Kansas runs one of the most secretive state governments
kansascity.com
kansascity.com
Corrupt as hell, and actively lying about the reason the state has no money.
That's the point. It's playing out again on the national stage. When they say "tax cuts" they don't mean tax cuts for you, silly. Tax cuts are for people who meet the minimum threshold for being able to take advantage of pass-through rates. Not for the mother of 5 working two jobs just to get her kids through a school that's only open 4 days a week.
Working two jobs to get her kids through school because of a lack of childcare social services and a high burden of education cost on teachers and families.
Schools only open 4 days a week because of Republican refusal to invest in education, which has been demonstrated to be the best long-term investment a country can make.
I personally have abandoned all faith in anybody with an (R) next to their name, and anybody that bubbles in an (R) on a ballot.
If you add private spending in it's more than twice that of total Canadian healthcare spending.
Yes, you read that right.
Schools are good. The trains are showing their age, but we got new rolling stock in production and coming on line. The roads are okay, but the big deal with our roads is that we save shit tons of money by keeping them narrow.
Most Democrats in the US aren't remotely close to social-democrats in Canada or Europe. Politicians such as Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren are considered centrists in Canada.
Canada ($330 billion - $14 billion in defense) / 35 million people = $9,028 per capita
So Canada spends more. But a lot of US government health care spending is at the federal level. And the differences how, for example, education is funded with a complicated mix of state and federal dollars makes it just too hard to make an apple to apple comparison.
For Canada you need to look at federal + provincial. Ontario spends a further $12,600 per person: http://www.fao-on.org/en/Blog/Publications/Relative%20Fiscal....
Ontario federal + provincial = ~$21,600 per person.
California local + state + federal share = ~$24,500 per person.
citation needed
Regarding school days -- you don't know what you're talking about.
The required number of schools days has decreased, but the required number of instructional hours has remained the same.
So education isn't "suffering" under Republicans in Kansas. In fact, making the day longer and going fewer days is far more cost effective because you don't have to run the buses as much, you save on food preparation costs, etc. And you get the same number of school hours as you would on a longer schedule. That's just smart management.
By way of comparison, France has 4-day-a-week school and kids go to school only 144 days per year, which is about 40 fewer than the OECD average. Are the Republicans conspiring to ruin France as well?
Blaming a short week on Republicans is just silly. Kansas public schools rank around 15th nationwide -- ahead of liberal bastions such as Maryland, Rhode Island, Oregon, California and others. [1] It seems like other states might ought to see what Kansas is doing right. What's California's excuse?[2] There aren't many Republicans in California -- they're an endangered species. If "Republicans are bad for education" then it would follow that in a state with few Republicans, education ought to be better right? But the data just doesn't support that conclusion. It doesn't support the opposite conclusion either. There really isn't a correlation between dominant political party and education quality.
Case in point: NJ and Mass. are very blue states with great public education while Rhode Island is also a very blue state but with middle of the pack education. Iowa is a deep red state and it's ranked number 9 in the country. Wisconsin is a red state that voted for Trump as well as many years of a being under a Republican Governor -- and their education system is ranked 4th. There's no correlation -- and to make such a claim is irresponsible because the data doesn't support it.
As far as abandoning faith in Republicans -- since the growth of the sheer absurdity of this whole social justice warrior movement (seriously, they literally riot when they disagree with someone's viewpoints,) along with the near religious anti-capitalism class warfare rhetoric from Democrats -- I've abandoned all faith in anyone voting Democrat. There was a time when Republicans and Democrats could find common ground. That time has passed since pretty much every modern Democrat idea starts from the premise that white males are viruses that must be controlled or that people are all victims unable to go to the toilet without a government program to help them wipe their ass. [3]. When a political party makes a point of lecturing me on my "privilege" and how I'm personally responsible for all of society's ills -- then they've lost me forever. Might as well be blaming me for slavery. I don't even care if Democrats are right on some issues. I'm never voting for a party that accuses me of being:
1. ..a tax evader (I live in France and the Democrats are responsible for the hell caused by FATCA.) 2. .. a racist 3. .. a hater of women 4. .. greedy 5. .. a destroyer of the environment
I am none of those things and I'm a libertarian who tends to vote Republican. Correction -- I am a bit greedy -- I think I should be entitled to keep more of the money I earn and pass it on to my children rather than giving it to people who didn't earn it nor have any right to it. So ok, I'll admit to being greedy.
