My Beauty Best Teacher

Ikechukwu Eze of Businessday reports on the growth and increasing relevance of public-private partnerships:

Defending the importance of PPP Sania Nishtar in a scholarly article entitled 'Public - private 'partnerships' in health - a global call to action', observed that such collaborations are being increasingly encouraged as part of a nation's comprehensive development framework. "The need to foster such arrangements is supported by a clear understanding of the public sectors inability to provide public goods entirely on their own, in an efficient, effective and equitable manner because of lack of resources and management issues. These considerations have necessitated the development of different interface arrangements, which involve the interfacing of organizations that have the mandate to offer public good on one hand, and those that could facilitate this goal.

One of the cornerstones of modern-day conservatism is the belief that America's energy resources can and should be responsibly exploited. This means that the United States should allow private companies to drill for oil, mine coal, build nuclear power plants, tap into natural gas reserves, get shale oil, and utilize whatever other energy resources that these companies wish to use, provided that they respect the property rights of others.

Oh, I know what liberals and left-wingers will say- the horror of pollution! But the faults of energy development do not lie with the companies themselves, but rather with the government for not establishing clear and defined property rights- for example, rather than having the government act as police to safeguard public water, the water rights should be more clearly defined and if companies destroy or harm the property (the water) of others, they should be forced to pay in a court, much as if they destroyed other private property. The faults with 'pollution' then lie not in the companies for breaking ever expanding government rules and regulations over ever expanding public lands, but for the government for not putting in place limited and clear rules regarding private property rights and then divesting itself of public lands by selling these lands off to private entities that can then do a better job of protecting. Like most problems in our society, the solution is less government, not more.

With the main liberal concern out of the way, our nation would be free to exploit and use its vast resources- enough oil for 30 years, enough natural gas for 575 years, enough coal for 500 years, etc. With oil, gas, and coal be utilized to its fullest extent, our nation will have cheap and plentiful energy, enabling it to develop some of the most amazingly energy intensive industries there are- 'renewable resources'. The horse needs to go before the cart here- we  need to have cheap and plentiful energy in order to build the energy intensive operations and industries like building solar panels, developing batteries, building geothermal plants, etc. A wealthy, productive society thriving on cheap energy can afford to become environmentally friendly, as opposed to a cheap, declining society that the liberals and Democrats appear to be pushing us towards with their anti-energy policies.

In a free market, one in which the government is not subsidizing any of the industries (and this includes cutting subsidies for oil and gas and coal), the most efficient energy resources will be developed in an environment that encourages private property ownership and protection. American can be great again, if it moves away from the liberal model of public ownership of lands and public protection of the environment with restrictive regulations and rules and taxes on energy production combined with subsidies for 'favored' industries and campaign donors. It can be great again if it moves towards a more conservative model of private ownership of lands and private protection through impartial courts of the environment, with few restrictions and regulations and subsidies on energy production, encouraging the most efficient producers and users of energy in a free market.

Via Powerlineblog's post AMERICA’S VAST ENERGY RESOURCES I read this quote from the Institute for Energy Research. IER describes the problem (and the opportunity) bluntly:

Access to affordable, abundant energy is, fundamentally, a means of freedom. But for those seeking to create a crisis that provides an opportunity to direct the way we live, work and act, affordable, reliable, abundant, domestic energy is a threat. In a very real sense, the more energy we have, the less power they will have. Energy abundance ends the justification for central energy decision-making.

As it turns out, many of the problems of energy scarcity and rising costs in the United States have been caused by the government itself. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a report that outlined many of the policy and regulatory constraints that impact domestic energy production. While the report focused on natural gas specifically, many of the laws and procedures also represent roadblocks to any form of safe and responsible energy production. The list of energy barriers included the following policies, all of which can limit access to U.S. resources, increase delays related to exploration and production, and/or increase costs of development:

(John from Powerlineblog)The list of statutes and other legal impediments that follows is three pages long. Only liberal politicians stand between the American people and development of our vast energy resources.

Rina Okonkwo writes about the genesis of corruption in Nigeria:

When did corruption in Nigeria begin? In the words of a colonial government report of 1947, “The African’s background and outlook on public morality is very different from the present day Briton. The African in the public service seeks to further his own financial interest.” The colonial report concluded that only public opinion could deal with corruption. The problem was that there was no responsible public opinion to check corruption in Nigeria.1

From as early as 1947, commissions of inquiry were held to investigate cases of corruption. The purpose of the inquiries was to expose wrong -doing and to punish the culprits.

