The Bird Feeder Syndrome

Welfare is something that everyone has something to say about. The welfare system has been around since 1925 and the administration in Tennessee was implemented in 1933. Over the years there have been several changes and updates to the system in Tennessee. In 1996 the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program was replaced with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in order to help the health and safety of the children in the program. Even though the creation of the welfare program seems to be a good idea, but now there are so many people that take advantage of something designed to take care of children.

One of the problems that the welfare program faces is welfare fraud. There are people that receive it that do not need it or deserve it, there are illegals that receive it without paying into the system and even people that need it that can't receive it. When people abuse the system it makes it that much harder for people that are really in need of assistance it receive assistance. There are many families struggling to make ends meet by having a low paying job and need help from the government. The miss use of the system by other people make it almost impossible to be able to get approved for government assistance.

A way to fix this problem can be stricter rules on the eligibility of the person applying for assistance. Obviously the rules are not being enforced or the people that are being accepted know ways around the rules. If there where more restrictions and better enforced rules the people that really need the assistance for help can receive it.

Another problem faced with the program there is no force to make people work. The less someone works, the more money they can get. Most the time you can make more money doing no work then actually working. This gives more opportunity for people to take advantage of "free" money and not make a positive contribution to the economy.

One solution to encourage people on welfare to work is an opportunity to better themselves. Most people on welfare are not well educated. When going out to find a job their lack of education can hinder them getting the job. A solution to this is give the people on welfare a free way to earn an education or training in a trade. Having people more educated can make them more valuable in society and become a more productive citizen encouraging them to work instead of taking advantage of the system.

The welfare system also encourages people to have children out of wedlock. A majority of women on welfare had their first child as a teenager. Most of these women know if they have a child they will get welfare, no questions asked. There is nothing being to try to stop the pregnancy's from happening, just promoting it by allowing them to continue to have children and then receiving money for them. There are even women that continue to have children because they know they will receive more money for each child.

Having harder restrictions on the amount of money given per child could help this. Also setting a limit of children a person has could also help. Having a top amount of how much a person could receive regardless of how many children could reduce the abuse of the program tremendously.

TN Enforcement Of Child Support

 A child is born into this world innocent, and completely free of sin. He or she knows nothing and relies heavily upon it's parents for guidance and its very own survival. Why does it involve outside(parents) intervention to enforce the caring and nurturing of a child? Do we not have a moral obligation as parents to care for our young as compared with any other mammal in the Animal Kingdom? As to many this may seem a no brain er, but unfortunately this is a issue that effects many children in our country. 

 The State of Tennessee under the Title IV-D of the Social Security Act in 1975 formed the Department of Human Services(DHS). This allowed the state to set and enforce child support cases in which the noncustodial parent was absent, including the establishment of child support payments to be paid. This proved to be no simple task as many noncustodial parents(usually the fathers) were and still today are not offering any type support to the mothers, thus doing a major disservice to the children being effected.  According to the CWLA's Children at a Glance, the state poverty level combined for children under the age of 18 is currently at 26.3%. This proves to be a problem as the state poverty level is only at 17.7%.(http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/statefactsheets/2012/tennessee.pdf). Why such staggering numbers regarding the well being of our children? As parents it is our duty being that of the mother and of the father to provide everything the child needs to grow up in a healthy environment. This includes food, shelter, clothing, education, and other essential thing needed. To ensure a child is provided these things measures are taken to make sure that equal support from both parents is given.

Local and state governments receive over 4 billion in funding annually from the federal government to its CSE programs. For the fiscal year of 2010 CSE's as a whole collected over 26.6 billion in payments and served nearly 15.9 million cases. Although these numbers seem to be very promising, it only collected on 62% of the total money owed in child support payments(Urban Institute). What about our local government and its performance? According to the Department of Human Services annual report for fiscal year 2010-2011(http://www.tn.gov/humanserv/pubs/DHS-AR.pdf), the State of Tennessee had a all-time state high in child support collected at 628 million. They showed an increase in cases under order from 67.11% in June 2010 to 70.08% in June 2011, while only showing an increase for child support collection rate for current support from 51.83% to 52.61% within that same year's span. This is a difference of .78% which is very disappointing. It has been stated that the state of Tennessee has roughly about 2 billion dollars owed in child support payments  that are in the arrears and only about 8% of that  was collected and dispersed. This leaves much room for improvement. Davidson County and Shelby County, which is home to the two largest cities of our state have been subject to examination and scrutiny. A news reporter(Erin Holt-Child support issues plague TN) for the city of Nashville interviewed a judge that often hears child support cases in Davidson county in which he also expressed his concerns with the current performance of our CSE program and the collections of payments.(http://www.wkrn.com/story/16048058/child-support-issues-plague-tenn). Memphis located in Shelby County has not been spared either as many single mothers have expressed their dis-pleasures concerning the lack of engagement from the agencies in helping locate the non custodial parent so that payments can possibly be retrieved.(http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13511869)

