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PA Education ‘Reform’ Hurts Poorest Schools

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The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story yesterday about “Voucher Sunday,” when the Philadelphia archdiocese organized students, teachers, and parents to urge their fellow parishioners to lobby the state government to pass school voucher legislation. Putting aside discussions of a spiritual institution acting as a special interest lobbying for state funding, there are serious flaws with the legislation for which the Roman Catholic Church is pushing.

A little background: the legislation in question is Senate Bill 1, which, among other assorted provisions, would provide vouchers for low income children in the 143 lowest-performing schools in Pennsylvania (and since bill numbers are often reserved for specific legislation for symbolic purposes, you can bet SB1 was meant to imply that the Senate Republicans’ main priority was education reform). The bill passed the PA Senate in October (27-22), then moved to the PA House, where it currently sits.

One of the most obvious concerns about SB1 is its constitutionality. The Pennsylvania Constitution expressly prohibits public funding of religious schools in Article III, Section 15:

No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.

It would seem obvious that providing families with funds with which to pay tuition at a religious school would violate this prohibition, but the bill nevertheless cleared the Senate. Even without this constitutional ban, one could debate the wisdom of allowing public support of a religious institution — especially in light of the fact that Pennsylvania was originally colonized by religious dissidents seeking asylum from state-sponsored religion.

But putting aside these more basic questions of the proper roles of religion and government in society, SB1 is simply bad public policy. The first indication is that SB1′s funding scheme differs from that of most (if not all) other voucher programs in the country. I explained the problem in a letter to the editor published in the Inquirer in October:

In other states that use voucher schemes, the vouchers are funded out of the state’s general fund. This bill, in contrast, provides no new funds. Instead, it takes money that is already going to schools and ties it to students. So, if a student leaves a school, that school loses the funding associated with that child.

 

Some students may escape their desperate plight, but many others will not. Schools are under no obligation to accept transfer students, and will likely take only a limited number. The vast majority of poor children will then be forced to watch as crucial resources drain away from the cash-strapped, impoverished schools that need it most.

Estimates for the cost of each voucher range between $7,000 and $9,000. The problem is that public schools will not be saving this amount each time a child leaves. Much of a school’s cost is locked in: heat, electricity, water, and the cost of upkeep, for example.

With that in mind, consider also that the bill’s fiscal note assumed that only a tiny portion of eligible students will actually participate. And the bill is structured so that even if many children use vouchers, like advocates claim, the amount of voucher money each child will receive decreases as the number of children participating in the plan increases. That is, the more popular the program becomes, the less it will help children, unless the General Assembly increases funding for it.

But, at the moment, it is doubtful that many kids will participate at all.

There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, there are various costs associated with private schools that would likely rule out some low income children. For instance, the vouchers only cover tuition up until a certain dollar amount, so parents will have to pay for any tuition above that level. Also, no school is under any obligation to accept a voucher student. So, even if we were to ignore estimates of low participation rates and assume that most children would apply for a voucher, many students would be turned away (the Education Law Center estimates only 9 percent of eligible applicants would actually be able to use their voucher). After all, there are only so many desks in a classroom. This, too, would keep the number of students who would potentially benefit from SB1 low.

Additionally, the bill does not bar schools from discriminating in their voucher acceptance policies based on refusal to participate in religious ceremonies or sexual orientation. This would seem to be a large omission for a program that is trumpeted as providing equality of opportunity for all students, and, again, raises questions of whether a government should incentivize specific religious affiliations over others.

Finally, it is worth noting that the children who look likely to benefit the most are those already attending private or religious schools. The Education Law Center estimated that around 60 percent of vouchers would go to children whose families are already paying for them to have a nonpublic education. This directly contradicts the idea that these vouchers represent an ‘opportunity scholarship’ for children who would otherwise be trapped in the public schooling system — indeed, they would be little more than a subsidy for families already in private or religious schools.

To be sure, many children are trapped in underfunded, failing schools. But this bill would not remedy that. Instead, it would take public dollars away from the poorest public schools in order to subsidize children in nonpublic schools. Furthermore, it would actually keep children trapped children in those poorer schools as it drains them of resources.

All of this adds up to a situation in which an extremely small number of students benefit while the vast majority of their peers bear the cost. There are many educational reforms worth pursuing, such as those that aim to elevate the teaching profession and lure the best and the brightest into the classroom, while handing control back to schools and teachers. Unfortunately, SB1 — which defunds schools at the expense of the many, for the benefit of a few — is not one such reform.

SUGGESTED READING

“U.S. v. the world in education reform,” Christopher Moraff.

“Reforming education: The great schools revolution,” Economist.

“Tough Choices or Tough Times,” National Center on Education and the Economy.

“Voucher Proposal Raises Many Questions,” PA State Senator Daylin Leach (D-17).

“PISA [Program for International Student Assessment] 2009 at a Glance,” Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“Measuring Inequity in School Funding,” Center for American Progress.

“The Education Law Center’s Position on Senate Bill 1,” The Education Law Center.


What “The Hunger Games” Tells Us About the Media Industry

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In my last post, I took a break from policy and politics to discuss some arts and culture, namely The Hunger Games. The basic premise of that post was that The Hunger Games functioned as a self-reflexive look at the media industry, with each character or group of characters fulfilling a specific role in that industry. I did not, however, discuss what I think the film says about that industry.

But before I begin, I should say that, as I write this, I have not yet read the books — only seen the film. I should also say that I do not think reading the book is any sort of prerequisite to discussing or analyzing the film. While films may be based off of novels (and, from what I understand, The Hunger Games was very faithful to its source material), they are an inherently different form of storytelling from their print counterparts. There are stricter time constraints, the need to reach a broader audience in order to make the costlier production financially viable, and the societal/thematic changes occurring between the time the book is published and the movie is made that might affect content, among many other factors.

To the extent that The Hunger Games as a film reflects what is printed in the book, it represents what the film’s creative team (writers, director, cinematographer, producers, actors, etc…) accepted as necessary and proper for a film. These choices (and changes) are often the source of much debate, but the fact remains that they are made, and this analysis will discuss those choices — whether they represent the choice to illustrate the book’s descriptions and narrative or not.

I should also note that while my last post discussed The Hunger Games solely in terms of the filmmaking process, this post will work off of the assumption that it contains a broader ideology regarding the media industry. I do not think this is contradictory. It make sense that a film would be self-reflexive of the film industry, though it might also resonate more broadly.

