Back at the turn of the century, as Chair of the Missouri Advisory Council On Alcohol and Drug Abuse, I appeared before committees working-up the state’s mental health budget.  The legislature maintained this great fiction that they controlled state operations down to one percent of every state employee’s time.  Using their power, a committee – thence the whole legislature – might slash a line item from 12.45 FTEs [Full Time Equivalent employees] down to 10.75 FTEs.

Of course, that mythical level of oversight never happened.  Still, it made the elected Representatives and Senators think they accomplished something.

And, even in these Republican times, the Missouri Legislature holds hearings and goes over the thick budget books for state departments in intricate detail.  Even expending just a trifle of money ($10,000 or $25,000 in a $30 billion budget) leads to debate, negotiations and tremendous angst.

Not this week.

The same legislature which traditionally sweats nickels gave accidental Governor Mike Parson unprecedented authorization to seek and spend over $6 billion without further or meaningful oversight.

Also, the Missouri legislature, by law, must pass a balanced budget for the new state fiscal year in early May.  Nope.

The latest plan has the governor calling a special session – probably in mid to late June – to pass a kinda budget.  Instead of detailed hearings and intricate review, the House and Senate will listen to a quick overview from bureaucrats and pull-out the rubber stamp.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Congress gave the Federal Reserve Board broad power to act in virtual secrecy. Politico reports:

The new law would absolve the board of the requirement to keep minutes to  closed-door meetings as it deliberates on how to set up the $450 billion loan program. That would severely limit the amount of information potentially available to the public on what influenced the board’s decision-making. The board would only have to keep a record of its votes, though they wouldn’t have to be made public during the coronavirus crisis.

Remember, the Federal Reserve already acts deep in the shadows.  How they “find” trillions of dollars to prop-up the economy on short notice is pretty much a head scratcher. Yes, they do, after all, print money.  Still, it would be a nice to believe that somehow people elected by their neighbors get to review and question how our economy is manipulated.  Not this year. The current president sees the Fed as just another loyal serfdom obligated to respond to his whim,.

Donald Trump, alas, ignores rules—and truth—every day.  Note how when he signed the latest stimulus bill, he refused to abide by its oversight provisions.  And, his new hobby is firing federal Inspector Generals, even the ones he appointed.

Donald, like Mike here in Missouri, prefers to rule by decree. “I know what’s best for you” ought to be on both their business cards. Dictate, don’t negotiate. If it works for Vladimir Putin or Recep Erdağon it ought to work for Trump and Parson.

Too bad it is working.

For decades, historians have charted the move towards an imperial presidency in this country. Yet it continues. And, Missouri governors of both parties have yanked more power to their office—the disposal of Eric Greitens being the rare exception to that trend.

My fear?  When COVID 19 heads to the history books, the extra control seized by government executives “during the emergency” won’t go away. Kind of like today’s Federal Assembly in Russia.  What began almost 30 years ago as a true parliament has reverted to the old Supreme Soviet, existing to say yes to the tyrant’s whims (including changing the law so the tyrant can rule as long as he wants).

Remember, Republicans elected to Washington and Jefferson City voluntarily ceded much of their power.  Will their successors ever get that power back?  Probably not

The post Are we witnessing the end of representative government? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Picture a nice size orange.  Imagine it cut it in half.  Stick two thin wires into the orange.

Then close your eyes and think of a surgeon placing the orange in the upper left edge of your chest, just below the collarbone, and plugging the wires into your heart.

St. Louis Blue Jay Bouwmeester now has an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator, around the size of that orange, monitoring every beat of his heart.  If the processor in the ICD detects an issue it can jolt his heart with electricity to restore proper beat, or, it can act as a pacemaker to restrict or increase his heart beat rate.

Such technology isn’t cheap:  roughly $30,000 to $50,000 for the device, plus installation and monitoring cost.

Still, ICDs have an impressive track record of saving and extending lives.  Best guess is that 800,000 Americans now have ICD’s, with about 120,000 joining JB this year.  (If those numbers don’t seem to match-up, well, many, many ICD owners never have to worry about device durability.)

Like me, Bouwmeester seems to have experienced a bit of Sudden Cardiac Arrest aka Sudden Cardiac Death.  Only the intervention of medical professionals and an Automatic External Defibrillator changed that last word to “arrest,” as happened in my case.

Ironically, ICDs emerged from the Cold War.  Hubert H. Humphrey visited Russia in 1962 and was awed by their efforts to re-start hearts.  “Let’s compete with the U.S.S.R. in research on reversibility of death.”  [Congressional Record, 10/12/62]

By 1985 researchers had prototype ICDs and by the early 1990’s they became available to the public.  Thanks to the level of need and the price point, multiple companies keep improving the product, issuing new generations of devices.  A new recipient such as JB can look forward to a decade of trouble-free service before his ICD needs to be replaced or recharged.  (My 2009 model had a projected life of seven to nine years:  it will hit 11 years this July.)

