FIVE QUESTIONS interview with Alan Essig

The Center for a Better South's FIVE QUESTIONS series continues with an in-depth interview with Georgia economist Alan Essig, who talks about what Southern states can do to improve their financial positions through modernizing tax codes, investing in education and closing corporate loopholes. An excerpt:

"When CEOs such as Bill Gates say that education outweighs tax incentives, states should take note. A talented workforce is an economic development tool that rivals any tax incentive program, and that is where we need to focus our efforts. "

• Read the whole interview (40K PDF)
  

Unifying the Progressive Agenda

"If the South does better," remarked the Center for a Better South's John Simpkins, "America will do better."

Simpkins offered this observation to some 180 individuals gathered in Raleigh for the conference "Progress NC 2005: Strategies for Unifying and Advancing a Progressive Agenda" held on October 27, 2005. Sponsored by the NC Justice Center and the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, the event gathered together progressives from across North Carolina to develop the collaborative efforts and skills needed to articulate and advance plausible progressive alternatives to current public policies.

Judge Tom Ross, executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, opened the day by explaining how the current political climate values the pursuit of individual interest over the pursuit of the common good. A panel discussion then evaluated the impact that this shift has had on the nation, region and state. John Simpkins reflected on the state of the South; Joel Rogers of the Center on Wisconsin Strategies assessed the national condition; and Rep. Jennifer Weiss of the NC House of Representatives discussed the challenges specific to North Carolina.

The rest of the day was devoted to helping progressives develop the messages, coalitions, public policies and advocacy skills needed to champion policies that can help all North Carolinians prosper. For example, Elaine Mejia of the NC Budget and Tax Center mapped out the features of a tax system that would lead to fair, adequate and stable taxation.

The highlight of the day was the keynote address given by Rev. William Barber of Goldsboro, the newly elected president of the NC Conference of the NAACP.

"In every age, we need those who want to see justice at the center," Barber said. "We still need it today. We still need those who will object to the way things are. There must be those who say, 'Yes, we now have our beautiful cities with their towering skyscrapers and overarching coliseums. But underneath the shadows of these structures, there still lives another North Carolina and even another America."

Raising teacher pay

Kudos to N.C. Gov. Mike Easley, who this week proposed raising teacher pay above the national average.

We've always thought it was strange that Southern governors and legislatures strived to raise teacher pay to the Southeastern average. That, in our opinion, seemed to say that teachers were worth only an average amount when, in fact, they should be paid more. The move by Easley more accurately reflects their value, as noted in The Charlotte Observer today:

Hardly anyone disagrees that an essential contributor to student achievement is a good classroom teacher, yet anticipated retirements in the next few years indicate that North Carolina may have trouble finding enough teachers to fill its classrooms, let alone enough good ones. Higher pay isn't the only way to attract capable people, but it's an important factor.

The governor's plan, announced with support from Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight and House Speaker Jim Black, puts the state on track to raise the average teacher pay to $52,266 by the 2008-09 school year -- just above the anticipated national average of $52,206 for that year. Average N.C. teacher pay last year was $43,313.

New poll, study show support for gay/lesbian issues in N.C.

Would you be surprised to learn that North Carolinians believe in fairness and equality?

You shouldn’t be. A new study released today by the Common Sense Foundation shows that North Carolina residents believe that gay, lesbian, and transgender people deserve equal treatment under the law. Click here to download a pdf file of the report!

Common Sense commissioned a statewide poll to measure North Carolina voters’ attitudes toward LGBT issues. The survey found that 73% of North Carolinians believe that all state residents should have equal rights under the law regardless of sexual orientation.

Similarly, 57% of the respondents in the survey believe that employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unfair, and 69% believe housing discrimination on that basis is unfair.

Perhaps most surprisingly, when asked “Do you think it is fair to define marriage in such a way that it excludes same-sex couples?”, 51% of respondents said “No.”

The accompanying study examines many issues of interest to the LGBT community, from employment/housing discrimination to same-sex marriage and adoption to HIV/AIDS to transgender issues. The study presents real policy solutions that will help achieve full equality for all state residents.

The extreme right has been getting away with murder on this issue for far too long. This survey shows that North Carolinians are not gay-bashers, and the study shows how to fix the state’s laws to reflect that reality.