[1] https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-best-schools/5335/ [2] http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/05/california-schools-ear... [3] https://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2017/10/30/...
That doesn't really help someone who is expected to work 5 days a week.
> Blaming a short week on Republicans is just silly.
Why? Gov. Brownback, a Republican, instituted the tax cuts which created the budget shortfall that prevented the state government from properly funding schools.
"Kansas enacted sweeping cuts to income taxes in 2012 and 2013 championed by Gov. Sam Brownback that have reduced the amount of available resources to comply with a court order. Lawmakers could be forced to reconsider the tax measures, which Kansas and other Republican-run states have pushed as a means to stimulate their economies." [1]
They didn't reconsider those tax measures, and instead doubled down on them, making things worse.
"Wichita, which serves more than 51,000 students, is facing cost increases of about $23 million next year with no increase in state funding." [2]
And then 4-day schools became a thing. You're right that Kansas is highly ranked, but we'll see how long that lasts as teachers continue to flee the state [3]. California and other blue states have education problems, but let's be clear: Kansas' problems seem to directly stem from Republican governance in the state.
Also, you rip on California a bunch in your post, but let's remember, California has twice as many students (lower ed.) as the entire population of Kansas (6M vs 3M). California has its own problems, but I think those problems are very different than those faced in Kansas (maybe not in kind, but definitely in degree).
[1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kansas-supreme-court-public-sch... [2]: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article72631157.h... [3]: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/07/kansas...
If we went about Republicans the same way, well, we had several party representatives in Alabama say that they would vote for a child molester ("even if true ..."), just so their party would have an extra vote in Senate.
Although I understand your overall point, you nearly lost me here. To assume someone wouldn’t choose to have five kids (or wouldn’t have done so if properly educated) is rather narrow-minded, in my opinion. Many wouldn’t, but (a) many people chose to have several kids and have no regrets, and (b) many people chose not to have several kids and do have regrets. Against common assumptions to the contrary in many sectors, kids and family really can be a joy.
In fact, both eastbound (in Kansas) [3] and westbound (in Missouri) [4], the leftmost three lanes channel drivers to I-670. In this area, I-670 is a straight-line through route, while I-70 is a meandering mess [5][6].
[1] http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article145534779.html [2] https://www.interstate-guide.com/i-670_moks.html [3] https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0918284,-94.6332342,3a,75y,9... [4] https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0962355,-94.5667216,3a,60y,2... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Kansas [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Missouri
And when it's always been done that way, nearly everyone still left in the system has the same negative reaction to transparency.
Having professional data oversight and built in transparency would build institutional protections against Governors of Mr. Brownback’s ilk.
In this case, though, the bureaucracy exists to protect the politicians.
Well, that has worked great so far.
Many countries (That are not the United States) have this largely figured out.
Quite the dichotomy you've established. Cutting of services is automatically 'heartless'? As they are always useful, necessary, and better than alternatives... while cleaning house to replace them with another set of politicians with the same prerogative is the 'good' solution?
Context matters. Neither are automatically better solutions, nor is chopping services necessarily 'heartless'.
Nobody working in CPS wants to be in a place where child abuse is covered up and ignored. That’s a leadership problem.
Unrepentant, he is Trump's boy in pushing for voting "reforms" nationally. Although he supported Trump's claim that 3,000,000 illegal aliens voted for Hillary Clinton, he hasn't explained why none have been found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kris_Kobach#Voter_fraud_claims
Not once, not twice, not ten times. Bury them in them. Use the ones they fulfill as data to inform the public, the ones they don't, well make them sink time and funding into defending why they won't.
It's only secret because the media and public is apathetic. Hammer down the doors and sooner or later they'll have to seriously consider whether not being open with the public is worth it.
sad, really.