Yes, an ICD cheats death and offers peace of mind.  Living with it isn’t all fun and games.

In the mass of papers I came home with after my installation was a form for a handicap placard or a disabled drive license plate.  Having a defibrillator, you see, makes you disabled by Missouri Department of Revenue standards.  That ICD exempts you from employment in many professions: while I don’t recall seeing National Hockey League player on the list, I suspect that liability-wary lawyers will keep JB off the ice as a player.  (I’d bet he could coach to his heart’s content.)

And, with an ICD comes a long list of warnings.  The latest list from Boston Scientific (who made my device) is 47 pages including, for example, saying Don’t Tour Hydroelectric Facilities.  Caution is required around other stuff producing electromagnetic fields, including cell phones.  (Hand units should always be used at the ear furthest from the ICD.)  Some store security systems can get an ICD owner’s attention, and, don’t sit an electric car while its charging. [https://www.bostonscientific.com/content/dam/lifebeat-online/en/documents/BSC_Electromagnetic_Compatibility_Guide.pdf ]

The section on airport security keeps changing.  Today it advises that quick exposures to metal detectors shouldn’t cause an issue.  Back around 2010 I had several jolting experiences with TSA equipment, as well as encountering a prevalent bureaucratic disdain for accepting the government’s rules, including my right to a hand search.  To be safe, I still demand a hand pat down – a process which adds anywhere from one to 45 minutes of extra time at the checkpoint.

Sadly, most TSA workers don’t understand how their own equipment works.  For example, the back scatter machines emit very little radiation on the traveler:  that traveler is standing over the guts of the machine which create a helluva electromagnetic field.  Also, if TSA’s equipment miss that metallic orange size bump in a chest we’re all in danger.

Yes, with an ICD comes a formal looking wallet-size ID card to show TSA and other security people…it’s worthless.  Security types either grant the pat-down or refuse, regardless of the card.

I expect that in a few weeks Jay Bouwmeester will be back home.  It will be a changed life but he can still be anywhere with his family, exercise and do as much as 99% of the population.

And, after about a year you get use to that bump in your chest.

The post The ABC’s of ICD’s [the device implanted in Blues player Jay Bouwmeester] appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Alas, it’s a lousy time to be a senior in Missouri.  Besides the Circuit Breaker, other special help for our older neighbors is under attack in Jefferson City and Washington.

Let’s look at Grandma Jane, a hypothetical but friendly women in her 70’s living with a bunch of health problems. She has a modest but cute apartment in an area suburb.  She worked a bit after raising her kids but her Social Security payment, like many widows, is based on the survivor formula on her late husband’s account. She gets $900 a month, $10,800 per year. That’s a bit above average for surviving spouses , yet, not enough for her to sit pretty. That’s not a surprise since the Poverty Level for a single person is $12,060 a year or $1,005 a month.

Fortunately, she qualifies for several programs…

$ 500 Missouri Circuit Breaker  a tax credit to lower-income seniors to help offset property taxes

$ 1,200 Missouri Rx Program   help paying for her many prescriptions beyond Medicare’s coverage

$ 1,716 Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB)  Medicaid payment towards her share of Medicare

$ 2,160  Food Stamps   $180 per month, or, around $1.94 per meal

$250  Heating Assistance Grant  a state pass-through of a federal allocation to Missouri

Wow!  Grandma Jane gets $ 5,826 in special help each year!  This targeted aid gives her a standard of living of about $16,600. Not golden toilet living like Donald Trump, but a lot better than Social Security alone.

Uh-oh!

Remember, in 2017 the Circuit Breaker for renters got SEALed [by Missouri Governor and former Navy Seal Eric Greitens]. The legislature also cut back on the Missouri Rx program, meaning that $100 a month will become $50 or $0. Proposed federal cuts to Medicaid (MO HealthNet) will target that QMB.

And, the Trump administration and friends plan to trim food stamps by 25%, and, give states a 10% to 25% co-pay…Maybe Grandma Jane will get $20 or $50 a month when the dust clears.

That heating grant?  Trump has targeted the Low-Income Heat Assistance Program (LiHEAP) for complete elimination.

In other words, a series of trims and cuts which don’t sound that big each on their own wind up taking $3,000 a year or more out of Grandma Jane’s standard of living. Poverty’s sting grows sharper.

Of course, we’re told these inefficient and wasteful programs must be slashed.  Missouri and America must “pay for” tax cuts for wealthy ‘job creators.’

Sorry grandma.

The post Poverty stings: What’s left in grandma’s wallet after program cuts appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Late every January – as reliable as the buzzards returning to Hinckley, Ohio each March – the revised Poverty Guidelines are published in the Federal Register…until Donald J. Trump became President.

As noted in the article below, the Trump administration pulled a couple of dozen of items (most very routine) from today’s Federal Register.  The guidelines were among the items yanked.

http://thehill.com/regulation/315839-trump-administration-withdraws-23-rules-from-federal-register

Oh, due to low inflation the numbers were not going to change much.  (I’m guessing the 100% poverty level for a family of four was going to climb from $24,300 in 2016 to about $24,360 this year.)  But they are going to increase.  Remember, government programs from food stamps to rural home loans utilize the guidelines.  And, many non-profits, such as food pantries, update their criteria based on the federal numbers.

