Author: SacBee — Opinion

Peter Schrag

After a week of media reintroductions, we now know that we have at least one moderate Republican running for governor, and that’s Jerry Brown.

No new taxes, he promises, no driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, downsize government, grow business, promote “cutting-edge environmental protections.”

With the possible exception of Senate candidate Tom Campbell, who’s more of a libertarian than a Republican, Brown may in fact be the only moderate Republican running for any major office anywhere in this half of the country.

To those of us who have watched Brown over the past 30-plus years – as governor in 1975-83, three-time candidate for president, candidate for the Senate, chairman of the California Democratic Party, mayor of Oakland, and attorney general – there have always been two constants about Brown.

One is his uncanny ability to reinvent himself. As governor in 1978, he fought hard to stop the passage of Proposition 13. Then, when it passed, he called himself a born-again tax cutter, embraced it, got the endorsement of Proposition 13 author Howard Jarvis and won re-election by a landslide.

A decade later, when he returned from his sojourn with Mother Teresa washing the feet of lepers in Calcutta, he declared that he’d learned to serve suffering humanity and (in 1989) leaped into the race for Democratic Party chairman, which made him the party’s chief fundraiser. Then, two years later, expressing his disgust with the influence of money on politics, he quit. Still later, he briefly called himself an independent, then returned to the Democratic Party.

The other constant is that he’s always been one of the most interesting politicians around – not just the most erudite, an attribute he makes little effort to conceal, but one of the smartest. That’s been both an asset and, when his preacher-didact got the better of him, a considerable liability. In The Bee, former editorial cartoonist Dennis Renault liked to portray him as a Mouseketeer.

When his sister Kathleen ran for governor in 1994, she portrayed herself as a “different shade of brown.”

Jerry Brown may have been prophetically correct when, as governor 30 years ago, he sermonized about the virtues of smallness, the “era of limits” and the need to lower expectations. Even then, he sometimes sounded half Republican.

But when his administration started to throttle down the big public programs for which his governor-father became famous, highway construction in particular, there was an uproar. The highway lobby excoriated his Department of Transportation Director, Adriana Gianturco, as the “giant turkey.”

It seems fairly certain that most of that stuff is behind Brown: It’s not likely that he will again appoint a Jane Fonda to the California Arts Council or name a person without judicial experience like Rose Bird as chief justice.

But his intuitive aversion to grandiosity, maybe nurtured in his formative years in the Jesuit seminary, maybe learned from models and friends like the priest and cultural critic Ivan Illich and the British economist E.F. Schumacher, author of a volume aptly titled “Small Is Beautiful,” may serve him well in this new age. It sometimes seemed out of tune in the 1970s and 1980s; it seems right on key now.

But if the 2010 model Jerry Brown has learned (as he says) to be more focused and patient, has he also unlearned his irreverent originality and lost the creative impulses that made him so interesting?

Some of the results of the originality, like his unorthodox appointments and his stillborn state space program, earned him the “Governor Moonbeam” title that bedevils him to this day, long after Chicago columnist Mike Royko, who stuck him with the label, apologized for it. But some, like the state’s farm labor law, Political Reform Act of 1974 that created the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission and which Brown wrote as he was running for governor in 1974, and the California Conservation Corps, were major innovations, never perfect, but better than what came before.

In his announcement last week, Brown said “we need someone with an insider’s knowledge, but an outsider’s mind.” Despite his spells of inattention as governor, he probably once had the “insider’s knowledge.” Whether it’s still pertinent given today’s divisive political climate is anyone’s guess.

And although there’s no way to know whether he still has the outsider’s mind, everything we’ve so far heard from the candidates in this campaign indicates that he may still have more of both than anyone else in, or running for, high office. The last real Democrat in the Governor’s Office was Jerry’s father, Pat Brown. During his own eight years, Jerry (then frequently known as “Junior” in the Capitol) worked hard, and with considerable success, not to be like him. It’s good to have someone running as a moderate Republican this year. It’s too bad there isn’t a real Democrat.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s caucus is nervous.

It’s up to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to keep health care reform alive.

President Barack Obama is taking care of the outside game. Showing a passion that has been missing for too long, he’s out on the stump urging Americans to demand an up-or-down vote from Congress.

Pelosi is in charge of the inside game – to make sure that vote is a yes. The San Francisco Democrat will need to call on all her vaunted vote-corralling skills and to dip into the goodwill she has built over the years. Her legacy as speaker hangs in the balance.

Last November, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders herded the House to approve a health care bill 220-215, with only two votes to spare and the support of a lone Republican.

