
Congress should first stop requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay retiree health benefits. That alone will cost the Postal Service $5 billion a year through 2016, the postmaster general says, and it’s something no other federal agency or business does.
Congress also needs to look at compensation at the top.
Postmaster General John E. Potter received 40 percent in pay raises between 2006 and 2008 for a total compensation package of more than $800,000, the Washington Times reported last year. That’s more than twice President Barack Obama’s salary of $400,000.
To be fair, if the Postal Service were a business, it would be the sixth largest in the country. We know what CEOs make.
But this is not any big business. This is our business. This is our mail.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Video games -- our Sputnik? -- Feb. 25, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
More than half a century ago, Americans looked up in shock as Sputnik rolled across the heavens.
The Soviets beat us into space in October 1957, and they brought the insult home weeks later by sending a mutt named Laika on Sputnik 2.
Americans were, in the words of Elvis Presley’s hit single that year, “All Shook Up.”
The Soviet satellite was a potent symbol that rallied Americans and gave us a shared purpose. We focused education on science and math, set our sights on the moon and roared into the space age.
Today, the Soviet Union is no more, and President Obama is steering away from space exploration. The United States risks falling behind China and other Asian nations in a science race.
The president has promised to double funding for the National Science Foundation during his term. His budget for fiscal 2011 proposes to end the moon- and Mars-bound Constellation rocket program. His budget shifts research priorities – redirecting some R&D money from military to civilian projects.
Explaining the new race for scientific and technological supremacy, Obama uses a story about his lunch last year with the president of South Korea.
Obama asked President Lee Myung-bak his biggest challenge in education. “And he said, ‘my biggest issue, my toughest fight, is that Korean parents are too demanding. They want their kids to learn English in first grade, and so I’ve had to ship in a whole bunch of foreign-speaking teachers to meet the demand,” Obama told governors at the White House this week.
Korean parents want their children learning math, science, foreign languages – everything -- as soon as possible, Obama said.
“So that’s what we’re up against. That’s what’s at stake. Nothing less than our primacy in the world.”
American eighth graders have sunk to 9th in the world in math and 11th in science. Obama has called for new reading and math standards, noting that under No Child Left Behind, some schools dropped math standards.
Telling the Korea story last December, he said, “Their kids aren’t spending a whole bunch of time playing video games or watching TV. They’re out there -- they’re working. They’re working in math, they’re working in science, they’re working in foreign languages. They are preparing themselves to compete.”
A new report by the National Science Board, the governing board of the National Science Foundation, lays out the science race in facts and figures.
“Science and Engineering Indicators 2010” compares worldwide research and development spending, trends in education and workforce development and concludes that U.S. dominance in science and engineering has eroded significantly in recent years because of a science boom in Asia, particularly China.
The NSF report comes out every two years and is used to shape federal policy. Still, it’s easy to be blasé about reports. We’ve heard for decades that the United States is losing its technological edge, that our educational system is broken, that kids need to work harder and study more.
In the 1980s, the threat was the economic powerhouse of Japan, whose auto companies were eating Detroit’s lunch. Some people suggested it might take something dramatic, like Toyota’s launching a car into space, to rally support for policy changes.
What’s changed is that the world has grown smaller and nations more connected. China holds much of the U.S. debt. At the same time, China is aggressively improving the quality and availability of its education, producing more graduates in engineering and the sciences, publishing more academic research papers and boosting funds for research and development, according to the Indicators report.
Staying competitive will require more than a shift in federal funding and another new education policy. American children may need to put down their video games.
“If our kids are spending all their time playing video games, and somebody else’s kids are getting the math and science skills to invent video games, we’re not going to be No. 1,” Obama said at a town hall meeting in Nevada earlier this month. “It’s as simple as that.”
In the 20th Century, Sputnik symbolized the space race. In the 21st, video games symbolize the science race.
The question is: Will we be the country that plays video games -- or invents them?
(c)2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
More than half a century ago, Americans looked up in shock as Sputnik rolled across the heavens.
