State Budget Reality Check

     Like me, you have probably been getting lots of news about the budget crisis, and hearing all kinds of lamentations about cuts that will allow crime to run rampant, leave disabled people alone to die, and double classroom sizes.

     You may have also shared my frustration with the complete lack of financial perspective accompanying these terrifying prophecies of disaster.

     Recently, I attended a panel discussion where several policy wonks shared new revenue ideas. During the Q&A, I expressed my feelings about the total lack of perspective offered by anyone. Another attendee referred me to the State Controller, and indeed I found on their website the unsung foundation of the discussion. A few calculations allowed me to finally feel like I have my conceptual feed on the ground.

     For starters, actual state operations are only a little more than 1/4 of the budget, and CDCR is the biggest portion, over 1/3 of 1/4, or 1/11 of the total state spending in the 2008-9 fiscal year to date. Debt service is just under 4% of total spending, and UC+CSU are just over 6% of total spending. Are we spending more on prisons than higher education? The community college portion is accounted in the local assistance part of the operating results, and is just over 4% of total expenditures, so that looks like the state spends just 1% more on higher education. (Of course, counties spend a chunk on jails and courts.)

     But state spending to assist local operations is almost 3/4, dwarfing spending on state operations. And spending on K-12 operations is 1/3 of the total budget and 4/9 of local assistance. State spending on "medical assistance" is 1/8 of the total budget. Social services are between 1/8 and 1/9 of total spending, over 4/5 of which is local assistance.

     Newsflash! State worker salaries are not the place to go for serious savings. Combining agencies is like moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. $24 billion is 1/4 of annual state spending. And if there is fat and wasteful spending to cut, 3/4 of it will be local assistance.

To recap, the big expense categories are, in order:

     33% local assistance for K-12

     12.5% local assistance for health care

     9% prisons

     5% SSI etc.

     4% community colleges

     3.9% interest on state debts

     3% each UC & CSU

     3% on CalWORKs

     The immediate question is how to deflate state spending to match state revenues. Perhaps we can keep K-12 class sizes manageable by cutting middle management positions and drafting laid-off Californians who are collecting unemployment and CalPERS retirees as volunteer replacements. 

     Perhaps we can reduce health care needs by switching to a 20-hour work week, which will double the number of jobs and give everyone time to live in a healthy way, with healthy family dinners, plenty of sleep, and plenty of exercise in the garden and on sidewalks and bicycles. 

     And we could even start paying attention to academia's evidence-based solutions to prison spending which is probably growing faster than any other category.

Emotional Extortion Holiday

     As usual, Memorial Day brought out the same old guilt trip about honoring our brave soldiers, even though our wars are generally invasive rather than defensive. Meanwhile, more soldiers are committing suicide and fewer are being killed by suicide bombers. According to the Washington Post, "Many soldiers are now in the midst of their third of fourth combat tour, and Army surveys show that mental health deteriorates with each one."

     The fact that our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have required our soldiers to kill far more women and children than alleged terrorists, with no sure end in sight, isn't helping their mental health any.

     If we really respected our soldiers' honor, we wouldn't be wasting them like this. We would be reserving their strength and service for a time when it will really matter, such as when we are actually attacked by another nation.

     Apparently one of the people responsible, if not accountable, for these and other betrayals of democracy and international law, has been raising obscene amounts of money for his presidential library. I suspect more victims of emotional extortion have been scammed.

     But more to the point would be a vice-presidential library, for all of Cheney's secret papers and subversive Constitutional sabotage. And I have the perfect location for it, a very secure facility which will soon be available: Guantanamo!

Be The Tortoise & Win Life's Race

     It turns out that the race goes to those who can wait, according to Jonah Lehrer in the New Yorker. Based on research with roots in the 1960s, kids who can figure out how to postpone one treat in order to get two usually grow up to be more adept in school and in life. 

     The ability to control one's choices and actions, to choose to delay gratification for a better long-term outcome, helps tortoises think ahead and plan their futures. 

     It also turns out that poor kids tend to have more trouble waiting. Fortunately, it also turns out that many kids who are hares for treats can learn the self-control strategies that are instinctively used by natural tortoises. So there's no reason to think that poverty is hereditary; rather, poor people don't have many gratifications that they can practice delaying.