Many methods have been implemented to help enforce child support being owed by the noncustodial even if they are in the arrears or not. These methods include; the interception of taxes, suspension of licenses, wage with holdings, the $50 dollar payment disregard, presumptive guidelines, voluntary in- hospital paternity establishment programs, and up to and including incarceration. We seem to only focus on the problem at hand on the back end, instead of focusing on the problem on the front end. How much sex education are we providing to our younger generation? How much are we focusing on the idea of abstinence? Are we as parents and teachers promoting the use of condoms, and safe sex if engaged in sexual activity? Are Community leaders being able to recognize the seriousness of teenage pregnancy and taking the necessary steps to receive the proper funding for non profit organizations that help out with this issue? These are the questions and issues that need to be addressed as well instead of placing most of the attention on policy implementation and enforcement.





Sorensen, Elaine and Halgermn, Ariel( 04/15/2000). Child Support Is Working Better Than We Thought. Urban Institute(http://www.urban.org/publications/309445.html)

CA.gov. California Performance Review--HHS10 Align State Law Regarding The $50 Dollar Child Support Disregard Payments(http://cpr.ca.gov/cpr_report/Issues_and_Recommendations/Chapter_2_Health_and_Human_Services/HHS10.html)

Child Support Recovery Service(http://www.childsupportrecovery.com/serviceLocations/view.cfm?State=TN)

 

                                     

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Increasing Our Children's Potential. by Chris Corkery

Before we get into the emotional aspects of this argument, lets look at the facts. By first having these numbers on our minds, we can see the reasoning behind the points made. First off, in 2010, the US spent 1.32% of its national budget on education, while the Department of Veterans affairs gets 16.13, and the Department of Defense spent 18.74% of the budget. Social Security makes up 19.63% of the budget at the top of the list. On average, $10,591 is spent on each student in a school year. On average we spend almost three times as much on prisoners as we do on our children. In 2007 it cost about $30,600 to keep a prisoner in jail for a year.

As we can see there is a very high disparity in the budget allocations of this country. Not all states have underfunded schools. Many states receive high federal funding and it is matched with local government budget spending. So some states can gain access to rather decent education facilities. Some states however receive little funding from their states and the graduation rate shows. The New England region has seen wonderful increases in graduation rates and have some of the highest per student spending in the country. New York has an interesting problem. They spend the second most money per student yet they still fall behind on graduation rates. The reason this happens is because the urban areas of New York City receive very little funding in comparison to the suburban parts of New York State. Thus the majority of people live in the urban part of the city and thus the graduation rate suffers. In areas like the Southern US, spending on education is at a minimum. The only place worse than the south is Idaho, Utah, and Arizona where they spend just a little bit less than Tennessee. The graduation rates in the South very much reflect the spending they put into it. Idaho and Utah are strange as they both have graduation rates over 70% yet spend some of the least on education in the country. The main reason for this is the population size of these states is tiny in comparison to their southern counterparts. While Tennessee may spend 6,000 dollars on a student, Utah spends only a little over 5,000 dollars, but there is a big difference in having 5000 dollars per student for a class of 12 -15 students in Utah, while Tennessee has 6000 dollars to spend on 40+ students in one class.

So what should be done? First there needs to be a massive budget reallocation. Education should be one of the top three things our federal government spends its money on. It is so important to educate people as it leads to better social environments for people and allows for them to make better decisions when voting. The way we find answers to problems is by using our minds and figuring it out. If we cut spending to education, this skill of the American people will atrophy. Second we need to make sure that there are enough teachers who are paid well for their hard work to teach classes no larger than 12 students. Putting more than that many people of any age in a room and you will find yourself having trouble keeping all of them interested in what is being studied. A teacher cannot be effective in their occupation when they are stretched thin.

