My friend, Tim Lennox, really got me thinking this evening with a post he wrote attempting to knock some sense into my fellow progressives about what they should have expected from our Democratic representatives in Congress. I agree with him wholeheartedly and am proud to have Bobby Bright, Artur Davis and Parker Griffith representing Alabama. However, this passage has left me wondering about some things:
The lonely Democrats in Alabama need to remember there’s a reason there is a higher percentage of “birthers” in Alabama and the other former Confederate States than other regions of the country, and why John McCain got more votes in our state than almost anywhere, and why only Democrats who act like Republicanette clones can hope to get elected, and why even a congressman representing a “safe” majority black district would vote with Republicans against health care and hate crime legislation and other issues. Face it Libs: you are deep in the current stronghold of the GOP and deep in the losing population of the last election. The cute little bumper stickers with the “blue dot in a sea of red” are more true now than before the election nine months ago. But the blue dot in the sticker is way too big.
He’s right, there is a difference between holding to your beliefs and beating your head against a wall until it is bloodied. I’ll admit that I have become more focused on some national issues recently and I don’t apologize for that, but I feel bad that it has pulled me away from talking about state politics. In turning my attention back, I want to restate some core beliefs that I have always held, but which will come to the forefront in the 2010 election:
1. There is more that makes us similar than makes us different.
2. We need to come together as a state to address those things we can agree on and try to minimize time spent on the areas where we disagree.
3. If you’re not about solutions over rhetoric, I don’t want to have anything to do with you.
4. If you don’t believe we can do better as a state than we are doing today, get out of our way.
5. There are ways to make substantive change in Alabama, without fighting the majority of the citizens every single day.
As I started thinking along these lines, I went back to the basics of what we spend our money on…we all agree that our priority should be education…but are we really investing our education dollars in the best ways possible? We all agree we need to find ways to do more with our dollars in the general fund….but where do those monies go now.
So where to begin? I go right to the source…the latest copy of the Alabama Budget Fact book, and start with a few basic facts.
- In 2008-2009 each teacher unit in K-12 cost, on average, $82,756
- We spent $6.2 billion in Education Trust Fund dollars in 2007
- We spent $1.6 billion in State General Fund dollars in 2007
The state agencies who had appropriations over $100 million in FY2008 were:
Public Health – $695 million ($133 million in state dollars)
Revenue – $136 million
Environmental Management – $137 million
Conservation and Natural Resources – $160 million
Public Safety – $169 million
Unified Judicial System – $184 million
DHR – $1.3 billion ($247 million in state dollars)
Mental Health – $956 million ($393 million in state dollars)
Two-Year Colleges – $857 million ($394 million state dollars)
Corrections $440 million
Transportation – $1.3 billion ($590 million in state dollars)
Higher Education (Universities) – $4.9 billion ($1.2 billion state dollars)
Department of Education $1.4 billion ($264 million in state dollars)
Medicaid – $4.5 billion ($1.45 billion in state dollars)
K-12 Education (Local Boards) – $4.7 billion ($4.2 billion in state dollars)
Why do I highlight these agencies? Because people like to talk around the edges of cost-cutting and savings and talk about how they can always “find dollars to cut” or redirect. The reality of the Alabama state budget is that if you aren’t touching on Education (K-12, Higher Ed and Two-Year), Medicaid-Public Health-Mental Health, Transportation, DHR or the Criminal Justice system, you won’t make any significant difference in the budget.
So here is some food for thought.
1. Can a state that only spends $7.8 billion really afford to see $5.6 billion of that going solely to education? And if we can, what are the ways we can ensure we are getting the best out of every single penny, whether it’s going to K-12, two-year colleges or universities? The battle always seems to be between K-12 and higher ed, when we really should be looking at where we need to make our biggest investments.
2. The thing I know from having lived in this state as long as I have and worked in some of these areas is that many Alabama families are being served by all of the social service departments simultaneously or on a revolving basis, cycling in and out of needing public or mental health services, in and out of the criminal justice system, in and out of the DHR system. Efforts have begun to try to tie the databases of these different agencies together to allow for better identification of who these individuals and families are and perhaps begin to craft better solutions. I can almost guarantee, when that process is complete, that the bulk of the resources being expended between all of those departments and agencies are for individuals from a couple thousand families in this state…and doing a better job of identifying and working with those families sooner would go a long way to reducing the overall cost for all of these agencies.