Today, we hear much of the rampant corruption at the local government level. As early as 1955, just seventeen months after the inception of Igbo-Etiti District Council in May 1954, the colonial government held an inquiry into the affairs of the Council. The inquiry judged that the “conduct of the Council’s affairs had become a public scandal.” The colonial officer who conducted the inquiry, FP Cobb, noted, “public indignation was widespread and strong.” 2 The public was outraged at the corrupt behaviour of their representatives.

The report on Igbo-Etiti District Council revealed that there was ‘systematic corruption” in the appointment and promotion of staff and in the awarding of contracts. Bribes of L80 to L100 were demanded for unnecessary appointments. The brother of the Secretary to the District Council was hired above a more qualified applicant. In one case, a man paid a L400 bribe to secure a post and was never refunded his money when he did not get the job.

Contractors routinely paid ten percent of the value of the contract as bribe. The contracts were not awarded to the lowest bidder or to the most experienced or competent persons. At the end of its first seventeen months of existence, the Igbo-Etiti District Council was L6000 in debt. There was great wasting of public money due to “gross dishonesty in handling council affairs.”3

The local government councils have continued to be notorious for corruption. Why do such grassroots organizations attract such widespread graft? The people are often not prepared to undertake public office. They have no training in the procedures and ethics of public service. They have minimal education. There is poor supervision of the affairs 9of the Local Government Councils. The history of corruption in local government councils can show no change for the better.

In 1956, the Foster-Sutton Tribunal investigated the Premier of the Eastern Region, Nnamdi Azikiwe for his involvement in the affairs of African Continental Bank (ACB). Under the code of conduct for ministers, a government officer was required to relinquish his holdings in private business when he assumed public office. The Foster-Sutton Tribunal felt that Zik did not severe his connections to the bank when he became a Minister. The Tribunal believed that Zik continued to use his influence to further the interests of ACB.

Zik, his family, and the Zik Group of Companies were the principal shareholders of the African Continental Bank. ACB loaned over L163, 000 to the Zik Group of Companies at low interest. The Zik group did not have to repay the loans until 1971. ACB was a distressed bank. The new registrar of banks in 1952 refused to grant ACB a license. Attempts to find partners for the bank in Britain failed because of the insolvency of the bank.
In the words of a colonial government official, “Were a UK minister to be involved in a series of transactions the result of which public funds were used to support an otherwise shaky institution in which he was directly interested, he would be forced to leave public life.”4 Why did not the colonial government prosecute Zik for his failure to observe the code of conduct for government officers? The colonial correspondence revealed that the government supported the NCNC as the only party to embrace national unity. Without Zik, the NCNC would collapse. The national interest of the country demanded that Zik continue as leader of the party.5

The Governor of the Eastern Region Sir Clement Pleass further observed, “The exercise of public power for private profit is established in the East.” “The aim of the colonial government was not to establish a standard of honesty in public life. Only time and education can do that.” “A number of sensible people realized that Zik had done harm in the East in the last two years, but the mass of the people, ignorant and uneducated, voted him back to power.”6

When Zik called for a general election in 1957, as an alternative to resigning in the face of the findings of the Foster-Sutton Tribunal, the people gave him their support. The Economist observed that Nigerians had a “sunny and tolerant mentality” towards corruption.7 The colonial officer hoped that “Eventually sufficiently honest and enlightened people will be thrown up to rebuild the prosperity and good government of the region.”8

Obafemi Awolowo, the first premier of the Western Region, was found guilty of corruption by the Coker Commission in 1962. In 1954, the Western Region Marketing Board had L6.2 million. By May 1962, it had to exist on overdrafts amounting to over L2.5 million. A loan of L6.7 million was made to the National Investment and Properties Co., Ltd. for building projects out of which only L500, 000 was ever re-paid. The Western Region Finance Corporation and the West Nigeria Development Corporation also received loans of millions of pounds, which were never re-paid. The Coker Commission found Awolowo responsible for the all the ills of the Western Region Marketing Board, and Awolowo “without a doubt has failed to adhere to the standards of conduct which are required for persons holding such a post.”9

The First Republic, with Zik as the President, was marked by widespread corruption. Government officials looted public funds with impunity. Federal Representative and Minister of Aviation, KO Mbadiwe, flaunted his wealth by building a palace in his hometown. When asked where he had gotten the money to build such a mansion, KO replied, ”From sources known and unknown.” Minister of Finance Chief FS Okotie- Eboh responded to charges of accumulation of wealth by government officers by quoting from the Bible, “To those that have, more shall be given. From those that do not have, shall be taken even the little they have.”10

