Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

Here's another problem with Bush's "Leave no child behind" mandate. timber keeps insisting that education funding has gone up more during Bush's tenure, but there's a big difference between budget increases and mandates that cost more than what schools receive. Besides, I thought the republicans were the "small" government, non-intrusive, party. ha, ha, ha.....
**********************


By Ronnie Lynn
The Salt Lake Tribune

In a bold step toward a declaration of war against President Bush's education reforms, legislators advanced a bill Thursday that turns Utah's back on No Child Left Behind and the $103 million-plus it brings to the state's revenue-starved schools.
The House Education Committee unanimously forwarded House Bill 43 to the floor, a move that has national implications and the potential to devastate more than 200 Utah schools that rely on federal dollars to improve achievement among disadvantaged students.
Rep. Margaret Dayton said her bill sends Washington an unmistakable message that it is overstepping its bounds in a domain historically left to states. "This really is a states' rights issue," the Orem Republican said. "Our neighborhood schools should not be held accountable to the federal government."
While most committee members agreed -- in principle -- several said they couldn't vote for the measure on the House floor if it meant sacrificing federal money.
"We need to get a lot of answers before we make an unequivocal break from [No Child Left Behind]," said Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay. "There is a lot of money at stake."
Utah's defiance could be costly, prompting Gov. Olene Walker and some school officials to question the wisdom of HB43.
Walker stopped short of saying she would veto it. While acknowledging that she, too, resented the federal intrusion, the governor said she would be hard pressed to justify sacrificing $103 million when Utah spends less per pupil than any other state.
"We cannot afford to lose that amount of money in our public education system," she said Thursday during her monthly KUED news conference. "But I am willing to work with [federal officials] to make certain that the [federal] requirements are something that the state of Utah can live with, and we will do everything we can to see that that happens."
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No Child Left Behind requires public schools to show annual test-score gains among all demographic groups. It imposes sanctions on high-poverty schools that fail to meet their targets. This year, 80 such schools were among the 246 schools statewide that missed the federal standards.
Salt Lake City school officials say Washington's strings, though a nuisance, are worth the $8 million they get in federal money to provide low-income children with before- and after-school programs, smaller class sizes and summer sessions, among other services.
Giving up that money could mean leaving those 8,574 children behind -- unless the state plugged the funding hole -- and letting the federal government spend Utah taxpayer money as it pleases, Superintendent McKell Withers said.
"I don't understand the conditions that would lead us to decide not only are we going to spend the least per student, but that we're also going to send $103 million to other states," he said.
State officials fear that total could grow even higher if the federal government also yanked funds for special education and subsidized lunches for low-income children.
San Juan School District draws a third of its $34.7 million from federal sources. That chunk would be jeopardized, and with it, the teachers, programs and services that have boosted student achievement in southeastern Utah, said Tim Taylor, the district's director of elementary schools.
"We are seeing success," he said from his Blanding office. "Over the last three years, we have had a 12 percent gap reduction in the achievement level between Anglo students and students of color. We are very proud of that. I'm not sure we could function without that money,"
Even so, some administrators at the state Office of Education endorsed the bill -- if only to negotiate more wiggle room in meeting the stricter federal standards. Indeed, Associate Superintendent Patti Harrington sat alongside Dayton as she pitched the legislation to the House committee.
"This bill is a good thing," Harrington said. "We need to get the attention of the federal government on the problems inherent in No Child Left Behind. Can we do without the money? No. We must have the money."
Asked if Dayton's bill is a risky gamble, she said, "I would be very surprised if this [Bush] administration would want to have the publicity of pulling funding. My guess is they'll want to reconcile things."
The state Board of Education is expected to take a position on HB43 today.
Federal officials said state lawmakers should not be so quick to blame Washington for their qualms with No Child Left Behind. After all, the state Office of Education designed the tests, set the passing scores and developed the other measures used to comply with the statute, said Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education.
"Certainly, it's disappointing, and we would hope that it doesn't happen," she said of Utah's movement toward opting out of the federal program. "That said, No Child Left Behind is about all students being able to read and do math on grade level. States are free to determine how they meet that goal."
Aspey and others questioned the validity of HB43's fiscal note, which asserts the state could incur more than $1 billion in costs associated with implementing No Child Left Behind.
"I'm at a loss to explain how they could have arrived at these figures, which are ridiculously high and almost defy common sense," Aspey said. "It would appear that these computations are based on faulty methods and a clear lack of knowledge about the law."
The state's fiscal analyst derived the potential price tag from a Jordan School District analysis that projected implementation costs of $182 million for Utah's largest district. The tab includes $15 million for teacher raises, $28 million for training aides and $8 million for full-day kindergarten. None of those is mandated in No Child Left Behind.
Still, committee members said Utahns should be the ones deciding how to hold schools accountable
"This is the 'Federal Education Blackmail Act,' and I'm somewhat incensed by it," said Rep. Jim Ferrin, R-Orem. "We have to stand up and demand we won't be blackmailed. . . . I for one am ready to send a message that we in Utah will not stand for it."
States across the nation are watching to see how Utah proceeds, said Scott Young, a policy associate for the National Conference of State Legislatures' education program.
"Other state legislatures and policy-makers are looking to see what happens," Young said. "By and large, Utah has been on the forefront of this issue and this is considered to be one of the stronger actions of a state."
Earlier this week, the Virginia House passed a resolution urging the federal government to allow the state to use its own accountability system instead of No Child Left Behind. Washington state is expected to consider a similar measure.
Lawmakers in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine have contemplated bills to prohibit spending state money on costs associated with implementing No Child Left Behind. Last year, the Hawaii House passed a resolution discouraging the state schools superintendent from complying with the federal law.
[email protected]
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Tribune reporter Kirsten Stewart contributed to this story.

