A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Denver Post, Feb. 21, on proposed English-only bill for government businesses:
If you go to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s website, SBA.gov, you’ll see a “Translate” button in the upper right-hand corner. Proceed to the drop-down menu and click on one of the many languages there and soon you’ll be reading—or gazing at—the same SBA material in Greek, Italian, Yiddish, Malay or Maltese, among other possibilities.
We consider the translation service a neat use of advanced technology. Unfortunately, that’s not the view of those pushing legislation to make English the nation’s official language so that all “official functions” of government are conducted only in English. They’d outlaw that “translate” option. Indeed, their definition of “official” includes “any function that … is otherwise subject to scrutiny by either the press or the public”—so goodbye to the translation software.
The English Language Unity Act, which is supported by Colorado Republican Congressmen Mike Coffman and Doug Lamborn, is the sort of bill that probably sounds appealing to many voters but that mostly fails to address their actual concerns. For example, some voters no doubt worry about whether immigrants are assimilating fast enough to preserve a common American culture. We think the answer is yes, but even if we’re wrong, this bill won’t really help.
How could it? The fact that a significant portion of kids in early grades in Denver and other school districts across the country can’t speak English, for example, has essentially nothing to do with government conducting a minor amount of business in some non-English language. Nor is it because government “spends billions for multilingual translations, printing costs, and miscommunications,” as the bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, complains.
Those kids can’t speak English because they come from families that were part of a major—and yes, mostly illegal—influx of immigrants in the past generation and therefore speak another language at home. With or without the English Language Unity Act, those children will still have to be taught English in the manner they are today.
The bill has more than 100 House sponsors, and may get a hearing in the near future in the Judiciary Committee.
To become citizens, legal immigrants face a test of English proficiency as well as a civics test on their knowledge of U.S. history and government. However, this official English bill requires that new citizens “be able to read and understand generally the English language text of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the laws of the United States,” and orders Homeland Security to write new testing rules.
If Congress wants to toughen the English-language requirement for naturalization, so be it. That may be desirable. But it is really necessary that newcomers master 18th century patterns of speech as well?
The English Language Unity Act is a badly flawed bill that should never make it into law.
Editorial:
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The Daily Sentinel, Feb. 15, on politics surrounding federal budget plan proposed by President Obama:
Budgeting for the U.S. government has devolved into this: A series of political polemics disguised as budgets and issued by both parties; an understanding that these politicized budgets don’t stand a chance of passing but will be used as election-year ammunition; and a desperate hope that one more temporary budget compromise can be hammered out after the November election.
Colorado’s Legislature may not be the epitome of enlightened bipartisan cooperation, but it is a beacon of logic and sensibility compared to Washington, D.C., when it comes to budgeting.
While we are no fans of a federal balanced-budget amendment, for a variety of reasons, we understand why many U.S. citizens want something they believe will force Washington politicians to actually do their jobs. No wonder there are proposals floating around the Internet that suggest withholding politicians’ salaries until they pass a budget.
President Barack Obama’s budget, released this week, is a prime example of election-year politicking. Many observers expect it will never come to the Senate floor for a vote.
The problems with Obama’s budget are many-fold. For one thing, it uses numbers and projections that are dubious, at best. For instance, it relies on billions of dollars of cuts in defense spending that are supposed to occur next year. But Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has already said those cuts are unacceptable. People on both sides of the aisle are already looking at ways to reduce those cuts.
Obama’s budget also proposes to cut numerous tax breaks for various industries, such as oil and gas, even as it offers new tax breaks for other favored industries.
And that represents one of the most serious problems with the president’s budget. Although it would raise taxes on people making more than $200,000 a year, on investors and corporations, it does nothing to reform or simplify the tax code.
Second, and even more important, it does nothing to address spiraling costs for things like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And it only takes thin slices out of the federal debt, while projecting even larger debt in a decade.
Without serious debt reduction, we face a future like Greece.
This is not a screed on behalf of Republican budget efforts. Unless there is a drastic change from previous proposals, the GOP plans will be heavy on spending cuts and won’t include needed revenue increases, even those that could come from revamping the tax code. But at least they have attempted to address Medicaid and Medicare costs in the past year.