Azikiwe did not surround himself with men of good character. Chinua Achebe maintained that the political thought of both Awolowo and Azikiwe was based on politics for material gain. Achebe quoted from the autobiographies of the two men to show that making money and living well were primary goals in life for both our nationalist leaders. “If we were a more discerning people, we should not have trusted them with our lives even in the fifties and sixties.”11


The popular acceptance and even admiration for corruption was highlighted in Chinua Achebe’s novel about the politicians of the First Republic, A Man of the People. “The people had become even more cynical than their leaders and were apathetic into the bargain. “Let them eat,’ was the people’s opinion . . . It may be your turn to eat tomorrow.” 12

To be continued.

Written by Candi Peterson

Join Empower DC's Exposing DC's Equation for Displacement: Info on DCPS closings & plan of action Saturday,  Feb. 4 @ 11 am -1:30pm @  1419 V St NW

The headlines from today's top education stories reads: "Many public schools in D.C.’s poorest area should be transformed or shut, study says; more charters recommended" written by Bill Turque, Washington Post writer while Mike Debonis' blog: DeMorning Links reads: "School Closings Contemplated" and Channel Fox Five TV news reported the DC School System study recommends making major improvements or close three dozen under performing public schools or expand high performing charter schools.

The Washington Teacher blog first reported on October 31, 2011 about future plans to close additional DC public schools. An excerpt from the 21st Century School Fund September - October newsletter stated: "The Deputy Mayor for Education, with a 100,000 dollar grant from the Walton Family Foundation, engaged IFF (Illinois Facility Fund) to study the capacity and performance of DCPS and public charter schools. IFF has authored reports in Denver, Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, using a defined method to determine what they term "performing" or "non- performing" seats.  This analysis is being done with an eye to "right sizing" district schools which beyond consolidation could include reconstitution and replacement with school management organizations."

Not unlike other major cities including NY, Chicago, Ohio- DC has been at the forefront of shutting down traditional public schools. In 2008, twenty-three public schools were closed under former DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee and then mayor Adrian Fenty which led to a community outcry to save our public schools. Local education stakeholders voices weren't heeded by Rhee or Fenty and only one neighborhood elementary school- John Burroughs was saved from the chopping block.

Natalie Hopkinson who authored the article - "Why School Choice Fails"which appeared in the December 4, 2011 N.Y. Times discussed how this country’s reform policies in Washington, DC- put in place by a Republican led congress in 1995 led to the birth of many of our charter schools. Hopkinson wrote:" if a school was deemed failing, students could transfer schools, opt to attend a charter school or receive a voucher to attend a private school. The idea was to introduce competition; good schools would survive; bad ones would disappear. It effectively created a second education system, which now enrolls nearly half the city’s public school students. The charters consistently perform worse than the traditional schools, yet they are rarely closed."

The results of IFF's study recommend that DC make major improvements or close thirty six under performing schools in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods or expand high performing charter schools. It’s a finding that heralds the continued growth of the charter schools sector at the expense of the D.C. Public Schools, if not its outright domination. While some people are questioning the motives of the Illinois Facilities Fund, the study is “likely to rekindle impassioned debate about possible school closures and the future of public education in the District,” Bill  Turque notes. Officials tell Turque, education writer for the Post that any decisions about a “major restructuring” are at least a year and many community meetings away.

What comes as no surprise to anyone is that schools in ward 8 were identified as having the greatest need, according to the IFF study. The study recommended turning around or closing the following public schools: Simon, Patterson, Terrell-McGogney and Ferebee-Hope and closing two bottom-rung charter schools, Center City Congress Heights (pre-K to 8) and Imagine Southeast (pre-K to 5). H.D. Woodson Senior High School which is located in Ward 7  was also recommended for turn around or closure, a school which recently has undergone capital investment which cost millions of dollars in investment. 

One of the things that I find disturbing about IFF's report is the recommendation for DC to consider expanding charter schools in the 10 targeted neighborhood clusters and call for the DC Public Charter School Board to authorize about 6,500 new charter seats (current enrollment is about 32,000) while utilizing former public school buildings as incentives to get the public charter board to actively recruit the highest performing charter school operators to replicate their school models. 