Her task now might be even tougher. She must persuade her rank-and-file to swallow the Senate version of the health care bill – and take it on faith that any objections will be mollified in a subsequent “reconciliation” bill they haven’t yet seen.

And her caucus is antsy. Some don’t trust the Senate. Anti-abortion Democrats are angry that the Senate bill includes less-restrictive abortion language than the House bill. Liberals are upset that the Senate measure doesn’t include a stronger government-overseen health plan to compete with private insurers.

Those issues, however, are sidelights compared with the essentials of extending coverage to millions of Americans, reining in insurance companies and starting to get health care costs under control.

Every House seat is on the November ballot, so many who are seeking re-election are hypersensitive to any vote that could hurt their prospects. They heard the public outrage over the “Cornhusker Kickback,” “Louisiana Purchase” and other special goodies in the Senate bill. They are only too aware that the health care bill is unpopular with a majority of the public – (a 10-percentage-point gap in the RealClearPolitics average of nine polls conducted last month).

The typical inside-the- Beltway speculation about whether Pelosi can pull off the vote is reaching a fever pitch. “Pelosi’s grip on House slips” Politico headlined a report Tuesday about the speaker being rebuffed more often in recent weeks.

Elsewhere, anonymous rank-and-file members are griping about Pelosi’s inner circle of “California liberals” who are in safe, gerrymandered seats and who expect vulnerable Democrats to fall in line.

In a speech Tuesday to the National Association of Counties, Pelosi correctly focused her health care remarks on the bigger picture – how the bill will help the vast majority of Americans.

“We stand at the doorstep of history, ready to realize a centuries-old dream …” she said. “We must have the courage, though, to get the job done.”

She’s right.

Instead of worrying about how a health care vote might play in their campaigns, Democrats should get a backbone. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and it is worth losing an election over.

If Democrats can’t produce a health care bill, many of their supporters will ask with ample justification: “Why does it matter which party is in charge?”

Pelosi needs to seize this moment and show that it does.

Skipping through the Candy Land of the health care bill, one is tempted to hum a few bars of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

What a deal. For deal-makers, that is. Not so much for American taxpayers, who have been misled into thinking the sweetheart deals have been excised.

Not only are the deals still there, but they’re bigger and worser, as the bard gave us permission to say. And the health care “reform” bill is, consequently, more expensive by billions.

Yes, gone (sort of) is the so-called “Cornhusker kickback,” extended to Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson when his 60th vote needed a bit of coaxing. Meaning, Nelson is no longer special. Instead, everyone is. All states now will get their own Cornhusker kickbacks. And everything is beautiful in its own way.

Originally, Nelson had secured 100 percent federal funding for Nebraska’s Medicaid expansion – in perpetuity – among other hidden prizes to benefit locally based insurance companies. When other states complained about the unfair treatment, President Obama and Congress “fixed” it by increasing the federal share of Medicaid to all states through 2017, after which all amounts are supposed to decrease.

Nelson’s deal might have escaped largely unnoticed, if not for his pivotal role on the Senate vote in December. The value of what he originally negotiated for Nebraska – about $100 million – wasn’t that much in the trillion-dollar scheme of things, but the cost of the “fix” runs in the tens of billions, according to a health lobbyist who crunched the numbers for me.

Other sweetheart provisions that remain in the bill include special perks for Florida (“Gatorade”), Louisiana (“The Louisiana Purchase”), Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Utah (“The Frontier States”). There may well be others, and staffers on Capitol Hill, who come to work each day equipped with espresso shooters, magnifying glasses and hair-splitters, are sifting through the stacks of verbiage.

Wearily, one might concede that this is, well, politics as usual. But weren’t we supposed to be finished with backroom deals? Whither the transparency of the Promised Land?

During last month’s health care summit, Sen. John McCain had the audacity to raise – “with respect” – the specter of opaque and “unsavory” deal making, whereupon Obama reminded his former presidential foe that the campaign was over. Which isn’t exactly true, of course, but point taken.

The effort to push any health care bill through Congress is relentless, no matter how many Americans oppose it. All reasons are known and understood, at least politically. But taunting comprehension is how any member of Congress can view his reflection while carving out expensive deals instead of seeking every possible way to cut costs and reduce the likelihood of crippling taxes. It’s not as though any of this were free.

To his credit, Obama conceded McCain’s point in a post-summit letter to Congress, noting that some provisions had been added to the legislation that shouldn’t have been. His own proposal does not include the Medicare Advantage provision mentioned by McCain that allowed extra benefits for Florida, as well as other states. The president also mentioned that his plan eliminates the Nebraska yum-yum (not his term), “replacing it with additional federal financing to all states for the expansion of Medicaid.”