If we could seriously and in a bipartisan way consider and evaluate those two areas, I think we could go a long way to making a better Alabama. And it wouldn’t require one dime in new revenue, a new constitution, a lottery or any of the other things that seem to get in the way of real, meaningful progress. Please don’t take this to mean that I’m going to stop talking about what I believe or that I think I have all the answers, because I don’t. I do wish we could have more discussion about the basic truths of Alabama, from both sides of the political spectrum. Because I think we still have so much untapped potential that is locked up because of partisan divides and unproductive rhetoric. Maybe this is finally the time when we can start to break some of that down.
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raising taxes.
on the middle class.
it’s what democrats do. (and lying)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2-Obama-officials-No-apf-1522318831.html?x=0
even your fearless leader (now) won’t rule it out.
and the birthers comment:
isn’t it ironic the investigative sweat that’s been put into uncovering every salacious detail of sarah palin’s background but no one wants to know anything of the president’s???
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmJhMzlmZWFhOTQ3YjUxMDE2YWY4ZDMzZjZlYTVmZmU=
(other than he has a certificate of birth. that settles it. nothing to see here………it does kind of remind you of the lack of interest in reporting the john edwards fling, doesn’t it???)
and you may have to check with your buddy timm on this one, but who was the last u. s. senator to utter the racial epithet “nigger” on live television and when???
just so to “jog” both of your memories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FIBJt-c2o0
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=383
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A central registry of social service clients? Lot of legal and agency culture hurdles to jump to get that to work. Though a lot of it could be complied by noting which surnames keep turning up in the news paper’s crime reports, sex offender registry etc. Then there is the problem of finding street wise folks to do the work.
As far as a bipartisan approach, with an election coming up, it don’t seem likely. Then there’s the voters, who expect TPTB to pull another rabbit out and make everything disappear, maybe they will get angry maybe not. Disappointment seldom out weighs fealty to the party.
But, maybe the economy will improve, Hyundai and Honda are already back to full work weeks, which will ripple thru the supply chain, increase retail sales, and ta-dah there is a bipartisan agreement that things are better, so howsabout $200K for the Mule Day festival…
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There you go again finebammer…offering a fine example of the kind of stuff I’m talking about. All Democrats are liars and want to raise taxes? (which taxes by the way, on who?) Really? No, not really, but it feels good to say and is completely unproductive to getting anything done.
Why would it not surprise me that you’re a birther…it’s not that no one wants to look into it, and it isn’t just the “certificate of birth” it’s a birth announcement in two Honolulu newspapers on the day and the Hawaii Department of Health and the Republican Hawaiian governor…not that any birther would pay attention to any of those things.
And what the hell does what Senator Byrd said 8 years ago have anything to do with anything??
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Walt,
You’re right…there are legal issues to work out, but there are ways to cross the data while still maintaining confidentiality, so we at least know the truth of the matter, right now it’s just a strong suspicion.
I think a bipartisan approach is closer than you think…it has more to do with personalities than it does politics, and you have some new folks coming to the table that are willing to negotiate.
And you’re 100% correct that if the economy turns around quickly, it’s back to business as usual. However, my point was that all the attention gets heaped on stupid stuff like the Mule Day festival, when even if you took all of that out of the budget, you’re not making any real impact. We have to go deeper to really make a difference.
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there i go again……….
“The lonely Democrats in Alabama need to remember there’s a reason there is a higher percentage of “birthers” in Alabama and the other former Confederate States than other regions of the country,”
you and timmy might as well have had dixie playing in the background.
just go ahead and say it, kriss/timmy. if you voted for mccain, you’re a racist.
you think people are so stupid not to see through your crap.
you rip “birthers” then post palin divorce enquirer garbage.
hey kriss/timmy, what party has held the alabama state legislature since before our fathers were born???
what party stripped the governor’s seat of powers before RINO riley was inaugurated in ’03???
need another link???
i’ll bet if the truth were known, you believe 9/11 was an “inside job”.
you post this kind of garbage then try to hold yourself up as some paragon of reasoned, intelligent thought.
hypocrite.
(at least your buddy over at legal weenie dog doesn’t hide from the fact he’s a conspiracy nut. everybody was involved in his “unlawful” termination from uab and he’s gonna get ‘em)
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Any fair-minded reading (I know…you’re not capable) of what Tim Lennox wrote would show it has nothing to do with race. The point he was making is that any Alabamian who wants to vilify Republicans needs to face facts, that they’re in the minority, and won’t be out of it anytime soon.
I’ll repeat again, YOU are the only one who read race into that statement. I don’t believe that anyone who voted for John McCain is a racist. I voted for John McCain in 2000 (of course that was a lost cause by then).
The only crap around here comes from you.
What I posted about Palin was the news that she’s coming to Alabama, I thought it was a funny coincidence that that news was breaking at the same time there were reports that she was divorcing.