The writing should be on the wall for all of us to see. If it's not, I don't know what to tell you. From where I sit, this situation looks bleak for working, middle class families and many of our teachers in some of our poorest communities. The loss of our public schools is a disinvestment in our school communities and may lead to higher classrooms sizes, further declining enrollment in DC public schools and extinction of traditional public schools and fewer teaching jobs. Now is not the time for parents, students, teachers, school staff and community members to sit back. We have to ask the hard questions, organize and demand to have a voice as education stakeholders or we may likely have a re-run of the 2008 school closures.

On November 8, 2011 - I issued a call to action to DC teachers and school personnel: "In the midst of upcoming contract negotiations, there are big plans ahead to close our traditional public schools. Never in our history has been there been a greater need for teachers and school personnel to have an effective organizing union. Our very future as educators and the future of our students will be determined by how vigorously we, alongside parents and community members are willing to fight to save our public schools." Won't you heed the call to get involved before your local school is reconstituted and turned over to a charter school, your job is lost and your community no longer includes you?

An FT report on African infrastructure finance states:

Passions run high over all forms of privatisation and private-sector involvement in public utilities. But many experts and officials at international institutions say there is no option between public and private sectors. Infrastructure needs, they argue, will never be met without the resources of both...It has become clear that areas such as transport will continue to depend heavily on injections of public investment and donor support, but public money will have to used in different ways to combine with commercial interests. Mobilisation of capital, including private-sector capital, is one of the “pillars” of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), the economic revival initiative launched five years ago...Africa can also bring to bear its own private savings. South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation, which manages pension funds, is backing a Pan-African Infrastructure Development Fund, aiming initially to raise $1bn for long-term equity investments with participation from other pension funds and the AfDB.

Thanks Pablo!!

Via American Thinker:

President Obama stated in a Presidential Memorandum last month:

the Federal government...has a responsibility to... [r]econnect Americans, especially children, to America's rivers and waterways, landscapes of national significance, ranches, farms and forests, great parks,
and coasts and beaches.

Obama's response to this crisis is to create another of the government programs that seem to be spun out of the White House at a rate of two or three a week. This one is called "America's Great Outdoors Initiative." It calls on no less than three Cabinet Secretaries (Interior, Agriculture and EPA), plus the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality to develop "A 21st Century Strategy for America's Great Outdoors." According to the Memorandum:

The Federal Government, the Nation's largest land manager, has a responsibility to engage with these partners to help develop a conservation agenda worthy of the 21st Century. We must look to the private sector and nonprofit organizations, as well as towns, cities, and States, and the people who live and work in them, to identify the places that mean the most to Americans, and leverage the support of the Federal Government to help these community-driven efforts to succeed. Through these partnerships, we will work to connect these outdoor spaces to each other, and to reconnect Americans to them.

These "public/private partnerships," and "leveraging" mean one thing: the Federal Government is expanding into yet another part of our lives. It's going to cost us some money, but connecting outdoor spaces and reconnecting Americans to them is vital work that can only be done by the Federal Government. As Obama reminded us at his recent speech to the Business Council, "no business, no individual is going to provide [public goods] on their own."

Hmm... perhaps this 'federal responsibility to reconnect America with nature' is somewhere in the list of delegated and lawful powers of the federal government... I'm looking... Article I, Section 8.... don't see it in there. Perhaps the Necessary and Proper clause can be used... is it 'necessary' and 'proper' for the national government to have the power to 'reconnect America with nature' in order to exercise the power of... regulating interstate commerce... promoting science... establishing post offices... probably it is part of the general welfare clause....

Or perhaps it doesn't matter if this is a lawful power of the federal government, because President Obama believes in rule of men, not rule of laws, and decided to operate our federal government in an unlawful manner fitting of tyrants and dictators. Perhaps it doesn't even matter anymore what is delegated and proper and constitutional, because we now live in a tyranny where power over others is exercised by those who have political connections (public-private partnerships or individuals leveraging the power of the federal government).

Personally, I don't know what the heck President Obarfo is talking about- I'm not disconnected with nature at all- I fish, I hunt, I go outside, my five kids go outside, and I even take my dog for a walk every day, and I live in an apartment in the middle of the city! Leverage the power of the state all you want, Obarfo, but the only way I can spend more time connecting with nature is if you follow through on your plans to destroy all energy production in this country and tax and regulate me out of a job.

