GREETINGS FELLOW DEMOCRATS!





The signs that popped up overnight...

...asking residents of CS to go vote at the MSC, ask yourself, why do they say just the MSC when there are multiple early voting sites??? Unless they violate a CS ordinance they are in compliance with the Texas Ethics Commission. Go Vote!!!!





The pros and cons of the senior tax freeze!

By JONATHAN COOPERSMITH

Should younger taxpayers and non-homeowners subsidize senior citizens buying $300,000 houses to retire here? That is the essence of the proposition to freeze senior citizen property taxes that College Station will vote on next month. This liberal-sounding notion looks appealing, but the reality is that it is actually a subsidy to wealthy homeowners masquerading as helping poor seniors.

If passed, this proposition means that even as the value of their houses increases, seniors will not pay any more in taxes. The people who will benefit most will be seniors buying large homes to retire here, secure in the knowledge they will never pay their fair share of taxes.

While a good break for them, it's a bad deal for the community as a whole. According to The Eagle, if the tax freeze passes, the city could lose as much as $3.2 million over 10 years. Jim Keblinger, who organized the proposition, has stated finding this lost revenue is not his concern but the city council's. He'll get his tax break and the rest of us, well, we'll either pay more or make do with fewer city services.

What Keblinger and his supporters have not publicized is that College Station already exempts from property taxes the first $30,000 of a senior's house. In 2006, 1,821 senior citizens claimed this exemption. If the tax-freeze supporters were truly concerned about helping low-income seniors, they would have proposed raising that tax exemption from the current $30,000 to the median cost of a house. That would ease the cost of retirement for people with low to moderate incomes without overly subsidizing wealthy senior citizens.

In February, 2008 the median price of a house in Bryan-College Station was $130,000, meaning half of the houses sold for more than and half for less than $130,000. Raising the city's senior tax exemption to $130,000 would reduce the property tax by $439.40.

Instead of that reasonable proposal, we are asked to vote on a measure that would benefit rich citizens far more than their poor brethren. I appreciate senior citizens. Indeed, I hope to become one myself some day, but I also appreciate that being a citizen means a shared sense of responsibility, and that includes paying for the services we want.

Sadly, the tax freeze could actually hurt the quality of life for seniors here. If the freeze passes, community support for a senior center would probably diminish. After all, if the users of the proposed center don't want to help pay for it, why should everyone else?

Voters should reject this proposal and instead ask the College Station City Council to raise the tax exemption for seniors to the median value of a house. This would directly benefit those most in need while lowering the potential tax burden for all of us.

• Jonathan Coopersmith lives in College Station.
http://www.theeagle.com/columnists/Reject-CS-tax-freeze





Seniors deserve to have taxes frozen

By DICK BIRDWELL

The May 10 College Station city election includes a proposal by petition to freeze the taxes on the homestead of disabled persons and those 65 and older.

The tax freeze is provided for by a Texas constitutional amendment that was overwhelmingly ap-proved by the voters of Brazos County. The amendment provides that city councils or the commissioners' court can provide for a tax freeze by majority vote or they can put the issue on a ballot. If the council or commission dose not act, then the voters can require the issue be put on the ballot through a petition process.

Voters in Bryan and Brazos County petitioned and had the issue put on the ballot. The tax freeze was approved in both Bryan and Brazos County by more than 75 percent of the voters. The tax freeze has been approved by 110 cities and 69 counties in Texas.

Local school taxes for disabled and seniors have been frozen for the past 30 years.

The tax freeze for seniors is justified because most of them are on fixed incomes that do not increase from year to year the way taxes do. This is a small recognition for the many years seniors have paid taxes. It is fair because everyone can expect to take advantage of the tax freeze sometime in the future.

The opponents of the tax freeze say it is unfair to burden younger taxpayers with increased taxes. The city estimates that the tax freeze would result in lost revenue of $3.2 million over the next 10 years. During those 10 years, city property taxes will be more than $250 million. So the lost revenue is only 1.3 percent. Every year for the past 20 years the city's general fund has finished the year with a surplus of at least twice what the lost revenue would be.

The point is, any increase in taxes for younger taxpayers will be small.

Another objection to the tax freeze is that it is not means tested. Everyone gets the benefit even if they are wealthy. This is a valid point, but there is no provision in the law for means testing and such a provision would be cumbersome.

Some have suggested that a better way to provide tax relief for seniors would be to increase the $30,000 city's homestead exemption. An increase in the homestead exemption would have to be approved by the city council

When College Station City Council members discussed the tax freeze in November 2006, they decided to defer any consideration of the matter until after the 2007 legislative session. After the session was over, Mayor Ben White was asked when the tax freeze would be discussed by the council.