High cost of No Child Left Behind
The Jordan School District estimates it will cost more than $180 million to implement the federal No Child Left Behind program. Here are line-item budget estimates, which federal officials say are inflated:

BUDGET ITEM COST
More experienced teachers $7.3m
Increasing pay (to compete for teachers) $15.5m
Replacing underqualified aides $28.4m
Signing bonuses for new teachers $1.5m
Class-size reduction (to 18 per teacher) $31.5m
Teacher advancement incentives $5.0m
Remediation (to help underachieving students) $41.8m
Other costs* $51.0m

TOTAL REVENUE NEEDED $182m

Projected No Child Left Behind funding $4.9m

* Includes training, mentoring, scholarships, technology, other incentives.
Source: Jordan School District The Salt Lake Tribune

Another good article.
******************
Budgets of Mass Destruction
February 1, 2004
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

It should be clear to all by now that what we have in the
Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a
faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based
intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi
reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to
generate faith-based revenues. This group believes that
what matters in politics and economics are conviction and
will - not facts, social science or history.

Personally, I don't believe the Bush team will pay a
long-term political price for its faith-based intelligence
about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Too many
Americans, including me, believe in their guts that
removing Saddam was the right thing to do, even if the
W.M.D. intel was wrong.

The Bush team's real vulnerability is its B.M.D. - Budgets
of Mass Destruction, which have recklessly imperiled the
nation's future, with crazy tax-cutting and out-of-control
spending. The latest report from the Congressional Budget
Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4
trillion over the next decade - almost $1 trillion more
than the prediction of just five months ago. That is a
failure of intelligence and common sense that threatens to
make us all insecure - and people also feel that in their
guts.

As Peter Peterson, the former Nixon commerce secretary and
a longtime courageous advocate of fiscal responsibility,
puts it in "Running on Empty," his forthcoming book: "In
the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan galvanized the American
electorate with that famous riff: `I want to ask every
American: Are you better off now than you were four years
ago?' Perhaps some future-oriented presidential candidate
should rephrase this line as follows: `I want to ask every
American, young people especially: Is your future better
off now than it was four years ago - now that you are
saddled with these large new liabilities and the higher
taxes that must eventually accompany them?' "

While in his book Mr. Peterson equally indicts Democrats
and Republicans as co-conspirators in the fiscal follies of
our times, the Democrats should still follow his lead and
make this their campaign mantra: "Is your future better off
now than it was four years ago?" That's what's on people's
minds. It should be coupled with the bumper sticker: "Read
My Lips: No New Services. Bush Gave All the Money Away."
And it should be backed up with a responsible Democratic
alternative on both taxes and spending.