On the north end of Democrat Gary Peters 9th District, the story of two different Americas is clearly visible for everyone to see. One America is the America of capitalism and private-sector jobs, and the other America is of corporatization and public-sector jobs. One America is the bankrupt ruins of a $2 billion shopping and housing development, and the other America is the road construction workers dutifully ripping up and rebuilding a major road right in front of it.

Democrats like Peters believe that the best way to lead our nation back to growth and prosperity is to have the national government lead the way by having the national government borrow money from banks in the US and from lenders like China abroad and then use that money to build roads, bridges, schools, and public buildings. In this America, there is job growth and pay raises, assuming that you have the correct political connections to get the jobs and you belong to the labor unions that do business with the state. In this America, there is little accountability to customers and little money to be made by taking risks, increasing efficiency, or cutting costs- in the Democrats America, there is always a job for everyone willing to do the bidding of the state.

This America is the road construction that you see in the pictures and videos, and is something that Democrats like Gary Peters can rightly take credit for.

But there is another America out there, an America where jobs are increasingly scarce, investment funds are nonexistent, and pay cuts are the norm. In this America, increasing taxes, increasing regulation, and increasing uncertainty caused by a growing state presence in the marketplace has caused it to be less profitable to do business, has scared customers and investors, and has led to high unemployment and low job growth. The government is borrowing funds for their projects, and so businesses find it increasingly difficult to borrow money for their projects. Efforts to cut costs and increase efficiency are met by political leaders publicly speaking ill about your company, and it becomes increasingly difficult to meet the bottom line when the government forces the bottom line up and talks profits down.

This America is the abandoned and bankrupt building project that you can see in the pictures and videos, and this is also something that Democrats and Gary Peters can take credit for.

The two Americas meet at the 93-acre site on Telegraph Road near Square Lake Road in Bloomfield Hills. Bloomfield Park was once the symbol of booming private America- a place where citizens could work, buy products, and live. It now lies abandoned, naked steel girders and half-built looming structures, some seven stories tall, crumbling and rusting in front of construction work to rebuild the public road that goes past it. Its marble foundations and ambitious scale are the risks that America once took on itself, but at its feet now scurry the workers of the America that now safely puts its power in the hands of government officials.

But work continues on Telegraph road. Signs boldly advertise that the project was paid for by stimulus dollars voted for and signed into law by Democrats. Democrats like Peters point to this as a sign that his plan is working, and wants to be returned to office based on public works projects like these. That's the America that Democrats ultimately want- an America that is dependent on the state for jobs and income and growth while the private sector dies.

All video and picture was taken by me from my camera phone, after I snuck past security and risked my life walking through the dangerous ruins of America's once glorious past (pre-2008).

UPDATE: Thanks for linking!

"...James Tooley argues that private education is cheaper and more effective than public education.For instance, in Lagos State, the mean maths score advantage over government schools was about 15 and 19 percentage points more respectively in private registered and unregistered schools, while in English it was 23 and 30 percentage points more.More striking: enrollment at private schools in Africa is hugely under-reported, and efforts to provide free primary education may have encouraged parents to move children from the private to the public sector, saving money but making no impact on educational standards.

In Ga District, Ghana, 64 percent of school children attend private unaided schools and in Lagos State we estimate that 75 percent of school children are in private schools - with a larger proportion in unregistered private schools (33 percent of the total) than in government schools (25 percent)..."

Via PSD Blog

Parker Dumps On DC Teachers

In a recent commencement address , Barack Obama called on the graduates to spend more time in public service. While he listed numerous ways to serve the nation--as a teacher, in the Peace Corps., etc.--he never mentioned serving in the military. In fact, Obama said at a campus of the University of Colorado that this call for more public service "will be a central cause of my presidency." (Not fighting terrorism, lowering gas prices, increasing economy, etc.)

Obama doesn't mean "public service" though. He does not mean serving the public in the private sector- no, only the public sector. And he does not mean serving in the military. Some of Obama's biggest supporters are trying to decrease the number of graduates who spend time serving in our armed forces, and many of his biggest supporters actively intimidate military recruiters, forcing them off campus.

Obama wants to add thousands of non-skilled paid volunteers who will perform non-efficient tasks to help out the community, environment, and education. Imagine a worker with a 'job' walking around Obama's White House with a balloon to scare off crows- public service! And employment! Now that's change that FDR believed in during the Great Depression!

