Competition and Risk: Government versus Private Sector

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Photo Credit: Wonderlane/flickrRemember when long distance phone calls cost so much that one teenager separated from their friend could bankrupt your budget? Reagan brought competition to the phone industry and opened the door for cell phones and cheap long distance. Now we don’t even think about making long distance phone calls, they’re just part of the plan. This is exactly the kinds of efficiencies and cost savings that competition can bring to education in Alaska. In this article I’d like to show a specific aspect of governmental programs that would be drastically improved with some competition.

Risk is a factor in any project or process, and a lot of effort and resources go into managing that risk. It can come from underestimating the costs, not recognizing the impacts of attached strings, legal liability, and a host of other reasons. The borough itself has a Risk Management division just to look at these issues. Risk aversion is rapidly becoming one of the largest costs of the government doing business.

A current local example is where the Borough spent $503,600 to put up 350 bus stop signs. This has resulted in the borough twice adding more money into the bus stop project. A significant portion of that was because public works had all the signs and their placements engineered, instead of just having a contractor install them according to already known safe standards. This was done to mitigate the risk that a sign might fall over and hit someone in the head. So how far do you go to avoid risk? Do you encase all the signs in NERF® material? Do you mount the signs on pilings driven to bedrock? What you find in these situations is that a private business is always willing to take more risk than the government, so private enterprise is always able to do it for less. To be honest, you’ll never completely get away from this as long as government is doing projects, because the money isn’t their own. The government never feels the need to take more risk when it can just take more money.

So now let’s take a look at education and some of the risks. If you didn’t have enough teacher time allocated for each student then maybe you would be sued for not dedicating that time. If you don’t have enough security at the schools then if anything happened you could get sued. If you don’t have a psychologist at every school, then any psychological problems the children may have in the future you may take the blame for. While not all of these examples are fully implemented in our school district, it is the line of reasoning that has led to the doubling of staff (not teachers) in the last twenty years, while student population has declined. In its great desire to avoid any risk or liability, the school district has been increasing the number of employees to mitigate risk.

It’s important to note that a lot of the risk mitigation here locally has been driven by the federal No Child Left Behind standards. They require all students to test to the same level (if the school district wants federal handouts). It has now reached the point where the school district sometimes has one teacher for one student. This is because it feels that if it doesn’t show that it’s putting out enough effort, i.e. spending more, then it could be held liable if the child fails the test. It will only get worse with the pseudo-Common Core standards that the State has adopted, which are completely test-driven (woe to those students who have test anxieties).

What competition can bring to this playing field is that private and charter schools can accept more responsibility from the students and parents, and therefore require the parents to take more risk. Each parent will be able to weigh in the balance the risk they are willing to accept versus the quality of education that the parent wants, and make the decision on where to educate their children. The government schools will respond because of their desire to have more students, and move back towards where the schools once were with regards to risk and responsibility. As mentioned already, government will never be as efficient as private enterprise, but it can certainly be more efficient than it is right now. We currently spend around $16,000 per student in the Borough, one of the highest rates in the country, and a large portion of that is the school district dealing with potential liability. There is a bill in the legislature (SJR9/HJR1) to allow the citizens to vote on whether parents should have choice in their educational systems. It would allow those of all incomes to utilize private systems of education. Polling has shown that overwhelmingly most Alaskans do want that choice, but the no-choice lobby has been pressuring the Senate and House to not support letting the people vote on this issue. Please let your legislators know that you would like to vote on this issue. You can email the entire legislature at [email protected].

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Lance Roberts is a member of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the assembly or borough administration.

What Gutting the U.S. Military Means

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Photo Credit: JTF GuantanamoWhen I was growing up in a Midwestern farming village, several World War I, World War II, and Korean War vets lived there. As a teenager, I worked for some of those men. I was struck by their opinions about military strength. They unanimously supported a strong military and rued America’s military weakness before December 7th, 1941.

Years later I visited the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. The museum’s first exhibit shows the relative size of America’s military and those of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan prior to Pearl Harbor. That exhibit consists of plastic figurines intended to depict the size of the three nations’ armed forces.

The exhibit’s message is simple: relative to the armed forces of either Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan — let alone both — the U.S. military’s size was incredibly tiny. Viewing that exhibit, one wonders how America won against such odds, even allowing for the fact that we had allies.

The disparity between America’s military preparedness prior to Pearl Harbor and that of Hitler’s Germany or Hirohito’s Japan was not limited to numbers. Thanks largely to Congress’ niggardly funding of our military during the 1920s and 1930s, there were qualitative weaknesses of our tanks, naval torpedoes, and warplanes. Sadly, public opinion during those decades buttressed Congress’ stinginess vis-à-vis the military.

No one should underestimate U.S. military personnel’s valor. American soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen were as good as or better than those they met on the ground, on the sea, or in the air.

Read more this story HERE.

Dyslexia isn’t a Disease, it’s An Excuse for Bad Teachers

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Photo Credit: AlamyI doubt there has ever been a society so easily fooled by pseudo-science and quackery as ours is. Millions of healthy people take happy pills that do them obvious harm, and are increasingly correlated with inexplicable suicide and worse.

Legions of healthy children are drugged into numbness because they fidget during boring lessons, and countless people are persuaded that they or their children suffer from a supposed disease called ‘dyslexia’, even though there is no evidence at all that it exists.

A few weeks ago I rejoiced at the first major cracks in this great towering dam of lies. Dr Richard Saul brought out his courageous and overdue book, ADHD Does Not Exist.

I also urge everyone to read James Davies’s book Cracked, on the inflated claims of psychiatry since it sold its soul to the pill-makers.

Now comes The Dyslexia Debate, published yesterday, a rigorous study of this alleged ailment by two distinguished academics – Professor Julian Elliott of Durham University, and Professor Elena Grigorenko of Yale University.

Read more this story HERE.

Fed. Appeals Court Upholds School’s Authority to Ban American Flag on Cinco De Mayo

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Photo Credit: National Review By Charles C. W. Cooke.

How loopy has California become? This loopy:

Officials at a Northern California high school acted appropriately when they ordered students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn the garments inside out during the Mexican heritage celebration Cinco de Mayo, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

As a general rule, the eccentric and creative justices that populate the Ninth Circuit have an awful lot to answer for. But for once they may not be the villain of the piece. As the Washington Post’s Eugene Volokh has duly noted, there is precedent for such action, and that precedent holds that schools have special responsibilities to educate their students and to protect them both against violence and against disruption of their educations. A school might thus have the discretion to decide that it will prevent disruption even at the cost of letting thugs suppress speech.

“Discretion,” of course, is the operative word here. That the First Amendment has been repeatedly found not to apply in schools is disappointing for the plaintiffs and more than a little irritating for free-speech absolutists such as myself. But that a school has seen fit to force the question is infinitely worse. After all, the Ninth Circuit merely indicated what the state of California may do, and not what it should do — a critical distinction, and one that often gets lost in the noise.

Read more this story HERE.

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Banning the American Flag and Reconquista

By William Sullivan.

A federal court has ruled that an American school student has a right to free expression — unless that American might be threatened for that expression by others, in which case state officials have the right to quash the offending expression to appease potential aggressors.

Which, ipso facto, means Americans have no right to free expression at all. For if it’s not the government’s role to protect expression that is thought to be offensive by a vicious mob, what purpose does the First Amendment have? “Safe” expression needs no protection, after all.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled upon the constitutionality of a decision by the administration at Live Oak High School in 2010. On May 5th of that year, student Daniel Galli and his friends had the unmitigated gall to wear shirts emblazoned with that offensive symbol that we call the American flag. Fearing that the unruly ex-denizens of another country would be infuriated at the mere sight of it on a day they hold in reverence, the vice principal asked him and his friends to turn their shirts inside out.

May 5th, of course, is the holiday more commonly referred to as Cinco de Mayo. And apparently, Mexican-Americans would be prone to engage in a bit of the old ultra-violence if some haughty American had the audacity to brandish the American flag in America on a day in which Mexico won a victory in a battle against the French way back when.

Read more this story HERE.

In Arizona, GOP Shows How Easily It Will Cave On Religious Liberty

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Photo Credit: The Federalist Arizona is populated largely by warty, crooked-fingered Christians who were waiting excitedly to eject LGBT people from their restaurants, flower shops, and laundromats until Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062.