Former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson was in Grand Junction recently to speak at Colorado Mesa University. Simpson is one of the co-authors of the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan, which did seriously address tax reform and cuts in entitlement spending.
Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles were cochairmen of a commission created by Obama to recommend ways to in the federal debt. Unfortunately, both the president and Republican leaders ignored those recommendations.
Here’s hoping Simpson, Bowles and others can rekindle interest in such a plan, especially in an election year.
Editorial:
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STATE:
The Pueblo Chieftain, Feb. 21, on pay for Colorado university professors:
Colorado Universities perennially clamor for more pay, but we believe they ought to pass an accountability test first.
A good step in that direction is House Bill 1252 by Rep. B.J. Nikkel, R-Loveland, which would require state-funded universities to create and maintain searchable databases of professors’ salaries, fringe benefits, teaching loads and other information—all readily open to the public.
After all, it’s the public that contributes the state tax revenue and, for those with students at the universities, the tuition that supports the faculty salaries and benefits. The bill would apply to the University of Colorado System, the Colorado State University System (with campuses in Pueblo and Fort Collins), the University of Northern Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines.
The timing couldn’t be better for HB1252 to come before the Legislature, where it is scheduled for a House Education Committee hearing Feb. 27.
This is because many readers, including state policymakers, are mindful of newspaper reports of CU spending part of last year’s 9.3 percent tuition increase on outrageous raises for administrators—including CU-Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano, whose salary jumped to $389,000 with a hefty $49,000 raise in one year. Now they are proposing an additional 15.7 percent hike in student tuition.
Rep. Nikkel’s HB1252 currently is worded to require public transparency for professors’ salaries, benefits, any reimbursement for travel and other expenses, number of classes taught and the amount of grant money received. For clarity’s sake, we ask the sponsor to amend her bill to include administrators and even faculty with titles technically below the rank of professor.
Comparing university salaries with teaching loads, in particular, would be very enlightening.
Arguments that the online accounting, including updates every five days, would be a burden on the schools are hollow. The universities no doubt have the staff with the skills needed to comply with HB1252 easily.
The public has a right to know. We encourage passage of HB1252 by the House Education Committee next week and ultimately by the full Legislature.
Editorial:
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The Coloradoan, Feb. 21, on court challenge to Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights:
In what has become a fascinating chicken-and-egg question, a federal district court judge may hold a big part of Colorado’s future in his hands.
Coloradans have debated the merits and drawbacks of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (also called the Bruce Amendment for creator Douglas Bruce) since voters approved it in 1992.
But Feb. 15, a bipartisan group of lawmakers who oppose TABOR took a new tack: They are challenging TABOR in federal court because they believe it violates the U.S. Constitution by mandating direct democracy as opposed to a representative republic form of government. District Court Judge William Martinez has not indicated when or if he will make a ruling in the case.
Generally speaking, TABOR contains two parts. One part requires all tax increase proposals in Colorado to be considered by the electorate in a direct vote rather than via their elected representatives. The second part sets spending limitations on governments according to a predetermined formula.
For the most part, opposition to TABOR has focused on the latter section because critics, including the Coloradoan editorial board, believe the formula has made it difficult for governments to emerge from economic downturns and invest in the future. TABOR, combined with Amendment 23 and the Gallagher Amendment, has created a perfect storm in which lawmakers are left with few dollars and even less discretion when it comes to governing the state.
Numerous attempts to water down the effects of the amendment at the state level have been defeated. At the same time, voters in hundreds of municipalities, special districts and counties have agreed to de-Bruce or remove the local entities from the spending limits contained in the measure while retaining the voter-approved taxation approach.
As much as TABOR has handcuffed the state Legislature, this challenge could be equally troublesome. A federal ruling mandating that state government tax-and-spend decisions can be made only by elected representatives could most certainly be more damaging than anything TABOR has wrought.
Winning the battle against TABOR may lose the battle when it comes to voter trust and engagement. Challengers should be careful what they wish for.
Editorial:
