May Ballots Are Arriving

I got my ballot for the May election yesterday, and I figured it'd be a good time to weigh in on the Eugene city income tax debate. I'm as concerned about schools as anyone else. Sarah and I have had lengthy debates on whether we'll send our future children to public schools or if they'd get a better education if we home-schooled them instead. So I say with a heavy heart that I don't support this income tax.

Let's look at the reasons why. When I was trying to do some writing for Eugene Daily News, I was asked to watch the February 14th meeting of the Eugene City Council where they decided to place this measure on the May ballot. My impression of the meeting left me feeling that this measure is a knee-jerk, panicky reaction to a bad situation. It's never a good idea to rush such an important decision, and that's exactly what this is doing. Even the Chamber of Commerce agrees. Even though more money in schools will help the economy, they believe that the process was rushed and needs more debate and clarification before we make such a monumental decision.

I also read an article in the Register Guard today about a debate between a proponent of the measure and an opponent. A central argument in this debate is whether throwing more money at the problem is really going to help. Many opponents believe that school finance reform is the answer. Schools need to learn to work with the budget they have, and not beg for more money every year. In the debate talked about in this article, the proponent of the measure states that the school's budget is not the problem. That "the district spends more than 70 percent of its budget on educating students, and about 14 percent on central administration and principal’s offices."

However, I read recently that the new superintendent Sheldon Berman will be receiving an annual salary of $180,000 a year—a salary that is $35, 839 greater than the annual salary of current superintendent George Russell. That difference is enough to pay a $17/hour, 40 hour a week job—enough money to cut 1 or 2 teacher positions. Obviously our school districts have priorities that don't involve keeping our teachers and limiting class size with decisions like this one.

Complications in the Wedding

A couple of weeks ago we got hit with a double whammy about the wedding. Sarah had placed an invitation notice to our wedding guests on Facebook. RSVPs were due soon, and she wanted to remind them. Her dad, not realizing what it was, said that he was attending. He called her the next day asking what the event was. When Sarah told him it was for the wedding, he said that he accidentally clicked yes he was coming, when he and Sarah’s mom were, in fact, not going to be able to attend. Sarah was understandably upset. However, she wanted to confirm it from her mother.

That confirmation came three days later. Her mom called and told her that they couldn’t afford to come up for the wedding. Sarah was so upset that she wanted to get out of town for a bit, so we got in the car and drove to Crater Lake. It was great fun, and we took some pictures. Since it was still April, Crater Lake Park was still covered in snow. We posted pictures on our Facebook profiles. However, the trip also served for us to have some good conversations along the way, and Sarah came to accept some things about her parents. It was very healing.

However, our wedding troubles weren’t over yet. The next day, we got a call from the minister performing our wedding—Reverend Alicia Forsey, interim minister for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Eugene. She was under a great deal of stress, and her doctor told her she was overcommitted and needed to drop some of her scheduled activities. She would be unable to do our wedding.

Sarah took this news pretty hard. It was totally unexpected, and it also left us in quite a bind. We had made an arrangement with Reverend Forsey that she would waive her usual fee for performing the ceremony if we donated money to the church. As it turned out, we had donated that money the week before. We didn’t have any money left to pay a new minister’s fees.

Reverend Forsey was kind enough to find us a replacement—a kindly lady from the church who was also one of the worship associates. However, her fee was $450, although negotiable. I explained the situation to her, and we worked out a deal. If we paid her $100, she would perform the wedding. She would get all of the details that we worked out with Reverend Forsey, and perform the same ceremony.

So even though complications came up, Sarah and I were able to overcome those obstacles together as a couple. It’s good practice for how things will work as a married couple. Next time, I’ll tell you about our wedding rings—such an important part of wedding traditions that we decided we’d keep it for ours.

The Problem with Our Government

I read an article onYahoo! today that Republicans in the House of Representatives want to make huge cuts to Medicade, Medicare, and food stamp programs across the country. In addition, they plan to lower the maximum tax rate from 35% to 25%, although those tax rates come with the price of reducing many tax loopholes.

So here's the problem with our government as I see it. We provide too much money and benefits to our politicians, leaving too much incentive to stay in those positions of power. They want to hold on to their jobs so badly that they are at the mercy of powerful corporations and wealthy individuals who offer them promises of huge campaign contributions.

Now I know that many people think that campaign reform is the answer to these problems. However, I happen to agree with the Supreme Court decision that the federal government cannot limit how much money corporations can spend in political campaigns. That is a First Amendment issue, and I applaud their decision, even if I hate had much influence those corporations have on elections, but that's an entirely different discussion.

My answer to this problem is something different, and involves an entire restructuring of how our government is run. Working in a political office should be more like jury duty. Rather than allow people who want to run for these offices and are willing to say anything to get there, people are selected randomly to run for a political office they're eligible for. They campaign against each other, and whomever is elected serves their term and goes back to their ordinary life after they're done. Then next election, more people are randomly selected to run.

Under this plan, we not only prevent the issue of politicians clawing their way into office and holding onto that office with a death grip, we also get ordinary people into those offices who understand the problems of real people. If you agree with my plan, please feel free to share this blog on any social networking sites or other websites and spread the word.