April 2005

Mixed Results in East Saint Louis

ArchPundit April 5, 2005 No Comments

Eddie Jackson, opposed to The Officier won, but so did Delbert Marion who is a Carl ally. Powell, who is under indictment lost. This gives Carl the majority.

This is one of those cases when no matter who won, God help East Saint Louis

Gaming Money Is a Pittance

ArchPundit April 5, 2005 No Comments

Blagojevich introduces an idea to increase education funding by $300 million

State funding panel recommends an increase in funding of $2.3 billion.

I’ve usually said this guy gets the political game very well, but I can imagine few instances where such a disconnect exists in that short of a time span.

No one can get to $2.3 Billion instantly so that isn’t very realistic, but the nature of the problem is pretty clear. Further, Rich Miller pointed towards Tom Cross’ effort to move any money increases from the foundation formula to categorical aid.

Categorical aid goes to all schools and covers nearly 38% of state spending. It goes to cover special populations and other services, but it isn’t adjusted for need as the state formula is, yet the state formula accounts for about 60% of state funding meaning the flow of resources under the categorical aid goes to places that have more capacity for self-funding of districts in a relative sense.

Moving that pot of money to categorical will only worsen the situation for older suburbs and rural areas. Overall, the money is a pittance to Chicago that has a $5 billion annual appropriation or an operating budget of $3.667 Billion with 1.7 billion of that being raised locally.

The structural problem is that the state expects most districts to raise its own money for schools. That works great for relatively wealthy suburbs with high property values in areas with high concentrations of students, but no matter how you look at it outstate it creates a real problem.

From the 2001 ISBE description of the issue

You see that Chicago had an Equalized Assessed Valuation of $34.5 billion compared to a downstate EAV of $47.2 billion with many of those districts and units being spread out and not able to have any gains from gains in efficiency through size. Certainly districts in Champaign or Normal do, but not the smaller rural districts. The capacity to tax oneself is nearly impossible in many of these small towns.

By underfunding the basic formula, everyone is leaving them out. Others can fund themselves through property taxes, but there just isn’t much to tax in many downstate communities. Categorical assistance doesn’t help as much because it doesn’t cover basic operating expenses and it isn’t distributed with a formula related to capacity of the District as the general formula does. Moving money to categorical hurts these rural and small town schools. By fully funding the formula, these schools get a decent base level of support.

This is why a tax swap is so often mentioned here and elswhere. By moving the money from local sources to a state level, it can more equitably be distributed and then local communities can decide if they want to pay more for extra services.

The basic problem is that it hurts suburban districts that are politically powerful so any deal is unlikely to work without a general tax increase that involves some sort of hold harmless function for them in terms of state funds. This hold harmless condition is why Blagojevich won’t touch it–there is no way to generate that much cash without a general increase in taxes meaning sales or income.

This sort of log roll also increases opposition from those who feel that well funded suburban districts aren’t very tight with the taxpayers money. To some degree that is true, but that is largely a local governance issue in which local people vote for the school boards and the local tax rates. While a hold harmless deal would take pressure off such districts, nothing now is really forcing them to be that tight with money either.

In the long run, some sort of swap will eventually occur. In the short term, Blagojevich’s approach of leaving the money in the general fund is the best solution.

DLC’s Latest Screed

ArchPundit April 5, 2005 1 Comment

For the record, I quite like New Donkey, at least when he’s not complaining about Dean supporters.

But these two twits need to go. Arguing that ‘others’ in the party don’t contribute to a strong message misses that when they sit there and whine in the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Times, they mix the message up. They create a sense of a disparate party with little in common. Criticism is useful, but when you run out and find the most obnoxious place to put that criticism and take joy in doing it, don’t be surprised when much of the party tells you to take a flying leap. For those of us who are closest ideologically, the New Democratic Network is far more appealing.

Just Vote

ArchPundit April 5, 2005 No Comments

Muni Elections today and I haven’t followed enough to offer recommendations with one exception

Rick Klau in Naperville.

Otherwise, just go vote and remember school board elections are the most important in your community.

Terrorists Stalking Hogs

ArchPundit April 1, 2005 6 Comments

Yep, it’s true. You know how I know, a great Misery Legislator has introduced a billl that bans taking pictures of farms:

IN THEIR TIRELESS, nay heroic, efforts to protect us from terrorists, some Missouri legislators want to keep us safe from terrorists sneaking around taking pictures of farm animals and puppy dogs. Feel safer?

This week, a House committee took up House Bill 666, sponsored by Rep. Jim Guest, R-King City. The bill would make it a felony to stand by the side of the road, on public property, and take unauthorized pictures of barns, pastures, even public land where cattle graze.

Mr. Guest, himself a hog farmer, thinks terrorists might use photos of agricultural operations to plan an attack of agricultural terrorism.