The Soviets beat us into space in October 1957, and they brought the insult home weeks later by sending a mutt named Laika on Sputnik 2.
Americans were, in the words of Elvis Presley’s hit single that year, “All Shook Up.”
The Soviet satellite was a potent symbol that rallied Americans and gave us a shared purpose. We focused education on science and math, set our sights on the moon and roared into the space age.
Today, the Soviet Union is no more, and President Obama is steering away from space exploration. The United States risks falling behind China and other Asian nations in a science race.
The president has promised to double funding for the National Science Foundation during his term. His budget for fiscal 2011 proposes to end the moon- and Mars-bound Constellation rocket program. His budget shifts research priorities – redirecting some R&D money from military to civilian projects.
Explaining the new race for scientific and technological supremacy, Obama uses a story about his lunch last year with the president of South Korea.
Obama asked President Lee Myung-bak his biggest challenge in education. “And he said, ‘my biggest issue, my toughest fight, is that Korean parents are too demanding. They want their kids to learn English in first grade, and so I’ve had to ship in a whole bunch of foreign-speaking teachers to meet the demand,” Obama told governors at the White House this week.
Korean parents want their children learning math, science, foreign languages – everything -- as soon as possible, Obama said.
“So that’s what we’re up against. That’s what’s at stake. Nothing less than our primacy in the world.”
American eighth graders have sunk to 9th in the world in math and 11th in science. Obama has called for new reading and math standards, noting that under No Child Left Behind, some schools dropped math standards.
Telling the Korea story last December, he said, “Their kids aren’t spending a whole bunch of time playing video games or watching TV. They’re out there -- they’re working. They’re working in math, they’re working in science, they’re working in foreign languages. They are preparing themselves to compete.”
A new report by the National Science Board, the governing board of the National Science Foundation, lays out the science race in facts and figures.
“Science and Engineering Indicators 2010” compares worldwide research and development spending, trends in education and workforce development and concludes that U.S. dominance in science and engineering has eroded significantly in recent years because of a science boom in Asia, particularly China.
The NSF report comes out every two years and is used to shape federal policy. Still, it’s easy to be blasé about reports. We’ve heard for decades that the United States is losing its technological edge, that our educational system is broken, that kids need to work harder and study more.
In the 1980s, the threat was the economic powerhouse of Japan, whose auto companies were eating Detroit’s lunch. Some people suggested it might take something dramatic, like Toyota’s launching a car into space, to rally support for policy changes.
What’s changed is that the world has grown smaller and nations more connected. China holds much of the U.S. debt. At the same time, China is aggressively improving the quality and availability of its education, producing more graduates in engineering and the sciences, publishing more academic research papers and boosting funds for research and development, according to the Indicators report.
Staying competitive will require more than a shift in federal funding and another new education policy. American children may need to put down their video games.
“If our kids are spending all their time playing video games, and somebody else’s kids are getting the math and science skills to invent video games, we’re not going to be No. 1,” Obama said at a town hall meeting in Nevada earlier this month. “It’s as simple as that.”
In the 20th Century, Sputnik symbolized the space race. In the 21st, video games symbolize the science race.
The question is: Will we be the country that plays video games -- or invents them?
(c)2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Of counselors and drunk mice -- Feb. 18, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
Nearly forgotten in the political fight over last year’s $862 billion stimulus package are the two million people who do have jobs because of it.
We’ve heard more about the three million jobs lost since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act a year ago. The layoffs are truly disheartening, no matter one’s politics, and everyone agrees that a 9.7 percent unemployment rate is too high.
But here’s House minority leader John Boehner, R-Ohio: “Americans are asking, 'where are the jobs?' but all they are getting from Democrats who control Washington is more spending and more debt piled on the backs of our kids and grandkids.”
That’s all they’re getting? Well, not exactly. We no longer are heading toward a depression. The economy shows signs of life. Some people are getting or keeping jobs.
