Jonathan Kantrowitz

Because of the budget crisis in Connecticut, a scheduled reduction in the sales tax has been deferred to produce additional revenue. So it made sense that a scheduled reduction in estate taxes should also be put off. And that’s just what the Democratic leadership in the Sate Legislature proposed.

But sales taxes fall heaviest on the poor. Estate taxes fall heaviest on the wealthy. So naturally, all Republicans opposed this most reasonable and common sense measure. What’s unnatural is how many Democrats opposed it. Yes, many who opposed it have some wealthy constituents, but the rich aren’t, for the most part going to vote Democratic no matter what you do for them – so if it’s not votes you are after, is it contributions? Hopefully not, if the CEP is revived. Or is it just currying favor with a few wealthy friends/supporters just to be friendly?

In the spirit of the holidays I’m not going to name names at this juncture, but you can find some of them here.

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its newest population estimates for Connecticut.

From April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009 Connecticut’s population grew from 3,405,607 to 3,518,288, an increase of only 112,681 or 3.3 %.

The previous decade, April 1, 1990 to April 1, 2000 had shown only a slightly higher growth, from 3,287,116 to 3,405,607, or about 118, 500. That cost us a seat in Congress.

Meanwhile five states added more people in the past year than Connecticut has in the past decade. Texas gained more people than any other state between July 1, 2008, and July 1, 2009 (478,000), followed by California (381,000), North Carolina (134,000), Georgia (131,000) and Florida (114,000), according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

While the economic and social impact of slow population growth is subject to debate, the most important political implication is clear. We are in danger of losing another seat in Congress.

What was the biggest scandal of 2009?

Blagojevich trying to sell a Senate seat? Senators, governors, and their mistresses? Allegations that lobbyists were lining up defense earmarks in exchange for straw donations?

No, the biggest scandal of 2009 was that the entire pay-to-play system that dominates Washington and occupies Congress’ time and attention sidetracked bold policies.

One year after President Obama was swept into office on a ticket of change, a wall of big money from the health interests, banks, and Big Oil thwarted, slowed, or deep-sixed legislation in Washington. Special interests were on track to spend $3.3 billion to shape policy outcomes, according to a recent story in Politico. Despite the voters’ mandate for change, the underlying problem of Washington – what author and Washington Post reporter Robert Kaiser calls “too damn much money” – remained unaltered and in many ways, more powerful than ever before.

The bottom line is that America will not see the significant change that a majority of people are demanding until we change the way we pay for political campaigns by getting special interests out of the business of paying for our elections.

“Yes we can” has been blocked by “no you don’t.”

Here are some facts to consider:

• The health care debate is a perfect example of all that is wrong. Everyone agrees health care must be made more affordable, and that more people need coverage. But with the health care industry spending more than $1 million a day this year to lobby for their bottom line, and contributing more than $200 million to candidates for Congress in the 2008 election cycle and first nine months of 2009, it’s not a surprise that reform proposals were watered down.

• At the beginning of December, the U.S. House passed legislation to reform the financial regulatory industry. The vote came fifteen months after the collapse of the financial sector and the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street banks. Reform of Wall Street shouldn’t have been so hard — these firms exploited a weak regulatory regime to wreak havoc on our economy — but throughout 2009, financial, real estate, and insurance interests poured $85 million in campaign contributions into Washington, D.C. They succeeded at watering down sections of the House bill, and have declared all out war on the Senate bill.

• As the climate change conference in Copenhagen comes to a close, President Barack Obama’s hands were tied not just by China and India’s unwillingness to negotiate far-reaching agreements. He was also hemmed in by the politics of passing climate legislation through the U.S. Senate – and the stranglehold that Big Oil and coal companies have over our elected officials. The energy sector has contributed more than $4.5 million to Senators just this year – an off-election year. Senators like Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) have declared that any action on climate change in the Senate faces an uncertain future. Inhofe has received more than $1.2 million in contributions from oil and gas interests during his career.

The swamp of special interest money is rising in Washington and Congress needs a way out.

The Solution: The Fair Elections Now Act

One year later, it’s become clear that change doesn’t come simply with the election of a new president or new members of Congress. To dramatically change the way Washington works we need to change the way campaigns are financed in this country.