Consider Watchmen for a moment. The Alan Moore comic book contained a “comic within a comic” in which the narrative would shift to the panels of a comic book titled Tales of the Black Freighter that one of the Moore comic’s side characters was reading. Tales of the Black Freighter, as a comic book, reflected and commented upon the comic book Watchmen and its characters. When translated to film, Tales of the Black Freighter was (in the director’s cut, since it did not make the theatrical edition) remade as an animated “film within a film.”

Unifying the media type in both Watchmen cases reinforced their self-reflexive function, and the messages they contained (though I should note that I believe Watchmen is a prime example of a creative team trying too hard to “remain faithful” to the source material when they should have altered elements for the screen). The Hunger Games functions, I think, in a similar fashion. I assume that the book plays out with visual media as well (and not in, say, newspaper, or other print media) but, again, my analysis is only going to focus on the film.

And, though it may be blasphemous to many fans of The Hunger Games, it seems to me that having the “visual media within a visual media” might be a stronger self-reflexive tool than “visual media within a print media.” This is not to say either is superior — it is just an observation. Besides, the novel, from what I understand, allows a window into Katniss’ mind that film simply cannot, making the two forms quite different (and perhaps further strengthening the ‘visual media as self-reflexive of visual media’ critique because in the film we can no more see into Katniss’ mind than we can into the minds of people in any other film or show).

Additionally, the importance of the media critique to the film is underlined by the filmmakers’ creative choices. First, as noted in the previous post (and touched upon throughout this one as well), The Hunger Games provides a self-reflexive look at the film industry’s participants and their relationships.

But on a more basic level, that the creative team deliberately chose to highlight the role of Panem’s media is a testament to its significance. Unlike novels, which have more leeway in their focus and length, films are limited by runtime, which generally forces the filmmakers to excise elements that they consider unimportant.

Yet the media critique was not excised (nor marginalized), but, rather, figures prominently in the film. Indeed, the primacy of the film’s media ideology is demonstrated by the fact that the very first image the audience sees is Seneca speaking on Caesar’s talkshow. This opening scene immediately orientes the audience as media consumers (and, to take it one step further, as Capitol media consumers), and stresses the importance of media structures to the film.

All that being said, I think The Hunger Games contains three main points regarding the media industry:

  • The “narrativization” of non-fiction
  • The media product is not simply a top-down imposition but, rather, supported and reinforced by many actors
  • The role of violence in the media

The film reinforces, at many points, the importance of creating a narrative for public consumption. Haymitch stresses this to Katniss and Peeta when he describes to them his strategy for staying alive, and later when he advises them to play up their roles as star-crossed lovers. Caesar, likewise, guides the narrative with carefully targeted questions meant to nudge the participants toward a narrative that can be easily consumed by the Capitol audience.

His discussion of Katniss’ sister, Prim, for example, is on one level a question about why Katniss volunteered for the Hunger Games, but can also be understood as creating a simple narrative for the Capitol audience. I forget the specifics, but I seem to recall one character (Katniss, perhaps?) commenting on how the situation is more complex than presented and understood by Caesar and the Capitol citizens. Caesar’s discussion of Prim serves to eliminate that complexity in favor of a clear-cut narrative: Katniss wants to win for her sister.

And, of course, the manipulation of the Hunger Games by Seneca is the ultimate narrativization. He consistently tries to sculpt the Games in such a way as affect their outcome and perception. He suspends the ‘single victor’ rule in order to play up the ‘young love’ angle for his audience, then reinstates it to heighten the drama. Then, significantly, he suspends it again when it appears that Katniss and Peeta are about to commit suicide, in order to preserve an acceptable, ‘happy’ ending.

President Snow also recognizes the narrativization when he discusses the dangers that Katniss and Peeta’s ‘young love’ narrative could pose if not strictly controlled. Crucially, he also acknowledges the fact that the entire concept of the Hunger Games is based on the (contained) hope that is produced by the manufactured narrative.

Of course, Katniss and Peeta are young lovers. So how, then, can this narrative be described as “controlled” or “manufactured?” Well, interestingly, the ‘young love’ narrative precedes their development as ‘young lovers.’ That is, the Capitol audiences perceive the two as young lovers long before the two actually fill those roles truthfully (I write “truthfully” because they seem to act the roles for the audience’s benefit before actually falling in love). Yet, those viewing the Games in the Capitol and the Districts seem to take what they are seeing at face value. They accept the narrative that is being produced as true, regardless of its actual veracity.

Also consider that, while the characters vary with what level of control they actually have, the final media product of the Hunger Games is ultimately determined by many, different actors (‘actors’ in the sense of ‘participants,’ not in the theatrical sense). President Snow’s attempts to impose a particular narrative, in the end, fail. Were he the only actor whose decision mattered, the film would have likely ended with Katniss and Peeta dead, and another tribute victorious.

President Snow (described in the last post as the ‘movie executive,’ or here as the media executive) may control the levers of power within an organization (whether Panem or, say, a television station), but there are still certain powerful elements outside his and his subordinate Seneca (directors, news editors, etc…) control. “The facts on the ground” is one such element. Broadcasting the Games live is a barrier to some manipulation. For instance, Seneca could not simply send Peacemakers into the game to shoot Katniss and then release a story that she’d been killed by Cato, because the audience is watching the Games in real time. So, to a certain extent, all actors are bound by events in the Games as they unfold — thus giving Katniss, as a principle actor in these events, some small level of power to affect the perception and outcome of the Games.

Perhaps the most powerful element constraining Snow’s direction of the Games, however, is the audience. Haymitch tells Katniss and Peeta to construct a narrative so that they can attract attention and win over investors. This, of course, is exactly how our media industry functions.

Films are not produced in order to please audiences — they are produced, first and foremost, because of revenue. Films are designed to attract large audiences in order to make money. A person will spend $10 to see The Hunger Games in theaters because they are interested in Katniss and Peeta’s narrative. (Producers and other investors act similarly, though they are distinct because they have the additional incentive of monetary return, whereas audience members are driven mainly by the narrative).