Uh-huh. Is anyone else imagining an attempt to round up cows for a stampede and they just stand there eating grass?

The Day Fox News Fell Into Self-Parody

ArchPundit April 1, 2005 3 Comments

John Edward, the ‘psychic’, declared that Terri Schiavo was aware the events surrounding her.

WTF? I always wondered why CNN allows King to put on these fruitbats, but on an actual news show?

Even better is the doctor who points out that the arguments circulated around about the actual medical tests were largely made up by charlatans and kooks. The entire deal surrounding the events in Florida appears to be built on the same kind of bizarre post modern view of science as creationism.

What’s worse is that a couple of quacks promoting treatments for which there is no scientific evidence have hijacked a tragic situation for a family and turned it into a sales job on quackery.

The Court record is incredibly damning on this point

Hyperbaric therapy has been in use for more than a century. It is used abroad far more than it is used domestically. Medicare recognizes only eleven procedures involving hyperbaric therapy while Russia recognizes almost seven times that many. Dr. Maxfield felt there was an 80% chance of improvement in Spect Scan results from hyperbaric therapy. He has seen such with similar patients. Also, he felt there was a significant probability Terry Schiavo would improve cognitive ability with hyperbaric treatment. Drs. Greer, Bambakidis and Cranford have all referred patients for hyperbaric therapy but none for this type of brain injury. They felt that such therapy would have no affect on Terry Schiavo. It is interesting to note the absence of any case studies since this therapy is not new and this condition has long been in the medical arena.

Dr. Hammesfahr feels his vasodilatation therapy will have a positive affect on Terry Schiavo. Drs. Greer, Bambakidis and Cranford do not feel it will have such an affect. It is clear that this therapy is not recognized in the medical community. Dr. Hammesfahr operates his clinic on a cash basis in advance which made the discussion regarding Medicare eligibility quite irrelevant. A lot of the time also was spent regarding his nominations for a Nobel Prize. While he certainly is a self-promoter and should have had for the court’s review a copy of the letter from the Nobel committee in Stockholm, Sweden, the truth of the matter is that he is probably the only person involved in these proceedings who had a United States Congressman recommend him for such an award. Whether the committee “accepted” the nomination, “received” the nomination or whatever, it is not that significant. What is significant, however, and what [undermines] his creditability is that he did not present to this court any evidence other than his generalized statements as to the efficacy of his therapy on brain damaged individuals like Terry Schiavo. He testified that he has treated about 50 patients in the same or worse condition than Terry Schiavo since 1994 but he offered no names, no case studies, no videos and no tests results to support his claim that he had success in all but one of them. If his therapy is as effective as he would lead this court to believe, it is inconceivable that he would not produce clinical results of these patients he has treated. And surely the medical literature would be replete with this new, now patented, procedure. Yet, he has only published one article and that was in 1995 involving some 63 patients, 60% of whom were suffering from whiplash. None of these patients were in a persistent vegetative state and all were conversant. Even he acknowledges that he is aware of no article or study that shows vasodilatation therapy to be an effective treatment for persistent vegetative state patients. The court can only assume that such substantiations are not available, not just catalogued in such a way that they can not be readily identified as he testified.

Neither Dr. Hammesfahr nor Dr. Maxfield was able to credibly testify that the treatment options that they offered would significantly improve Terry Schiavo’s quality of life. While Dr. Hammesfahr blithely stated he should be able to get her to talk, he admitted he was not sure in what way he can improve her condition although he feels certain her can. He also told the court that “only rarely” do his patients have no improvement. Again, he is extremely short of specifics. Dr. Maxfield spoke of a “chance” of recovery although he stated there was a significant probability that hyperbaric therapy would improve her condition. It is clear from the evidence that these therapies are experimental insofar as the medical community is concerned with regard to patients like Terry Schiavo which is borne out by the total absence of supporting case studies or medical literature. The Mandate requires something more than a belief, hope or “some” improvement. It requires this court to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the treatment offers such sufficient promise of increased cognitive function in Mrs. Schiavo’s cerebral cortex so as to significantly improve her quality of life. There is no such testimony, much less a preponderance of the evidence to that effect. The other doctors, by contrast, all testified that there was no treatment available to improve her quality of life. They were also able to credibly testify that neither hyperbaric therapy nor vasodilatation therapy was an effective treatment for this sort of injury. That being the case, the court concludes that the Respondents have not met the burden of proof cast upon them by the Mandate and their Motion. Accordingly, it is

If these doctors had observed patients improving under such conditions they certainly would find it in their interest to publish professional articles on it. That they haven’t ‘bothered’ is incredibly telling about the type of medicine the two practice.

That Scarborough attacked the credibility of doctor who wasn’t promoting speculative therapies with no empirical support demonstrates that MSNBC can’t be considered a news channel either.