This is the only conclusion one can draw from the hysterical claims peddled by LGBT activists, business leaders, and several prominent Republicans about the infamous religious liberty bill. If the bill were to have been signed into law, we were led to believe that Arizona’s economic competitiveness and international reputation would have been disastrously diminished.

All of the explicit and implicit claims about the negative consequences of SB 1062 were founded in ignorance—in most cases willful, blameworthy ignorance.

Here’s what you need to know about religious liberty and LGBT rights in Arizona.

In 1990, the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith established that a “neutral law of general applicability” could impinge on religious practice without violating the First Amendment. Alarmed at this erosion of traditional religious liberty protections, Congress responded by passing nearly unanimously the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which applies the highest level of judicial scrutiny to laws which restrict religious practice.

Read more this story HERE.

One ACU Board Member Speaks Up: CPAC Should Not Have Invited Atheists

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Photo Credit: Leadership InstituteMorton Blackwell, a longtime member of the American Conservative Union’s (ACU) Board of Directors, said that American Atheists should not have been invited to participate in the ACU-sponsored Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which will be held in Washington, D.C. March 6-8th.

“My answer is no,” Blackwell replied when CNSNews.com asked him whether, as a matter of principle, the atheist group should have ever been invited to the annual conservative conference in the first place.

“CPAC was originally supposed to represent the conservative movement, and that means the principles of American conservatism in many ways embodied by Ronald Reagan: limited government, free enterprise, a strong national defense, and traditional values,” explained Blackwell, who is also president of the Leadership Institute, an official sponsor of CPAC.

And while “we certainly should not insist that every participant in CPAC is in agreement on every public policy question,” he said, they should “not be openly hostile to any other elements of conservative principles,” including “attacks on traditional values, including religious faith.”

Blackwell was the only one of more than two dozen ACU Board members and CPAC sponsors contacted by CNSNews.com who was willing to go on record opposing CPAC’s decision to allow American Atheists to set up a booth at the annual gathering, which is attended by hundreds of conservative activists from across the country.

Read more this story HERE.

Rand Paul – An Early GOP Presidential Front-Runner

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Photo Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFPRepublican strategists like to say the party’s next nominee needs to hail from the GOP’s gubernatorial ranks. It’s a response to how unpopular Washington is—particularly the party’s congressional wing—and a reflection of the party’s strength in holding a majority of governorships. But another reason for the gubernatorial focus is to sidestep the one formidable candidate that gives the establishment heartburn: Sen. Rand Paul.

Make no mistake: The Kentuckian scares the living daylights out of many Republicans looking for an electable nominee capable of challenging Hillary Clinton. At the same time, he’s working overtime to broaden the party’s image outside its traditional avenues of support. The 2016 Republican nominating fight will go a long way toward determining whether Paul is the modern version of Barry Goldwater or at the leading edge of a new, more libertarian brand of Republicanism.

“That’s the big challenge—is America ready? I think that Rand and his small-L libertarian Republicanism can break through,” said Paul’s longtime adviser Jesse Benton. “He’s a fundamentally better messenger than Barry Goldwater—[Goldwater’s 1964 campaign slogan] ‘In your heart you know he’s right’ is not very compelling. Rand is a wonderful communicator, and I think a message of individual liberty can build wide support.”

Either way, Paul’s brand of politics is a distinct departure from the party’s traditional moorings. His occasional sympathy for Edward Snowden puts him on an island within the party. His critique of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance techniques and noninterventionist views on foreign policy are gaining some conservative followers, but are still outside the party mainstream. Many conservative foreign policy hawks could sooner support Clinton than Paul in a 2016 matchup.

Read more this story HERE.

The Great Establishment Deception on Winning Back Senate

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Photo Credit: APThe unambiguous strategy of the GOP establishment this year has been to avoid any and all confrontation in the hopes of gliding into a Senate majority in 2015. To that end, they have capitulated on all of the major leverage points, passed a number of Democrat spending bills, and are in the process of pushing “small-ball” legislation in the House so as not to rock the boat before November.