Of course, we should not be surprised that the Trump Administration would interfere in such a mundane automatic function of the federal bureaucracy.  You see, the 2017 Poverty Guidelines will become facts when they’re issued.  Only the President gets to create facts.  Or, more correct, what he considers facts.

The post Trump disappears poverty guidelines from Federal Register appeared first on Occasional Planet.

My wife and I, along with friends, spent a wonderful week in Arizona.  We admired the Grand Canyon on a perfect April Day.   We toured Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture school outside Scottsdale.  We visited Sedona, the red rocks canyons, and, the picturesque mountains below Flagstaff.  On four evenings we watched the Cardinals play the Diamondbacks in a domed stadium where parking next door is just $12.00 and $8.00 gets you two and a half scoops of Cold Stone Creamery ice cream in a waffle bowl with fudge and caramel topping.  The week before we got to Phoenix afternoon highs were in the high 90’s.  Our week the thermometers never crept above 81○F.

The week verged on perfect…except for the bookend encounters with the T.S.A.

Yes, the Transportation Security Administration involves itself in every trip involving an airplane.  Once again, they did their utmost to ruin my vacation.

Back in 2009 a complicated chunk of metal and wires went into my upper left chest.  That creates two issues.  My Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator has enough metal mass to set off a standard metal detector several feet away.  It also shows up as a black hole on a backscatter x-ray screen or a millimeter wave scanner used in airports.  Whether that hole is a lifesaver or the latest ISIS suicide toy requires a bit of investigation.  I understand that.

The second, more important issue is that it hurts like hell when my ICD is exposed to high energy electromagnetic devices.  A standard metal detector really gets my attention.  Those backscatter x-rays have almost taken me to the floor twice.  The millimeter wave scanner itself doesn’t use much energy in its scans, but, beneath the device the business part of the machine creates a pretty substantial field which I keenly feel.

On the afternoon of April 23 I went through T.S.A. at the main terminal at Lambert International Airport.  I had my driver license and my I.D. card, issued by the manufacturer of my defibrillator, in my hand when I told the T.S.A. agent that I needed a hand pat-down:  “We’re not doing that here today.”  No pat down, no option.  Wave good-bye to my three traveling companions or go through the millimeter wave scanner.

The tingling calmed down after about a minute, allowing me to put my shoes and belt back on before I had to walk to the gate.

The trip home came in two segments, Phoenix to Denver, then Denver to St. Louis.  Sky Harbor Airport will never be my happy place.

Even on a clear Saturday morning, the security line crept slowly.  Oh, off to my left they did do a long hand pat-down on a tall, attractive young blond woman in a tank top.  (After a long time in line even prurient entertainment is welcome.)  The T.S.A. staffers handling the item x-ray lines seemed a bit over zealous, even when iPads or smartphones or other items were very spread out in the bins.  The conveyor belt stopped, retreated and moved forward time after time.  That slowed the proceedings.

Finally, I got to the metal detector and millimeter wave machines where – as instructed – I asked for my hand pat down.

Now, T.S.A. agents don’t like pat-downs.  After all, they take more work than nodding as people walk through technology.  And, the job of a T.S.A. screener sucks.  The hours are long and the pay mediocre.  The people you screen won’t like you.  Despite limited representation by the American Federation of Government Employees, they serve pretty much at the whim of mid-level bureaucrats.  Per Glassdoor.com, full time pay for experienced screeners is in the $37,000 a year neighborhood:  who goes after a $37,000 job with a lot of hassles?  Someone making $25,000 a year in another job with a lot of hassles.

So, you have a mess of people struggling to stretch for the bottom rung of the middle-class watching people who can afford expensive trips to fun places saunter past you.  Putting travelers in their place is one of your few work place pleasures.

In Phoenix that meant I had to wait, crammed into a non-space between a x-ray conveyor and a metal detector as dozens of other travelers squeezed by me.  The wait is standard, the nine minutes in Phoenix pretty much standard.  Then things went downhill.

First, as they do, they isolated my bins off the x-ray belt from the good people’s stuff.  Only isolated isn’t the proper word.  My stuff was out of my sight (but within reach of all the other travelers) while the screener got up close and personal with all the inside surfaces of all my clothes, including my Dockers and my all-cotton briefs.  After being probed once in front of the crowd, the screener rubbed a special strip of paper over his gloves, then fed the paper into a machine – which gave him the wrong answer.  That meant a call for a supervisor, a move to a private room and a second, even more personal pat-down.

Meanwhile, my lovely wife was told she couldn’t fly because her stylish top had a metal zipper front.  That encounter got heated when her pat-down screener said she didn’t like my wife’s tone and the screener invoked the trump card – we can keep you from your flight.