That is the only way to expose what the shameful coalition
of Karl Rove-led cynics, who care only about winning the
next election; voodoo economists preaching supply-side
economics; and libertarian nuts who think that by cutting
tax revenues you'll shrink the government - when all you do
is balloon the deficit - is doing to our future. And please
don't tell me the tax cuts are working. Of course they're
working! If you put this much stimulus into our economy -
three tax cuts, loose monetary policy and out-of-control
spending - it will produce a boom. Eat 10 chocolate bars at
once and you'll also get a rush. But at what long-term
cost?

"Quite simply," argues Mr. Peterson, "those bell-bottomed
young boomers of the 1960's have fully matured. The oldest
of them, born in 1946, are only six years away from the
median age of retirement on Social Security (63). As a
result, our large pension and health care benefit programs
will soon experience rapidly accelerating benefit outlays.
. . . Thus, at a time when the federal government should be
building up surpluses to prepare for the aging of the baby
boom generation, it is engaged in another reckless
experiment with large and permanent tax cuts. America
cannot grow its way out of the kinds of long-term deficits
we now face. . . . The odds are growing that today's
ballooning trade and fiscal deficits, the so-called twin
deficits, will someday trigger an explosion that causes the
economy to sink - not rise."

The same Bush folks who assured us Saddam had W.M.D. now
assure us these budgets of mass destruction don't matter.
Sure. "During the Vietnam War," notes Mr. Peterson,
"conservatives relentlessly pilloried Lyndon Johnson for
his fiscal irresponsibility. But he only wanted guns and
butter. Today, so-called conservatives are out-pandering
L.B.J. They must have it all: guns, butter and tax cuts."

This is so irresponsible and it will end in tears.
Remember, says Mr. Peterson, long-term tax cuts without
long-term spending cuts are not tax cuts. They are "tax
deferrals" - with the burden to be borne by your future or
your kid's future.

If this isn't the election issue, I don't know what is.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01FRIE.html?ex=1076645010&ei=1&en=267371ef42650e7d

Great editorial, but most Americans can't visualize five seconds into the future, let alone years. We are an instant gratification society, and the Bushites are counting on this.

hobit, Not only can't Americans visualize five seconds into the future, we/they/most Americans are living on "deficit spending."

Today from Reuters. "His fiscal 2005 budget left out the tens of billions sure to be needed next year to keep U.S. troops in Iraq (news - web sites) and omitted a fix for provisions in the tax code that will put a big burden on many middle-class households."

the Bush permanent tax cut is dead in the water-killed by the deficit...quite possibly the conservative element of the republicans will now offset the party dogs. (I could be wrong)

dys, I hope you're right, but I don't give this congress too much hope, because they've been following Bush like sheep. <sigh>

Something Bush hadn't thought of yet.
*******************************


With Valentine Day just around the corner, here's a little story that will bring a tear to your eye.

Little Melissa comes home from first grade and tells her father that they learned about the history of Valentine's Day. "Since Valentine's Day is for a Christian saint and we're Jewish," she asks, "will God get mad at me for giving someone a valentine?"

Melissa's father thinks a bit, then says "No, I don't think God would get mad. Who do you want to give a valentine to?"

"Osama Bin Laden," she says.

"Why Osama Bin Laden," her father asks in shock.

"Well," she says, "I thought that if a little American Jewish girl could have enough love to give Osama a valentine, he might start to think that maybe we're not all bad, and maybe start
loving people a little bit. And if other kids saw what I did and sent valentines to Osama, he'd love everyone a lot. And then he'd start going all over the place to tell everyone how much he loved them and how he didn't hate anyone anymore."