Privatizing Medicaid

In Florida, the Bush administration is doing to Medicaid what it couldn't convince the American people to do to Social Security.

In the Florida experiment, instead of reimbursing doctors and hospitals for treating Medicaid patients, the state received the Bush administration's permission to pay a fixed amount to HMOs to provide for each person's coverage, with private insurers determining care based on each beneficiary's allotted funds.

About 45 million Americans already lack health insurance -- an appalling figure for the richest country in the world. If the Florida approach to Medicaid expands elsewhere, millions more of our most vulnerable citizens may have to get by with less coverage.

Medicaid and its sister program, Medicare, provide health insurance for about 80 million people nationwide. Republicans in the U.S. Senate unveiled legislation Thursday that would cut spending for the two programs by $10 billion.

"More and more people are going without coverage or with less coverage, and that trend looks like it's going to continue," said Henry Aaron, senior fellow at Washington's Brookings Institution.

"It seems grotesque for officials to argue the unaffordability of Medicaid as we make tax changes that disproportionately benefit the wealthy," he said.

Yet that's precisely the argument Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- the president's brother -- made Wednesday after announcing that he'd received a green light from the administration to shift thousands of Medicaid patients into HMOs and to cap the amount spent on each beneficiary.

"I think this will be part of a national debate about how to create a more sustainable Medicaid program," Gov. Bush told reporters in Washington . . . .

"What happens when a private HMO won't cover a Medicaid patient's expenses?" asked Bentley Lipscomb, Florida director of AARP. "Where's the proof this will actually save state tax dollars?"

Could this happen in other Southern states?

Rosa Parks: A real progressive

The Monday death Alabama civil rights icon Rosa Parks at age 92 is a visible reminder of two things: the courage and spirit of one woman's action that finally led a nation to change and an immediate reminder that there appear to be few leaders today with the passion to continue to push for progressive civil rights changes.

Mrs. Parks' death brought worldwide editorial plaudits about her legacy from a 1955 bus trip in Birmingham. The Independent of London called her an American hero:

Her arrest gripped the country's imagination and galvanised the emerging civil rights movement.

The Christian Science Monitor called her "immovable:"

After her arrest, Parks was fired from her job, but she took up work as a dispatcher of private vehicles during the bus boycott, and travelled and spoke on behalf of civil rights - this despite frequent death threats. The world needs individuals to heed the inner voice of dignity and freedom when it calls, and to act on it and carry it forward as Parks did. But they must have the support of likeminded people around them. The Parks story shows how vital that is.

In a gripping piece in The Nation, writer John O'Neill outlined why it was important that Mrs. Parks received the nation's highest civilian honor -- just as George Washington was the first to get it:

It was not merely appropriate that Rosa Parks receive the same recognition as George Washington had been accorded. It was essential, for without Parks and those who joined her in forging the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Washington's promise of freedom would have remained forever constricted by the overt chains of slavery and the covert chains of segregation.

P.S. Guess what was said Tuesday in the newspaper in the town where all the civil rights commotion came to a head? Not a word on the Tuesday editorial page of The Birmingham News, although it did carry a long news story about her death.

10/26 UPDATE

• Link to Wednesday editorial in The Birmingham News:

"Thanks to Mrs. Parks' courage and grace, the segregated South was on its way to extinction."

Concentrated Urban Poverty in the South

On the eve of Hurricane Katrina, over one-third of poor New Orleanians lived in neighborhoods where at least 40 percent of the residents had incomes below the federal poverty level. Poor African Americans were even more likely to live in such neighborhoods, according to a new report issued by The Brookings Institution.

While New Orleans is a distinctive American city in many ways, it unfortunately is typical of many large American and southern cities when it comes to the issue of concentrated urban poverty.

The Brookings Institution report shows that the concentrated poverty rates in four southern cities -- New Orleans, Louisville, Miami and Atlanta -- were among the ten highest in the nation with another four southern cities ranking among the top 25.

Southern cities with high rates of concentrated poverty come in two types. First, there are immigrant gateway cities like Miami and El Paso. Second, there are fast growing regional cities like Atlanta, Charlotte and Nashville.