A proper FOI approach would give the constituents a reasonable chance to be informed, but I guess that's the whole idea.
Asking what voters care about is a red herring. Voters care about things that the press talks about, and the press is owned by the two parties.
There are a lot of issues. I’m not sure how high this is. I’m not sure many people even know about it.
The budget is a result of the Republican idea that extreme tax cuts bring revenue gains.
Neither of those is actual corruption. Corruption may have made things worse (I don’t know), but it’s not actually corruption. Just bad policy.
I think Louisiana is having similar issues for the exact same tax-cut reason.
NPR’s Planet Money covered the Kansas plan in January: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/11/509378842/epis...
I'm never quite sure what kind of mixture of the gullible, the misunderstanding, true believers, the very earnest, grifters, con men and sociopaths I'm looking at. Oh, and those who are true believers in other areas and just don't care about the fiscal issues as long as their pet thing gets appropriate lip service. Oh, and end-timers who think Revelations is coming, the world's going to end for everyone except the ungodly, and I might as well get everything I can before I ascend.
Unfortunately I think there are way too many people out there with a philosophy of "the best thing about a few billion dollars of churn is that I can probably scrape a few million in profit off it."
Edit: oh, and would you like to buy some bone broth to make you feel like a caveman?
Most charter schools are real estate developments that happen to house school kids.
There's an argument that a charter school's real advantage is that it attracts a higher proportion of parents who want to push their kids for achievement and have the resources to do it as well.
One could claim corruption if this wasn’t the exact governing philosophy that was explicitly voted for.
Populist anger did little to improve anyone's lives and you also saw this in the 2016 election. For as angry as everyone was at the status quo, what do we have now? Even worse status quo, vis a vis the new tax plan which is just a oligarchic power grab and a president who literally cannot govern to save his life.
Also gerrymandering for districts make it so once it's guaranteed to be a party seat, the primaries can skew towards the extreme of that party.
A court determination isn't possible in the Moore case. In Alabama, the statute of limitations for a civil claim of sexual abuse of a minor is just years past the victim's 19th birthday. Roy Moore could still in theory still be prosecuted criminally because one of the victims was under 16 and the statute of limitations for sexual abuse of a minor is unlimited, but really there is no chance of that.
But just because allegations don't rise to the level of imprisoning someone doesn't mean that's the end of it. Reputations typically are mediated by non-legal means. If someone writes a blog post: "don't invest with <X> he ripped me off," nobody demands to see the civil judgment for fraud.
That is just silly, and you can easily see why with just a little bit of thought. Almost everything you use in determining who to vote for in an election has not been adjudicated in a court of law, but you still use it to form your opinion of who should be elected.
There is a difference between the courts not sentencing you for a crime until you are convicted and a voter using accusations against a candidate to inform their vote.
edit: Why downvotes? An alleged sexual predator and a sexual predator are two different things. Anyone can become an alleged sexual predator with an allegation, whereas sexual predators are sexual predators through their own actions, regardless of allegations.
At this point no one really knows if Roy Moore is a sexual predator or not besides for Roy Moore and his accuser, who is only attempting to try Moore in the court of public opinion and not in a court of law, despite retaining council of a very well known lawyer.
You would still be entitled to be skeptical of such allegations, of course, but their multiplicity is an empirical fact that you seem unwilling to acknowledge.
It's very interesting that Moore has been quite an active and public elected official in the past, but every current accuser independently decided to not say anything until this election cycle. What gives?
"Roy Moore On Pedophilia Accusers: ‘These Women Are Only Discrediting Me Now Because Shifting Sociocultural Norms Have Created An Environment In Which Assault Allegations Are Taken Seriously’"
Maybe you've never had to deal with this in your own life or in the life of someone who was close to you. Congratulations, you've been lucky.
False rape accusations are a little more rare than men abusing their position of power over women. The later is endemic. Avoiding a false rape accusation isn't luck. But ask your wife, your mother, your daughter, your sister. I bet they all have stories of unwanted sexual attention from men. This kind of stuff happens daily for them. For women, it's like a constant background drone of men leering at them. Sometimes it's whistling. Sometimes it's stalking. Sometime's it's groping, and yes, sometimes it's rape. But it's a minefield, and it really is luck if they are never confronted with such indecency.