He responded, "August of 2007." The matter, however, was never put on the council agenda for discussion.

Since council members have shown very little interest in the tax freeze, it is unlikely they would have any interest in increasing the homestead exemption.

Putting forward a petition to put the tax freeze issue on the ballot was a major effort. The city only allows five people to circulate such a petition. Jim Keblinger, a retired Aggie, worked almost full-time for five months to get the petition approved.

We should not pass up this onetime opportunity to give fixed income seniors a little help.

Middle and upper income seniors relocating to College Station are a source of considerable positive economic development. We should continue to encourage this relocation. A tax freeze will help do that.

Vote to approve the tax freeze.

• Dick Birdwell is a former College Station City Council member.
http://www.theeagle.com/columnists/Seniors-deserve-to-have-taxes-frozen





Bible-oriented Groups Proposal Rejected

By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, April 24, 2008

A Bible-oriented group's proposal to offer an online master's degree in science education was unanimously rejected Wednesday by a panel of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The action by the board's Academic Excellence and Research Committee came after Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes recommended against the proposal, submitted by the Dallas- based Institute for Creation Research. The full coordinating board is scheduled to consider the matter today.

Paredes said the institute's plan is infused with creationism and runs counter to conventions of science, which hold that claims of supernatural intervention are not testable and therefore lie outside the realm of science. He also said that the institute, by insisting on a literal interpretation of biblical creation, would fail to prepare students adequately for the field of science education.

"Hence, the program cannot be properly designated either as 'science' or 'science education,' " Paredes said.

Based on the committee's vote, it appears likely that the board will also reject the proposal.

Henry Morris III, CEO of the Institute for Creation Research, said Wednesday's ruling was not a surprise. He conceded that his organization is biased in favor of a creationist worldview but said that shouldn't be a disqualifying factor.

"We do understand very thoroughly that we represent a minority viewpoint in the scientific community," Morris said. "We still feel we teach good science."

If the full board rejects the proposal, Morris said, the institute's options include appealing, submitting a new proposal or going to court.

Steve Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, an advocacy group, praised Paredes for a recommendation that was "very strong and courageous." Schafersman said the institute's proposal amounts to religion masquerading as science.

The issue comes before the coordinating board, which oversees higher education, at a time when the state is reviewing the science curriculum, including that involving evolution, for primary and secondary public schools. The State Board of Education is expected to take up the matter later this year.

The proposal by the Institute for Creation Research has been a difficult one for the coordinating board, in part because of what Paredes described as a flawed review process. The coordinating board's staff and an advisory committee recommended approval of the proposal last year, but Paredes ordered a fresh review after an outcry from scientists and science educators, including some of the state's leading university researchers.

Paredes said the institute's catalog and other records portray as unshakable fact that the Earth is about 6,000 years old, that God created all things in the universe in six days as described in Genesis, that theories of origin and development involving evolution are false, and that most biblical miracles require a temporary suspension of basic natural laws.

"Whatever the ultimate merit of such views, they clearly stand at odds with the most basic tenets of scientific work such as observation, testing and analysis," Paredes said.

Believers of many faiths might well attribute to a creator the beginning of life on Earth and the formation of the universe billions of years ago, Paredes said. "But religious belief is not science. Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing."

rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604





Democrats Registering In Record Numbers

1 Million New Voters For Last 7 Primaries

By Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 28, 2008; A01

RALEIGH, N.C. -- They lined up shoulder to shoulder inside the gray high-rise downtown, their politics as diverse as their backgrounds. An ex-felon who needs health insurance, followed by a high school student seeking empowerment, followed by a Marine Corps veteran who wants to prevent his country from crumbling.

Like hundreds of others, their quests led them to the Wake County voter services office this month to register as Democrats for the first time. The line of newcomers that snaked across the checkered tile floor was emblematic of those that have formed across the country this year: black voters, young voters, lifelong Republicans switching parties -- all registering in record numbers, and all aligning as Democrats.

Elections Director Cherie Poucher waited for them behind a counter with a jar of pens and a 10-inch stack of registration forms. She had hired 10 people from a temp agency to help handle the rush on this final day of North Carolina voter registration. Now, as she watched four more people file through the door, Poucher wished she had hired more.

"In 20 years," she said, "I've never seen anything quite like it."