In my little space they repeated the paper strip test, again failing.  The third pat-down was getting pretty close to my annual prostate exam.  The screener and supervisor then gave up.  They couldn’t get the machine to like the paper strips but they couldn’t find anything.  Besides, the loud lady in line was making them uncomfortable.  (They finally relented and let her head for the gate.)

We changed airlines in Denver.  Unfortunately, after disembarking at one of the fringe gates (meaning we had to walk through a snow shower to get into the terminal), we had to get our bags, re-check them and again go through security.

That airport security staff was not having a good weekend:  TSA Admits mistake after Amy Van Dyken-Rouen said she was ‘humiliated’ by agent at Denver airport.  [www.thedenverchannel.com  5/2/16]  Amy won six Olympic medals before an ATV accident put her in a wheelchair.  Still, she travels extensively as a motivational speaker.   As she put it, “They go around your breasts, they basically go under your butt and they just grab things, not grab, they touch things that are not appropriate…”

Again, crammed into the narrow space between electromagnetic energy emitting technology, I waited and waited and waited for a pat-down.  Then I waited some more.  I could see my friends and my wife across the terminal, watching for me to emerge.  My iPad, phone, wallet and other personal property was in some unseen place as scores of other travelers picked-up their gear and moved through.  I waited some more.  A gentleman came up behind me.  The screener/hall monitor asked if he wanted to go through the millimeter scanner.  “I decline,” is all he said.

With two of us filling the space, after a couple of more minutes, they finally brought over staff to do the pat-downs.

Last week The New York Times headlined a long piece, Catching a Flight?  Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security [ www.nytimes.com  5/2/16].  The article quoted the head of the Charlotte airport calling the T.S.A. ability to screen passengers on Good Friday a “fiasco.”  The number of screeners has declined by about 5,800 due to budget cuts.  Washington’s answer is to hire 768 screeners.  That will still leave airlines with unhappy passengers missing flights, “But, there’s not much airlines can do, except warn passengers to show-up three hours before takeoff…”

My group had almost three hours between flights in Denver.  Our overpriced late lunch got delayed while I waited and finally went through my pat-down.  The screener was less intrusive than his Phoenix colleague but added a new wrinkle.  My bins of items, including a canvas bag for under the seat with my Cardinals road hat, part of a newspaper, my iPad and other items were all spread out on a steel counter and individually examined:  what the screener hoped to see that had escaped many rads of x-rays baffled me, but it took another five minutes.

I was asked why I wasn’t TSA-Pre, paying the $85 to avoid some of the hassles (the theory being that people with extra money are less likely to blow-up airplanes?).  Well, my friends were TSA-Pre – and were signaled out for ‘extra screening,’ including pat-downs (even after they chose a line as far from me as they could).

When I was a kid I have a vague memory of an American propaganda film telling us how bad things were in the Soviet Union.  The prime example was that Soviets couldn’t move about their nation without special permission and special identification.  In the Clint Eastwood Cold War flick Firefox (1982), the hard part of getting old stone eyes in position to steal a revolutionary Soviet fighter plane prototype was getting him through the internal checkpoints with a dead man’s I.D.  (Yes, Clint’s friends wasted him for his I.D. but he was a bad guy so it was cool.)

Here we are in the United States now tolerating a system where low-level agents of the government decide if we get to exercise our constitutional right to travel freely.

Imagine if a Clayton cop stopped lunch time strollers on Central Avenue and stuck his gloved hands in other people’s pants in full view of other citizens?  His probable cause – they were on the street.

The Tea Party would start the demonstrations before happy hour.  As they should.

So let’s go over the Transportation Security Administration conundrum.  To protect Americans and the constitution we cherish, T.S.A. violates our personal privacy, ‘humiliates’ women in wheelchairs, put hands inside our underwear and threatens to prevent us from using our purchased airline tickets.   Kind of like destroying a village to pacify it, we let government violate our rights to protect them.

Yes, terrorism is real.  But is the response intelligent and effective?  Tests of T.S.A. effectiveness inevitably find mock guns and explosives getting through screenings.  The ‘intelligent’ part I think has been already answered.

And people wonder why I hate to fly.

The post TSA misses guns and knives, but nails me for my cardiac device appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Indianapolis hosted the 100^th Anniversary Convention for Kiwanis International these past few days. As is the norm, I represented my Valley Park [Missouri] club. At the convention, an organization which didn’t allow women members until the Reagan administration voted in their first woman president, and insured that the second woman president is just a year away.

The local Indy news didn’t say much about Kiwanis.  The hot story: on Wednesday, the first effective day of Indiana’s new religious freedom law, services will be held at the First Church of Cannabis.   http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2015/06/26/officials-hold-church-cannabis-press-conference/29327331/

Yes, a law by an extremist state legislature, signed by a right wing-nut governor, promoted to “protect” Christian churches from clouds of oppression, allowed creation of a church dedicated to pot smoking.