As tax payers, we all have invested money into our nations education. As investors we should all be interested in protecting our investments. Our schools should be protected from budget cuts and the teachers should be well compensated for doing such a difficult job. Some may retort saying that we shouldn’t protect bad teachers, and so not allowing them to unionize will do just that. Inside of a union there are systems in place to evaluate the effectiveness of each teacher. It should not be the federal governments job to police teachers and their evaluations. That should be left to the actual educators involved. Parents and staff should work together to find the path best suited for their child. In this country, protecting our education system is the same as protecting our children.

Works Cited

" 2011 Budget of the U.S. Government.." United States Office of Management and Budget. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2010. <www.gao.gov/financial/fy2010/10frusg.pdf>.

"Background & Analysis." Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2012. <http://febp.newamerica.net/background-analysis/school-finance>.

Lips, Dan. "Does Spending More on Education Improve Academic Achievement?." Conservative Policy Research and Analysis. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2012. <http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/09/does-spending-more-on-education-improve-academic-achievement>.

Wilde, Marian. "The Ins and Outs of School Finance - Fundraising | GreatSchools." GreatSchools - Public and Private School Ratings, Reviews and Parent Community. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2012. <http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/volunteering/101-the-ins-and-outs-of-school-finance.gs>.

There's Been a Decrease in Charitable Giving During the Recession (and what you can do about it)

While nonprofit giving increased between 2010 and 2011, donations still have not returned their 2007 levels. It's getting close, though. In 2007, donors gave $307 billion to US charities. In 2011, the amount was $298.42 billion.

Nearly 90% of that figure comes from individuals and families. Thirty-two percent of the money went to religious institutions, 13% went to education and 8% went to international affairs (no doubt increased by the devastating earthquake, tsunami and near-meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan).

While the recession devastated millions of American families and business, the lower and middle classes were the most affected. Unfortunately, those families were also the ones that donated the most to nonprofits, with households earning less than $50,000 a year averaging 19% in donations.

How can a nonprofit make up the difference?

Option 1: Emphasize In-Kind Donations

Since those who would give no longer can, the nonprofit should encourage their former (and future) donors to give in-kind donations.

An in-kind donation is any donation that is not cash. This can be a donation of goods or services. Plus, in-kind donations can have a cash value assigned to it and be deducted from taxes like a cash donation.

For example, when the recession hit, nationwide unemployment hit ten percent. A family that previously could have given to their church needed other ways to help. This is where the church should encourage an in-kind donation. Previously, the church might have used donation money to hire workers to transport, pack or hand out food. Now, the church can skip the hired help and use the donor.

Asking for in-kind donations seems like an obvious step, but a donation doesn’t have to just be volunteer labor. For instance, a lawyer who works pro bono for her alma mater has just donated her time. A contractor that donates leftover lumber, wiring or cabinets to a homebuilding NPO can declare those as in-kind donations on his taxes.

In-kind donations are a great way for a nonprofit to get what it needs without spending limited funds.

Option 2: Instead of a Capital Campaign, offer an NPO IPO.

Capital campaigns are the literal and figurative cornerstone for NPOs. Originally associated with brick-and-mortar building funds, many nonprofits are in a constant state of campaigning. Universities especially end up planning the next campaign before the first is in stewardship.

Instead, an IPO, or initial public offering, is a great way to raise money. While a nonprofit cannot actually become a publicly traded company, figuratively offering shares of the nonprofit can engage donors in a way that the traditional capital campaign cannot.

One of the first NPO IPOs was launched in 2007 for a California-based homebuilding company. Each share was offered at $32, and the nonprofit ended up raising $700,000. Other NPOs followed suit, including Teach for America, College Summit, and VolunteerMatch.

In return for buying “shares” of the nonprofit, investors get what’s called “social capital”. For the homebuilding nonprofit, investors were encouraged to attend ribbon cutting ceremonies. Other NPOs offered quarterly reports, which included increases in volunteer hours or impact reports.

An NPO IPO is best marketed to potential donors with familiarity with stock and bond markets. While buying a “share” of the donations isn’t a new concept, the excitement of owning a piece of a nonprofit can extend to continued support and a legacy of donations.