The news side of the media industry, likewise, is sustained by a business model of attracting an audience (despite what many people would like to believe). And here, especially, the narrativization element figures prominently. The news media (particularly the broadcast media, like radio and television, which are limited by airtime) have the difficult task of maintaining audiences in order to keep revenues up and sustain themselves economically. As with films, the news media raise revenue through larger audiences, though usually not through direct charges. Instead, they make money through charging advertisers to air commercials on their channels (or, in the case of print media, printing advertisements in their magazines and newspapers). The larger the audience, the more they can charge advertisers.

Katniss’ friend Gale notes the power that audiences hold when he questions what would happen if everyone simultaneously decided against watching the Hunger Games, depriving them of their power. Yet, as could be expected, large crowds reliably turn out to watch the Games (though Gale is not among them). The Hunger Games (like media products in our own world) has been designed with the specific purpose of holding its audience’s attention.

In order to capture and maintain that larger audience, the news media employ various tactics. They try to be the first to air a particular story, use interesting soundbites, explain things in the simplest possible (and most familiar) terms, and, above all, keep the news interesting.

The result is that the news is often ‘narrativized.’ Delivering the news in a standard narrative format – consisting of a beginning, middle, and an end, and featuring a protagonist, antagonist, and central conflict — allows news organizations to make the news accessible, compelling, and easily digestible, which in turn makes them more attractive to a broader audience.

This does not amount to a vast media conspiracy. Rather, it comes down to a combination of market forces and human nature. It is important to remember that journalists are human, and so inclined to organize and categorize information in ways that make sense to them — and ‘narrativization’ provides an efficient structure for doing so.

By portraying the entire process, however, The Hunger Games critiques this process as both inaccurate and ultimately affecting the covered subject. Caesar may never physically leave his stage (though, interestingly, he does jarringly appear in the Games during Katniss’ hallucination), and the audience may imagine they are not affecting the outcome of the Games by simply watching, but both are a critical part of the media process. Both contribute to the creation of a narrative (which, as noted in the case of the Katniss-Peeta relationship, becomes reality), and affect how the Games actually play out. The narrative fuels greater media coverage, which attracts investors to intervene in the Games, sending Katniss aid packages.

Thus, when applied to the news side of the industry, The Hunger Games rejects the idea of an independent, objective media, and instead recognizes a blurring of the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Indeed, The Hunger Games’ author, Suzanne Collins, has said that this very idea was present when she first started developing the story, describing an experience in which news images of the Iraq War “fused” with those of a reality television show.

In an interview with Scholastic, Collins says that “The Hunger Games is a reality television program.” Of course, such shows are the ultimate ‘narrativization’ of supposedly nonfiction events.

Violence also plays a prominent role in The Hunger Games’ media critique. The aforementioned market forces that direct news sources to cover stories in a certain way also direct them to cover certain stories. Stories that will draw a larger audience are generally preferred.

This leads to a preference for violent stories for several reasons. First, the intense emotions that are aroused by covering a violent story often have the desired effect of ‘capturing’ many viewers. But also, such stories are often easier to plug into the narrative structure — the conflict, the protagonist (victim), and the antagonist (offender) are all already there. Furthermore, violent stories (such as murder, rape, etc…) are fairly universal, and thus easily grasped by an audience without much of a need for in-depth background and context. The ability to simply jump to emotional soundbites of family and friends without additional explanation and context can be very appealing for a news organization that needs to appeal to a broad spectrum of viewers with limited airtime.

The use of violence in fictional stories functions in a similar fashion (though, again, the idea behind The Hunger Games is that the boundary between fiction and nonfiction is fairly permeable).

The Hunger Games seeks to remind us of the horrible reality behind these violent acts. A key moment occurs when Haymitch notices a young Capitol child chasing his sister with a toy sword. The boy, mimicking the Hunger Games he watches on television, is eerily reminiscent of any average child today, playing soldier with toy guns.

Capitol citizens’ general attitudes toward the Hunger Games also indicate desensitization to extreme violence. The media coverage generally focuses on the tributes’ strength, background, and narratives, and eschews any discussion of their imminent and horrific deaths.

In the opening scene, Seneca describes the Hunger Games to Caesar as tradition, which calls to mind horrific real world acts that have been defended as ’traditions,’ such as the practice of widows burning on their dead husband’s funeral pyre. To unveil the harsh reality behind this desensitization, the scene with Seneca talking to Caesar ends jarringly in mid-discussion with a scream, and a cut to District 12, where Katniss is comforting her sister, Prim. The talk of tradition is revealed as empty when confronted with the suffering that the Hunger Games really cause.

In deconstructing the interplay of  ’narrativization,’ violence, and market forces in the media industry, The Hunger Games further blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Perhaps that is the most interesting point of all – for all its fantastical elements, The Hunger Games nevertheless provides an accurate and relevant description of how the media industry functions today.

The Hunger Games does not just tell us a story, it tells us a bit about ourselves and our world.

 


“The Hunger Games” As Moviegoing Experience

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(Warning! This post may contain spoilers for “The Hunger Games.” Proceed with caution.)

It was about halfway through watching the film adaptation of The Hunger Games that I realized just how much of a hypocrite I was.

The movie had been so engrossing that I hadn’t even realized that the filmmakers were employing some of the oldest storytelling sleights of hand. The Capitol citizens, for instance, were designed to look as alien to our culture as possible, in garish costumes and makeup, while the District’s residents are depicted as much more familiar. The latter’s clothing and general appearance, while plain, is neither outlandish nor exotic. The effect is that the audience easily identifies with the oppressed peoples of the Districts (and our protagonist, Katniss) while reviling the strange, foreign Capitol citizens.

As a quick aside, I should mention this post will not be a discussion of the politics or economics of The Hunger Games (though you could find an excellent piece about all that on Slate) — instead, it will be about The Hunger Games as self-reflexive of the moviegoing experience.

Now back to the hypocrisy. Slipping into quick identification with and sympathy for Katniss led naturally to contempt for her Capitol rulers and, especially, the glee with which they reveled in the Hunger Games, despite never having to actually participate themselves. This, of course, doubles perfectly as a description of myself, or any other member of the audience.

The Hunger Games serves the same purpose as the Hunger Games. Or, put another way, moviegoing audiences pay their $10 to laugh and cry at the expense of the characters on the screen in the same way that the Capitol citizens seek emotional stimulation through watching the Games, under Caesar’s guiding commentary. The connection is made even more blatant when Haymitch carefully explains to Katniss and Peeta that the Hunger Games are really just an elaborate show, and advises them on ways to improve their narrative, in order to get their audience emotionally attached to them — and also to attract investors.