According to the report, concentrated poverty exacts a terrible toll on the vitality, health, safety and economic prosperity of large cities, as well as on the individuals who reside in racially and economically segregated neighborhoods.

Such neighborhoods arise from a variety of factors, including public policies that have vacillated "between benign neglect and outright hostility towards these distressed neighborhoods and their residents." Both growing southern cities and rebuilding ones along the Gulf Coast must work to avoid the policies that produced the concentrated poverty on display in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina if these cities are to reach their true economic potential and offer opportunities for all residents.

Conference on Women, Minorities in South

Spread the word:

Senator David Pryor to Moderate Discussion of Women and Minorities in the Contemporary South

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Political scientists and directors of polling in 12 Southern states will debate the political, social, educational and economic status of women and minorities in the contemporary South in a forum moderated by former U.S. Sen. David Pryor at 2:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28, in the Alltel Union Ballroom at the University of Arkansas.

Planned topics for exploration include:

• what the Katrina relief effort tells us about race, poverty, and contemporary Southern politics,
• an evaluation of the last 50 years of desegregation,
• which Southern states have the best living standards and why,
• what the future holds for women and minorities in the South,
• and the continued legacy of David Duke.

[. . .]

Conference panelists, all of whom are directors of their state's annual survey poll, include Kirby Goidel, Louisiana State University; Debra McCallum, University of Alabama; Janine Parry, University of Arkansas; Mary Stutzman, Florida State University; James Bason, University of Georgia; Ron Langley, University of Kentucky; Steve Shaffer, Mississippi State University; Robert Stevenson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Bob Oldendick, University of South Carolina; Michael Gant, University of Tennessee; Brian Cannon, Texas Tech University; and David Urban, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Barnes pushes progressive, visionary leadership

ATLANTA, Oct. 16, 2005 -- Former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes on Sunday said building a more progressive South will take old-fashioned leadership, according to the Center for a Better South.

"We're burdened by history and some bad things that have happened," Barnes told members of a men's group at Temple Sinai in northeast Atlanta. "And yet, we have this great opportunity in a region that has, in some sense, been untapped.

"It takes good leadership," he said. "Leadership is the one [quality] that allows us to be economically prosperous."

He said the right kind of leadership would be visionary and inclusive, just as Georgia showed visionary leadership in the early 1960s when it avoided racial strife that infected other states. As a result, corporate America took Atlanta seriously and moved in droves to the area.

"The inclusive, progressive vision is the one that yields prosperity."

For years, the South relied on cheap labor and big tax breaks to attract jobs. But in a global marketplace, those tools no longer work.

The best way to compete is to provide more educational opportunities "where our currency is not dollars and cents, but knowledge."

He added, "This business about educational improvement isn't about Shakespeare -- and I love Shakespeare. The question is whether our children will be able to compete economically."

At the meeting, Barnes urged members of the group to get involved with the Center for a Better South to help craft the policy ideas and initiatives to push the South toward more prosperity through a progressive vision.

A false choice on paying for hurricane relief

As the debate continues over how our nation will pay to recover from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it seems as though Republicans have put a false choice before the Congress. Neither option bodes well for the future health of America. This fallacious choice is exemplified in the lead of an article in yesterday's Chattanooga Times Free Press:

WASHINGTON - Tennessee and Georgia lawmakers are debating whether to slash specific programs or make across-the-board budget cuts to pay for about $200 billion in Hurricane Katrina recovery.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who is on the Budget Committee, said members are trying to come up with $50 billion to $100 billion in spending reductions over the next five years.

"We are looking at the entire budget and attempting to spread the spending restraints in a balanced way," Sen. Alexander said. "I would like to avoid across-the-board cuts because some programs are more important for our country's future than others, for example, investments in science and technology."

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said he favors an across-the-board cut on all nondefense spending.

"I think it would be far easier to accomplish than to attack programs one at a time," Sen. Isakson said.

One option that Republicans refuse to entertain is to roll back some of this administration's excessive tax cuts for those in the highest income brackets. Our country is, to put it frankly, strapped for cash. We are writing checks for the tax cuts of today on the backs of loans from nations like China that will be our rivals for years to come.

Also, don't be deceived when you see Republicans talking about "program cuts". The cuts won't be coming to corporate welfare programs or bridges to nowhere. As this NPR story notes, the programs on the cutting block are basic entitlements like Medicaid and foodstamps, even vital programs for working families like home heating subsidies.