Some were not amused.  The Indy police chief and city prosecutor held a news conference where they competed to see who would be first to have an on-camera stroke as they spewed venom toward the new congregation.  The prosecutor, as seen on WISH-TV 4, promised that those who attended the service – even if not toking along – would be arrested for participating in a public nuisance.  They promised cops would be inside the church during services.

Meanwhile, the new church’s pastor (who looks like the sort of guy to head the First Church of Cannabis) explained that his church had been recognized by IRS as a religion and that the new state law protected his new congregation’s rights.  TV showed a cute red brick church, complete with steeple and wheel chair ramp.

So, on July 1^st look for the national news to cover police inside a church arresting parishioners…Probably not what the Indiana Legislature intended with their Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

It was great to see non-Missouri legislators dealing with unintended consequences.

The Show-Me State, alas, stands ready for tragedy.  In a few weeks we begin the process of having people too poor to get anti-poverty benefits.

As you probably recall, the Missouri legislature voted to override Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of Senate Bill 24.  As a result, an adult with a dependent child but no income will no longer be entitled to receive the state’s ‘generous’ Temporary Assistance cash grant of up to $234 a month (less than $8 per day) unless screening shows them worthy of applying for aid.  To become eligible to apply they must sign – perhaps in blood – a contract to follow the program, meaning they accept that they are third-class citizens not to be trusted with doing what is in their family’s best interest without bureaucratic oversight.  They must also demonstrate a commitment to working 30 hours every week or otherwise engaging in 30 hours of “work activities” such as sitting at an unemployment office computer searching for jobs.

If a screening bureaucrat deems them unworthy, they don’t get the $8 per day Temporary Assistance grant.

The legislators were not totally without compassion: 20% of the total Temporary Assistance case load may be exempted from these rules.

That’s not as generous as is sounds.  As the rolls decrease (as they’ve been doing for a decade), that 20% “reserve” includes fewer people.  In a very short time the state will need to rescind the exemption for some moms, meaning even those state bureaucrats deems unable to comply must.

Likewise, adults without dependents or jobs may only get food stamps for three months out of every three years.  Until they reach age 65 or get certified as disabled and worthless, an unemployed adult can’t receive the average $4 per day in food stamps.

Add these new laws together and probably 100,000 Missourians will soon be too poor and needy to get help from basic anti-poverty programs.

This would be funny if it weren’t tragic.

In recent weeks I’ve kept busy warning food pantries that they must change the way they do business.  Traditionally, pantries provide from three days to a week’s worth of food each month – an amount meant to supplement government benefits and other income.

Yet, these now “too-poor to get help” folks need to eat more often than one day in ten.  Pantries, churches and other charitable groups must multiply their current aid by a factor of 10 for these “too poor” created by our elected legislature.

Not increasing aid isn’t an option.

You see, supporters of SB 24 claim people receiving government benefits get fat and lazy because $8 a day and $4 a day is too generous:  “I think it will be surprising to see the success rate with this bill, and the smiles on the faces of those folks that move out of the poverty trap…” Rep. Diane Franklin, R – Camdenton, told the Post Dispatch  http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/missouri-legislature-enacts-limit-on-welfare-benefits-over-nixon-s/article_22e44a54-b286-50e5-8236-fdaf93c1b2e3.html

The only option for food pantries and other charities is to empty their shelves and their bank accounts keeping families alive until they have no more to share – then turn to the media and ask, why aren’t these hungry and desperate people smiling and employed?

Then, perhaps, the media will ask the legislature Is this what you intended?

We have learned that common sense, reasoned compassion and thoughtful acts are no longer the Missouri way of governing.  The ship must sink before we talk about lifeboats.

Meanwhile, back in Indy, they await the great religious showdown.  Will people be arrested for going to church?  Stay tuned.

The post The First Church of Cannabis, and other unintended consequences appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Back in 2012, the most famous losing candidate in American wanted to be the junior U.S. Senator from Missouri. Todd Akin became late night code for a maladroit, an instant punch line.

Bad news folks. St. Louis and to a large part Missouri are now defined by what most of us want to forget.

If outsiders dig deeper they find the new inalienable right to guns, sales tax exemptions for fast food restaurants and a domed building full of people so out of touch with common sense that I still expect Comedy Central to open a Jefferson City bureau.

Let’s remember that economic things haven’t been that great in the Show-Me state or here around St. Louis for a good while. I stand among those wonks pleasantly surprised that the 2013 American Community Survey by the census found median household income had grown by 2.2% in Missouri from 2012 to 2013. We’re still better than $100 a week below the national average but I would have put the smart money on a fifth year of declining median income!

The harsh reality remains that the St. Louis area – the economic heart of Missouri – still struggles, with the SMSA (if you don’t know that acronym I can’t help you) underperformed, again coming in below average even with a 2.7% increase. While the 2013 median household income in Chicago was $60,564 and Minneapolis was $67,194, St. Louis came in at $54,449. When St. Louis runs $245 a week below the Twin Cities, well, I understood when a good friend told me tonight that he and his wife are considering a move to Jacksonville, Florida. A few years ago she was recruited for a job with a nice window in the headquarters of a locally based national company. He sells big expensive things. Their extended families are here but they’re not sure their future is.