In that way, perhaps, the cynical, alcoholic Haymitch stands in for the much-maligned movie critic, both critiquing ‘weak’ films and praising ‘strong’ ones.

If the audience are the Capitol citizens, Haymitch is the film critic, and the Katniss and her District comrades are movies’ hapless characters, caught up in circumstances wholly beyond their control, then the filmmakers are those in the Hunger Games’ control room. Visually, this team is more reminiscent of the District peoples than the Capitol citizens (they are not done up with whacky, neon-colored hairdos, for instance), but their dress is still sufficiently sterile and foreign to signify that they are not quite familiar either.

They exist between the characters (District peoples) and the audience (Capitol citizens), and their actions ultimately control the outcome of the Hunger Games. The fire chases Katniss toward her hunters, the hounds eliminate remaining tributes. Katniss even describes the arrival of the hounds as the “finale,” signaling the film’s climax.

Within this paradigm of The Hunger Games as moviegoing experience, Seneca represents the film’s director. His style marks him as a member of the Capitol, but his role as Gamemaker also associates him with the control room. The people designing the arena’s deadly obstacles (such as the hounds) look to Seneca for approval, and he gives them his guidance and approval, as well as keeping a close eye on the narrative structure of the story (such as suspending, reinstating, and then suspending again the single-victor rule). I suppose that then makes President Snow the dreaded movie executive, with the ultimate power to decide which scripts are eventually made into films and, thus, are allowed to make their way into the popular consciousness. For Seneca’s failure to deliver Snow’s preferred outcome, Seneca is delivered a bowl of poisoned fruit — the poetic equivalent of the old phrase, “You’ll never work in this town again.”

Furthermore, the film continually reminds us that the tributes are being taped, even as they themselves forget it. The cameras are ubiquitous, in the wilderness, in the trees. The Games are intercut with scenes of people watching the tributes on screens all over the nation. Drawing attention to the spectator aspect of the Games reinforces the idea of The Hunger Games as self-reflexive. And, perhaps it was just my imagination, but when Cato at the end threatens to take Peeta down with him and says something along the lines of “I’ll do it, you know,” it seemed to me that he was looking at the camera as he said it, as if speaking directly to the audience.

Cato’s confusion is also striking. In the end, he finally realizes that he has absolutely no control over his life. As a career tribute, Cato was trained from birth to be a killing machine; as a character in a film, Cato was manipulated into performing horrific acts as one of the film’s antagonists. Indeed, all of the film’s characters were designed for the specific purposes of eliciting an emotional response from the audience — notably Rue, the small girl whose death is orchestrated so that we might sympathize with Katniss’ loss and isolation.

This realization makes Cato’s brief moment of self-awareness all the more tragic, as he recognizes the powerlessness of his role and then proceeds to accede to it.

It is that acceptance, of course, that separates Cato from the our protagonist, Katniss, who rebels against the Game’s rules and emerges victorious, albeit having gravely crossed President Snow in the process. Yet this is of little immediate consequence (though it will surely play into the main conflict of the sequels), as the audience can, for now, thrill to the protagonist’s ultimate victory — just as the filmmakers intended.


The Baby Boom and Bust: Demographics and American Entitlements

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“The Social Security program plays an important part in providing for families, children, and older persons in times of stress. But it cannot remain static. Changes in our population, in our working habits, and in our standard of living require constant revision.”

No, this quote is not from 2012 (although one could certainly imagine a contemporary politician calling for Social Security reform with these words). Rather, this is an excerpt from President Kennedy’s signing statement for the Social Security Amendments of 1961. That particular bill amended the Social Security law to, as the Social Security Administration describes, “permit male workers to elect early retirement age 62; to increase minimum benefits payable; to liberalize the benefit payments to aged widow, widower, or surviving dependent parent; and to liberalize the retirement test and eligibility requirements.” (A more detailed description of the bill is also available on the SSA’s website.)

Oh how things have changed.

When President Kennedy signed that bill in 1961, federal spending was at about 18.4 percent of GDP, with a deficit of -0.6 percent. Last year (2011), federal spending was 24.1 percent of GDP, with a deficit of -8.7 percent.

Of course, it is important to recognize that the 2011 budget levels are also the result of the Great Recession. Plummeting tax receipts (as a result of a rapid contraction in GDP and a slow subsequent recovery) and the efforts of the government to stop the freefalling economy (large tax cuts and stimulus packages) resulted in a much bigger deficit. Yet throughout the 2000s (but before the recession began in December 2007), federal spending accounted for around 19 to 20 percent of GDP, with deficits ranging from -1.2 percent (at the low end) to -3.5 percent (at the high end).

In contrast 1961 was the first year in the second longest economic expansion in U.S. history, which lasted from February 1961 to December 1969.

So part of the deficit is cyclical, meaning that it is due to the effects of the economic cycle. The economy in 1961 was expanding, providing more revenues for the government, while the economy of late has been slowly recovering from a complete financial meltdown and high unemployment that has seen tax revenues fall precipitously. The government, by maintaining spending levels, prevented an even larger fall, but also ran up high debts that will need to be paid off once the economic recovery is less fragile. Cyclical deficits are thus temporary. The stimulus package, at around $1 trillion, has been a main contributor to our cyclical deficit. It helped sustain spending at all levels of government, but only in the short term. Once the money appropriated it for it is used up, that’s it. It will not continue creating deficits indefinitely.

Even so, part of the deficit is structural. Unlike cyclical deficits, structural ones will exist whether the economy is expanding or contracting. That is, it is not dependent on the economic cycle. The main structural elements in our current deficit are the Bush tax cuts and entitlement spending. Because the Bush tax cuts were not offset by spending cuts, but rather by spending increases, the debt and deficit ballooned. Indeed, the Bush cuts were accompanied by a huge increase in military spending because of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, as well as the enactment of an expensive prescription drug entitlement that U.S. Comptroller David Walker called “the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s.”

