nc policy watch

The NC Senate will vote in its budget today to bar new children from enrolling in NC’s affordable health insurance program for working families, Health Choice. The freeze would start September 1, 2008 and extend at least seven months. (A possible amendment today may, if passed, reduce that by a month or two.) Just as many families, suffering from high gas prices, high food prices, job loss, and all the other hardships of a worsening economy need affordable health coverage the most, the NC Senate is voting to take that coverage away.

The only reason given by the Senate leadership who cooked up this idea? “Uncertainty” about federal funding for the Health Choice program. We’d hate to enroll kids and then ask them to leave later seems to be the line.

Only problem with this argument? It’s completely wrong.

Go read the whole story.

It's not often that business books have tight relevance to political and cultural issues, but The Strategy Paradox by Michael Raynor has much to recommend it. Here is my interpretation of the essence of Raynor's argument:

Given that the future is fundamentally unknowable, how can we determine the proper course of action at any point in time? The answer lies in the concept of "strategic flexibility."

At any point in time, there are possible actions that, if chosen, will support almost any possible future that emerges. Those core actions are the relatively safe bets that should be chosen.

Chris Fitzsimon at NC Policy Watch wraps the week with a good summary of North Carolina's recent spate of adults behaving badly on the immigration front. I hope he will forgive my lifting a little more than usual from the front of his Friday Follies column yesterday.

Say what you want about Governor Mike Easley, but he deserves a lot credit for continuing to stand up for undocumented kids in North Carolina who want to continue their education at a community college or public university. Easley told the North Carolina News Network this week that the recent decision by Community College President Scott Ralls to ban the admission of academically qualified students who are undocumented was an example of "poor leadership."

Chris Fitzsimon at NC Policy watch has a concise preview of the upcoming legislative session and the fuzzy fuzzy budget picture.

It adds up to a challenging session for lawmakers, who will be meeting with one eye focused on their own re-election campaigns and in the shadow of a gubernatorial race that is almost certain to include misleading and simplistic rhetoric about budgets and taxes.

Spent the afternoon with Pam Spaulding and Chris Fitzsimon talking with communications folks in progressive organizations about blogging. I gave participants an assignment - to post something to some blog some time between now and Friday at 5 pm.

(Secret note to all my new progressive friends: posting a comment here will qualify as having done your homework!)

J

Over time it will become clear to them that the real reason that their taxes are going up is so that the taxes of big corporations and the wealthy can be kept down.

Workplace safety: What will it take to convince state officials to act?

Crucial Conversation Luncheon
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

There has been much written recently about the potential risks of over-heated primaries. In the face of increasingly sharp attacks in the presidential and gubernatorial races, Democratic party loyalists rightly cringe, calling on candidates to tone things down. Worried that all the name-calling will come back to haunt the eventual nominee, many activists decry attack advertising and blog wars as providing comfort (and fodder) for the enemy.

History shows, however, that the hot furnace of a primary contest can have positive effects as well. By running the gauntlet of a tough race, a candidate will theoretically be stronger and more thoroughly vetted for the general election in November.

But there is another consequence of over-heated primaries about which candidates seem largely oblivious.

Map now updated with Myers Park Pat!

I admit to spending less and less time worrying about the "reports" and political activities spewing steadily from the Art Pope Puppetshow. Funded to the tune of $3 to $4 million annually by the knight of the right, the increasingly irrelevant John Locke Foundation and Civitas appear to have attracted all the converts they're going to get.

But as our handy-dandy (and updated!) map of the Show suggests, the Puppetmaster has infiltrated major media outlets and at least one major university, so they are definitely worth keeping an eye on. Which is why I was so pleased to see this post by Rob Schofield at NC Policy Watch yesterday. It's a doozy.

A couple of items of interest today.

First off, Chris Fitzsimon at NC Policy Watch smacks Rick Martinez (News Puppet at WPTF-AM) upside his wooden head with a great column on public education.

The market fundamentalists are relentless in their crusade to privatize public schools and don’t mind ignoring facts and social science if they have to. They are even willing to temporarily put aside their normal demonization of the poor.