Okay, remember that we don’t have enough lifeboats. Most of us are going to have to stay here and work things out.

What to do?

Admit that we have problems

That sounds simple but I have heard a number of elected officials dismissing what erupted in Ferguson as a ‘north county thing.’ We know that many suburbs were created to exclude, not include, “those people.” It’s not just race (though that remains an issue). Here in Oakville people barely held their bladders at the thought of housing for moderate income seniors. [BTW: the building is filled, has a waiting list and Armageddon has not rolled down Telegraph Road.] I would love to see a developer go to Town & Country proposing an apartment complex like Canfield Green where a two bedroom unit goes for $550 a month. From experience I know it would be 100% rented before it opened, filled with working poor wanting to be closer to their jobs and good schools for the kids. Don’t laugh. Until such a proposal gets a real hearing and building permits economic segregation and racial separateness will rule our region.

Talk about our problems

Why do we wait for PBS to come to town to discuss things we all know need to be discussed? We can all get along at Cardinal games. All the well-earned pride people take in their community ought to be a the start for working together to address regional problems. We have bridges over the rivers. We need to build bridges among the disparate neighborhoods.

Focus on real economic development

I think we have more than enough big box stores. How about a foundry? High tech contract fabricators to job for the burgeoning 21st Century entrepreneurs? I’m not fond of handing $30,000 in tax breaks per job to manufacturers but if we can create long-term, full time work I’ll bite my tongue. Remember, starting next week a family of four can have someone working full time at $14.90 an hour and still qualify for food stamps! Whatever it takes to get $20.00 an hour jobs is worth doing.

Develop an attitude

Quick: which city’s sports fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus? Sure, being nice is nice but if we are to climb back to the top of the heap we need mean. Despite a huge, poor core the Philly region has a median income $100 a week above St. Louis’. We can be smarter, harder working, higher achieving and more determined than Eagles fans.

Play long

Our problems developed across generations. Making changes won’t be easy nor will it be fast. Easy answers – call it community dialogue – can be a start. The commitment to real change, knowing it will take years, is the first step. Does St. Louis County need 50+ police departments and three score of municipal courts? Should Manchester fight Town & Country over a Walmart? Why does a line on map make a difference about the quality of education a child gets? Be brave and not afraid to be bold. Change basic things.

Remember, that with the current situation in Ferguson the biggest losers are not multinational corporations or big box stores or the Federal Reserve system. Those losing the most are the people who live in apartments and ranch houses, along with the woman owner of the beauty shop or the guy with the meat market. They are us.

Wouldn’t it be great if we went back to the time when the jokes about St. Louis featured Todd Akin as the punch line?

[Okay, SMSA = Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. The St. Louis SMSA is one of the top 25 in the nation. It includes the collar counties in Missouri and Illinois. If current trends continue, St. Louis will drop out of the top 25 by the 2020 census.]

The post What’s the matter with Missouri, and what we can do about it appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In Young Frankenstein, Gene Wilder, having just hoisted a body from a grave says “What a filthy job.” Marty Feldman replies, “Could be worse,” to which Wilder asks, “How?” Feldman notes, “Could be raining.” And, of course, it then starts to rain.

Well, here in Missouri it’s raining on those who ought to get food stamps.

The state Department of Social Services is not issuing the 160+ page Monthly Management Reports for the Family Support Division and Medical Services due to issues with the MO HealthNet/Medicaid program. Folks in DSS research are sharing the SNAP numbers with me.

They are not pretty: From July 2013 to July 2014 a total of 89,768 people have left the food stamp rolls – a drop of 9.8 percent in one year.

That would be good news if Missouri had a booming economy with tens of thousands of new, middle class jobs being created each year. As we all know, we don’t.

Across the nation food stamp state totals have been trending down around 3 to 4 percent a year. I am convinced that Missouri’s “extra 5 percent” in recipient drop is due to the fumbled implementation of the reorganization of the Family Support Division. I have talked to pantry folk who routinely hear from families who have waited two and three months for a routine reauthorization of the food stamp account. Many pantry customers talk of lost documents, the inability to talk to a person who knows their case when they call, and, general confusion in the system.

The major changes in the way food stamp cases are handled began last summer here in the St. Louis area. The decline in the participant total from July 2012 to July 2013 was 20,053 people – 2 percent of the caseload. If we had the same decline percentage from 2013 to 2014 we would have 70,000 more Missourians receiving food stamps, adding $8.4 million a month to the state’s economy.

In July 2014 the average benefit was $120.18 per person–$1.29 per person per meal. Statewide, $99,628,234 in benefits were issued.

Of course, people who ought to get food stamps but don’t receive them are not starving to death in the streets. They are filling food pantry lobbies and building nutritional debts which their bodies will pay later.