So the structural portion of our deficit is mainly characterized by strong demand for services and weak desire to actually pay for them. Legislators usually face little personal downside to enacting politically popular programs (like Bush’s Medicare expansion), but strong opposition in funding them (which occurs through taxes). The result is that new programs are funded mainly through higher debt. Furthermore, since the Republican Party has effectively abandoned its dedication to balanced budgets in favor of tax cuts at all costs, funding for these programs has actually decreased. The result is an untenable fiscal situation in which high demand for government services is met, but the services are funded through debt.

Now that we’ve established all that, let’s return to Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security, when Kennedy signed the Social Security Amendments of 1961, was about 12.8 percent of all federal outlays and about 2.35 percent of GDP. By last year (2011), those portions had risen to 20.3 percent of federal spending and 4.89 percent — and it is continuing to climb. Medicare is likewise growing at a fairly rapid pace. In 1967 (the year after it was first implemented), Medicare spending was 1.7 percent of the federal budget. In 2011, it was 13.5 percent of the federal budget and 3.25 percent of GDP.

These two programs make up a very large part of the federal government, and they are only set to grow in the future. Why? Well, both are entitlement programs, which means that anyone can claim benefits as long as they meet criteria laid out in the law. The main criteria for both of these particular programs is age. Social Security and Medicare provide pensions and health insurance for elderly Americans, respectively.

Like any government program, these two are funded through taxes, which are taken from American workers. The larger the pool of workers, the greater the economic activity, and the higher the tax revenue. The smaller the pool of retirees and the later people retire, the lower the benefit payments.

The baby boom that followed World War II provided the American economy with a large pool of workers, which boosted the American economy. As the Economist succinctly describes:

Basically, economic growth comes from having more workers, making them more productive or a combination of the two. If a country has fewer workers, productivity has to do all the work, and even then real growth is likely to be slow.

In 1965, a few years after Kennedy expanded Social Security coverage, there were about 4 workers to every 1 retired beneficiary. That had fallen to about 2.9 workers per each beneficiary in 2010, and will fall even further as the baby boomers begin retiring in larger numbers. The elderly population (over 65) will increase by about a third over the next decade. (Though, as an aside, this lower population growth still puts the U.S. ahead of many European nations, which will have to deal with the combination of more drastic population declines and more generous government programs.) At the same time, people are living longer, which increasing the amount of benefits that must be paid out.

Something has to give. Either the future holds higher taxes on a worker population that is shrinking relative to beneficiaries, or retirees will have to take a benefits cut to maintain the current taxation levels, or some combination of the two. Consider also that the growth of Social Security and Medicare as portions of the entire federal government have implications for other government services, as well. The more resources it dedicates toward these two programs, the less it can dedicate to others (like defense). Keep in mind that raising revenue through higher taxes is always very difficult politically and that existing law mandates that Social Security and Medicare benefits must be paid out to those that qualify. So, even if the dedicated payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare fail to cover the program’s expenses, the government must continue to pay out benefits, or change the law.

Of course, both programs are quite popular among Americans (especially among older Americans, who voter often), which makes it very difficult to simply ‘change the law.’ Nevertheless, the graying of America’s population and longer life expectancies necessitate reforms that combine slower benefits growth with greater revenue. Increasing retirement and eligibility ages, paring back benefit increases, and raising new revenue will be the order of the day. Americans should take a serious look at policies to deal with these fiscal realities, like linking Social Security payment increases to the price index instead of the wage index, increasing cost-sharing in Medicare, raising new taxes (perhaps by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire) and eliminating tax expenditures and deductions (like that for mortgage interest).

None of this will be easy. Debate over how to amend Social Security and Medicare will be heated. But better to have that debate now and on our own terms than to ignore it until the effects of a graying population and the bond markets force it upon us.


The Economics of Lent

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My local grocery store’s deli often puts out samples of chicken in hopes that a quick taste test will entice shoppers enough to buy a few wings. The amount of chicken varies, however, from night to night. Some of this may simply be due to the personal preference of the employee behind the counter, but some of it is also due to supply and demand.

Namely, when demand for chicken is high, there is less chicken left to put out as the night winds down. When demand falls, however, there is more chicken to put out. The samples seek to stimulate demand for the chicken, and the sample size, as noted, seems to grow or shrink roughly according to demand. The lower demand, the greater the number of potentially demand-stimulating samples.

On Wednesday, I saw the biggest pile of chicken samples I have yet seen.

Something clearly happened to the demand for chicken, but what? As a Roman Catholic, I knew immediately. Wednesday was the first day of Lent, also known as “Ash Wednesday.” And, seeing as how Catholics refrain from meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all Lenten Fridays, there seemed to be a large fall in the demand for chicken.

Catholics didn’t always refrain from meat just on these specific days. For years, Catholics refrained from eating meat during the entire Lenten season, as well as every Friday during the year. Like many traditions, this started out as a plethora of different preparation practices, before eventually evolving into standardized rules that barred meat but allowed fish. In 851, Pope Nicholas I made meatless Fridays mandatory.

Abstaining from meat on Fridays was, on some level, meant to serve as a sacrificial reminder of Jesus’ death on Good Friday — but many Catholics will also tell you that the meatless day had a dual aim of helping fishermen, especially since many early Christians (including Jesus’ right-hand man and the first pope, Peter) were fishermen. Whether this is apocryphal or not, the effect was the same. Meatless Fridays proved a boon for the fishing industry, as they essentially had a captive market every Friday and for the entire Lenten season.

Yet, things change. The standards were revised by Pope Paul VI in 1966, essentially allowing Catholics to consume meat on non-Lenten Fridays.

That year, according to a column in the Lewiston Daily Sun, the Wall Street Journal ran front-page coverage of the new rule and it’s potential effects, proclaiming: “Fishing industry seems sure to suffer if Pope ends Friday meat ban.” A 1968 study of the decision concluded that the ruling caused a drop in demand for fish. The finding was summed up in a 1993 book called “The Economics of Aquaculture” thusly:

This change had the effect of reducing the demand for various species as some individuals substituted meat for fish. When the Catholic prohibition against eating meat ended in December 1966, the consumption of cod fell by 29.0 thousand pounds. The consumption of large haddock fell by as much as 7.1 thousand pounds after December 1966 when the rules were relaxed.

Another book, “The Marketplace of Christianity,” attempts to place this shift in the context of a shift in the church’s leadership structure “toward meat producing and relatively Catholic nations and away from fish producing and relatively non-Catholic nations.”