Option 3: Philanthropreneurship

A portmanteau of “philanthropy” and “entrepreneurship”, philantropreneurship combines the mission of philanthropy with the entrepreneurship of business. While some of the most popular philanthropreneurships tend to be multinational, the basic strategies of these companies, whether they are for-profit or nonprofit, can work at any scale.

PlayPumps International is a for-profit philathropreneurship company. It installs merry-go-rounds on children’s playgrounds in African countries that are short on clean water. As the children play, water is drawn from underground and piped to wells. PlayPumps installs the pumps and trains the local people on how to run it. They receive donations from governments and people, but advertising raises most of the money for the pump. Ads are installed on the sides of the merry-go-rounds.

Most nonprofits have the opportunity to for similar advertising. Is there an event coming up with a t-shirt? Be sure to offer sponsorship for local businesses in exchange for their logo on the shirt. Does the nonprofit have a magazine or newsletter? Supporting businesses can easily be featured in an advertising.

While there are many ways to pull a bleeding NPO out of the red, these options could be a good first step to restoring the nonprofit’s vision.

Is Racial Profiling by the Police Acceptable or Could it be a Tool for Intimidation

Is Racial Profiling by the Police Acceptable or Could it be a Tool for Intimidation?

            Racial profiling is a specific targeting method applied by police or security agents in arresting, detaining, questioning or other incongruent handlings of individuals, based mostly on ethnicity, race or belief that certain marginal communities are more-likely to engage in criminal acts. This issue has been a major controversial concern that is believed to have started in the United States over three decades before, and has almost spilled over to most parts of the contemporary world. Researchers and diverse security organizations have done numerous studies regarding this contentious phenomenon, but the most prominent case came into limelight when the New Jersey state police was involved. Since then, with the exemption of few local cases, the courts have been comparatively mum at the national heights. Nevertheless, proceeding prototypes are beginning to emerge providing evidence that, racial profiling lawsuits are viably to amplify soon.  There exist some postulations regarding the efficiency of profiling in deterring crime. Actually, a momentous relationship connecting partisanship in some given racial groupings that are inclined to commit certain crimes are evident. Given this predisposition, police may impede, ransack or scrutinize members of such communities in a secluded method.  It may be presumed that such processes reduce more crime than do other ways for comparable disruption of expenditures and resources. If either of these hypotheses fails, then the arguments raised do not arise. The ethical quandary posed by racial profiling comes up only if channels that emerge morally intricate are observed from certain angles such as racial parity which add value and contribute to the stipulation of the public good more so, security. If not, racial profiling would be perceptibly illegitimate. Racial profiling mostly happens in airports, highways and major entry points. The most affected minority groups are the African-Americans, Hispanics, Arab-Americans and Blacks.

            On highways, especially those connecting different states, police officers instigate random vehicle stops. Drivers are expected when flagged down, to abide by the rules and could be subjected to search, verbal questioning and authentication of documents. Conversely, this has not been the case as availed from data collected by the FBI reporting that, slightly over fifty percent on no account grant police permission for these checks and almost the same figure adhere to the directives. Drivers that willingly approve permission for these checks testify that they purely fear long detention by police who primarily issue threats. For those that never stop after being flagged down say that they believe their races are under scrutiny and the police would never fail to get any minor mistake.

            Indeed, racial profiling has taken an alarming and dimensional approaches at airports since, there are particular racial groups that believe are the main targets. Criminologist also concur that, the terror attacks on the 11^th September 2001 was a turning point for most Western countries particularly, the US to intensify racial profiling at whatever levels. But, Arab-Americans and individuals from Islamic and other Arab states believe that racial profiling is a tool the Western formulated to prohibit them from entering other countries particularly the United States. It has also been an instrument used in victimizing particular individuals from “unfriendly nations”. As much as they agree that terror attacks done mostly by Islamic Jihadists are not acceptable, they base their arguments that; this is an individualistic perception and responsibility and should not be a brand for every Arab character or state.

            Racial profiling at airports by police may be the products of presented societal and political arrangements, presented by the United States to none conformers in terms of their affiliations and interests throughout the globe. At airports profiling may be done by means of detention, questioning, searching and blacklisting in the name of security measures. Concisely, many also argue that, prospective terrorists may not necessarily use airports, and could be not from the perceived racial groupings as been the case.

