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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (23554)	10/21/2007 7:54:33 PM
From: sandintoes	Respond to of 71588

Right...good article.

To: calgal who wrote (23554)	1/1/2008 8:32:03 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Drug Use and the Candidates Barack Obama might have used drugs. So have a lot of other people. (Clinton) BY STANTON PEELE Tuesday, January 1, 2008 12:01 a.m. EST In his 1996 autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," presidential candidate Barack Obama admitted using alcohol and drugs in high school. He was unusually frank compared to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush--to name just two politicians reputed to have used drugs. Mr. Obama raised the issue again in November in Manchester, N.H. In response to a request by Central High School's principal that he reveal his "human side," he discussed his high school years in Hawaii: "I was kind of a goof-off. . . . There were times when I got into drinking and experimented with drugs." He added that he had righted himself to become a "grind" by the end of college. Then an influential New Hampshire Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter, Bill Shaheen, said Mr. Obama's drug use made him vulnerable to attacks from Republicans. Mr. Shaheen quickly retracted his remarks, but voter attention was directed to the candidate's teen behavior just weeks before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary. Are there many other prominent people who used illicit substances when young? Messrs. Bush and Clinton are likely only the tip of the iceberg. According to the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Survey, in 2007 about half of high school seniors had used an illegal drug. More than seven of 10 seniors had consumed alcohol, and 55% had been drunk. In fact, 44% drank alcohol in the past month. These figures rise and fall over the years: In 1980, the spring of Mr. Obama's 18th year, two-thirds of seniors had used an illicit drug and more than 70% had consumed alcohol in the past month. There has been massive drug and underage alcohol use by Americans over the years--more than 110 million Americans, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, have used illicit drugs. Yet the overwhelming majority of them--like Messrs. Bush, Clinton and Obama--have grown up to be productive citizens. Some believe there's no need to know about their youthful misconduct. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney takes this one step further. "It's just not a good idea," he said, "for people running for president of the United States, who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people, to talk about their personal failings while they were kids, because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking, 'Well I can do that too.'" Well, this is not the whole story. Neural research indicates that adolescent brains program kids to try risky behaviors. It is unlikely we will soon prevent large numbers of teens from drinking and using drugs. Yet, subtracting the approximately 20 million current drug users from the 110 million plus people who once used, almost 100 million Americans have left drugs behind. Perhaps it can be good for young people to learn that as they mature they can, and will, straighten out and fly right? This is the opposite of the approach of nearly all school drug education programs. Here the logic is to troop in people who have ruined their lives by their drug use and drinking, as object lessons in the evils of sin. But there are reasons to believe that kids reject negative messages from figures like these, and that purely scare tactics don't work. Research on effective drug resistance programs finds that the best ways to prevent substance abuse are for kids to develop skills, feel good about themselves, have positive peers, and look forward to their futures. From this perspective, Mr. Obama's message that he briefly stumbled but then righted himself to achieve success may be just what the doctor ordered. Mr. Peele is a psychologist and addiction expert, and the author of "Addiction-Proof Your Child" (Three Rivers Press, 2007). opinionjournal.com

To: calgal who wrote (23554)	1/11/2008 11:51:51 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

State of the Living Dead January 12, 2008 Arnold Schwarzenegger said in an address this week that California must end its "binge and purge" budget process -- his way of kicking off a binge worthy of Imperial Rome in its decadent late period. Yep: As his state reels from one of its recurrent fiscal crises, the Governor is making some headway on his "universal" health-care plan. California is carrying a $14 billion budget deficit and Mr. Schwarzenegger is suggesting across-the-board spending cuts. So perhaps it's unwise to introduce a new government entitlement that costs north of $14.4 billion a year. But then, you have to understand the Kremlinology of liberal health-care reform: This effort has as much to do with politics as public policy. Mr. Schwarzenegger devoted more than a year to health feuding with Sacramento. He strafed his own party for opposing tax increases. Meanwhile, many Democrats (and most labor unions) fought the Governor's agenda because the subsidies weren't extravagant enough. Desperate, the Governor brokered a last-minute bargain with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez in December. Thus Mr. Schwarzenegger's ambitions didn't die -- but for now, maybe call them the living dead. The negotiators rushed to patch together a policy framework before 2007 ended, but they didn't have the votes to actually pay for it. A two-thirds majority in the state legislature is required for tax increases, and Mr. Schwarzenegger alienated the Republicans he needed. So if this scheme is to become reality, new taxes on tobacco, hospitals and business must be ratified by voters in a November ballot initiative. Assuming that the bill reaches Mr. Schwarzenegger's desk at all. His plan may hit a wall in the state Senate, where President Pro Tem Don Perata, a Democrat, has qualms about the plan's cost in the midst of a budget meltdown. Apparently, Mr. Perata is one of the few adults in Sacramento. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his collaborators insist their proposal is revenue neutral and requires no new spending after the start-up costs. But the numbers are flimsy. When the bill moved out of the Assembly hopper, the financing fine print remained unresolved and legislators were practically working off the back of an envelope. Mr. Perata is leery of potential consequences for the state's general fund. With good reason -- these health plans are always more expensive than predicted. But that's what happens with governance via political ego. Having invested himself so fully in the congratulations for "doing something" about health care, Mr. Schwarzenegger wanted a plan, anything to claim victory. He's spinning it as "post-partisan" pragmatism. At least he's not calling it a "free market" solution, as did Mitt Romney after he pioneered a similar plan. Like Massachusetts, Mr. Schwarzenegger's program is built around the "individual mandate," which requires that everyone acquire insurance or else pay penalties. While bumping up subsidies for the uninsured, California would also lay down more severe insurance regulations, instituting price controls and compelling companies to offer policies to all applicants without regard to age or health condition. Such mandates have all but devastated the insurance markets in every other state where they've been tried, but then all this is the triumph of politics over experience anyway. In addition to hiking state levies on cigarettes to $1.75 a pack and imposing a 4% tax on hospital revenues, there are new taxes on business. Companies must either spend a certain amount on covering their employees or pay a tax sliding between 1% and 6.5%, depending on the size of the payroll. If Mr. Perata is watching out for his state's bottom line, such taxes may drive businesses to Nevada or Arizona -- or simply lead them to dump their health-care liabilities on the state and pay the 6.5%. None of this is what California's cooling economy needs -- to say nothing of the damage that such a plan would do to the insurance markets, or the national precedent it would set. Mr. Perata supports comprehensive health reform but seems to be leaning toward prioritizing the budget deficit. If Mr. Schwarzenegger's stunt collapses only because of fiscal reality, that's good enough. online.wsj.com