Finally, the Chicago senator said he would set a goal for all middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for college students to serve twice that number of hours. As if students are not burdened enough- they have sports, classes, jobs, and hobbies that more than fill their time. Oh, and only particular approved public service will count- helping build a church in Mexico through your youth group wouldn't count- but hand delivering a welfare check to a dangerous neighborhood would!

This election is a real important one, and we have a real choice on what kind of public servant to elect- and I pray we don't go with Obama.

Democrats Host Union-Bashers
by Candi Peterson
published in Labor Notes Magazine , No. 355 October 2008

Here in Washington, DC schools chief Michelle Rhee contends that her education reform plan will be done either with teachers - or to teachers. She argues that urban schools do poorly due to union contracts that prevent schools from firing bad teachers. Teachers' seniority rights, she says, stand in the way of the best education for our children.

Odd Bedfellows
Rhee and DC Mayor Adrian Fenty were invited to a forum before the Democratic National Convention in Denver last August to sell their management scam. They appeared with N.Y. Chancellor Joel Klein and Reverend Al Sharpton for a panel discussion that bashed teachers unions.

These self-styled education reformers can't document a case where slashing teacher seniority and tenure has led to higher student achievement. The platform presented at the Denver forum clashes with the Democrats' historical alliance with teachers union and stated commitment to workers' rights.

In Rhee's typical style, she vowed to impose her educational reform if contract talks with the union continue to stall. This doesn't fit the Democrats, which claim support for teachers unions and public education.

These anti-union plans support more privatization and outsourcing of public education while gutting hard-earned job protections. In exchange, teachers would be bought off with hefty raises and bonuses.

Fight Under-Funding, Not Teachers
Rhee and the people who invited her to speak before a crowd of Democrats, whose convention delegates were 25 percent union members, need to refocus. If half of the energy they spend fighting teachers went to fighting the under-funding of public education and budget cuts, our children would be much better off.

The nationwide assault on teachers unions from corporations and conservatives has intensified in recent years. N.Y. public schools have doled out millions of dollars to private contractors. DC is following suit, and millions more will be spent on hefty contracts with groups such as Teach for America and New Teacher Project - an approach that encourages a teaching force that will have a high turnover rate and an equally high number of novice teachers.

Without teachers unions and experienced teachers who are willing to speak out against budget cuts, understaffed schools, high-stakes testing and unsound educational practices, schools may become the personal plantations of principals beholden to corporate forces.

Our union allows us to pool our resources, knowledge and lobbying power to ensure better working conditions and better schools, and fight off attacks like the one we face in DC.

A Political Battle
The major party alternative to the Denver forum is certainly no better. Senator McCain regularly bashes teachers and public education. He supports private vouchers with no proven track record for raising student achievement. Obama meanwhile supports a compensation package developed with teachers, not imposed on them, and has said he would close failing charter schools. Rather than blaming teachers for the ills of our education system, he pledges more funding for public education.

For a long time, the obstacle to school reform has been political. We know how to make schools better. But we simply have not had political backing to separate education funding from local property taxes, which guarantees abundance for some schools and poverty for others. Seeing Rhee's deeply misguided ideas trumpeted in front of Democratic audiences makes one wonder which direction the party is heading. Posted by The Washington Teacher.

Juan Williams was on Sean Hannity today discussing President Obama's economic and domestic policies, and when push came to shove and facts and figures and data and evidence was cited, he fell back on the same argument that liberals and progressives always fall back on when the results of their policies prove to be harmful to poor people, minorities, and the groups in society that need the most help- he fell back on the argument that for all of the government's faults, at least it was taking wealth from rich people and redistributing it as charity to poor people.

Liberals and progressives, who have seized the old Democratic Party and are now running it as a communist organization, believe that one of the primary roles of the new United States of America is to use the power of the state to distribute charity to those who need it. But their actions and beliefs are in fact resulting in less money and wealth going to the people who need it in society because the government is THE SINGLE WORST charitable organization in the world, having considerable overhead, being motivated by politics and not need, and full of corruption and graft.

CATO, in a report that, although dated, still gets to the heart of the matter, said:

Private charities have been more successful than government welfare for several reasons. First, private charities are able to individualize their approach to the circumstances of poor people in ways that governments can never do. Government regulations must be designed to treat all similarly situated recipients alike. Glenn C. Loury of Boston University explains the difference between welfare and private charities on that point. "Because citizens have due process rights which cannot be fully abrogated . . . public judgments must be made in a manner that can be defended after the fact, sometimes even in court." The result is that most government programs rely on the simple provision of cash or other goods and services without any attempt to differentiate between the needs of recipients.