It’s time for the Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752, H.R. 1826), legislation that would sever the ties between big money campaign contributors and members of Congress. With Fair Elections, candidates would be able to run a competitive race for congressional office with a blend of small dollar donations and limited public funds. Sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), this voluntary system would put people in office unencumbered by special interest influence. In addition to Rep. Larson, the House bill has the broad bipartisan and cross-caucus support of 124 members.

There have been a lot of political scandals and intrigue in Washington this year, but the worst of them all is the sordid impact of money in our political process. The scandal is what is legally permitted day in, day out, in Washington, D.C. It is time to change the system and pass the Fair Election Now Act.

Learn more.

Teachers rate their lives higher in four of six well-being indexes

A career in teaching might be good for your well-being. While the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index previously revealed that business owners were richer in well-being than other job types, further research isolating teachers from other professionals finds teachers fare as well as or better than business owners in overall well-being.

Gallup typically includes teachers in the “professional worker” occupation category, but asks an additional question –”Are you currently a teacher in a public or private school (at any level, secondary, elementary, college, pre-school)?” — to distinguish teachers from non-teaching professionals.

An analysis of data collected between July 2008 and June 2009 finds that teachers score highest (or tied for highest) among all 12 job types on how they evaluate their lives, access to resources needed to lead a healthy life, emotional health, and their the likelihood of engaging in healthy behaviors. Overall, the findings reveal numerous benefits and some drawbacks related to the teaching profession.

Teachers View Their Lives in Positive Terms

The Life Evaluation Index, which is based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, is one of four sub-indexes on which teachers rank first. People are asked to evaluate their present and future lives on a scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst possible life and 10 is the best possible life. Based on their scores, teachers are at the top of the list, expressing far more optimism than all other professions.

Next on the list, non-teaching professionals were nearly seven percentage points lower on this index than their fellow professionals in the education ranks. Business owners lagged 10 points behind teachers. Workers in many other job types had scores more than 15 points below teachers, suggesting that they tend to see their lives much less positively.

Teachers Have What They Need for a Healthy Life

Teachers are also in the top spot, tied with managers/executives/officials and non-teaching professionals, on the Gallup-Healthways Basic Access Index. The Basic Access Index measures access to resources and services needed to lead a healthy life (based on 13 indicators gauging access to food, shelter, healthcare, and a safe and satisfying place to live, among other things).

Clerical/office workers, business owners, and sales workers also report a high degree of access to basic resources. Workers in the farming/fishing/forestry and construction/mining industries rank lowest on this sub-index.

Teachers Share the Top Ranking in Emotional Health

In terms of emotional health, teachers share the top spot with numerous job types including farming/fishing/ forestry workers (who topped the list in a previous analysis), non-teaching professionals, business owners, and managers/executives/officials, all of which have index scores within two points or less of teachers. A high level of emotional health involves positive daily experiences (e.g., smiling or laughter, learning or doing something interesting, being treated with respect), more positive than negative emotions, and no history of depression.

Underscoring the level of positive emotion teachers experience on a daily basis, when surveyed, 87% of teachers said they smiled or laughed a lot yesterday. Sales workers were next in line with 86% reporting smiling or laughing a lot the day before the survey. Manufacturing/production and transportation workers smiled and laughed least often with 82% reporting that they did so a lot yesterday.

Teachers Make Healthy Choices

Teachers also rank near the top on the Healthy Behavior Index, again sharing a comparable score with farm/fishing/forestry workers and business owners; non-teaching professionals follow. The Healthy Behavior Index measures four behaviors strongly linked to health: eating healthy, smoking (scored in reverse), weekly consumption of fruits and vegetables, and weekly exercise frequency. Manufacturing/production, transportation, installation/repair, and sales workers rank lowest on the Healthy Behavior Index.

Teachers Do Not Report the Best Work Environments

Teachers and fellow professionals lag far behind business owners, who hold the top spot on the Work Environment Index. The Work Environment Index asks people if they are satisfied with their jobs, if they get to use their strengths at work, if their supervisor treats them more like a boss or a partner, and if their work environment is open and trusting. Given that conditions in an employee’s work environment are directly related to his or her engagement level, the finding may have implications for students and administrators. Teachers who are given the opportunity to do what they do best at work (91% say they get to use their strengths at work) may be more likely to engage students in the learning process.