It behooves Republicans to persuade voters the Recovery Act is a disaster. Not one Republican in the House voted for it although, as the president and others have observed, that hasn’t stopped GOP lawmakers from showing up to cut ribbons on projects funded by the stimulus package they opposed.
And Republicans are winning the war of public opinion. Fifty-six percent of people surveyed by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. last month opposed the stimulus package and only 42 percent supported it. The poll offered one surprising bright spot for Obama. While most people opposed the stimulus, 58 percent thought it had stabilized or improved the economy.
With congressional Democrats anxious about November’s elections, Obama booted up the White House message machine. Two million Americans who otherwise would be unemployed are working today because of the Recovery Act, he said, and more jobs are on the way.
But the president also conceded Wednesday, “It doesn’t yet feel like much of a recovery.”
Vice President Joe Biden and the Cabinet went on the road. Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, blogged about hopeful economic numbers. The White House Blog highlighted “What You May Have Missed About the Recovery Act." It featured a Department of Education video about three high school guidance counselors in Fairfax County, Va., who held onto their jobs because of stimulus money.
The six-minute documentary takes viewers down gleaming halls and into classrooms of three schools, where the counselors’ dedication to their work is palpable. When Sue Synan of Mount Vernon High School says, “I absolutely love my job,” there’s no doubt.
Fairfax County was about to lay off 58 guidance counselors when $23.7 million in stimulus funds came through. It’s heartwarming to see how grateful Synan, Jon-Paul Sousa and Jill Wilson are.
Yes, I know these counselors may yet face cutbacks when the stimulus money ends. And, we’d also like to see more jobs in the private sector. But in 2010, a paycheck is a paycheck.
Critics may say the White House is engaging in taxpayer-paid propaganda. Every White House uses the PR tools at its disposal, and today that means Twitter, blogs and Web videos.
Nobody wants to see tax money wasted, however. I’m as skeptical as the taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste about such porcine projects as the federal contract to get mice drunk in Florida.
Florida Atlantic University got $8,408 in stimulus money last summer and had two undergraduate research assistants ply mice with ethanol to see how their spatial skills were affected. I’m prepared to believe that science works in mysterious ways, but I wonder about this supposed creation of 0.92 jobs.
An analyst at swineline.org, run by Citizens Against Government Waste, said, “They hired 2 students to work for 11 weeks…for a total of 22 weeks of work. If they actually created 0.92 jobs with that money, you would have to assume they are paying less than $4.40 per hour (less than minimum wage) and that the university uses none of the funds for overhead or materials (which never happens).”
Such reports – even about miniscule grants -- fuel distrust of the government and the recovery. Better news is that $69 billion in Recovery Act education grants has gone to states. That means more than 300,000 jobs will be created or saved for teachers, principals, librarians and counselors.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Nearly forgotten in the political fight over last year’s $862 billion stimulus package are the two million people who do have jobs because of it.
We’ve heard more about the three million jobs lost since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act a year ago. The layoffs are truly disheartening, no matter one’s politics, and everyone agrees that a 9.7 percent unemployment rate is too high.
But here’s House minority leader John Boehner, R-Ohio: “Americans are asking, 'where are the jobs?' but all they are getting from Democrats who control Washington is more spending and more debt piled on the backs of our kids and grandkids.”
That’s all they’re getting? Well, not exactly. We no longer are heading toward a depression. The economy shows signs of life. Some people are getting or keeping jobs.
It behooves Republicans to persuade voters the Recovery Act is a disaster. Not one Republican in the House voted for it although, as the president and others have observed, that hasn’t stopped GOP lawmakers from showing up to cut ribbons on projects funded by the stimulus package they opposed.
And Republicans are winning the war of public opinion. Fifty-six percent of people surveyed by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. last month opposed the stimulus package and only 42 percent supported it. The poll offered one surprising bright spot for Obama. While most people opposed the stimulus, 58 percent thought it had stabilized or improved the economy.
With congressional Democrats anxious about November’s elections, Obama booted up the White House message machine. Two million Americans who otherwise would be unemployed are working today because of the Recovery Act, he said, and more jobs are on the way.