Of course, one should also consider the cultural stimulus the fishing industry derives from Catholic abstinence from meat. The biggest example is probably the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve and, to a lesser extent, the fish fry. Such traditions are embedded in the Catholic culture (likely as a result of the abstinence from meat) and, while they may not have offset the drop in demand from the 1966 decree, have at least provided a seasonal boost.

Even religious laws have economic effects. Just some food for thought.


The New Republican Dream

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Once upon a time, the Republican Party in America stood for balanced budgets, efficient government, and private enterprise. No more. To be sure, you will still hear many Republican candidates give lip service to such ideals, but their actions in office tell quite a different story. The GOP of today does not stand so much for small government as it does for no government at all, and it hopes to achieve this new American Dream through a systematic wrecking of the nation’s finances.

But before I delve into the details, I should first say that I want the Republican Party to succeed. Not the Republican Party of today, of course. I would prefer not to ruin the lives of countless Americans just to prove an ideological point. Rather, I would like to see the party welcome back the pragmatic centrists it has expelled — the Eisenhower and Rockefeller Republicans. The GOP seems to have wholly abandoned the legacy of the first post-New Deal Republican president. With a unified government (the presidency and both houses of Congress controlled by Republicans), many rightwingers wanted to see President Eisenhower attempt to roll back the New Deal. Instead, he launched a massive infrastructure project (the interstate highway system). A true believer in balanced budgets, he actually sought to pay for his initiatives by cutting military spending and keeping tax rates at levels that would sustain his administration’s expenditures.

The heart of Old Republican dogma — the balanced budget — predates Ike. Actually, it was not exclusively Republican — it was the general consensus, before John Maynard Keynes revolutionized economic theory and described how running deficits during recessions (and surpluses during booms) could help smooth out economic cycles. Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt (in the earlier part of his presidency) both sought to balance their budgets, as did Coolidge and Harding before them. Tax cuts were good, if they could get them, but secondary to managing the nation’s finances responsibly. Put another way, when faced with a choice of either chronic deficits or a balanced budget, members of the Old GOP chose the latter.

Things started to change in the late 1970s, however. In California, citizens passed a ballot initiative, Proposition 13, that made it virtually impossible to raise taxes. The Reagan revolution added to the momentum, as the president called for and received massive tax cut legislation. One would (rightfully) conclude that such large tax cuts, even if spending remained flat, would result in huge deficits and increasing debt. But emerging New Republican orthodoxy placed less emphasis on balancing budgets and maintaining fiscal responsibility than at cutting the size of government and slashing taxes, at all costs.

The argument was that balancing budgets would necessarily follow cutting taxes. At a 1980 debate, Reagan framed it like this: “Well, if you’ve got a kid that’s extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker.”

The problem is, drastic tax reductions necessitate similar spending decreases to balance budgets. Although some revenue from the cut can be recouped thanks to increased economic activity, the ultimate effect is a net loss of revenue. (This economic consensus — that tax cuts do not “pay for themselves” — stands in stark contrast to the talking points of many GOP politicians). A huge loss of revenue, when coupled with the fact that any sizable cuts would necessarily affect politically popular programs like Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending, leads to an untenable situation in which tax cuts are not followed by spending cuts.

Whereas American appetite for tax cuts is voracious, neither citizens nor politicians have had much appetite for cutting programs that comprise the bulk of U.S. spending: Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and defense spending. To the contrary, spending in these areas has trended upward while taxes have trended down. Reagan, for instance, ramped up military spending to bankrupt the Soviet Union while simultaneously slashing income tax rates. The result was huge, chronic deficits, and the Reagan Administration subsequently signed off on numerous tax increases. In fact, the Reagan Administration presided over largest peacetime tax increases in American history, as well as a tax reform that broadened the tax base and removed many deductions from the tax code, effectively raising revenue. The George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton Administrations similarly increased taxes and cut spending. These actions were driven by the very real need to address budgetary issues.

As this graph from Wonkblog shows, spending cuts were dominant in the Bush and Clinton deficit reduction packages (and were likely made easier due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War).

Today, however, New Republican dogma is to avoid any and all tax increases. Republican candidates clamor to take tax activist Grover Norquist’s “no tax pledge,” effectively tying their hands once in office. Break the pledge, and prepare to be bludgeoned by political adversaries in your next campaign. This, of course, sets the stage for a frozen Congress — how can you hope to govern if one side of the aisle is completely unwilling to yield any ground?

Note that every  Republican presidential candidate in a 2012 debate indicated they would walk away from a debt deal that cut spending $10 for every $1 tax increase. Now read this, from the Economist:

Put simply, no fiscal consolidation that the IMF has judged to be successful relied on public spending cuts for more than 83% of its impact. In successful fiscal consolidations, tax rises accounted for between 17% and 33% of deficit-reduction measures.

Deficit reduction is generally more successful when spending cuts are more numerous than tax increases. Reducing the deficit wholly through spending cuts is unprecedented, not to mention impossible, politically. There is a reason why Social Security, Medicare, and defense are known as “third rails” — you touch them, you die. Even were it possible, it is not clear that such a solution would be desirable or advisable. And, indeed, polls have shown that large majorities of Americans recognize the need for both tax increases and spending cuts.

Still, even tax increases to help balance the budget are anathema to the New GOP. Their primary goal, despite what they might say, is not to get America’s fiscal house in order. It is, in Grover Norquist’s words, to get government so small that you can “strangle it in a bathtub.” And to do this, they have employed a strategy known as “starving the beast” — cutting revenues to force a budgetary crisis, and then demanding that tax increases play little to no role in the fiscal consolidation.

This is the party that wants to claim the mantle of ‘fiscal responsibility.’

Three words: I like Ike.


Church, State, and Contraceptives

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Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput recently described the Obama Administration’s move to ensure access to birth control for women as both “dangerous” and “unprecedented.” Fortunately, neither of these charges is true.

The ruling in question requires employers to offer insurance plans that cover the cost of contraceptives. Such laws already exist in 28 states, and have been upheld by state courts. It would appear that there is a very clear precedent for the “unprecedented.” These states’ experiences also reveal that the fear of Catholic-affiliated universities and hospitals suddenly dropping employee health coverage in order to avoid providing contraceptives is unfounded.