Food stamps in Ferguson

The state folks also shared the total number of food stamp recipients in a number of north St. Louis County Zip Codes. While post office boundaries don’t directly follow city limits, the food stamp numbers were extremely interesting:63135 (downtown Ferguson and some surrounding smaller municipalities): 2,413 recipients

• 63136 (the W. Florissant apartment area of Ferguson & Jennings): 8,035 recipients
• 63135 (downtown Ferguson and some surrounding smaller municipalities): 2,413 recipient
• For comparison, 63130 (most of University City): 2,041 recipients.

Remember that Missouri has better than a handful of northern counties with fewer than 8,000 residents: the concentration of struggling families in one zip code is scary.

The 2009 conundrum

The other month I shared data from the Food Research and Action Center, which, using numbers from USDA, showed that Missouri was the only state in the nation to show a decline in food stamp recipients from 2009 to 2014.

People in certain buildings in Jefferson City were not amused.

The Department of Social Services admitted in late 2009 that Missouri overcounted the number of food stamp recipients. Basically, the different computer systems didn’t listen to each other. While new people were added to the rolls, those within families who should have been removed (moved out of the home, etc.) weren’t. The problem apparently went on for several – perhaps seven – years.

For example, in April 2009 Missouri claimed it had 1,041,077 food stamp recipients, and that is the number FRAC cited this summer. Now the state says the correct total for April 2009 was around 800,000 recipients. They note that USDA has changed some (but not all) published numbers from Missouri for 2009 and the “whoops” era.

The problem appears to have been fixed by the end of 2009: the January 2010 food stamp total was 894,418 people compared to 1,119,067 in September 2009 despite the rapid increase in folks getting help due to the recession.
Now we need to back-up a step. The data FRAC used is from USDA reports on what the federal government paid Missouri for the food stamps issued. In other words, even if the correct number was 800,000 Washington gave Missouri money for a million people. The families getting the bonus money had no way of knowing they were getting too generous benefits. (A more important yet unanswered question is did Missouri ever pay that money back?)

So, what number should be used?

Despite the state’s protestations, evidence shows that Missouri issued benefits to 1,041,077 people in April 2009. If the benefits were issued – even in error – they went to families and the stamps went through cash registers all about the state.

My files from back then show the average benefit was $1.09 per person per meal. (By the way, April 2009 is when benefits soared due to the recovery act’s bonus payments. In March 2009 the average benefit was 93 cents per person per meal.)

In other words, the overpayments probably didn’t allow families to buy steak and lobster. They just made their lives a bit easier. I can live with that.

A quick swipe at Fox News

The GAO recently issued a report on errors in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The headline: Payment Errors and Trafficking Have Declined, but Challenges Remain. The report put the fraud rate at 1 percent of benefits issued and included a chart documenting dramatic improvements since 1999 in case accuracy.

Fox News, of course, headlined their story “Food Stamp Fraud Rampant: GAO Report.”.

I expect their lead story tomorrow to be, “Despite Obama, the Sun Rose This Morning.”

The post Food stamp participation declines by almost 10% in Missouri: Not a pretty picture appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Before dawn on a wickedly cold and rainy Thursday morning, fast food workers in black hoodies and t-shirts gathered on a parking lot on Lindell Blvd in St. Louis. They planned to have a peaceful pubic protest to call for a living wage for their labor. Also there: a crowd of people, including me, oft denigrated as “activists.” We marched to – and through – a McDonalds, heard prayers and short speeches in front of Dominos, Rally’s and Arby’s, then visited a Jack In The Box where the agitated manager locked the doors rather than have the crowd walk through.

Among the activists were several of us who in previous days had been to a “table talk” conducted by Senator Claire McCaskill’s office, visited Senator Roy Blunt’s Clayton office to talk hunger and food stamps, and attended a program on immigration reform.

Astrophysicists are working towards a Grand Unifying Theory, the next step past the Standard Model, to explain how interactions among electromagnetism and the weak and strong forces can be reliably described in terms of coupling constants. After that work is done, add-in gravity’s role and the elusive Theory Of Everything should come into focus.  In other words, the GUT leads to the TOE.

Fortunately, a small portion of this community keeps pushing for a Grand Unifying Theory of societal action. We firmly believe that everyone is better off if all are treated fairly.  All spheres – government, education, religion, employers and employees included – need to conduct themselves for the good of all. We’re well aware that Missouri’s motto “The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law” is more than gold lettering in the walls of the Capitol.  It is a statement of principle codified many generations ago by people (well, middle aged and old white men) determined to structure a state where every person was treated fairly, giving them an opportunity to earn success.

Supporting pantries which feed the hungry is a vital activity, and working for better pay and more job opportunities so most don’t need free food is the critical next step.