Her father's heart swells and he looks at his daughter with new found pride.

"Melissa, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."

"I know," Melissa says, "and once that gets him out in the open, Our marines could blow the hell out of him."

Sex, Lies and Bush on Tape
February 4, 2004
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Using this week's White House budget methodology, I can
project that if you just keep reading this column, your
assets will increase by $28,581 and you will lose 12.42
pounds. And this column is projected to end after just one
paragraph.

Well, so much for White House projections.

If we're serious about confronting threats to our way of
life, we don't have to hunt them in the caves of eastern
Afghanistan. We can find a serious threat in the West Wing
of the White House as the Bush administration charts its
fiscal policy.

President Bush's budget policies have mortgaged America,
yet instead of repairing the damage, he is intensifying the
harm by trying to make his tax cuts permanent. And this
week he presented a budget that is so dazzlingly deceitful
it does not even attempt to include the bills for our
presence in Iraq.

Conservatives have traditionally been the conscience of
America's checkbook (and, to their credit, many now are
screaming). If Mr. Bush were a genuine conservative, he
might cut taxes, but he would cut spending to match. If he
were an honest liberal, he might increase spending, and
taxes as well. Instead, the president is inviting us out
for a wild night on the town and leaving us - and our
children - with the bill.

I'm sorry if I sound screechy. But my first beat at this
newspaper, in 1984, was covering the Latin American debt
crisis. Later I lived in Japan as its economy went from a
global juggernaut to a global laughingstock. After you've
seen how quickly national leaders can bungle national
economies, and how difficult it is to put Humpty Dumpty
together again, you have less patience for high-risk
intellectual dishonesty like Mr. Bush's fiscal policy.

Dishonesty is a strong word. But the new book about former
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill discloses that Mr. Bush's
2001 speech to a joint session of Congress about his budget
contained a falsehood - about paying off all possible
American debt - even after Mr. O'Neill pointed it out.

"That night, Bush stood before the nation . . .," recounts
the book, "The Price of Loyalty," "and said something that
knowledgeable people in the U.S. government knew to be
false." I've excerpted that speech at
www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds (look for Posting No. 266),
and it makes painful reading.

In the 2000 campaign, I covered Mr. Bush a bit, so this
week I dug out tapes of his speeches. On those tapes, he
claims that he will leave the great bulk of the surplus
intact: "My plan is to take a portion of the projected
surplus, a little over $1 trillion of the $4 trillion
surplus, and give it to the people who pay the bills."

The reality is that under Mr. Bush, surpluses have
completely vanished. Granted, he had help from a bad
economy. But spending has increased more rapidly than under
any president since Lyndon Johnson, and Mr. Bush refuses to
pay for it. I've seen that story before - in Argentina.

Now the I.M.F. has warned that the U.S. budget and trade
deficits are a threat to the global economy.

A new study from the Brookings Institution, "Restoring
Fiscal Sanity," estimates that by 2014 the average family's
income will be $1,800 lower because of slower economic
growth caused by these budget deficits. A family with a
30-year $250,000 mortgage will be paying $2,000 more per
year in interest costs alone.

All in all, as I look at the economy, I miss President Bill
Clinton.

Mr. Clinton had egregious personal failings, and I deplored
what I felt was his dishonesty. But as a steward of the
economy, he combined fiscal conservatism with a willingness
to stand against protectionism. No leader today, Democrat
or Republican, is so forthright about the economy, and it's
sad to see Democrats retreating from free trade.

Compared with Mr. Bush, John Kerry and most other
Democratic presidential candidates are paragons of
responsibility - but only compared with Mr. Bush. The
reality is that promises by Democrats like Mr. Kerry to
start new health care programs, keep some of the tax cuts
and restore black ink are nonsense. But it's less nonsense
to say 2 + 2 = 5 (Mr. Kerry) than to say 2 + 2 = 22 (Mr.
Bush).