I have no love loss for the Democratic leadership in the Alabama Senate or House, nor for the state Democratic party…and it’s only your lack of ability to read that would cause you to miss that.
Calling someone a hypocrite is a lazy argument, it means you have nothing useful left to say (although I would contend you had almost nothing useful to say to begin).
I’ve never held myself up as a paragon of anything. I am simply an Alabama citizen who cares deeply about the great people all over this state and want to see us do better…simple as that. You don’t like it…go away…why read the musings of someone you think is a hypocrite? I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you.
Meanwhile, I’ll be discussing what we can do to make a better Alabama with people of all political persuassions, because that’s what will get things done.
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Mule day is a distraction but also a place holder for those four lane roads, traffic lights etc for the favored few, double dipping, etc that represents the what TPTB really worry about when it comes to funding, short term gain and power over long term planning and the interests of the state as a whole (sorta what triggered the whole credit crunch).
I would like to see TPTB come up with a rank order list of what each agencies priorities and so what needs funding (sorta like what Oregon did with Medicaid) by agency and then for the State as a whole. However, imagine the storm if the list ran something like: 1) tax collection, 2) prenatal/pediatric care, 3) confinement of felons, 4) Repair bridges, 5) nursing home care 6) K-3 education, 7) investigation of felony offenses …. 35) 4-8 education etc.
Maybe there will be new personalities coming on stage, maybe not. Too many bright young’uns burn out because they fail to understand change occurs at its own pace in Alabama just like that guy picking up cans alongside the road.
Unless you can get some confidentially waivers, built in, a social service exchange (as they were called in the old days) won’t help much. The more you know going into a messy family situation the better. Then there’s the whole furball of who does what, where and when and the legal rationale for invading their family life but thats always the case.
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Walt,
You’re absolutely correct about short term gain over long term planning, but I don’t know how you overcome that…
I like the idea of lining up priorities…it would be interesting what fell to the bottom of the list and yet gets a relatively high amount of funding.
I can’t agree more about the burnout…and the learning curve, but there will be so many long time office holders and power brokers moving off the stage in the coming decade that there will be many more new faces than we have seen at one time in many many decades, if ever.
Yes, the waivers are certainly the preferred path, but you can learn a lot, even with something short of that. The real issue comes when the discoveries are made, whether there is the political will to make the changes to longtime ways of doing business. It rarely is…
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The only problem with the rosy scenario of progressive youth overcoming musty reactionary forces is their numbers seem small and ineffectual. How many pro health reform, Moving America Forward type rallies have we had in Alabama vs how many tea parties?
Change in Alabama just like personal change comes only the pain of change is less than the pain of business as usual. So far, fortune and a bit of planning have kept that from happening.
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It’s not a rosy scenario, and I’m not talking about progressive youth necessarily. I’m saying the next generation coming up, conservative or progressive is much more interested in results than ideology. And they understand that rallies don’t mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
Change is painful…but you also have to have leaders who are willing to help move people through that painful process. I talk to a lot of people on both ends of the political spectrum and yes, there is youthful idealism, but there is also a strong willingness to put away the grudges and old allegiances that have such a stranglehold in Alabama politics.
Talking purely in state political terms…I talk to Democrats who are tired of Paul Hubbert calling the shots. I talk to Republicans who are tired of those in their party who still want to fight the old battles and point fingers.
I have always been someone who looks at candidate over party and I see a lot of officeholders, particularly in the Alabama House and Senate who need to go and will go, by their choice or by the passing of years and be replaced by a much younger and more pragmatic group of legislators. Whether those pragmatic legislators get corrupted by the same old power structure, we will see. I hope it doesn’t happen.
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Rallies are always a useful sign of what people consider worth getting off their behinds about. 30 folks in person is always more impressive than a 300+ post blog thread.
A pragmatic, results oriented movement? Will require the patience of Fabian.
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change in alabama politics will have NOTHING to do with youth or pragmatism.
until home rule is brought back, nothing will change.
our state constitution was written in 1901 to concentrate power in montgomery. today it’s still doing EXACTLY what it was written to do in 1901.
i have NO business voting on a pay raise for baldwin co. sheriffs. likewise no one residing across the state should have any say in local issues where i live.
nor does montgomery.
this is part of the reason for the occupational tax mess in jefferson county.
and the corruption.
alabama is probably third in state political corruption behind only louisiana and illinois.
and that constitution is the reason why.
and nothing will change until it does.
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now we’re not buying ANY of this “birther” crap……….but just in case:
http://www.slate.com/id/2224167/
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finebammer,
I wish we could convince a majority that home rule needs to be brought back. I agree that would make a HUGE difference (fancy that, we agree).
And thanks for the link, interesting point from the Explainer.
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