Local Politics tags Notes from John

Posts tagged with Local Politics

Posted by John Poertner on December 23, 2008 at 8:45 a.m.

permalink

The holidays, economy and the homeless

This holiday time that celebrates something other than consumption has somehow become a time of excess. Yet the news on the economy is awful and it's all our fault. We aren’t consuming enough to keep the economy afloat. It’s all about personal responsibility. Just like the homeless. The Lawrence Community Shelter’s (LCS) newsletter came yesterday with news of people being responsible while struggling with personal problems. Go ahead start the tirades. I am going to speak kindly of the homeless and LCS.The newsletter features several success stories like that of ‘B’ who was helped to obtain housing outside the shelter. These are not isolated incidents. The newsletter includes data saying that 121 residents moved into permanent housing or applied for housing to the Housing Authority, 65 people obtained jobs and 55 people moved into substance abuse detox or rehab. These are just the results that I as a citizen of Lawrence want from LCS. I am sure that the Salvation Army and others who are working with the homeless are also showing results. I just don’t have their newsletters. So if you want to help the economy, help an agency that is successfully helping the homeless become productive members of our community. I am going to go out and buy some gloves and take them to LCS.Happy Holidays.

Reply 8 comments from Leslie Swearingen

Posted by John Poertner on September 29, 2008 at 2:25 p.m.

permalink

Feria Hispana - recycling?

http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e... photo says it all. People want to recycle. At yesterday's Feria Hispana people put their aluminum cans on top of the trash can so that they could be recycled. But note the plastic bottle inside. There were others further down. Every year there is an article in the Journal World about Lawrence being above average in the rate of recycling. Yet if you go to a public event in South Park you can't recycle unless you pack it somewhere else. Last November I traveled in Paraguay (our partner in Latin America). Paraguay is not nearly as developed as the USA. In several public places there were 3 trash cans with 2 set aside for recycling. Clearly Lawrence can do as well.

Reply 2 comments from Multidisciplinary

Posted by John Poertner on June 9, 2008 at 11:05 a.m.

permalink

Longer Foster Care Better?

A recent report of a study of young adults who had been placed in foster care as adolescents found that those in a program with caseworkers of higher levels of education and salaries, lower caseloads and access to more services had fewer mental problems, ulcers and cardiometabolic disorders . This was not a study that randomly assigned foster youth to these two types of care so it is well to be cautious in going too far with the results. Yet it is a very promising finding. We know too little about the effects of foster care. We know that some children thrive and go on to be productive members of the community. Other children leaving foster care have troubled lives involving substance abuse, homelessness and criminal activity. We need to know what makes the difference.It is good to know that enhancing foster care seems to make a positive difference in the lives of youth. At what cost? The report includes 2 items regarding cost. Enhanced foster care cost 60% more. The youth who were in the enhanced foster care group spent nearly 2 more years in care than the other group.Would our community agree to spend 60% more on foster care then we do now? As a state we are having difficulty funding K through 12 education. We can't figure out how to have all of our citizens covered by health insurance. We have backed off of funding higher education. Increasing foster care funding by 60% doesn't seem realistic.A note of caution. This study only involved adolescents. They are just a part of the foster care caseload and we don't know if the same type of enhanced foster care would have the same results for younger children. So if we only funded enhanced foster care for adolescents, total foster care funding would not have to increase 60%.The second cost of spending nearly 2 more years in foster care raises a more difficult question. Isn't foster care supposed to be temporary? One idea behind foster care is that children should only be placed out of their home when they are in danger and that a safe and permanent home should be found as quickly as possible preferably with their own legal family. The findings of this study turn this on its head.In this society we are constantly balancing the value of family independence and autonomy against the interests of the larger community. This study suggests that larger community interests regarding these youth might supersede family interests. On the other hand how about the idea of enhanced family services? Perhaps it is time for a study of what adolescents like those in the study might achieve with enhanced services within their own home.Kessler, R.C. et al. (2008). Effects of enhanced foster care on the long-term physical and mental health of foster care alumni. Archives of General Psychiatry. Vol. 65, No. 6.

Reply 30 comments from Pogo

and 3 others

Posted by John Poertner on May 22, 2008 at 2:14 p.m.

permalink

7.3% divided by 2

Yes that is the sales tax rate in Lawrence and it can be cut in half. No tax protest required. We don't need to cut spending. We don't need to toss out the city commission, county commission or the legislature. We need to reconsider what is not subject to the sales tax.In Kansas the sales tax was instituted in 1937. Since then the legislature has been busy letting selected sales off the hook. There are now more than 73 exclusions or exemptions. That number is from John Wong's 2006 study and does not include the last 3 legislative sessions (Sales Tax Erosion in Kansas, http://www.ksrevenue.org/pdf/sales_tax_erosion_ks.pdf). Each time the legislature changes the sales tax a new paragraph is added to KSA 79-3603. That is the Kansas Retailers' Sales Tax law. Take a look at http://www.kslegislature.org/legsrv-statutes/getStatuteInfo.do. Reading it makes my head spin. Each exclusion, exemption, addition or whatever is given a letter starting with a. The latest paragraph is 'aaaa.' That means we are starting on our fourth run through the alphabet. This must be one of the legislature's favorite activities. I wonder what was changed this year.Fortunately John Wong's study is more understandable and necessarily simplified. The three largest non sales tax categories are: ¢ Exclusion of component parts and items consumed in production resulting in a 2005 tax loss of $2.3 billion.¢ Exclusion of government and nonprofit purchases resulting in a 2005 tax loss of $300 million.¢ Exemption of services resulting in a 2005 tax loss of $1.9 billion.Actual sales tax receipts in 2005 according to Wong were $1.9 billion. We could easily get that amount of money with a tax rate of 3.65% (half of 7.3%) by rethinking the exclusions and exemptions.I know there are 'good' reasons for each and every sale not subject to the sales tax. Exclusion of component parts and items consumed in production helps Kansas businesses. We all need jobs.Why would we ask government entities to pay sales tax when they would just need to raise other taxes or reduce services to pay for it?Why not help out nonprofit organizations with a sales tax exemption? They would just need to raise more money without the exemption. Except, not all nonprofits are exempt from sales taxes. Take a look at the list at http://www.ksrevenue.org/pecentitylearnmore.htm. If your favorite nonprofit is not listed it is apparently because you haven't asked your local legislator to submit a bill to add that organization to the list. Incidentally, Victory in the Valley is paragraph 'aaaa' the latest addition prior to this legislative session.The trouble with all of these 'reasonable' exemptions and exclusions is that the sales tax base just keeps getting smaller requiring a higher tax rate to generate the same amount of revenue. When we go to the grocery store we pay 7.3% rather than 3.65%. So low and middle income families have a more difficult time and pay more of their income in sales taxes than other families. We need to broaden, not narrow the sales tax base. ¢ Why not tax some services. Our economy is based more and more on services rather than manufacturing products. In 2005 consumption of services was 59% of all personal consumption expenditures a radical change from 1937 (Wong, 2006). ¢ Let's rethink some of our current exemptions. Examine each exemption with the thought that eliminating it would not increase revenue but reduce the tax rate. At a minimum we could require the legislature to replace each new $1 of sales exempted from sales tax by adding some other item.¢ Or we could be really radical and do away with the sales tax and raise that revenue through a more progressive state income tax.

Reply 5 comments from None2