Southern progressives must speak out on these issues. Paying for Katrina by leaving millions of other people out in the cold is bad thinking and bad policy.

A guide to a progressive South

The University of South Carolina's Megan Brock provided a guide to the progressive South in a column ("The South Will Rise Again") posted this week on Campus Progress.org. Prominently featured: The Center for a Better South:

When I sent in my first tuition check to the University of South Carolina and picked up and moved from Houston, TX, I felt I had sealed my fate, forever becoming one of those “darned liberals” in a region widely considered to be a safe haven for the most conservative voices in the nation – the South. According to Andy Brack, President of the Center for a Better South (a progressive think tank based in Charleston, SC ), my misgivings, however common, were misconceptions. “It’s not Jethro and the Dukes of Hazard and grits. The South now is a black, white, brown and yellow society.” He then elaborated, “We need to understand more deeply how this society is functioning if we seek to make progressive changes in it.”

Take a look at the article. You might be surprised to find more in your Southern state that's progressive than you realized.

Progressive former Congressman gets prison sentence

Former U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance (D-N.C.) was sentenced yesterday to four years in prison for money laundering and mail fraud.

Ballance was a leader in the North Carolina state legislature for many years, where he was a champion for justice and fairness. Ballance advocated for education and family farms and against capital punishment and environmental racism, among his many causes.

Ballance's criminal conviction stems from his admitted misuse of state funds that were granted to a nonprofit foundation that he set up in 1985. The amount of money in the case appears to be less than $100,000, but the cost to the state in losing the services of this progressive giant is far greater.

Better South involved with two October events

The Center for a Better South is participating in two October events that you may want to attend -- if you're in the area.

Atlanta discussion. At 10 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 16, former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes is the featured speaker at Temple Sinai in aspecial non-partisan discussion on issues and challenges affectingthe South. Barnes and Atlanta's Adam Saslow, both Center advisers, helped to coordinate the event. More information:

WHERE: Temple Sinai Social Hall, 5645 Dupree Drive, Atlanta, GA 30327
WHEN: 10 a.m., Oct. 16, 2005
RSVP: Jason Evans (jason.evans@turner.com)
DIRECTIONS: Go online to: http://www.templesinai.org/directions.asp

North Carolina conference. Better South founding director John Simpkins is a featured speaker at "Elevating our shared vision for a progressive North Carolina," a day-long conference sponsored by the NC Justice Center on Oct. 27 in Raleigh.

The conference is focusing on bringing progressive change to theTarheel State. It also will allow participants to network, learnabout the state budget and explore strategies to push a progressive agenda.

• More conference information

The Changing Face of Education

A new report released by the Urban Institute finds that North Carolina saw the number school-aged children (grades Pre-K to 5) born to immigrants rose by 153 percent between 1990 and 2000 -- the second fastest rate of growth in the nation.

North Carolina was not the only southern state to post a triple-digit growth rate in its population of school-aged children of immigrants. Georgia (148 percent) and Arkansas (109 percent) also ranked among the five fastest growing states in the country.

Moreover, school-aged children of immigrants account for a growing share of the school population in many states. In Texas, for instance, 27 percent of all students in grades Pre-K to 5 were the children of immigrants in 2000. The comparable figure in Virginia was 13 percent.

Irrespective of the immigration status of their parents, children born in the United States are citizens. These children also will contribute a large portion of the workforce in the future and will be vital contributors to state and national prosperity. However, many of these children grow up in linguistically isolated families and enter school with limited English skills.

This fact poses special challenges for public school districts working to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The NCLB requires schools to assess and improve the English and abilities of children with limited fluency. Meeting this task will require school districts to rethink the ways in which they help students learn English, but also may require changes in existing funding formulas for schools with high concentrations of immigrant children or additional public investments to meet the NCLB's performance goals.

Southern states like Texas and Florida have dealt with the special education needs of the children of immigrants for years, to differing degrees of success. Yet this is a new issue for states like North Carolina, Georgia and Arkansas and likely will require them to alter commonly held assumptions about classroom demographics, public funding and educational priorities.

Feeling lucky?

