|
Desperate for Workers, Nebraska Warms to Undocumented Immigrants
 In 2009, riding a wave of anti-immigrant fervor in the country, Nebraska joined other states in taking away many public benefits, including professional, commercial, and driver’s licenses, from undocumented immigrants. Then-Gov. Dave Heineman (R) said the law would ensure, “that state and local benefits go to those who truly qualify.”
In 2012, when President Obama, by Executive Order, enacted parts of the stalled Congressional DREAM bill that would have allowed immigrants who arrived as children and grew up in the United States to stay, Nebraska Republicans were outraged.
Anti-immigrant sentiment was fueled after the economic collapse in 2008 by the view that immigrants were taking scarce jobs from native Nebraskans.
But as unemployment dropped, sentiments changed, especially in the business community. In 2015, the Republican legislature overrode a veto by Republican Governor Pete Ricketts and gave Dream Act recipients the ability to obtain a driver’s licenses.
Iowa Privatizes Medicaid. Everyone Suffers
On April 1, 2016 Iowa’s Republican Governor Terry Branstad shifted all Medicaid recipients into a managed care system run by three companies.
In April 2018, Iowa’s Office of Ombudsman reviewed the distressing results. In 2017, complaints had increased by 157 percent. The Gazette reporter Lynda Waddington observes, “Hospitals, clinics and nursing homes that provide care say they’ve lost hundreds of thousands in expected reimbursements. Those that have been paid tell of untold hours chasing down claims and payments. The three companies that initially signed up to manage Iowa Medicaid lost millions. The state had to increase its per enrollee allotment and, even so, saw one insurance company drop from the program and another refuse to absorb more enrollees. The state quietly set up a fee-for-service pool to bridge the gap.”
Meanwhile the current Governor, Kim Reynolds (R), has closed the door on public attendance at meetings on the $4 billion Medicaid program, and proposed a $10 million cut.
We Need a Data Bill of Rights
 Cathy O’Neil, a high tech consultant, believes Congress missed the point when it interrogated Facebook’s CEO. “Instead of piling on Mark Zuckerberg or worrying about who has our personal data, legislators should focus on the real issue: how our data get used.” she writes in Bloomberg News.
“What America really needs is a smarter conversation about data usage. It starts with a recognition: Our data are already out there. Even if we haven’t spilled our own personal information, someone has. We’re all exposed. Companies have the data and techniques they need to predict all sorts of things about us: our voting behavior, our consumer behavior, our health, and our financial futures. That’s a lot of power being wielded by people who shouldn’t be trusted.
“If politicians want to create rules, they should start by narrowly addressing the worst possible uses for our personal information — the ways it can be used to deny people job opportunities, limit access to health insurance, set interest rates on loans and decide who gets out of jail. Essentially any bureaucratic decision can now be made by algorithm, and those algorithms need interrogating way more than Zuckerberg does.”
O’Neil proposes a Data Bill of Rights comprised of two components. The first would specify how much control we can exert over how our individual information. The second would introduce federally enforced rules on how algorithms should be monitored more generally.
Chicago Privatizes School Services. The Shit Almost Literally Hits the Fan
In early 2014, the Chicago Public Schools, by a unanimous vote of the school board, privatized their custodial service. To monitor the now-privatized work, CPS hired another company to “provide independent audits on cleanliness at various schools.”
The $340 million contracts, school district spokesman Joel Hood maintained would give “measurable benefits” that will make the schools “significantly cleaner while also saving the district tens of millions of dollars.”
The contractors attempted to save money by paying fewer janitors do more janitorial work. Ben Joravsky, a reporter for the Chicago Reader, recalls a conversation he had with a friend who had been a janitor for many years. “They took away our mops and mop buckets and gave us this thing they call microfiber pads. It’s a pad at the end of stick.”
Lower Taxes Starve Teachers
What’s behind the outbreak of teacher strikes in West Virginia, Kentucky, Arizona, and Oklahoma? New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explains, “The federal government’s basically an insurance company with an army: non-defense spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. State and local governments, however, are basically school districts with police departments. Education accounts for more than half the state and local work force; protective services like police and fire departments account for much of the rest.”
When conservatives took control of state governments, corporate and income taxes were cut sharply reducing revenue. The vast majority of states are required by law to balance their budgets.
“And given the centrality of education to state and local budgets, that puts schoolteachers in the cross hairs.”
Public Lands: The United States v. California
In October 2017, in response to Donald Trump’s attack on public lands California, where 46 percent of the land is federally owned, passed a law declaring that any “conveyance” of any “federal public lands” is “void ab initio” (“to be treated as invalid from the outset”) unless the California State Lands Commission (SLC) has been given a right of first refusal to acquire the federal property.