Further, if you've been paying attention, you'll notice the people being accused are serial offenders. In one case, more than a dozen women came forward. Unless you're willing to claim that women are engaged in a widespread conspiracy to take down men in positions of power, it's pretty hard to dismiss any of this as "false" accusations.
Okay, but that doesn't tell you anything about the truthiness of this specific event. Black people commit way more murders per capita than asian people in America - would you use that factoid as a hunch that between two suspects in a murder(one asian, one black), that the black one is more likely guilty?
> Unless you're willing to claim that women are engaged in a widespread conspiracy to take down men in positions of power, it's pretty hard to dismiss any of this as "false" accusations.
Is that the only possibility you see? It's either a massive conspiracy among women in general, or the accusations are true?
That wasn't really a comment about the truthiness of this specific event, but about your comment about being lucky for avoiding a false rape accusation. That's like saying you're lucky that you didn't get struck by lightning. Well, okay I guess, but it's not a frequent occurrence to begin with.
> Black people commit way more murders per capita than asian people in America
In Moore's case, I'm not coming to any conclusion by looking at frequency of occurrence alone, as I wouldn't in a murder case. However, I probably wouldn't elect either man accused of murder to the Senate. Regardless, I think you're still not appreciating how widespread an issue this is for women. It happens on the sidewalk walking down the street, on the bus, at work, at a restaurant, on the train, at church, at school, at the hospital. Men are sleazes, and I'm pretty sure the sleaze frequency in men is much higher than the murder frequency in blacks. Much higher. Like, 60-80% high. And the worst part is, there is zero awareness of this by sleazy men.
> Unless you're willing to claim that women are engaged in a widespread conspiracy to take down men in positions of power, it's pretty hard to dismiss any of this as "false" accusations. Is that the only possibility you see? It's either a massive conspiracy among women in general, or the accusations are true?
Yeah, pretty much. Although, I'm willing to hear a scenario that could account for all of the accusations, the corroborating facts, the mall ban, and Roy Moore not being able to definitively say he didn't pursue teenage girls.
2) It's not a he-said-she-said story. It's 9 accusers, whose stories were corroborated by others (who were told 30 years ago). One accuser can describe the inside of Moore's house in detail. Another has a yearbook signed from him referencing the restaurant he claims to have never visited. Still others from the community note that he was banned from the mall for being creepy with teenagers. And finally, Moore himself cannot offer a full throated denial that he has pursued teenagers in the past. Just not these particular women.
3) Claiming these women want "15 minutes of fame" is naive. No one is getting "famous" off of this. The victims are opening old wounds and getting new ones in the form of death threats and attacks on their character. It's not fun for anyone coming forward.
> Moreover, we're in the midst of a moment when women who've been harassed or abused by public figures are more willing to come forward.
Right, so does that mean we are more likely to hear about true, buried stories, or hear about new fabricated stories? Or both?
But more to your point, Roy Moore has not been arrested. He has not been, and probably will not be, charged with any criminal or civil infraction. He has, however, accepted his party's nomination for a seat in the United States Senate and is currently actively campaigning for same.
It is worth remembering that allegations are not, in and of themselves, proof of wrongdoing. It's also worth remembering that a political campaign is not a trial, that the press does not have the same investigatory powers as the judicial system, and that the "punishment" being threatened is not being able to be a United States Senator after all. It's actually okay for "the court of public opinion" to have a different burden of proof and standard of evidence than an actual court.
"[I]t is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer" is a wise and good maxim. "It is better 100 guilty Persons be elevated to high office than one innocent Person should resign from a campaign they had no guarantee of winning in the first place" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
My problem with making any kind of decision based on these allegations is that it is impossible to differentiate them from fabrications designed to blow up a campaign, all down to the detail of having Gloria Allred as legal council(a person heavily involved in the DNC - from Gloria's DNC leaks: "We will come together and discuss the upcoming race, and why we as Democrats must do everything we can to ensure a Democrat remains in the White House for the next four years." - any reason to believe she has given up on her mission to ensure democrats succeed over republicans after the 2016 elections?)