     Basically, all you have to do is control what you are thinking about, what you are paying attention to. Meditation is perhaps the oldest and best practice for paying attention. While it may or may not raise your IQ, it can help you use your head. And meditation usually improves your emotional intelligence too!

     But I can't help noticing that we live in a culture where we are constantly extorted by advertising to act like hares, to work and earn more, to buy and consume more and more junk products, to worry about winning the image race, instead of just being ourselves and being good for ourselves. 

     If you can't be good enough for yourself, you'll never win your own race or your own life.

Sinful Marriage

     The crusade against David Thompson, who may or may not still be the pastor of Westeminster Presbyterian Church, makes me wonder why gays want to participate in any club that includes the sort of selfish and intolerant people who want to monopolize marriage.

     According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of marriage was expanded several centuries ago to describe the integration of two entities which were not even human, let alone hetero. So that horse has escaped the barn and died long since.

     Perhaps it's just my personal preference to simply go away and not play with people who are mean.

Whose Vengeance?

Reportedly, Obama recently declined to pursue criminal cases against Bush administration decision-makers whose actions violated the international laws of war, saying that "retribution" is not productive.

If we have no avenue of justice for these criminals other than retribution, that means that our system of criminal justice has no other avenue than retribution, which is another word for vengeance. But twice in New Testament epistles, the Bible recommends karma instead, saying "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto God's wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

It's interesting that karma is here framed as "repayment." Classical economic theory defines transactions as consensual, so "repayment" suggests a restorative justice process where all parties converse and come to mutual agreement.

How Can Israelis Be Racist?

     I learned in school that Jews and Arabs were both Semitic peoples, and wikipedia confirms this. So how can the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be racist?

     The evidence I'm aware of indicates that Israel has been violent and mean towards the Palestinians, and the U.S. has been funding this for decades. If saying so is racist, does that mean that lies are egalitarian? I'm confused. And not all Jews agree with Israel.

     Also overlooked is the role of water, precious in the desert, and other resources. But the news we get is rarely truly balanced. We don't really get complete information about the facts and implications on the ground. The further away you are from another person or place, the more fanciful your notions of them will be.

     I don't believe we can count on getting the kind of news a democracy needs until we end its addiction to advertising. It corrupts and censors media content, because commercial purposes and messages are almost never free of attachment, and attachment is a recipe for believing your own bullshit. More and more, this attachment sabotages public discourse.

     

War on Drugs = War on Economics

     The economic Law of Supply & Demand is no more likely to be repealed by any Drug Czar than are the laws of physics which describe the engineering of the guns which are causing so much havoc further and further from the U.S.-Mexican border.
     The desire to kill one's physical and/or emotional pain - the typical motivations for self-medication - is immune to criminal punishments which only cause more pain.
     The most noticeable achievement of the War on Drugs is the creation of a black market where prices are directly related to the level of government enforcement of laws based on the idea that guns and prisons can reduce demand or supply. Of course, black market participants have no recourse to civil enforcement of contracts, so the law of the street is the rule. When might makes right, guns are the only law enforcement.
     Apparently the government is on drugs far more hallucinogenic than those consumed by the average addict, or even by Rush Limbaugh. The drug of wishful thinking is indeed potent, affecting voters as well.
     Why don't politicians try instead to heal the physical and emotional pain felt by so many? Maybe they want to keep getting campaign contributions from all the law enforcement agencies, private prison operators, and other corporations which make big bucks supplying junk food to all prisons. Maybe they think all the money spent on the criminal justice system represents economic growth and productivity.
     Why don't teachers notice and explain that the War on Drugs is based on atrociously bad science, a flagrantly bad example to young minds? Why don't journalists report on the corruption of science, or on the reasons for the physical and emotional pains that lead to addiction? Or on the fact that malnutrition causes much, even most, of the health problems associated with addiction? Or that healthy food can protect one from addiction? That healthy food can be affordable?
     Is it because they are afraid of being scapegoated and fired? That is the usual reaction to whistle-blowers and truth-sayers who rock comfy boats.
     But killing the messenger can't change the truth. And ignoring truth is just a recipe for more pain. They say you get what you pay for. Why not stop paying for the pain of more enforcement, more punishment, and more injustice? We certainly can't kill the pain with more guns.