            A case in point was when a white male McVeigh, was found to be responsible for the Oklahoma bombings, and  Americans argued that it was just among the deviant cases. On major entry areas like the vast US borderlines, victims of racial profiling are immigrants that travel without proper documentation. They could be genuine cases of atrocities and insecurity from their countries of origin but, since they are on the watch list, the wrath of racial profiling carried by police always befall them. Conclusively, there should be other proper and authentic formulated ways and methods to deter crime other than racial profiling that in the eyes of the minorities is seen as racism.

Links

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2003/June/racial_profiling_fact_sheet.pdf

 http://www.americanbar.org/publications/criminal_justice_magazine_home/crimjust_cjmag_17_2_japanese.html

 http://www.wce.wwu.edu/resources/cep/ejournal/v003n001/a026.shtml

 

Should religious belief take precedence over women's health?

I think we can all agree on one thing; health care reform is seriously needed in the United States.  That is the intended purpose of the Affordable Care Act, set forth by the current administration.  However, change, no matter how necessary, is often met with great debate. 

The topic of debate within the Affordable Care Act is the Contraceptive Coverage Mandate.  The Contraceptive Coverage Mandate is part of the rule that forces insurance companies to cover contraception, with no copay, under preventative services for women’s health.  Sounds good on the surface, considering still nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned.  If contraception is available “free of charge”, this should help solve a large part of that issue.  There is a greater issue at hand, however, in that many religions view contraception as immoral.  Therefore, the mandate to force contraceptive benefits upon them infringes upon their religious beliefs.  The issue then becomes, how can we protect women’s health while protecting religious sanctities?

            The argument on one side is that birth control can be viewed as a being medically necessary because it “ensures” a woman’s health and well-being. With that statement one could then construe that insurance that does not offer birth control is discriminatory on the basis of gender.  On the other side of the coin, many believe that religious rights take precedent over the written laws in a nation.  In this context, religious leaders object to offering contraceptive coverage to their employees and believe their religion protects them from doing so.

            Compromise is always necessary when it comes to choosing between religious liberty and issues of health.  For example, religious believers cannot rightfully refuse medical care for their sick children.  At the same time, nonbelievers, at least in the contraceptive sense, cannot force all religions to use contraception.  I do not believe, however, that by making contraception available, the religion is condoning their use.  They are simply offering to their people a choice;  a choice that all people, religious or not, should have. 

            From a woman’s perspective, I believe the Contraceptive Coverage Mandate is a win-win.  As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  The cost of unwanted pregnancies, including abortions, fetal losses, and live births, was approximately $12.1 billion to taxpayers in 2010.  This is according to research analyst, Emily Monea, and research director, Adam Thomas, both of The Brookings Institution, Center on Children and Families, Washington, DC.  The pair also conclude in their research, that the savings from preventing just the unwanted pregnancies (not the untimely pregnancies), would be $6 billion per year.  This study doesn’t even take into consideration the effects of pregnancy on a woman’s health, such as gestational diabetes, anemia, high blood pressure, post-partum depression and many of the other complications that can occur.   

For more statistics on unplanned pregnancies, visit the following websites:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-Unintended-Pregnancy-US.html

https://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/Reproductive%20Health/Fact%20Sheets/AIU_2012_Estimates%20Factsheet_ENGLISH.pdf

            Although there is still much to be clarified regarding the mandate, for the majority the Contraceptive Coverage Mandate went into effect on August 1, 2012.  The Health and Human Services Department is still trying to propose ways to expand or change religious exemptions.  As of now, faith based groups who have religious objections have until August 1, 2013 before it takes effect.  As we all know, a lot can happen in a year, especially an election year. 

            While I fully support the Contraceptive mandate, as I believe it ensures access to birth control for all women, I can also appreciate the concerns of religious leaders. They do not want their congregations to see the offering as condoning its use.   However, a policy such as this makes sense in terms of public health and the economy.  It is a policy for the greater good of the people, and it is a basic human right to have equal access to contraceptive health care.  I believe it should be offered by all employees, regardless of faith, and the right to choose to use it or not is then given to the individual.   After all, we earn our insurance coverage, we pay for it and we should have access to all preventive services, including birth control.