To shift political gears somewhat, our legislature is currently engaged in a debate about tax reform. One party claims the currently proposed plan will cut taxes on the middle class. The other party claims that the plan will raise taxes on the middle class. That's a question of fact, and both positions can't simultaneously be correct. The thought process you engaged in above can be applied equally well to that situation regardless of which party one favors, but it's guaranteed to make at least one party's fans wrong.
When we, as a polity, begin to completely disregard information because it comes from a partisan source or has strong partisan implications then I worry that we lose the idea of a shared reality. We can't convince those who disagree with us, nor allow ourselves to be convinced, if we refuse on general principle to listen to and engage with people who disagree with us.
> We can't convince those who disagree with us, nor allow ourselves to be convinced, if we refuse on general principle to listen to and engage with people who disagree with us.
But in this case, you have to decide who to take the word of. There is no way to logically analyze the claims and come up at the correct answer.
That is true. And by refusing to give the allegations credence you have implicitly decided whose word to take.
> There is no way to logically analyze the claims and come up at the correct answer.
Sure there is. You can evaluate the plausibility of each claim. You can verify that the claims are internally consistent. You can ask what motivations each party would have to lie, or what motivations each party would have to tell the truth here and now. None of those will get you to ironclad, unquestionable certainty, but it sounds like you're at ironclad, unquestionable certainty now and I'm not sure logical analysis had much to do with you forming that opinion.
It's fine, really, if you've looked at the evidence and found it unconvincing. It's fine, too, if you've decided it is convincing but that your partisan interests are strong enough that you're willing to overlook them. But it sounds like you're just refusing to engage with them because they're confusing. That's not wisdom. It's anti-intellectual tribalism at it's most raw, and I for one expect better of the commenters at HN.
In order to believe this is a conspiracy against Moore, you must also believe that a bunch of teenagers 30 years ago made up stories about Moore, which they told their friends and loved ones at the time, and then waited to use those allegations across all of his political career only to come out now and derail him. Either that, or the conspiracy is so vast as to include 9 accusers, 30 corroborating witnesses, former mall employees, and an ex cop. Many of the accusers are also Republicans and voted for Trump, so you must also believe they are secret Democrats, or at least were somehow bribed by the Democrats to switch sides.
It's either that, or Moore is guilty.
Here's something for you to read. Go ahead and give it a go, and then maybe you can figure out which is more likely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
You have a public figure, law enforcement official and chief judge with a pretty well demonstrated (even celebrated) contempt for following the law, whose behavior towards young girls while a law enforcement official is fairly well documented.
The idea that an ADA in his 30s is cruising the shopping malls looking for teen (even if legal) companions is disturbing on many levels. Is that really the caliber of man that belongs in the US Senate?
In public service, perception matters.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/11/19/why-evange...
Having watched 26th Street paved, torn up for one utility, re-paved, torn up for another utility, re-paved, torn up for a construction project that was scheduled months in advance and re-paved again, all in the span of two weeks, I empathize with this sentiment. In certain states and cities, public spending is so wasteful that returning the cash to private citizens can feel, if not be, better than continuing to throw it down a hole. The effect can persist if people rationalize away the pain as necessary medicine.
The "starve the beast" mentality just doesn't work, and serves only to ensure the average person suffers.
I guess it doesn't help that the Right has been engaged in a war against education for decades now...
If you want to change things you gonna have to look at defense and healthcare.
I can't remember the last time I've heard the phrase "the defense budget has been reduced this year...".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_munici...
The domain I know a lot about, election administration, the various US state, county, local governments are being fleeced by the vendors.
From what little I know about education, all the standardized tests, text books, charter schools, etc. are just excuses to divert funds to cronies.
Everyone else is playing by a less effective set of rules.
edit: It's still a problem, I'm just pointing out that the per-capita harm of a state like NY or CA playing by the same transparency rules as KS would be much greater. This may be why the people of KS are more willing to put up with it, the net harm to them is low because the government's involvement in their lives is low.