This pusillanimous strategy is predicated on the false hope that a bare-minimum Senate majority – comprised of the same Republicans who support these Democrat priorities – will somehow alter the landscape in Washington. They are misleading conservative and GOP activists into thinking that as long as the GOP can hold tight on the status quo until 2015 we will enjoy robust power to push for conservative priorities thereafter.

The reality is that nothing will change in 2015. Irrespective of the outcome in November, Republicans will control the House and have the ability to block bad legislation. On the other hand, President Obama will still be in the White House for another two years. Consequently, the addition of six more Senate seats with the current incumbent leaders and rank-and-file members will not change the legislative dynamic.

Republicans who lack the will or principles to fight on major issues will still use Obama’s obstructionism as the baseline for excuses not to advocate bold initiatives. Whether it’s a debt ceiling or a budget bill, they will fear brinkmanship with Obama as much as they do now.

What about blocking bad bills? Certainly Republicans will have the power to do so if they win back the Senate, won’t they?…Unless we elect the right candidates for Senate, a weak GOP majority would still net enough votes to pass amnesty, an internet sales tax, omnibus bills, highway bills, or the anti-liberty “ENDA” bill.

Read more this story HERE.

Wayne Allyn Root: Obama’s ‘Voter ID’ Scam is Busted!

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Photo Credit: The Blaze Folks, we are being scammed. Democrats are winning elections through what appears to be massive voter fraud.

There is a saying, “He with the gold rules.” Well, whoever wins elections has the gold. The winner has the power to change everything – so they rule. It doesn’t matter if the win was by a small margin, or if the win was by committing fraud. Winning is everything.

Many citizens may not realize most national elections are won by a sliver of votes in only a few, key battleground states. Change the vote totals by a small bit in a few states and Mitt Romney is the president: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania.

Why did Obama and Democrats win by just a sliver in those few battleground states? In 2012 it was a powerful one-two punch, both of which I believe were out and out voter fraud.

First, Obama used the IRS as his personal mafia thug enforcers to persecute, intimidate and destroy his political opposition – ranging from Tea Parties, to conservative fundraising organizations, to top GOP donors, to high-profile outspoken critics in the media (like myself).

Read more this story HERE.

Niall Ferguson: America’s Geopolitical Retreat

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesSince former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke uttered the word “taper” in June 2013, emerging-market stocks and currencies have taken a beating. It is not clear why talk of (thus far) modest reductions in the Fed’s large-scale asset-purchase program should have had such big repercussions outside the United States. The best economic explanation is that capital has been flowing out of emerging markets in anticipation of future rises in U.S. interest rates, of which the taper is a harbinger. While plausible, that cannot be the whole story.

For it is not only U.S. monetary policy that is being tapered. Even more significant is the “geopolitical taper.” By this I mean the fundamental shift we are witnessing in the national-security strategy of the U.S.—and like the Fed’s tapering, this one also means big repercussions for the world. To see the geopolitical taper at work, consider President Obama’s comment Wednesday on the horrific killings of protesters in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The president said: “There will be consequences if people step over the line.”

No one took that warning seriously—Ukrainian government snipers kept on killing people in Independence Square regardless. The world remembers the red line that Mr. Obama once drew over the use of chemical weapons in Syria . . . and then ignored once the line had been crossed. The compromise deal reached on Friday in Ukraine calling for early elections and a coalition government may or may not spell the end of the crisis. In any case, the negotiations were conducted without concern for Mr. Obama.

The origins of America’s geopolitical taper as a strategy can be traced to the confused foreign-policy decisions of the president’s first term. The easy part to understand was that Mr. Obama wanted out of Iraq and to leave behind the minimum of U.S. commitments. Less easy to understand was his policy in Afghanistan. After an internal administration struggle, the result in 2009 was a classic bureaucratic compromise: There was a “surge” of additional troops, accompanied by a commitment to begin withdrawing before the last of these troops had even arrived.

Having passively watched when the Iranian people rose up against their theocratic rulers beginning in 2009, the president was caught off balance by the misnamed “Arab Spring.” The vague blandishments of his Cairo speech that year offered no hint of how he would respond when crowds thronged Tahrir Square in 2011 calling for the ouster of a longtime U.S. ally, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Read more this story HERE.