Business owners, despite working longer hours than people in other job types, report having the best work environments — likely buoyed by the fact that many business owners are their own supervisors. Farming/fishing/forestry workers have a higher score on the index than teachers, but teachers score higher than people in construction/mining, sales, installation/repair, clerical/office work, service, manufacturing/production, and transportation.

Teachers Are as Physically Healthy as Most Workers in Other Professions

Construction/mining workers, managers/executives/officials, professionals, and business owners lead the way on the Physical Health Index, and teachers along with sales workers and installation/repair workers are close behind. This index includes nine items addressing chronic or daily illnesses, including colds and flu. When asked if they were sick with the flu yesterday, 1.2% of teachers (and business owners) said “yes,” whereas the percentage of flu sufferers was as high as 2.9% for individuals in the farming/fishing/forestry industry. Teachers were more likely to report having a cold yesterday (7.0% said “yes” to this item). Service workers were most likely to report having a cold (7.4%), and business owners were the least likely (4.6%).

Bottom Line

Teachers score highly on many aspects of well-being, even when compared with non-teaching professionals and business owners. It is unclear whether the relatively higher scores of teachers on several measures of well-being are because working in that profession enhances one’s well-being, or if people who have higher well-being in general seek out teaching professions.

While teachers reap the personal benefits of high well-being, this level of well-being may also prove beneficial to their students and the broader community. At the same time, community leaders and administrators would do well to improve teacher’s work environments not only to help boost teacher well-being, but also to boost student and community well-being even higher.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with adults, aged 18 and older, who are employed in one of the 11 job categories Gallup typically uses to assess occupation. A total of 409,261 interviews were conducted July 1, 2008-June 30, 2009, as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. However, because many Americans are not in the workforce and because some Americans work in jobs that do not fit any of these job classifications, the final sample was 179,007.

Each occupational group has at least 3,336 respondents, which means that for most occupations and most indexes the margin of sampling error is always less than ±2 percentage points. However, because farmers and small business owners often could not answer questions about their supervisors, sample sizes for these two groups on the Work Environment Index drop as low as 1,327. The margin of error for this smallest sample size (incorporating the design effect) is ±3 percentage points. Rankings, and ties within rankings, were determined using margins of error.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones (for respondents with a landline telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell phone only). In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Letter from Jim Himes:

December 23, 2009

Friends,

I am just hours back from several days visiting our troops and civilian operations in Afghanistan. The more I learn about Afghanistan, the more complicated the challenge seems. The nation is desperately poor, and reeling from decades of brutal warfare. It is literally inconceivable that anyone should experience the Soviets, the Taliban and utter chaos in less than a generation. The questions are daunting. What does democracy mean in a country of 70% illiteracy? Does prosperity have a chance in a place with six million landmines and practically no safe roads? What is our long-term strategic interest in a geography that ranges from inhospitable to inaccessible, separating the dangers of Iran and Pakistan?

I know one thing. The finest, most idealistic and capable people I have ever met are thousands of miles from home right now, working in unspeakable conditions on the answers to those questions. Yes, it was fascinating to meet with General Stanley McChrystal, with President Hamid Karzai and with the CIA station chief in Kabul. But, what will stick with me are the dozens of Americans I met who are risking everything trying to improve the lives of strangers:

The Ranger colonel from West Virginia building a secure government center for the district governor and his council a few miles outside of Kandahar.

The USAID people opening roads, restoring cell phone service and figuring out how to help farmers get pomegranates to market.

The foreign service officer working to meld civil and Islamic law and tribal customs in a courthouse in the Arghandab valley.

These, and the other American and NATO people we met were not naive. They understand the need to partner with, rather than lead, the Afghans. They sense the precariousness of their efforts, and the fact that the time they have and the resources they need will be increasingly limited. And they know that the best of intentions are no guarantee of success. North of Kandahar, I asked the young turret gunner in our armored vehicle if he would re-enlist when his tour was done. “Yes, sir”, he said, “I work with best guys in the world, and every day we’re helping a little in this world of hurt.”