But the president also conceded Wednesday, “It doesn’t yet feel like much of a recovery.”
Vice President Joe Biden and the Cabinet went on the road. Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, blogged about hopeful economic numbers. The White House Blog highlighted “What You May Have Missed About the Recovery Act." It featured a Department of Education video about three high school guidance counselors in Fairfax County, Va., who held onto their jobs because of stimulus money.
The six-minute documentary takes viewers down gleaming halls and into classrooms of three schools, where the counselors’ dedication to their work is palpable. When Sue Synan of Mount Vernon High School says, “I absolutely love my job,” there’s no doubt.
Fairfax County was about to lay off 58 guidance counselors when $23.7 million in stimulus funds came through. It’s heartwarming to see how grateful Synan, Jon-Paul Sousa and Jill Wilson are.
Yes, I know these counselors may yet face cutbacks when the stimulus money ends. And, we’d also like to see more jobs in the private sector. But in 2010, a paycheck is a paycheck.
Critics may say the White House is engaging in taxpayer-paid propaganda. Every White House uses the PR tools at its disposal, and today that means Twitter, blogs and Web videos.
Nobody wants to see tax money wasted, however. I’m as skeptical as the taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste about such porcine projects as the federal contract to get mice drunk in Florida.
Florida Atlantic University got $8,408 in stimulus money last summer and had two undergraduate research assistants ply mice with ethanol to see how their spatial skills were affected. I’m prepared to believe that science works in mysterious ways, but I wonder about this supposed creation of 0.92 jobs.
An analyst at swineline.org, run by Citizens Against Government Waste, said, “They hired 2 students to work for 11 weeks…for a total of 22 weeks of work. If they actually created 0.92 jobs with that money, you would have to assume they are paying less than $4.40 per hour (less than minimum wage) and that the university uses none of the funds for overhead or materials (which never happens).”
Such reports – even about miniscule grants -- fuel distrust of the government and the recovery. Better news is that $69 billion in Recovery Act education grants has gone to states. That means more than 300,000 jobs will be created or saved for teachers, principals, librarians and counselors.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
'At home all day,' like George -- Feb. 10, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
On Monday, the nation will celebrate the birthday of George Washington, who was born Feb. 22, 1732.
Dubbed “Presidents Day” by Richard Nixon, the federal holiday also has come to honor Abraham Lincoln and other presidents. Like most holidays in America, Presidents Day typically is observed by shopping.
This year, though, if people in the city named for “the father of our country” want to shop, they may have to do so online, assuming they have electricity. Two back-to-back blizzards have pummeled the mid-Atlantic region this month, turning the powerful into the powerless.
Record-breaking snowfalls paralyzed all methods of transportation – except foot travel. The federal government, including its proud museums and monuments, shut down for days on end at a cost in lost productivity of $100 million per day. After the first February blizzard last weekend, the statesmen and women of the House of Representatives high-tailed it out of town for two weeks.
During the second blizzard, which began Tuesday night and continued Wednesday, even snowplowing was temporarily suspended in Washington, Virginia and Maryland. Officials said conditions were too dangerous for the snowplows to operate.
Alexandria, Va., where George Washington had a townhouse, liked to socialize and attended church, has canceled its annual birthday celebrations, including a 10-K race and a parade through historic Old Town.
The progression of destruction in Old Town and across the mid-Atlantic went something like this. During a December snowstorm, beautiful lamplight shone on the snow that covered trees and softened branches. In the first February storm, lamplight illuminated trees bent double under crippling snow weight. In the second February storm, raging winds carrying snow and ice smashed the lamp.
Some reporters on Snowmageddon 2010, searching for a comparable winter season in America’s history, cited 1772. That was before snow totals were recorded officially, but George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were said to have commented in their diaries about the snow.
Those noble early Americans surely had it so much worse than we do, I thought.
I was grumpy and homebound, a few miles north of Washington’s beloved home, Mount Vernon. Normally open 365 days a year, Mount Vernon also had shut down.
The snow had won.