Archbishop Chaput also argues that this decision undermines the Constitution by forcing Catholics to “violate our consciences.” But such action is not necessarily unconstitutional. After all, Catholic taxpayer dollars continue to fund the death penalty, an act that likewise violates the Catholic conscience, according to the Vatican. Yet the death penalty is undeniably constitutional.

Furthermore, the archdiocese does not object when the terms involve violating other people’s consciences. It has not come out against the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, despite the fact that many Americans feel it violates the Constitutional protections of the Establishment Clause. And just last fall, the Pittsburgh Archdiocese sought to use tuition assistance as leverage to convince parents to lobby the state legislature in favor of a school voucher bill. They eagerly supported this bill, ignoring that it explicitly violates Article 3, Section 15 of the Pennsylvania Constitution by providing funds for religious schools.

Also, one should keep in mind that the Obama Administration’s decision does not require any woman to violate her conscience. It does not force anyone to take contraceptives. Rather, it simply makes them more accessible by offering to cover the cost. Contraceptives, it should be noted, is one of the most effective ways to reduce the abortion rate because it addresses a key underlying cause of abortions: unintended pregnancies. It also has additional health benefits, such as reducing the risk of cancer, and is also widely accepted by Catholic Americans. Almost all sexually active Catholic American women use contraceptives, and a solid 58 percent of Catholics Americans believe health insurance should cover contraception.

Finally, it is important to remember that churches, with a specifically religious mission, are exempt from this mandate. The Catholic-affiliated institutions that are not exempt have secular aims, such as health care or education. That they employ and serve people of all different faiths underlines this fact.

With all this in mind, one can probably think of many ways to describe the Obama Administration’s recent ruling on contraceptive coverage – but “dangerous” and “unprecedented” are not two of them.


Governor Corbett Wrong on Food Stamps

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In Miguel de Cervantes’ classic novel, “Don Quixote,” the titular character rides off into battle against several windmills he believes to be giant beasts. His hapless sidekick Sancho Panza watches helplessly as the crusader launches his ferocious assault on imagined monsters.

Similar images come to mind when discussing Governor Corbett’s new policy regarding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps. The Corbett Administration recently announced that it would bar people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings or other assets (home, retirement benefits, and one car not included) from collecting food stamps. A higher limit would be set for seniors. This was all done under the guise of clamping down on fraud.

Yet a closer examination reveals these vague claims of fraud to be more akin to Quixote’s imaginary monsters than to any real threat to taxpayers. A Department of Agriculture report on how well the states administered their food stamps program shows that no fraud claims were established in 2010. In fact, the costs of agency errors far exceeded that of non-existent fraud, raising the question of whether an asset test could have unforeseen costs. It is widely accepted – except, of course, by the Corbett Administration – that the additional training, paperwork and document verification accompanying this policy change will mean higher administrative costs. An increase in agency errors resulting from the added bureaucracy could have a similar effect.

But the cost is not only monetary. Food stamp usage has increased as a result of the Great Recession and its aftermath, which dislocated workers and wreaked havoc on families’ finances. Yet putting a limit on the amount of savings and assets one can hold punishes people that choose to save for the future, encouraging them instead to deplete their reserves.

The Corbett Administration claims this will stop people from taking advantage of the system. But food stamps are already limited to those with low incomes, and food stamp payments are low enough only to help people, not to provide for them entirely. Pennsylvania ranks in the bottom tenth of the nation as far as average state food stamp payment amounts go – below even Texas. The average monthly benefit for a Pennsylvania household ($262.61 in 2010) would only go so far in covering that average household’s grocery bill. The Department of Agriculture’s estimates that monthly food costs for a family of four range from around $550 to $800 per month, depending on how old the children are. And those estimates are for the spending plans it labels “thrifty” and “low-cost.”

Losing such aid would hurt not only the recipients, but businesses and the economy as well. Food stamps help prop up demand, preserving jobs in grocery stores and the trucking and warehouse services they employ. The spending done by workers in those preserved jobs, in turn, ripples through the economy. Moreover, food stamps are the most effective form of economic stimulus, since they are given to cash-strapped individuals who usually spend them immediately. A Moody’s Analytics study found that food stamps generated $1.73 for every dollar spent.

So one could be excused for feeling a bit like Sancho Panza as he watches his leader gallop off full-speed at a windmill. Perhaps Quixote truly believes in the imaginary beasts he seeks to slay, or perhaps he has some inkling of the absurdity of his quest. No matter – the result is the same.


The Ron Paul Presidency You Will Never See

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What do the following have in common?

  • Limits on the amount of money corporations can spend on political candidates
  • Government regulations and testing to make sure children’s toys are not contaminated with lead
  • Environmental Protection Agency standards ensuring clean water
  • Laws protecting workers against sexual harassment in the workplace
  • Laws protecting whistleblowing offshore oil workers from retaliatory firing
  • Public schools

The answer? These are all things Ron Paul opposes.

Before I go any further, let me make one thing clear: I respect Ron Paul personally. I think it is wonderful that he has remained true to his principles, and not conveniently changed his views for political gain. I admire his ability to unflinchingly take unpopular stands and break rank with his nominal party (I say “nominal” because although Paul is technically a Republican, it would be more accurate to describe him as a Libertarian). I like that he has brought obscure economic ideas into the public spotlight for debate. And, not for nothing, he also seems to me to be a genuinely honest guy.

So for that, I respect him. Of course, I also think he is generally unelectable and would make an awful president. This is the point at which I expect some people will stop reading and immediately begin pondering ways to decry this post as a vast conspiracy of big business, big government, and the media. But before that happens, let me just ask that this post be judged on its accuracy, rather than any emotional attachments to Paul’s candidacy.

Bizarrely, some Ron Paul supporters point to the fact that Paul was elected to Congress as evidence of his electability, regardless of the fact that he represents a district of only 651,619 Texans. To put that into perspective, that is about 0.2 percent of the United States population.

A more common claim is that his second and third place finishes in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively, support his electability. Of course, Rick Santorum finished second (or first, perhaps) in Iowa, but I have yet to hear someone tell me with a straight face that they think Santorum is electable, largely for the same reason that I think Ron Paul is unelectable: once the public takes Paul’s views to their logical conclusions, they will shy away.

Perhaps the Santorum comparison is unfair. After all, Rick Santorum’s views are extreme and out of touch with public opinion. Banning abortion under any and all circumstances? Bombing Iran? That’s crazy talk. Any Paul supporter will tell you that he wants to pursue commonsense reforms, like rolling back our overreaching military and cutting a bloated federal government.