               

SSA Disability Hearing Backlog

There are over eighteen million Americans currently receiving Social Security disability benefits. There are over three million new applications pending with the Social Security Administration (SSA). Of those three million applications, 700,000 are waiting for a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).  The average waiting time for an individual to receive a decision on their disability application after requesting a hearing is three hundred and fifty (350) days. This is a drastic improvement from just a few years ago when the average wait time was five hundred and fourteen (514) days (McCoy 2011). Nevertheless, this drastic improvement is still not acceptable for those waiting on a decision.

When filing for disability benefits, an individual is asking to be considered unable to work due to injury or illness. If one is unable to work and is not receiving benefits, they do not have a year to wait. Few people have the means to provide for themselves, let alone a family, with no income for a year. According to the SSA, "the long wait for a hearing leads to homelessness and loss of family and friends" (http://www.socialsecurity.gov/asp/StrategicGoal1.pdf).

The backlog at SSA hearing offices has resulted from the recession, lack of jobs and resources and the policies and procedures of the hearing offices themselves. Due to recent congressional inquiry regarding the backlog, the SSA designed and implemented the Hearing Backlog Reduction Plan in 2007 (http://www.ssa.gov/hearingsbacklog.pdf). This plan outlines steps the agency intends to follow to reduce the backlog in hearing offices. According to the plan, the Agency intends to establish individual annual expectation of ALJs, increase number of ALJs and support staff in hearing office, increase number of hearing offices, pre-screen hearing requests to approve some claims prior to hearing, improve workload management practices and increase the use video hearings. These initiatives have managed to decrease the wait time significantly, however, with an increase in the number of current filings, the agency will need to go beyond these measures to bring the wait time down to an acceptable level.

There are many other ways the agency could reduce the backlog permanently. Although they have established expectations of ALJS of 500-700 hearing decisions each year, this expectation is extremely low. This requires an ALJ to make only two decisions a work day to meet their goal. The average hearing docket consists of eight to twelve claims. ALJs should be required to hold hearings five days a week, or every day the hearing office is open. Most hearings last no more than fifteen minutes, leaving at least half the day for an ALJ to review evidence and make decisions. At this rate, they should be able to make as many decisions as hearings held a day, or eight to twelve instead of two.

Not all claims that are heard are final after the hearing. Many are left open for the submission of additional evidence or to give the agency time to secure an independent evaluation by a physician. The majority of the cases left open are due to the claimant's attorney or representative requesting additional time to submit evidence. By the time a hearing is held, a claim has been pending at some level of Agency for well over a year, usually two years or more. All evidence should have been obtained and submitted by the time of the hearing. Hearings are scheduled months in advance and do not come as a surprise to the representatives or claimants who should be more diligent in submitting evidence in a timely manner.

In order to best serve the public, it may be necessary for the SSA to impose stricter rules regarding postponements of hearings. As previously noted, hearings are scheduled months in advance. Claimants and representatives will wait until the scheduled hearing to either not show up or show up and request a postponement. Claimants may decide, after having a pending application for years, that they want to be represented and request a postponement to obtain an attorney. Representatives will request postponements if they have not adequately reviewed a file or obtained evidence. One of the largest problems that causes delays in hearing wait times and tie up staff is the changing of addresses of claimants. Many claimants will fail to notify the hearing office of a change of address and they never receive their hearing notice. This can cause months long delays in receiving a hearing decision.

While the SSA deserves recognition for the improvements they have made on the backlog in recent years, there is still much left to be done.

McCoy, Kevin. (June 2011). Backlog grows for Social Security appeals. USA Today. Retrieved September 14, 2012 from http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-06-19-social-security-appeals-backlog_n.htm

Social Security Administration. Eliminate Our Hearings Backlog and Prevent Its Recurrence. Retrieved September 18, 2012 from http://www.socialsecurity.gov/asp/StrategicGoal1.pdf

Social Security Administration. (September 2007). Plan to Reduce the Hearingsd Backlog and Improve Public Service at the Social Security Administration. Retrieved September 15, 2012 from http://www.ssa.gov/hearingsbacklog.pdf

Would you like a bottle of wine with that?

Tennessee has had a very love-hate relationship with alcohol over the years. On the one hand, in 1838 we were the first state to enact a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol; on the other, we are home to perhaps the most ubiquitous brands of American alcohol, Jack Daniels, in the world.  After the lifting of prohibition in 1933, Tennessee and the rest of the nation sought to craft their own unique liquor laws with various levels of restrictions (typically called ‘blue laws’).  

In Tennessee, we have separate methods of control for beer than we do wine and liquor (which are treated as the same thing). As such, beer can be sold by a variety of different outlets – grocery stores and gas stations – while wine and liquor can only be sold by a liquor store. In addition, our law states a person must be a Tennessee resident and can only own one liquor store permit. 

It is this system, in addition to a somewhat complicated distributorship system, that has been the status quo in our state since at least the 1970s, and it is this system that the retailers and the wholesalers, a politically powerful group who tends to be generous with their campaign contributions, has fought to protect.  At the center of this protection scheme is Tom “The Golden Goose” Hensley, a powerful lobbyist who is often credited with helping to craft and maintain the rules regulating our alcohol in our state. 

Starting in about 2006, there has been a concerted effort to change the laws in our state to allow for the sale of wine in grocery stores. The arguments in favor – consumers want it, wine is no more dangerous than beer, the drink has become much more ubiquitous in our culture than it was in the 1970s – have so far been stifled in the legislature by the arguments made against – primarily (though not exclusively) that it would hurt “mom and pop” retailers across the state who built their businesses on the basis of the current regulatory scheme. 

The primary organization lobbying in favor of the changes is a consortium of grocery stores under the umbrella organization Red, White and Food. They launched an aggressive social media campaign to promote the idea of buying your wine with your food, as well as putting up petition surveys inside grocery stores across the state. 

Each year that legislation has been brought forward, there have been changes designed to ameliorate the concerns of the wholesale and retail liquor lobbies. The most recent iteration of the legislation has been to make it a local option issue, meaning counties or cities could vote on whether to allow food stores to sell wine in grocery stores. This would was done to help allay concerns of conservative members who represent some of the many dry counties where sales of alcohol are prohibited. 

But despite the changes, there has still been very little in the way of forward progress on an issue that 69% of Tennesseans say they support. The path forward that I see is two-fold.

One, while its unfortunate to say, it would probably behoove the grocers to increase their donations to candidates and parties in order to reduce the impact the liquor lobby has in stifling legislation. Due to the high rates of turnover in the past four years at the legislature, there are many younger, mostly Republican, legislators who don't have much of an existing relationship with "The Golden Goose" and might be more open to looking at the matter from a policy point of view.

Two, legislators can further amend the bill to try and quell the concerns of some retailers who are invested in a liquor/wine store. Some options that may do this include:

• Expanding the product selection that a liquor retailer can sell, to include glassware, mixers, low-gravity beer, tobacco and other party-related products.  While some of the newer bills have included this, there might be room for expansion that would expand the competitive ability of these stores. 
• Surtax on licenses for food stores owned by out-of-state interests. Currently the law limits a liquor retailer to one license. If the law extends wine sales to grocery stores, the state might consider having a higher priced license to sell wine in competition with state-owner retail locations.
• Phase-in the expansion of wine licenses to grocery stores by excluding grocery stores that are adjacent or in close proximity to an existing liquor store. This would help to protect the investment of liquor retail stores that were opened to provide wine and liquor to grocery store patrons. This would almost certainly be repealed at a later date, but would open the door to wine in grocery store sales in the near term. 

Whether the legislature passes this may have little to do with the provisions in the law, but rather the influence of money on politics. But assuming it is the former, these provisions might help to expand the support for this legislation throughout the legislature, enabling passage in the next term. 

Public Parks Privatization: Cost Saver or Failed Mission?

By Matthew Amelung

The existence of public parks for our enjoyment is often taken for granted. With a host of public parks at the local, state, and national levels, citizens have a multitude of options for recreation. Yet, with increasing financial pressures and subsequent budget cuts at all levels of government, the existence of these recreational opportunities is coming under fire, much like many other government-funded programs.

At the state level, massive cuts to public parks are being made to keep the system afloat. California’s woes are a prime example of this defunding. Its Department of Parks and Recreation cut $22 million of its parks budget from 2009-2011, leading to the closure of 70 of the state’s 278 parks by July 2011 (Sankin, 2012).