The weatherman called the furious snow blowing horizontally on Wednesday a white-out condition. My all-wheel-drive car was useless, buried in snow on a street that would not see a snowplow anytime soon. Occasionally, a load of snow and ice roared off someone's roof and fell perilously to the ground.
A prisoner of snow, I started wondering how George Washington had fared in the winter of 1772. The man who later commanded troops during the American Revolutionary War surely wouldn’t have let a little thing like three feet of snow stop him from his surveying and other duties. Washington was accustomed to living with Mother Nature. He never had to worry about losing his electricity or Internet.
I Googled and was surprised to find volumes of Washington’s diaries easily accessible at the American Memory area of the Library of Congress’ Web site. Here, with updated spelling, is what he wrote.
On Feb. 7, 1772: “Attempted to ride to the mill, but the snow was so deep and crusty, even in the track that had been made, that I chose to tie my horse half way and walk there.”
Feb. 8: “At home all day.”
Feb. 9: “Ditto – Ditto.”
Feb. 10: “Ditto – Ditto.”
Feb. 11: “Went out … and was much fatigued by the deepness and toughness of the snow.”
Feb. 12: “Attempted to ride out again but found the roads so disagreeable and unpleasant that I turned back…”
Washington was about to turn 40 when he made those entries. He would become president 17 years later.
It’s reassuring to see that although he persevered the first day and walked half way back, after tying up his horse, the great patriot was forced indoors for several days at Mount Vernon. He, too, found deep snow fatiguing, disagreeable and unpleasant.
Few of us can imagine what life was like in the early days of the Republic, let alone before 1776. Through Washington’s diaries, weather links his days to ours. In 2010, many in the mid-Atlantic share the frustration of his austere notation “Ditto -- Ditto.”
As we celebrate George Washington’s 278th birthday, we may shop online, but we’re walking in his snowy footsteps.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
On Monday, the nation will celebrate the birthday of George Washington, who was born Feb. 22, 1732.
Dubbed “Presidents Day” by Richard Nixon, the federal holiday also has come to honor Abraham Lincoln and other presidents. Like most holidays in America, Presidents Day typically is observed by shopping.
This year, though, if people in the city named for “the father of our country” want to shop, they may have to do so online, assuming they have electricity. Two back-to-back blizzards have pummeled the mid-Atlantic region this month, turning the powerful into the powerless.
Record-breaking snowfalls paralyzed all methods of transportation – except foot travel. The federal government, including its proud museums and monuments, shut down for days on end at a cost in lost productivity of $100 million per day. After the first February blizzard last weekend, the statesmen and women of the House of Representatives high-tailed it out of town for two weeks.
During the second blizzard, which began Tuesday night and continued Wednesday, even snowplowing was temporarily suspended in Washington, Virginia and Maryland. Officials said conditions were too dangerous for the snowplows to operate.
Alexandria, Va., where George Washington had a townhouse, liked to socialize and attended church, has canceled its annual birthday celebrations, including a 10-K race and a parade through historic Old Town.
The progression of destruction in Old Town and across the mid-Atlantic went something like this. During a December snowstorm, beautiful lamplight shone on the snow that covered trees and softened branches. In the first February storm, lamplight illuminated trees bent double under crippling snow weight. In the second February storm, raging winds carrying snow and ice smashed the lamp.
Some reporters on Snowmageddon 2010, searching for a comparable winter season in America’s history, cited 1772. That was before snow totals were recorded officially, but George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were said to have commented in their diaries about the snow.
Those noble early Americans surely had it so much worse than we do, I thought.
I was grumpy and homebound, a few miles north of Washington’s beloved home, Mount Vernon. Normally open 365 days a year, Mount Vernon also had shut down.
The snow had won.
The weatherman called the furious snow blowing horizontally on Wednesday a white-out condition. My all-wheel-drive car was useless, buried in snow on a street that would not see a snowplow anytime soon. Occasionally, a load of snow and ice roared off someone's roof and fell perilously to the ground.