As we approach the holidays, whatever you think of the war in Afghanistan, I hope you’ll join me in awe and pride that our nation can field such people. Tens of thousands of them, the best that we have, will wake up this week in dust and danger, in a perilous land thousands of miles from home and family. We owe them an unpayable debt of gratitude. I hope you will join me this week in praying for their success and safety.

Best

Jim

Paid for by Jim Himes for Congress

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What started as a public spirited campaign by a local activist to get New Haven to fix some urban annoyances has turned into one of America’s most promising start-ups, according to Business Week:

Ben Berkowitz got nowhere when he called City Hall two years ago to report graffiti in his neighborhood in New Haven, Conn. His frustration became the seed for SeeClickFix, a Web site where citizens can flag such problems as graffiti and potholes to authorities. Berkowitz, a 30-year-old Web developer, and three friends built a prototype using the Google Maps API in four hours. Eventually they created a system to set up “watch areas” to alert officials by e-mail every time a new complaint comes in. SeeClickFix launched in spring 2008, but it remained a side project until early 2009, when the Boston Globe agreed to use the site for a “pothole map” on Boston.com. Berkowitz and his team bootstrapped the company—two of the four still have day jobs, and he worked from coffee shop until recently—before the group raised an undislcosed sum from angel investors in October.

Go to the SeeClickFix blog to see what a great idea this is and how well it works.

Bios (sort of) of the founders are here.

Last month, Gov. Rell proposed cutting the LPN adult education program as a means of closing the state budget deficit. This program creates 350 new LPNs every 18 months. The Connecticut Department of Labor has said that about 324 new LPNs are needed each year.

The State Vocational Federation of Teachers issued a letter today to Gov. Rell calling on her to not cut the LPN adult education program because it will actually cost the state $850,000 or more rather than save the state $1.7 million as the Governor had suggested. Officials within the Office of Policy and Management have confirmed SVFT’s findings.

The letter was also sent to Democratic and Republican leadership in both the house and senate.

Letter to Gov. Rell:

The Honorable M. Jodi Rell:

The responsibility for closing Connecticut’s budget deficit is one we do not envy and can little understand. We do realize that any cuts to the budget that have to be made will cause pain to at least some citizens of our state. The only justification for that pain is that the cuts were necessary to save money and close the deficit. Your proposal to “suspend” the LPN program in the Connecticut Technical School System creates a myriad of problems, both directly and indirectly, for our citizens, but only serves to exacerbate our budget crisis.

The proposed budget savings of $1.7 million for the remainder of the fiscal year is an illusion for several reasons:

· Only five of the 44 teachers in the LPN program do not have job protection from this summer’s SEBAC agreement. As you know, the SEBAC agreement – which has saved the State hundreds of millions of dollars – guarantees a comparable job at no loss of income until July, 2011. The State would save the salary of only five teachers, five of the lowest-paid teachers affected by the proposed suspension of the program. The savings would be approximately $150,000.

· The salaries of the 39 teachers with SEBAC job protection is based on a 188-day work year. Many, and probably most, of the teachers will have to be placed in jobs with a 240-day work year. The cost of prorating the salaries could well run over $400,000.

· Additionally, the State will lose approximately $465,000 in tuition from the 350 students who would enter the program if it were open in January. The State will also have to reimburse nearly 1000 students the $50 application fee for the course. Overall, closing the program will not save $1.7 million; it would cost an additional $850,000+ compared to keeping it open.

Of course, the long-term costs are greater; many students who are currently receiving various forms of State assistance will be employed taxpayers in 18 months. Most graduates will completely return the State’s investment in their tuition within half a dozen years. We realize that changes have to be made. The tuition is far too low: it could be doubled or even tripled and still be a far less costly alternative to private schools. Money is now available for financial aid that did not exist when the current graduating class began in 2008; we are willing to help students find those sources of tuition assistance. Your proposal to cut the LPN program does not meet the long-term needs of the State for growing jobs, nor does it address the immediate necessity of balancing the budget. In fact, the cut only makes the budget problem worse. We implore you to re-evaluate your position and allow the CTHSS LPN program to stay open in January.

Respectfully,

The State Vocational Federation of Teachers