SB 50 covers the sale of any federal property, from old post offices to undeveloped natural public lands.
In April, the federal government asked the courts to declare the law null and void.
Andy Kerr who writes a Public Lands Blog, believes California will lose this case, and should, “The best thing for America’s federal public lands is for the United States to win this case against California. Why? The idea that states might be able to control the federal government’s disposal of federal public lands is a two-edged sword. If the State of California can interfere with the federal government’s management, including sale, of federal public lands in California (albeit with honorable intent to serve the public interest in keeping public lands public), so can the State of Utah (albeit with nefarious intent to privatize public lands).”
Kerr suggests other ways California can ensure federal public lands remain in public hands.
To Address the Housing Crisis, Build Municipal Public Housing
A new report from The People’s Policy Project wants to help cities take the lead in addressing the nationwide housing crisis. The 2008 financial collapse resulted in millions of evictions and a virtual halt to new residential construction. When construction began again it rose only to the levels of the late 1980s, when the population was 25 percent smaller. And it was concentrated in luxury rentals and condos in major metropolitan areas.
Authors Peter Gowan and Ryan Cooper survey existing federal and state programs intended to tackle the affordable housing crisis and find them inadequate. Section 8 vouchers cover only 22 percent of the 1.8 million extremely poor households eligible. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), under which some 90 percent of new affordable housing are built is too small and inefficient. From 1997-2014 the cost of the credit increased by 66 percent the number of units created under the credit fell from over 70,000 per year to fewer than 60.
Rent control is a, “reasonable policy for allowing people to remain in their homes and preserve existing affordable units…(but) does little to enable the construction of new units…”
The authors recommend a dramatic expansion of public housing. Two million people still live in public housing, despite over 40 years of disinvestment, making public housing, “virtually the only available housing for poor people in many cities.”
To Enable a Decentralized, Renewable Future, Hawaii Changes the Rules
 Hawai’i recently became the first state to legislatively mandate a separation of utility revenues from capital expenditures. SB 2939 directs the PUC to base future revenues on a series of new metrics including customer engagement and satisfaction, including, “options for managing electricity costs”, access to system information, including, “system planning data and aggregated customer energy use data and individual access to granular information about an individual customer’s own energy use data,” and rapid interconnection of renewables and distributed resources.
Hawaiian Electric (HECO), the state’s sole investor-owned utility, supports the new law as do the state’s clean energy And consumer advocate groups.
This consensus reflects that fact that in Hawaii, the future is now. It is the state with the highest per-capita rooftop solar penetration, a result of its sky-high fossil fueled electricity rates and abundant sunshine.
In Michigan Prison Food Privatization is No Longer in Favor
Michigan privatized prison food service ran into trouble from the get-go. When they were first privatized in 2013, the 3-year contract was awarded to Aramark. But after only 21 months, serious performance problems led to the contract being canceled.
In the summer of 2015 a new 3-year contract was awarded to Trinity Services Group. Complaints soared. The National Union of Public and General Employees reports, “A Trinity Services Group employee was fired for refusing to serve moldy potatoes to prisoners. There were repeated problems with maggots in food. Cakes that had been partially eaten were still served — after the contractor used icing to cover-up the problem.”
And portions were smaller. One investigation uncovered problems like using fillers or diluting food with water.
Protests broke out, including one prison riot.
There were also safety issues, including failure to secure potentially dangerous kitchen tools. According to Andy Potter, Vice-President and Chief of Staff of the Michigan Corrections Organization, “When inmates are forced to buy and trade food, it creates a black market of goods, opening the door to possible violence and chaos.”
Privatize Prisons? Berks County Officials Face a Difficult Decision
 America has the highest number of incarcerated individuals per-capita than any other country. More than 1.3 million people were behind bars last year. Meanwhile, states have cut back on funding localities to house and serve those in detention. Which has led many to privatize these functions.
Derek Prall, writing in American City and County focuses on the current debate about privatization in Berks County, Pennsylvania. In Berks County the correctional institute is the single biggest cost item in the county budget. Commissioner Mark Scott feels privatization makes sense. “The state basically has abandoned its former role and left us to pick up the slack and provide the care that they should be providing in a more centralized and specialized facility,” he says. “It’s really a disgrace, but in any event, it’s something we have to deal with.”
CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America, told Scott they could save millions if they ran the prisons. Jeremy Mohler who handles strategic communications for In the Public Interest, a research and policy center on privatization and responsible contracting, disagrees.
|