A prisoner of snow, I started wondering how George Washington had fared in the winter of 1772. The man who later commanded troops during the American Revolutionary War surely wouldn’t have let a little thing like three feet of snow stop him from his surveying and other duties. Washington was accustomed to living with Mother Nature. He never had to worry about losing his electricity or Internet.
I Googled and was surprised to find volumes of Washington’s diaries easily accessible at the American Memory area of the Library of Congress’ Web site. Here, with updated spelling, is what he wrote.
On Feb. 7, 1772: “Attempted to ride to the mill, but the snow was so deep and crusty, even in the track that had been made, that I chose to tie my horse half way and walk there.”
Feb. 8: “At home all day.”
Feb. 9: “Ditto – Ditto.”
Feb. 10: “Ditto – Ditto.”
Feb. 11: “Went out … and was much fatigued by the deepness and toughness of the snow.”
Feb. 12: “Attempted to ride out again but found the roads so disagreeable and unpleasant that I turned back…”
Washington was about to turn 40 when he made those entries. He would become president 17 years later.
It’s reassuring to see that although he persevered the first day and walked half way back, after tying up his horse, the great patriot was forced indoors for several days at Mount Vernon. He, too, found deep snow fatiguing, disagreeable and unpleasant.
Few of us can imagine what life was like in the early days of the Republic, let alone before 1776. Through Washington’s diaries, weather links his days to ours. In 2010, many in the mid-Atlantic share the frustration of his austere notation “Ditto -- Ditto.”
As we celebrate George Washington’s 278th birthday, we may shop online, but we’re walking in his snowy footsteps.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Thursday, February 4, 2010
It must be February -- Feb. 4, 2010 column
By MARSHA MERCER
There’s a reason John McCain flip-flopped on gays in the military.
It’s why Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood slipped up and advised owners of a recalled Toyota to “Stop driving it.” And why President Obama had to apologize to Las Vegas, of all places.
It’s February.
The great newspaper columnist Charles McDowell once observed, “Nobody should be asked to be consistent in February.”
McDowell, a friend and colleague for many years in Washington, wrote annually about man’s struggle with February. His humorous tirades helped generations of readers in Richmond, Va., and elsewhere survive the miserable month. When Charley retired in 1998, his rite of February went too.
As puzzling news stories began to pile up like icy snowdrifts, I remembered Charley’s wisdom. February 2010 was rant-worthy from the first.
The nation’s capital is snowed out. The normal seasonal snowfall here is 15.2 inches. The Washington Post published a handy chart showing that 24 inches of snow had fallen as of Feb. 1. Another four inches or so fell Feb. 2. With the sky a cloudless blue, the governor of Virginia then declared a state of emergency in anticipation of a weekend snowstorm of epic proportions.
Charley had it right about the power of February to confuse, befuddle and perplex..
Take McCain’s reversal on “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Just three years ago, the senator from Arizona was as unequivocal about the policy that prohibits gays from serving openly in the military as a politician ever is.
“The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it, because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to,” McCain told students at Iowa State University in October 2006.
But when the February day came, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said it was time to change the policy, smoke practically rose from McCain’s ears.
“At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.’” McCain declared. He had his own list of military officers who oppose changing the policy.
Poor Ray LaHood thought he was merely repeating what everyone already knew when he said that owners of a recalled Toyota should, “Stop driving it. And take it to a Toyota dealer.”
But in our hyper-linked age, LaHood’s first three words rang like an alarm. Toyota’s stock plunged, and the company lost $3 billion in value in minutes. The secretary backtracked. What he’d said was “obviously a misstatement,” and people should take their recalled cars to a dealer.
You’d think a man who has had to scrape and shovel snow and ice repeatedly might be forgiven a poor choice of words, but no. Toyota dealers were livid and called LaHood reckless.
And there was the presidential pivot over Las Vegas. Obama said at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire that people who are saving for college shouldn’t “blow a bunch of cash in Vegas.”
This sounds like ordinary common sense, but before night fell, Obama had written a “Dear Harry” letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, saying he hadn’t meant anything bad about Las Vegas.