The past seven states to hold primaries registered more than 1 million new Democratic voters; Republican numbers mainly ebbed or stagnated. North Carolina and Indiana, which will hold their presidential primaries on May 6, are reporting a swell of new Democrats that triples the surge in registrations before the 2004 primary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/27/AR2008042702272_pf.html





DNC Officials Huddle With Clinton, Obama Campaigns

In an attempt to kick start the general election contest before the party has picked its nominee, Democratic National Committee officials have met in recent days with the top campaign brass of Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) to brief them on the committee's plans in the coming months.

DNC chief of staff Tom McMahon and political director Dave Boundy met yesterday at Clinton's Ballston headquarters with Guy Cecil, political director for the New York Senator's bid, and Howard Wolfson, one of the campaign's chief strategists, among others. A similar DNC delegation huddled with senior officials from the Obama campaign several weeks ago.

The discussion, according to DNC communications director Karen Finney, centered on the field plan the national party is implementing for the fall campaign, a rough outline of the DNC's strategy in regards Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) -- the committee and the presidential candidates cannot directly coordinate on messaging -- and plans to form joint committees to raise money both for the nominee and the DNC.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/04/dnc_huddles_with_clinton_obama.html?nav=rss_blog





Texas' privatizing quagmire

John Young
Waco Tribune-Herald
Thursday, April 24, 2008

Has it been five years? Five years since a new Republican majority in the Legislature launched its “shock and awe” offensive against social services in Texas? Yikes.

A few months later, commander-in-chief Rick Perry, who looks good in a flight jacket, pronounced major operations against Texas bureaucracy a spectacular success.

Mission accomplished, y’all.

Like that other military gambit, where we blew up a country and thought a mobile and sleak fighting force could piece it together, Texas’s privatizing experience has been a debacle. Or, as Thomas Ricks’ best-seller termed the Iraq incursion, a Fiasco.

In Austin, as in Baghdad, it long has become clear that blowing things up and sending in waves of contractors doesn’t exactly work.

An excellent analysis by the Dallas Morning News’s Robert Garrett frames this. Every Texan should read it. Many believe the Reaganesque, “Government is the problem.” Sometimes government is a problem. But privatizing it can be even worse.

Five years ago Texas was sending out electronic pink slips to workers who handled eligibility for Medicaid, food stamps and more.

Within the scope of a sweeping remake of social services, those workers no longer would be necessary, they were told by e-mail. A contractor, Bermuda-based Accenture Ltd., would obviate most of their jobs.

A large network of local offices would be replaced with a small network of regional centers. Bada-bing.

Easier directed than done

So, what’s happening five years later? Accenture has been fired. Employees have been rehired. Indeed, the state Health and Human Services Commission is offering incentives to lure new state eligibility workers and for those on staff to please not leave.

In the process, thousands of people needing social services have been left hanging. Their paperwork has been lost. Worst of all, the savings touted didn’t pan out.

The 2003 privatization initiative was not just for eligibility centers but for the whole of human services. It was penciled in as a projected savings when lawmakers sought to close a $10 billion budget shortfall without raising taxes or addressing Texas’ decrepit means of funding what a responsible state government ought.

This was a case of “roll tanks first, figure things out later.” Heckuva job, Rummy.

GOP state budget writers told the Department of Mental Health/Mental Retardation (since restructured and renamed) to privatize services across the board — even if new contracts didn’t reflect a cost savings to taxpayers.

It was a bust. Too few capable bidders stepped forth. In 2005, lawmakers voted to abolish the MHMR privatization directive. Perry vetoed the bill, issuing an executive order to privatize when possible but to use community MHMR centers as “providers of last resort,” which they remain. Yes, evil, not-for-profit government.

While wholesale privatization in Texas has been of dubious benefit to most of us, it has been of great benefit to a cherished few.

As with contractors in Iraq (the only Americans doing quite well relative to that enterprise) someone in Texas is making a nice living off bad policy.

While thousands of Texas children were left hanging when the state trimmed the rolls of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, auditors found the state had overpaid a vendor $20 million for administering it, including millions for individual consultants.

Now, just as the Army has begun offering bonuses for its personnel to re-enlist, even accepting felons to meet recruiting goals sapped by Iraq, so is Texas offering bonuses to bureaucrats it once deemed unnecessary.

Listen to the state and you’ll hear that it’s all working according to plan, that Texas taxpayers are being served and so are the needy people whose best interests this compassionate quest was all about. You know, the onward march of freedom and all that.

Watch out, Texas. With no end in sight to this quagmire, we may have to draft pencil-pushers next.

John Young’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.





Brazos County Democratic Party
P.O. Box 4568
Bryan Texas 77805
979-779-5600 Fax 979-779-5601

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman, Democrat, President of the United States of America