End the privileges

January 5, 2014

I would like to see to it that our federal employees (including elected officials) have to live with the same laws that the citizens do.

There should be no special  privileges for them.  If we have to follow OSHA rules (or those of any other law) so should they.

They should have the same health care coverage we do and should belong to the same retirement system that we do.  Their facilities like government restaurants, barber shops, and banks should be fully paid for by the people that use them, not the taxpayers.

For that matter I don’t think that congressmen, senators, or the president and vice president  should have government funded retirement accounts.

It seems to me that this would need to be a constitutional amendment since any law that one session of congress passes could be overturned in some later session.

We deserve better

Brutus

11 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

New Year Wishes

January 1, 2014

I hope that all of you survived the festivities last night and will be ready to tackle the new year tomorrow.

My wish for each of you next year is good health, good government, and the opportunity to prosper.

The authors here at the blog have been thinking about running a series next year about what we would like to see changed in our various levels of government.

Starting at the top we first plan to address our three organizing documents, the U. S. Constitution, the Texas Constitution, and the El Paso City Charter.

Feel free to write up an article and submit it for posting on this blog.  Feel free to communicate privately with me at brutusep@yahoo.com.

Thank you for your continued readership and support.

Happy New Year!

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | City government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Constitutional attack

December 30, 2013

This editorial in the El Paso Times should be of concern to all of us.

The Times is upset that our local council of judges had the audacity to demand that fees paid to court assigned attorneys be raised by $15 dollars an hour.  That means that a court appointed attorney would receive $90 per hour while in court defending someone.  Try to find a $90 per hour attorney.

The real issue

The times wrote “…is a classic example of the dysfunctional system set up by the Texas Constitution”.  Yes, like every other law and ordinance in the state is set up by our constitution.  Actually the council of judges was created for every Texas county by our supreme court.  You can read their rule here.

Over the years since our country was established there has been a lot of discussion about the proper role of the constitutions, both national and state.  Some say that the proper way to change them is through the methods written into the documents (Article 17 in the case of Texas and Article V at the national level).

Later some of those who wanted change but did not want to cross the high bar required enjoyed watching our supreme courts overrule the legislatures.  John Marshall did that to us in Marbury v. Madison.  The fact that the case was about Marshall’s failure to perform his duties and that he was somehow both secretary of state and chief justice at the time evidently did not cause him to recuse himself.

Now one of the new techniques being used is to simply ignore the constitutions.  The theory is that someone will have to spend a lot of money in court to stop you so do what you want and count on the legal system to protect you.

Hard to believe

In this editorial the Times complains that the council of judges acted without input from others.  Actually the council requested a smaller increase last year at county budget time and our commissioners court rejected them.

Some of the lines in the editorial piece:

The judges can order the additional expenditure and essentially mandate that county Commissioners Court foot the bill — taxpayers be damned.

That sort of rule by fiat is an abuse of taxpayers.

But unilateral action is not an answer.

Where were they?

Where was the Times when city council voted unilaterally to tear down city hall and build a ball park?   Where were they when commissioners court imposed $150 million in bond expenses for the county hospital — by fiat?

Taxpayers be dammed indeed.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

6 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Not making the grade

December 28, 2013

This document from the board book of the December 17, 2013 El Paso Independent School District board of managers meeting raised my eyebrows.

The state of Texas now tries to measure each individual student’s academic progress from year to year.  Some will argue that the standardized tests are not good indicators of what the students are learning, but the tests are what the state wants to use.

The board presentation summarizes the results by high school and the feeder schools that serve it.  Three slides are shown for each high school, overall student progress, students that are categorized as English language learners, and finally special education students.

Overall student progress

The slides give us three numbers for each category of learning:

  1. The number of students that did not make adequate progress
  2. The number of students that did meet the state’s progress goal
  3. The number of students that exceeded the goal

The portions highlighted in yellow show areas where a school had half or more of the students that did not make the expected progress.  There are some turquoise segments that show areas where the school and it’s students did better than expected.

Some of the results are horrible.  At Ross Middle School out of 154 7th grade math students 144 of them scored below the state’s expectation.  Then somehow at the same school when measuring the 8th grade algebra students the state found that out of 74 students a whopping 52 of them exceeded the state standard and only 4 of them were below the standard.

What does this mean?

Are the state tests inappropriate?  Do our students have some disadvantage?  Are the poor results and the good results the product of different teachers?

I suppose that this document can cause many debates.

The fact remains however that we are not meeting the state’s expectations.  Does this predict accreditation problems in the future?

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Help support other governments during the holiday season

December 26, 2013

The December 16, 2013 Times editorial urged the approval of a transportation plan.  Again the Times advocates higher local taxes instead of more effective representation at the state and feral levels.

El Pasoans are being taxed to pay for facilities that should be paid for by the state and the Times recognizes the situation.  From the Times editorial:

No one likes to pay additional taxes or fees. And in this case, it can be justifiably argued that El Paso County vehicle owners are getting stuck with a tab that should be picked up by other governments.

But El Paso has serious traffic congestion issues that are getting worse by the day. That leaves local leadership with two choices — complaining about the failure of others, or taking control of our own destiny.

Whining is not much of a strategy. The results of the bold but controversial choice made by Commissioners Court will become evident today, as the 16 mobility projects are outlined at the Commissioners Court meeting.

Border administration

This year El Paso’s city council voted to create a fund with our local money to pay overtime for U. S. government employees in an effort to improve bridge crossing times.  Many parts of our country suffer from river flooding and hurricanes regularly and get extraordinary assistance from the feds,  yet somehow immigration has become a feral issue but needs to be paid for by local citizens.

Even university systems

The separately funded Texas Tech system leased our train station for  one dollar a year from the benevolent citizens of El Paso.  That was in addition to the Albert Fall mansion that we rebuilt with city funds and then gave to the university for another dollar a year.

Go local

If we have to raise taxes, can’t we at least spend the money on something that we are clearly responsible for — like local roads?

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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