Things start to break down when the discussion goes beyond these generalities into specifics. Paul’s libertarian utopianism envisions a country in which private industry self-regulates itself at almost every turn. Should the government ensure that citizens have clean drinking water? Or that every child has access to a public education? Most Americans think so, even if they advocate some sort of reform of the current system. But Paul eschews such things. This is an ideology based not in small, efficient government — but, rather, in no government (or, as close to no government as you can get).

The problem is that following his positions to their conclusions produce grim results in the real world. Unemployment benefits would end for thousands of people, causing a large contraction in demand in the economy, helping derail a fragile economy and causing greater hardship for the unemployed. Failure to raise the debt ceiling (an action against which Paul voted) would have caused enormous turmoil, and the first ever American default, exacerbating, rather than alleviating, the current economic situation. As it happened, the near-failure caused the first ever downgrade in America’s credit rating.

Many Americans agree that the Pentagon should share the sacrifice of spending cuts, but Paul’s advocacy of large-scale shuttering of overseas military bases is dangerously naive. Despite the harsh lesson America has learned about its own limitations over the past decade, it remains the global hegemon, and a stabilizing force. An Economist article notes the possible unintended consequences of military cutbacks in Europe:

The thinking behind the “rebalancing” looks flawed for several reasons. The first is that far from being on oasis of stability, EUCOM’s 51-country region covers some pretty flammable trouble spots, among them Georgia’s border with Russia, Kosovo’s border with Serbia and Turkey’s border with Iraq and Syria. Israel is also within EUCOM. There are less conventional security threats too, from terrorists moving between safe havens to cyber attacks.

The second is that—quite apart from possible flashpoints in its own region—Europe is closer to many of the fights that American forces may be committed to in the future than bases in the United States.

…

The third is that the new strategy places great emphasis on military-to-military co-operation with other countries. The best way of enhancing that is for American soldiers to train with their counterparts from other nations. General Hertling says that after training, the command’s second priority is to enter into effective partnerships with the many different countries in its region. “By sharing ideas, tactics and procedures,” he says, “you build trust with partners.” During the final readiness exercise before deployment to Afghanistan, the 172nd trained with troops from nine other countries, the same ones, notes the general, whom they would later find themselves fighting alongside.

And that article is talking about President Obama’s comparatively modest rebalancing of American forces. Paul advocates a much larger drawdown, which would inevitably gut NATO, and further weaken our military capacity and lessen global stability.

The thing is, people can get behind the generalities of his platform. They (rightly) do not think we should be overreaching in two simultaneous ground wars. But, more than that, I think people can get behind the Ron Paul persona. Americans love to identify with the underdog and the straight-talker, and Paul has both in spades. His unpolished speaking style has a genuine, endearing feel to it that many Americans take to heart. He’s that kindly old gentleman that could well be your own uncle (albeit, your slightly crazy old uncle).

And, indeed, polls of Republican primary voters show Paul ranks highly in questions about his personal character and human interactions. Voters say he stands up for what he believes in and is honest, and that counts for a something when faith in government (and Congress in particular) has fallen to new lows. Indeed, right now he is polling fairly well among independents.

But throw him in the general election and that will all change. His views will not only be revealed as outside the mainstream, but will also leave him open to attacks from both the right (on defense and social issues) and the left (on economic and labor issues). President Obama’s current edge in the polls when hypothetically matched against Paul would quickly expand.

Yet, for a moment, let us imagine a world in which Ron Paul wins the nomination and the presidency. What then? Well, as president, he would have little control over enacting his particular agenda and would face a Congress that has absolutely no interest in moving his legislation. The right would bristle against his demobilization, while the left would staunchly oppose gutting entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. His average man persona would be of no help in dealing with Washington’s power brokers.

You thought the gridlock of the past few years has been bad? A Paul presidency would be a million times worse.

Economic liberalization and free trade agreements, which one might hope for from a libertarian candidate, would languish. This seems counter-intuitive, considering Paul’s ideology, but his voting record in Congress (against free trade agreements) shows that the strictures of his views lead him to the belief that free trade results from less government intervention, not from agreements with foreign nations. While wonderful in theory, this, of course, is utterly unrealistic.

Stymied by Congress and his own beliefs, Paul’s biggest effect would be through his appointive and veto powers, the latter of which he would undoubtedly use with relish.  Congress, not up to the task of overriding his vetoes, would sit by helplessly as little to nothing becomes law. The de-stimulative effect of vetoed federal spending would shrink the economy (sorry, no more unemployment benefits for you, never mind that your job search keeps turning up nothing), possibly even pulling it into a double-dip recession, like the austerity-laden Europeans. Courts and federal agencies would be filled with people that believe the job they are being paid to do should not exist in the first place, and that the federal government has little role in anything at all. So, in sum, little would get done, but the effects would be long-ranging.

I appreciate Ron Paul’s character, his dedication, and his role in bringing alternative economic ideas to the public debate (no matter how incorrect I believe that they are). All of that makes him a man that I would love to sit down and have a nice, pleasant dinner with. What it does not make him is a good president.


All Politics is Local: The Shape of Narberth

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Turn off of Haverford Ave. in Narberth, PA onto Avon Rd., and you may not realize you have just stepped over the invisible boundary dividing the borough from Lower Merion Township. Surprised, you think that this could not possibly be the case! The borough lies to the north, south, and west of you — yet where you currently stand is a peninsula of Lower Merion, surrounded on three sides by a sea of Narberth (for the sake of making this point, we will conveniently ignore the fact that it is Narberth that is the island within the sea of Lower Merion).

Map of Narberth

Looking at a map of Narberth makes it clear: it appears as if a wedge has been removed from the eastern side of the borough. Why is this?

Well, as the old saying goes, “All politics is local” — and, in this case (it would seem), personal. As I was told the other day by Narberth Borough Manager Bill Martin, the Narberth residents lobbying for a separate borough and drawing up the maps delineating their town’s boundaries simply did not like the gentleman who lived in the area in question. So when the time came, they just drew him out of the town.

A humorous story, yes. But also a lesson to those who prefer to ignore history and politics — they directly affect your everyday life, right up to something as simple as your mailing address.