These cuts are likely to continue unless some sort of alternative solution is found. One such policy reform quietly taking shape is public parks privatization. Beckwith (1981) defines public parks privatization in the following way: “For our purposes, it will be assumed that public ownership of parks will continue and that privatization entails the contracting out of support services to private firms operating for profit. By contracting out, the governmental unit has not shed its responsibilities for providing park services. It has, rather, by means of traditional contract-law principles, allocated its tax revenues to a low-bidding private firm rather than to its own employees.”

To some degree, this type of privatization has already been happening for a number of years. Many public parks have sub-contracted certain aspects of the parks systems – concessions, for instance – out to for-profit firms to manage.  In California, 200 for-profit firms are contracted to provide such services and saved the Parks Department $12.5 million in 2011 (Sankin, 2012). However, when it comes to privatizing an ENTIRE public parks system, such a bold step has yet to be made.

Before we explore why public parks privatization is lauded as an effective cost-savings measure—as well as the reasons some vehemently oppose it—let’s take a look at the history of our country’s public parks system. According to Beckwith (1981), “governmental ownership of parkland is a relatively recent phenomenon.” In the early- to mid-nineteenth century, the government was poised to sell as much of its public lands as possible. However, “…a new sense of scarcity arose because of the perceived depletion of natural resources” and subsequently, the National Park Service was established in 1916 (Beckwith, 1981). The public parks movement was also spurred by the ideal of egalitarianism, as supporters of conservation “demanded that the remaining public lands be withdrawn from the market and reserved for conservation” (Beckwith, 1981).

Today, the National Park Service maintains 84,000,000 acres of land and 397 national parks (“About Us,” 2012). These figures do not include the numerous public parks operated at the state and municipal levels. However, decades of conservation efforts are at risk of being jeopardized due to ever-increasing budget cuts. As stated earlier, public parks privatization has been cited as a potential solution to these budget shortfalls. The key reason is the proven cost-effectiveness of privately run parks over publicly run parks.

The privatization of public parks accomplishes cost savings in a few ways. First, there are staffing savings. Private firms can pay employees less than government agencies, including a decrease in employee benefits. Beckwith (1981) even proposes increasing the number of volunteers working at privatized parks as a way to cut costs, which he calls the independent sector. He defends this recommendation by stating: “There is no presumption that those who work in publicly owned parks must be public employees. Accordingly, the most tentative step in the privatization of public parks would be to increase the recruitment of volunteers to help manage the parks, particularly in the more accessible municipal parks. This practice is already widespread.”

In general, when services are contracted out to more bottom-line oriented, private firms, cost savings often result. As Beckwith (1981) puts it, “Unlike a governmental bureaucracy, which has little incentive to hold down costs, competitive private firms are driven to minimize costs in order to survive and prosper in the marketplace. Public parks can only benefit from this wider range of potential suppliers and their impetus toward efficiency."

However, even with these alleged cost savings, public parks privatization also has several pitfalls. First, essentially selling out a public park to a profit-oriented firm could mean abandoning the mission of a public park. Based on the reasons for their initial creation, public parks are not supposed to be profit-makers, but rather a conservation effort that can also provide recreational enjoyment. As California State Senator Noreen Evans (D) told The Huffington Post, “Once you privatize a park, you change the essential mission of the park -- it becomes about making a profit. My own philosophy is that a state park should be owned and operated by the public. Any time you turn even a portion of a state park away from public control, you always have the problem that the park's interest becomes inconsistent with serving the public.”

In addition to abandoning the egalitarian mission of public parks, privatization also cuts costs in ways that could be viewed as unethical. The meager salaries and benefits that may be offered by private firms produce cost savings to the detriment of staff, who may no longer receive livable wages. These ethical concerns should not be forgotten in our quest to save the public parks system.

References

“About Us.” (2012). National Park Service. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/aboutus/index.htm

Beckwith, J.P. (1981). Parks, Property Rights, and the Possibilities of the Private Law. The Cato Journal, 1(2). Retrieved from http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj1n2-6.html

Sankin, A. (2012). California Park Privatization: Report Suggests Operation Of State Parks By Private, For-Profit Firms. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/california-park-privatization_n_1333402.html