Mr. Clinton lied about sex, and he was sleazy in other
respects as well, but he was willing to tell America the
unpleasant truth about trade and about budgets. I wish Mr.
Bush and his Democratic challengers would be half as honest
with the American public as Mr. Clinton was.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/04/opinion/04KRIS.html?ex=1076901119&ei=1&en=01b64e6f3bd61ca9

I think the way to get Bush out of office in 2004 is to attack his religious beliefs. I don't think most people have any real idea what Christian Fundamentalism is all about. If he had to actually explain that he believes the world was literally created in eight days, and that whole wacky revelation story, I think it might actually make people realize what kind of blockheaded thinking he brings to the most important office in the country.

Why do you think the media doesn't attack something so ridiculous as the belief that the bible is the exact literal word of god?

Entering the zone[/u]
By:Larry Kudlow
February 5, 2004

If we knew gross domestic product would run at 4 percent, industrial supply at record levels, basic inflation at less-than 1 percent, real disposable income at 3.5 percent, gold around $400 and the 10-year Treasury bond just above 4 percent -- and we knew these performance results would last for many years -- we would be very happy indeed.

Why then is everyone suggesting that 4 percent GDP -- the just-released mark for last year's fourth quarter -- represents an economic slowdown? It's all blather.

Not only is such alarmism uncalled for, but the basic components inside the GDP report are very favorable. The U.S. economy, spurred by a significantly lower tax bite on investment and financed by a moderately easy Fed, is now generating more investment and production than consumption. In other words, we're investing and producing more than we consume. Supply is growing faster than demand.

As a result, the excess supply (stated in growth terms) has actually reduced the core inflation rate even as overall economic growth is registering its best gain in many years. GDP for the second-half of 2003 was a stellar 6 percent, and the core price index for consumer spending eased to 0.7 percent in fourth quarter, compared to 1 percent in the third. We're in an inflationless expansion.

Supply-siders have long argued that growth solves inflation. The availability of more goods absorbs excess money -- especially when growth is well balanced on the shoulders of tax incentives that spur the investment side of the economy. Moreover, the rise in capital formation is contributing to outsized productivity and profit gains. This, in turn, will soon lead to rapid job creation.

Liberal economists seem not to recognize that capital is labor's best friend. Without new capital formation to spark profitable new businesses -- which create new jobs and a more efficient workforce (equipped with the latest technologies) -- labor prospects would be gloomy, not upbeat.

Critics in the media and on the campaign trail are skipping a beat as well when they say we're in a jobless recovery. They of course ignore the new culture of small-business self-employment that, in the Labor Department's house-to-house survey, registered 2 million new jobs last year (compared with a loss of 70,000 in big-business payrolls). But the addition of 2 million workers, in large part generated by higher take-home-pay rewards from lower individual tax rates, won't be counted in the government's payroll survey for 18 to 24 months.

One reason corporations have been slow to hire is that the non-entrepreneurial sector of the economy is only just now beginning to flower. Excluding government spending, real private-sector GDP has expanded at a 5.3 percent annual rate since the Bush tax cuts became law last spring. In the prior six quarters, private-sector growth averaged only 2.5 percent.

As a rule, the expansion of corporate payroll jobs requires that private GDP grow faster than output-per-hour productivity. Since the end of 1995, output-per-hour has increased at a 3.2 percent annual rate. So the 3 percent private-GDP gain in 2002 and early 2003 was insufficient to create new jobs. But the better-than-5-percent growth since then has exceeded the trend-rate of productivity. Hence, we are now entering the zone of new job creation -- right as the tax-cut-nurtured economy has shifted into high gear. Payroll jobs could rise by 2 million this year.

The significant pickup in U.S. exports abroad also attests to the country's renewed economic health. As the overly strong dollar has normalized, exports doubled to 19 percent in the fourth quarter compared to less than 9 percent in the third.

The heightened after-tax competitiveness of American business will continue to surprise everybody with record export volumes. As we produce more than we consume inside the U.S. economy, the excess production is being shipped abroad, spurring world economic growth.