Oklahoma introduces its new state lottery today. That means all six states bordering Arkansas have lotteries -- plus there are Indian gambling halls in Oklahoma, and casinos in Louisiana, Missouri and Mississippi, etc. Arkansas continues to harbor a gambling monopoly for the horse and dog tracks (and both will likely be augmented soon with video poker parlors).

With Arkansas gamblers able to simply spend their money across the state's numerous borders, is it foolish for Arkansas to resist establishing a lottery of its own? Should Arkansas join the vast majority of states that have a lottery devoted to education? Or is the lottery an immoral "tax on the poor" that encourages irresponsible and destructive behavior?

Special Education Session in N.C.

Yesterday Gov. Mike Easley called the N.C. General Assembly back into session, on this coming Wednesday, to decide whether or not to override his veto of a bill designed to address North Carolina’s teacher shortage.

It’s a little mid-week action in what would otherwise be a silent October at the legislature. The original bill, vetoed by Easley, would have allowed teachers who were deemed “highly qualified” in other states (according to federal guidelines) to have the same standing in North Carolina.

Easley was understandably concerned that North Carolina maintain high standards for its teachers. When one of the state’s most pressing problems is a lack of good teachers, especially in low-wealth school districts, it’s hard to criticize anyone who wants to see high standards maintained.

North Carolina welcomed more than 28,000 new students to school this year. Each year the state faces an increasing teacher shortage, with a growing gap between the number of teachers produced and the number needed.

So what’s next? The State Board of Education passed a compromise policy last week, relaxing the standards a bit in order to provide some incentive for teachers to come here and stay here.

With that compromise in place, it seems unlikely that the General Assembly will vote to override the governor’s veto.

Wouldn’t it be great, though, if the special session were being called to increase teacher pay, in order to provide some real incentive for good teachers to come to North Carolina?

South's economic outlook is mixed

Other than Florida and Virginia, the South continues to have a mixed economic outlook, according to a new report from the FDIC. The just-release Fall 2005 report (download the PDF), based on information before the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, recognizes the hurricanes likely will slow U.S. economic activity even more.

Job growth
Across the South, job growth tends to be down. Florida (6) leads regional job growth, while South Carolina is ranked 50th. Other rankings: Alabama (17), Arkansas (31), Georgia (47), Kentucky (36), Louisiana (48), Mississippi ( 37), North Carolina (24), Tennessee (43) and Virginia (20).

Unemployment
In the second quarter of 2005, Mississippi (2) and South Carolina (6) were among Southern states with the highest unemployment at 7.0 percent and 6.37 percent respectively. Virginia had one of the lowest unemployment rankings (47th nationally) at 3.63 percent with Florida close at 4.1 percent (38th rank). Other rankings: Alabama (36th highest), Arkansas (24), Georgia (20), Kentucky (11), Louisiana (16), North Carolina (17) and Tennessee (8).

• Download state profiles

Religion in Public Policy

For far too long we progressives have misunderstood the role of religious commitments and communities when considering public policy. Yet another survey, this one conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute and aimed at college students, indicates the prominence of religion in many Americans' lives.

According to the study, most college freshmen believe in God including 95 percent of African-American students, 84 percent of Latino students, 78 percent of white students and 65 percent of Asian-American students. Attending religious services regularly follows a similar trajectory: 53 percent of African-American, 42 percent of white, 39 percent of Latino, and 35 percent of Asian-American students attend religious services regularly.

The women surveyed are more likely than men to pray. Women are more likely than men to be involved in charitable activities of some kind, while men are more likely to be religious skeptics.

Progressive policy makers must grapple with the implications of these and similar findings for policy development.


Nathan D Wilson

School Suspensions Rise in NC

Ten percent of North Carolina's public school students were suspended in 2004 - a rate significantly higher than the national one. All together, the 150,000 North Carolina children suspended in 2004 missed almost one million instructional days. Even more alarmingly, the growth in the number of yearly suspensions is outpacing the growth in the general student population.

These findings come from the new report "One Out of Ten: The Growing Suspension Crisis in North Carolina" published by the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute in Raleigh. The report further finds that black males, ninth graders and special education students are most apt to be suspended, most typically for non-dangerous offenses.