Take, for example, the case of a poor person who has a job offer. But she can't get to the job because her car battery is dead. A government welfare program can do nothing but tell her to wait two weeks until her welfare check arrives. Of course, by that time the job will be gone. A private charity can simply go out and buy a car battery (or even jump-start the dead battery).

The sheer size of government programs works against individualization. As one welfare case worker lamented, "With 125 cases it's hard to remember that they're all human beings. Sometimes they're just a number." Bureaucracy is a major factor in government welfare programs. For example, a report on welfare in Illinois found procedures requiring "nine forms to process an address change, at least six forms to add or delete a member of a household, and a minimum of six forms to report a change in earnings or employment." All that for just one program.

In her excellent book Tyranny of Kindness, Theresa Funiciello, a former welfare mother, describes the dehumanizing world of the government welfare system--a system in which regulations and bureaucracy rule all else. It is a system in which illiterate homeless people with mental illnesses are handed 17-page forms to fill out, women nine months pregnant are told to verify their pregnancies, a woman who was raped is told she is ineligible for benefits because she can't list the baby's father on the required form. It is a world totally unable to adjust to the slightest deviation from the bureaucratic norm.

In addition to being better able to target individual needs, private charities are much better able to target assistance to those who really need help. Because eligibility requirements for government welfare programs are arbitrary and cannot be changed to fit individual circumstances, many people in genuine need do not receive assistance, while benefits often go to people who do not really need them. More than 40 percent of all families living below the poverty level receive no government assistance. Yet more than half of the families receiving means-tested benefits are not poor. Thus, a student may receive food stamps, while a homeless man with no mailing address goes without. Private charities are not bound by such bureaucratic restrictions.

Private charity also has a better record of actually delivering aid to recipients. Surprisingly little of the money being spent on federal and state social welfare programs actually reaches recipients. In 1965, 70 cents of every dollar spent by the government to fight poverty went directly to poor people. Today, 70 cents of every dollar goes, not to poor people, but to government bureaucrats and others who serve the poor. Few private charities have the bureaucratic overhead and inefficiency of government programs.

Democratic policies are increasingly being defended on 'charitable' grounds, from healthcare policies to economic policies to environmental policies, but the truth of the matter is that government is a poor method of distributing charity. Instead of relying on government and its horrible charitable giving, all of these programs should be ended and the money spent on them should be returned to citizens. Even if a small percentage of this money was given in charity, then it would be more successful than government programs, and as long as there are a lot of conservative Republicans around, we can be sure that a good percentage of money will be donated and not a small percentage (according to studies, liberals don't donate to charity- they feel superior by taking money from you and giving that to charity).

The President of the United States fills a lot of important roles in our political system- Commander-in-Chief, Chief Executive, Chief Legislator, Chief Jurist, Chief of State, Chief Diplomat, Head of Political Party, Popular Leader, etc- and to the list of these roles we now apparently must add 'Investor-in-Chief.'

Head of executive branches, whether at the state level as Governors or at the national level with our President, increasingly believe that it is part of their job description to take the money that taxpayers send to them to perform important government functions and instead gamble that money away on risky investments- the more risky and uncertain the investment, the more it seems that these executives are likely to dump precious taxpayer money into them.

Here in Michigan, we had a Governor that won a second term of office believing that she was a good Governor because she dumped taxpayer money into 'green energy' and 'cool cities' and the movie industry; upon further review and looked at with a true eye for costs and investment gains, these investments all turned out to range from bad to poor to horrible. Taxpayer money was distributed in a corrupt manner based more on political favors and little to no lasting gains came from these investments, certainly not enough to justify calling these schemes 'investment' in the private marketplace.

At the national level, Barack Obama believes that one of his major roles as President is to direct investments for the future, in spite of his lack of experience, training, or record of success in investing. No one would ever hire him to direct their personal investments, and yet as President he is doing just this with our public money at a time when public money is in short supply and needed ever more vitally. And the process that these investments are awarded are corrupt, filled with political considerations and backroom deals that would put any private businessman in prison for their actions.

The Washington Post writes about this role of the President in its article Barack Obama, investor-in-chief. From the article:

Would you buy a used car from Barack Obama? Or would you want him managing your 401(k) investment retirement plan at work? The president, of course, isn’t in that business specifically, but in a larger sense he’s been investing our money, picking the businesses he thinks will fuel economic expansion, new jobs and the technology of the future, and rebuild the nation’s fraying infrastructure.

All it takes is money - ours - he says, and he’s been spending it as fast as he can in a failed attempt to get the economy growing again. The economic policy term for this is “central planning,” wherein the government tries to pick the winners and losers and dumps hundreds of billions of dollars into various business sectors in the belief that it will pay off in the long run.

The government isn’t very good at this business, as we’ve seen in the disastrously ineffective $825 billion spending stimulus plan that President Obama and the Democrats shoved through Congress in 2009. Much of that money went into the budgets of countless federal departments, agencies and other programs that spent it. Still more went to states, counties, cities and towns for infrastructure programs or to keep public workers employed. A lot of the money was given to businesses that Mr. Obama thinks will be good for the environment, though his investment decisions didn’t always work out the way he hoped.

Consider the White House-backed solar energy firm Solyndra Inc., which declared bankruptcy this week after pocketing a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. Critics called the deal a “stimulus black hole.”

When Mr. Obama visited the Solyndra factory in May 2010, he called the company a success story that was “leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.”

He was quite proud of his investment, boasting at the time, “Less than a year ago, we were standing on what was an empty lot,” but now here was this shiny, new factory that “is the result of those loans” backed by his administration.
It was later learned that the White House fast-tracked Solyndra’s loan application, rushing Mr. Obama’s pet project through without a lot of serious checking. Federal investigators said that the administration had bypassed procedures to safeguard the taxpayers’ investment.

Mr. Obama is big on the solar-panel industry and under his policies, the government has dumped a lot of our money into it in the past three years. But it turns out that the U.S. industry has not turned out to be the bonanza that he sold to the country. Prices for solar panels have fallen because of strong competition from China, making the fledgling industry precarious at best without heavy federal subsidies.

Evergreen Solar Inc. filed for bankruptcy last month after being forced to close its plant in Massachusetts that was built with state and local government subsidies.

Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico Democrat, says the loan guarantee program “has not worked as well as we had hoped.” Sounds like a Wall Street investment banker defending a fat bundle of subprime real estate securities that went bad.

The solar-panel industry is not the only “investment” Mr. Obama has sunk a lot of our money into. While the plants build with his loans make for great campaign photo ops, the costly reality is that government is trying to pick the winners and losers in our economy instead of the private sector.

But Mr. Obama thinks he’s good at this investment business and now he is trying to convince us to buy into to a new federal “infrastructure bank” that will make off-budget grants and loans to rebuild “roads, bridges and ports and broadband lines and smart grids” with $30 billion of our money.

The bank would put “all those [unemployed] construction workers” back to work, he said. And it would provide Mr. Obama with lots of photo ops at jobsites, saying “look what I’ve done for you.”

If this sounds familiar, it was sold to us in the guise of the 2009 job stimulus bill that was supposed to put the construction industry back to work. Some short-term jobs were created but when the building projects were completed, the jobs ended. The construction industry today is in a recession.

Making Mr. Obama the investor-in-chief, deciding how and where the nation’s capital resources should be spent, hasn’t worked and isn’t going to work. Ask Japan, which has gone on a public-works spending binge though its economy has been in a slump for two decades.

Better to shift federal public-works spending decisions to the states, along with the gas tax money for highways, and let them - not remote federal bureaucrats - set their own priorities. Broaden the tax base by eliminating dozens of loopholes, then cut business and individual tax rates, and slash the capital gains tax to unlock needed, job-creating investment capital.

Let the marketplace make the investment decisions that have made America the largest and most successful economy in the world. Mr. Obama has got better things to do with his time, like trying to figure out why his job approval polls have fallen to 39 percent.

From the looks of the online comments on The WaPo website, it seems like Rhee has lost favor with many of her former supporters. I remember when Rhee first came to DC to reign as Chancellor of our public schools over two years ago. At that time Rhee's support base consisted of many willing to give her the benefit of the doubt despite her obvious lack of credentials and experience in public education . Fast forward to 2009 and take a look at the latest newsworthy event about Rhee's de-throning of another favored DC principal, Patrick Pope who has been principal at Hardy middle school for over a decade. The official announcement by Rhee to remove Pope came last Friday, December 4. Despite this announcement,  Rhee claims that Pope will be allowed to retain his current post until school years end in June 2010. Pope has been offered a promise of developing a new arts school even during a school budget deficit while lesser experienced principal Dana Nerenberg of Hyde-Addison will be his successor.