Democrats may carp about short-run budget deficits, and the vast majority of media commentators are obsessed with these deficits, but the economy is healthy, the stock market is strong, trade flows are positive, and interest rates and inflation are at rock bottom. Let them carp and obsess.

Liberal Yale economist Ray Fair has perfected a model that predicts election outcomes. Recently, his model has been re-estimated by the well-respected Macroeconomic Advisors of St. Louis. Both models came within a few tenths of a percent of accurately predicting the popular vote in 2000. Taking into account today's strong economy, both predict a Bush victory with roughly 60 percent of the vote come November.

In electoral terms, it's the economy, not the budget deficit, that will decide November's presidential election. Bush's economy, and his re-election prospects, are in fine shape.

Ray Fair's econometric projections have shown mean error of about 2.5% over a survey of elections dating back to the latter 19th Century, with an overall accuracy in excess of 95% when it comes to predicting the winner. Never has the Fairmodel Presidential Election Prediction missed the winner if the projected margin has been above 5% when calculated through the third year of a Presidential Term, and the very few misses have fallen within the margin of error. The most recent Fairmodel projection, calculated through Q3 '03 is Bush with 58.3% of the Two-Party vote. The Q4 '04 figures soon to be announced will add both GDP growth and inflation-control points, boosting the odds even further in Bush's favor.

Strawman. Few people are saying that. People are saying it's a slowdown of growth, but I haven't heard anybody talk about a slowdown of the economy.


True, but the question is when. People have been expecting job creation to pick up for over a year now. They're still waiting


Strawman again. Very few economists deny that, liberal or not.


But the household survey asks people if they're self-employed and the number of self-employed people is only a fraction of the gap between payroll and household employment. (From memory, 600,000 compared to 3 million). We don't know what accounts for the other 2,4 million, and Mr.Kudlow doesn't know it either.


Nonsense. There's no good reason to put the "private" in here. Except that it would ruin Mr. Kudlow's reasoning. The fact is that work productivity and the size of the labor force together have grown at about 4.5 percent, the economy has grown about 3.2 percent in the year to the fourth quarter, so job creation is lacking. But that isn't the story Kudlow wants to tell. Edit: Actually, GDP grew by 4.3 percent. I confused two columns in the Economist's "Output, demand and jobs statistics". Sorry about that -- even if it doesn't change the essence of the point I made.


I'm willing to bet every conservative in this forum that it won't. Are there any takers? I'd find it interesting to see if you guys trust your economics enough to put your money where your mouth is.

-- Thomas

Well, he got it wrong the last time - in Jan 2000, he was predicting "the edge" to be to the Republicans. In fact, as we all know, it was the Dems who got the plurality of votes ... ;-)

Ha!

followed by an ........ Aha!

Not exactly ... he did have "the edge" off a bit, however, the split was well within the margin of error, and Fair himself termed that race "too close to call". Statistically, he didn't do badly at all, there; he was off by a fraction of a percent of the total 2-party vote. As Fair himself observed prior to the 2000 election,

Quote:
"Payroll jobs could rise by 2 million this year."

I'm willing to bet every conservative in this forum that it won't. Are there any takers? I'd find it interesting to see if you guys trust your economics enough to put your money where your mouth is.

-- Thomas

I'm putting my money behind Thomas. Any takers out there? Most conservatives kept telling us that jobs lags tax cuts by six months. Well, it's been over six months, and we're still waiting. Two million jobs this year means a minimum of over 166,000 jobs per month. That ain't gonna happen this year, and probably not next year. Put your money where your mouth is. c.i.

Big blue announed they were adding 15,000 new jobs this year, but they cut 400 jobs in the US in January. hmmm....... General Motors lost money last year. Think they'll be adding more jobs? They also lost market share by over 15 percent. hmmm.......

The fact that the shrub has got any support at all is a sad indicator of the standard of US society. Heaven help the world if that moronic turd gets another term.