More fair? Sure, but at mind-boggling cost to taxpayers. To correct a $100 million mistake, we’ll spend tens of billions instead.

Throughout the health care process, the Democrats’ modus operandi has been to offer a smarmy deal and then, when caught, to double down rather than correct course. The proposed tax on “Cadillac” insurance policies to help defray costs is another case in point. Pushed by the president, and initially passed by the Senate, the tax was broadly viewed as an effective way to bend the cost curve down. But then labor unions came knocking and everyone caved. The tax will be postponed until 2018.

And the cost of the union compromise? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the original Cadillac tax would have saved the Treasury $149 billion between 2013 and 2019. Under the postponed tax, the savings will likely plunge to just $65 billion, or a net loss to the Treasury of $84 billion.

Regardless of what the CBO reports in the coming days on the current legislation, no one can claim the bill is as lean as it could be. A spoonful of sugar may indeed help the medicine go down, but even King Kandy and the Gingerbread People can choke on too many sweets.

Kathleen Parker is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group.

As your mother may have told you, you are known by the company you keep.

The same applies to politicians. The public can learn a great deal about a politician by the donors who give him or her money.

But voters trying to track politics in Sacramento County will have a hard time. Not surprisingly, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors doesn’t care to make it easy.

The state of California, and several cities including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Sacramento, post donations to candidates and incumbents online in searchable form.

Sacramento supervisors refuse to make campaign donations available on the county’s Web site.

The Voter Registration and Elections Department has requested money to upgrade its site for years.

The Bee’s county government reporter, Robert Lewis, reported that the cost would be modest, perhaps $50,000. But as Lewis noted, an electronic system also would save labor costs. County workers spent 388 hours handling paper versions of the campaign finance statements in 2008.

It’s not that they don’t raise money. Supervisor Roger Dickinson, hoping to win a state Assembly seat, raised $102,000 in his last run for the board in 2006. Susan Peters raised $163,000 in 2008.

It is way past time that the Board of Supervisors enter the 21st century, check out these newfangled machines called computers and discover the Internet.

The board might find that there is public benefit by using the Internet to let a little sun shine on the way they do business. The public deserves no less.

Carl Cohn

We all enjoyed the popular 1980s TV series in which the fictional and lovable middle-schooler Kevin Arnold chronicled the many social and psychological challenges of growing up in the turbulent era of the 1960s.

Like all shows that resonate with popular culture, “The Wonder Years” suggested that the middle-school years are about important rites of social passage that have to do with friendships, first love and self-discovery.

A groundbreaking new study conducted by researchers at EdSource, Stanford University and American Institutes for Research – “Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades” – suggests that those middle years are about much more. For students, the middle grades are a crucial time to gain knowledge and skills needed to enter high school prepared for a college and a career-ready path. The middle grades are the last, best chance to identify students at risk of academic failure and get them back on track in time to succeed in high school.

California school districts have experimented with many ways to organize middle grades. They have opened K-8 schools, grade-7-8 schools and others that run from grades 5 or 6 through grade 8. Many have worked to bolster their focus on “academic rigor” and to ensure that students are engaged in school while they go through the changes of puberty. Educators have argued for these and other approaches based primarily on theories about early adolescent developmental needs. That’s because research or hard evidence about what practices actually affect academic outcomes have not existed.

Until now. The EdSource study systematically analyzed which district and school policies and practices are linked to higher student performance. The researchers surveyed nearly 4,000 California teachers, principals and superintendents about a wide range of middle-grades practices. The 303 schools in the study were from up and down California. The schools were in 195 districts plus six charter management organizations.

The responses were then analyzed against outcomes of 204,000 students on 2009 California Standards Tests in English-language arts and math. The report, perhaps the most comprehensive ever conducted on these critical grades, tells us exactly what is working in California to improve student performance in the middle grades while also dispelling prevalent myths.

The study shows that what matters most in middle school performance is not where a student goes to school or parents’ income, but what happens in the school. Districts and schools with practices that reflect an intense focus on improving middle-grade student outcomes are higher-performing, whether they serve primarily low-income students or primarily middle-income students.

The report indicates that a focus on academic rigor can’t wait until high school, when students wake up to the demands of California’s exit exams. Middle schools that are most effective provide an all-out focus on academics as soon as students enroll. They know which entering students have what kinds of academic challenges and establish individual plans to get struggling students back on track. They monitor the progress of each child and intervene whenever students fall behind. They communicate with parents about the need to be involved and with students about why success in the middle grades is important. Districts hold superintendents, principals and teachers accountable for results through evaluations that focus in part on student outcomes.