While suspensions are troubling in and of themselves, the authors note that suspensions "also are correlated with other undesirable indicators, such as poor academic performance, being less connected to and engaged in school, suffering poor health (especially mental health), dropping out and getting involved in the juvenile justice or corrections system."

To address the growing problem of school suspensions in North Carolina, the report calls for better involvement of families and caring adults in the lives of at-risk children, risk assessments for suspended fifth and sixth graders and alternative learning programs for suspended students.

School detention

Two special masters appointed by the Arkansas Supreme Court issued an 86-page report on Monday concluding that the state legislature in its session earlier this year did not comply with the court's public school financing mandates.

The masters said the legislature not only didn't advance the cause of education, they often left schools worse off with less money. Instead of action on adequacy and facilities, the legislature dithered. Other state employees got pay raises, teachers didn't. Legislators got pet pork projects; schools got shorted. No effort was made to define and deliver an adequate education. No allowance was made for inflationary cost pressures. Unfunded mandates were imposed on schools that can't pay for them. No progress was made toward consolidation. Surplus money was left unspent when schools were in need. It's the masters' clear view that schools are still "stained" by unconstitionality.

The report will be considered by the Supreme Court, which now faces a very difficult decision. Does it hold the legislature in contempt (in the technical legal sense as well as the obvious figurative sense) and order specific remedies? Will it suggest the legislature meet again to consider the deficiencies cited? Could it take over the schools (or close them so they stop spending in an unconstitutional manner?) Or something else?

Tennessee's own Bill Bennett

While Bill Bennett's recent comments have drawn a great deal of deserved attention, the state of Tennessee has been dealing with our very own Bill Bennett-in-training, State Rep. Stacey Campfield.

His initial notoriety came from posting what some might call half-cocked opinions on his blog, but in recent weeks he has picked a fight with the Tennessee Legislative Black Caucus. As a private group, the Caucus' finances are not subject to public disclosure.

Campfield requested a copy of the group's bylaws in March and was denied. He then attempted to become a member of the Caucus in order to gain access to the records. His membership was rejected, based on the fact the was seeking to join only to discredit the group in the first place.

In his reaction to not being allowed to join the group, Campfield made the following comparison:

The furor reignited last week when Campfield, talking about the caucus bylaws, said, "My understanding is that the KKK doesn't even ban members by race" and that the KKK "has less racist bylaws" than the black lawmakers group.

Whether it's whites calling the existence of a black group "racism" or conservative Christians claiming to be oppressed in modern America, there is a trend towards radicals within majority groups adopting the position of the minority, no matter how much it flies in the face of logic. In this case, it's landed Campfield on Fox News, to the surprise of few.

Southern progressives face a Sisyphian task in fighting issues like these in a region so defined by racial struggles. With Tennessee's own Bill Bennett, though, you can be sure the fireworks have only begun.

Home-grown energy

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer makes several good points on domestic energy production -- what we call "home grown energy" -- in an op-ed column in today's issue of The New York Times:

Most people are surprised to learn that we can produce gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products out of coal. Indeed, the process was used in America as early as 1928. In World War II, 92 percent of Germany's aviation fuel and half its total petroleum came from synthetic-fuel plants.

Sure, there are downsides -- like high production costs. But with the barrel price of oil soaring, these costs aren't as high -- which many other nations know because of they're leaving the U.S. behind with their investments in synthetic fuels.

Like all Americans, Montanans are tired of this nonsense. We are tired of paying $3 a gallon for gas, tired of watching third-world nations overtake us in energy innovation, and tired of supporting the kind of tyrants that young Americans have spent two centuries fighting and dying to defeat. Synfuel, ethanol, biodiesel, wind power, solar power, hydrogen - these are no longer dreamy ideas. They are now real and ready solutions, and with a national committment behind them, America can kick the foreign oil habit for good.

Why Black Babies?

The downward spiral of puzzling behavior from former Education Secretary William Bennett continues. Having earlier copped to a gambling problem, the czar of morals now finds himself caught up in a controversy caused by his radio comment about aborting black babies to lower the crime rate.

Bennett has defended his remarks as a thought experiment, but what is most troubling is that targeting black babies was the first thought to occur to him about how to fight crime. Cecelie S. Berry ponders the former secretary's fixation on black depravity here.