Despite noise and misgivings from Republicans, the New Deal and the War on Poverty made life better for Americans. Wires to provide electric and phone service reached remote farm families.  Factory owners had to follow rules on hours and wages. The old and disabled received a bit of help. Struggling families got food, access to medical care and other basic help. For an entire political generation, from the 1930’s through the 1960’s, the United States government and state governments (mostly using federal funds) made determined efforts to make life better for everyone. They carried out that quest despite economic hardship, the greatest war in human history, two other major military conflicts and a costly Cold War against the Soviet Union. Yes, government got bigger but life got better.  Poverty retreated from the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

Not everyone liked that success, however.

While today’s Republicans revere Ronald Reagan as their risen savior, the man who started putting government back in its small place, I think credit or, more correctly, blame ought to go to Richard M. Nixon.

Nixon came of age during that great era of government working to help Americans. He had seen at point blank range the positive impact of Interstate Highways, Social Security and other ‘big government’ activities. Yet, he knew that a portion of the population – a shadowy sliver – hated the good that government did and the people helped. Nixon courted the Tea Party’s grandfathers, especially in the South. Note that despite the presence of George Wallace on the ballot, Nixon carried both Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee, Oklahoma and Missouri in 1968.

Rather than promote consensus, Nixon’s administration encouraged division. From Vice President Spiro Agnew:

There are some people in our society who should be separated and discarded…and we’re always going to have a certain number of people

in our community who have no desire to achieve or even to even fit in in an amicable way with the rest of society.  And these people should

be separated from the community, not in a callous way but they should be separated as far as any idea that their opinions shall have any

effect on the course we follow.  [Washington Post 7-2-70 & other sources]

In other words, if you’re not like “us,” we won’t listen to you.

Country club Republicans, cordial GOP leaders like Ike, were moving off the stage. Despite the service of people with honor and principles (such as Missouri’s John Danforth,) the party moved to placate John Wayne and other members of the John Birch Society.

Ronald Reagan put a friendly face on the new philosophy but he did his best to widen the crack. He had learned (as have other Republicans) that the trick was to appeal to that radical right, then soften the message just enough so that minivan drivers didn’t feel guilty voting Republican.

Many of us active in the non-profit world remember the early 1980’s. Not fondly. During Reagan’s first term we had to form the food pantry association to assist those creating hundreds of new pantries about the region. No one wanted to open a food pantry but they realized their neighborhood suddenly needed one. Community action agencies found their money coming from state-administered block grants. The first thing Missouri did, as did most states, was carve a big chunk off the top for administration. To save oversight costs, Metroplex (where I worked for six years) got paid by the state for “registering” poor people – getting their basic information on a signed form – rather than for actually delivering needed services.

During Reagan’s second term, funding for HUD was chopped by 40%. As a result of that cut and subsequent neglect, each year fewer Americans live in affordable housing.

Both of the tag team Bush followed Dutch Reagan’s lead. The one time George H.W. Bush dared to compromise, with a very mild tax increase,  he soon had plenty of time to skydive and do other things in his retirement.

Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert and now John Boehner work hard to exploit the divide Nixon opened up. The irony, of course, is that once you cater to the radical fringe you’re stuck with them as they keep moving the agenda further and further right.

Note that Grover Norquist and his “never never” tax hike pledge once represented the ideological edge of the right. Today he’s mainstream.

It’s become hard to find the place on the map where political ideas become even too far out for the modern Republican.  Here in Missouri our legislature actually passed a law making it a crime for federal law enforcement personnel to do their job. Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Louis Gohmert, both from Texas, routinely say things to reporters (for example, Gohmert implied that Senator John McCain had terrorist links) that even make many in the Tea Party cringe. Yet, Speaker Boehner gave Gohmert a half hour of precious House floor time to say Americans would be better off without health insurance. Then, when we went into the hospital through the emergency room, before treatment we could negotiate an inclusive price for our care and sign a promissory note: if we couldn’t agree on a price, we could go to the next hospital and strike a deal with them.  [CSpan1, 3:30 p.m. 12/11/14] Meanwhile, Cruz was on Fox News.

I don’t believe even as calculating an SOB as Nixon could have seen how his plan is destroying America’s middle class.

A member of the Missouri Secretary of State’s office recently told me that up to 40 initiative petitions may wind up getting approved for circulation this year. {Disclosure: I am a board member of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare which has filed suit over the condensed wording of one petition, to add a 1¢ per dollar sales tax for transportation. We’re not pro-pot hole, we are against regressive sales taxes.}  Besides calling for a sales tax for roads, there are already proposals to slash taxes on businesses and upper-income people, repeal limits on concealed guns, turn Missouri into a “right to work” state and other controversial topics working their way through the Secretary’s office. Without a Democratic governor, all those ideas would be one afternoon’s work for the current membership of the Missouri Legislature.

So, it’s time for a gut check.

You can join those of us working hard on many topics towards restoring the state motto and fighting Washington efforts to hurt our neighbors.  You can join those who want to create a state and a nation where the lucky and the rich thrive by kicking everyone else out of their privileged way. Or, like most people, you can sit back and complain but do nothing.

Choose wisely.

The post The “Grand Unifying Theory” and the case for societal action appeared first on Occasional Planet.