In fact, there is “no better place to have fun than Vegas,” the president burbled. He has always had fun there and can’t wait to go back. He hopes “folks will visit in record numbers this year.”
Tuition? What tuition?
I found the first February column Charley McDowell wrote. February 1967 was a trying month in which the news focused on war, the budget, wintry weather and flu. Sound familiar?
Charley credited a Washington Daily News editorial writer who had written a filler for the bottom of a page:
“Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Except February, which is endless…“
February, the Daily News writer said, was “a whole month of dismal Monday mornings.”
“February depresses,” Charley wrote. “It litters the landscape with dirty, clinging snow. It sabotages the automobile battery. It brings man into bitter conflict with his furnace.”
February, you see, is consistent -- even if we, who have to cope with it, aren’t.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
There’s a reason John McCain flip-flopped on gays in the military.
It’s why Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood slipped up and advised owners of a recalled Toyota to “Stop driving it.” And why President Obama had to apologize to Las Vegas, of all places.
It’s February.
The great newspaper columnist Charles McDowell once observed, “Nobody should be asked to be consistent in February.”
McDowell, a friend and colleague for many years in Washington, wrote annually about man’s struggle with February. His humorous tirades helped generations of readers in Richmond, Va., and elsewhere survive the miserable month. When Charley retired in 1998, his rite of February went too.
As puzzling news stories began to pile up like icy snowdrifts, I remembered Charley’s wisdom. February 2010 was rant-worthy from the first.
The nation’s capital is snowed out. The normal seasonal snowfall here is 15.2 inches. The Washington Post published a handy chart showing that 24 inches of snow had fallen as of Feb. 1. Another four inches or so fell Feb. 2. With the sky a cloudless blue, the governor of Virginia then declared a state of emergency in anticipation of a weekend snowstorm of epic proportions.
Charley had it right about the power of February to confuse, befuddle and perplex..
Take McCain’s reversal on “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Just three years ago, the senator from Arizona was as unequivocal about the policy that prohibits gays from serving openly in the military as a politician ever is.
“The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it, because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to,” McCain told students at Iowa State University in October 2006.
But when the February day came, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said it was time to change the policy, smoke practically rose from McCain’s ears.
“At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.’” McCain declared. He had his own list of military officers who oppose changing the policy.
Poor Ray LaHood thought he was merely repeating what everyone already knew when he said that owners of a recalled Toyota should, “Stop driving it. And take it to a Toyota dealer.”
But in our hyper-linked age, LaHood’s first three words rang like an alarm. Toyota’s stock plunged, and the company lost $3 billion in value in minutes. The secretary backtracked. What he’d said was “obviously a misstatement,” and people should take their recalled cars to a dealer.
You’d think a man who has had to scrape and shovel snow and ice repeatedly might be forgiven a poor choice of words, but no. Toyota dealers were livid and called LaHood reckless.
And there was the presidential pivot over Las Vegas. Obama said at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire that people who are saving for college shouldn’t “blow a bunch of cash in Vegas.”
This sounds like ordinary common sense, but before night fell, Obama had written a “Dear Harry” letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, saying he hadn’t meant anything bad about Las Vegas.
In fact, there is “no better place to have fun than Vegas,” the president burbled. He has always had fun there and can’t wait to go back. He hopes “folks will visit in record numbers this year.”
Tuition? What tuition?
I found the first February column Charley McDowell wrote. February 1967 was a trying month in which the news focused on war, the budget, wintry weather and flu. Sound familiar?
Charley credited a Washington Daily News editorial writer who had written a filler for the bottom of a page:
“Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Except February, which is endless…“
February, the Daily News writer said, was “a whole month of dismal Monday mornings.”
“February depresses,” Charley wrote. “It litters the landscape with dirty, clinging snow. It sabotages the automobile battery. It brings man into bitter conflict with his furnace.”
February, you see, is consistent -- even if we, who have to cope with it, aren’t.
© 2010 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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