What the study did not show was any correlation between grade configuration or organization of teaching and instruction with higher student performance. There may be other good reasons for a district to make particular choices on these issues, but improvements in student outcomes is not one of them. It’s time to refocus the discussion.

The major contribution of this study is that it provides a comprehensive set of actionable, inter- related practices that improve middle-grade student outcomes. Parents can use the study’s information to make sure that the effective practices identified in this report are everyday practices in their child’s school. Parents, educators and policymakers can press to make sure middle grades have their priorities straight and are focused on providing a full-court academic press to help all children achieve.

The findings also tell us to make improved student performance a priority when we evaluate adults.

Most importantly, the study’s findings give middle-grade educators and parents in low-income communities hope. School practice can trump family background when it comes to what makes education in the middle grades work to set students on the path to success. The middle-grade years are phenomenally important.

There is no reason the so-called “wonder years” should be throwaway years for California students.

Reed Hastings

State Sen. Roy Ashburn brought into the open Monday what was known but rarely discussed in political circles – that he is gay.

So long as his sexual orientation did not affect his public duties, most people assumed it was Ashburn’s business. But as often happens, the disclosure was not voluntary. He came into the cross hairs after his arrest on suspicion of drunken driving last week. A Sacramento television station reported he had been at a gay bar before he was pulled over.

Ashburn’s decision to take the wheel of a state car when his blood alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit is extremely troubling. It shows once again that elected leaders too often see themselves as being above the law.

Still, it was difficult to hear the anguish in his voice and not feel something for the man. “I am gay. … Those are the words that had been so difficult for me for so long. But I am gay,” Ashburn said in a radio interview Monday.

He believed he could keep his public and private lives separate. But as he said, when he “broke the law, and put people at risk, that’s different, and so I do owe people an explanation, and so the best way to handle that is to be truthful.”

The Bakersfield Republican is a divorced father of four who consistently opposed gay-rights measures. “My votes reflect the wishes of the people in my district,” Ashburn told Inga Barks of KERN radio. “I have always felt that my faith and allegiance was to the people there in the district, my constituents.”

For Ashburn, being part of the club of elected officials was more important than voting his conscience, and that’s disturbing.

Times are changing, however. Most younger voters simply do not care about sexual orientation. Ashburn could have shown leadership by trying to change the minds of others. He never gave his constituents the chance.

Ashburn set himself up to be exposed, especially when he led a rally against same-sex marriage. Still, “outing” is ugly. People ought to be able to reveal or not reveal the most personal things about themselves.

Ashburn will leave the Legislature this year. If he has personal demons, he can face them in private. Or, once out of politics, he could become an advocate. That’s his decision, as it should be.

Re “Redistricting effort misguided, costly” (Viewpoints, March 2): First, let’s put all of our cards on the table. I am a partisan Republican who has worked for GOP legislators engaged in the redistricting process in the Legislature. Steve Maviglio is a Democratic partisan whose recent op-ed completely ignores the partisan interest the Democrat majority has in dissolving the Citizens Redistricting Commission voters approved as part of Proposition 11 in November 2008.

So in the interest of full disclosure, Republicans have an interest in preserving the Citizens Commission. As the minority party, it is better to have neutral commissioners redraw districts than majority Democrats. The majority party is much more inclined to protect its majority than it is to work with the minority in the redistricting process. Self-preservation is human nature.

So what about Maviglio’s complaints? He notes that the pool of potential commissioners is mostly Caucasian. So what? Are Caucasians incapable of making rational decisions? No. This is a political argument advanced to try to engage minority groups in the cause to overturn Proposition 11.

He claims partisan groups encouraged people to apply to the commission. True. And it resulted in a nearly equal number of Republicans and Democrats applying. This exactly matches what the final commission numbers will be – five Democrats and five Republicans. Does it leave out those who decline to state a party when they register to vote? No. Nearly 4,500 independents and minor-party applicants seek a spot on the commission. Surely there are four qualified people in that pool.

He complains that former Assemblyman Larry Bowler, R-Elk Grove, and other partisans applied to the commission. Who cares? There are strong safeguards against partisan ringers getting onto the Citizens Commission. Democratic and Republican leaders of the Legislature will be able to strike as many as 24 people from the final pool of 60 potential commissioners.

And finally, Maviglio complains about the cost of the recruitment of nearly 31,000 applications to the commission. If there had been no promotion of this effort, I fear how few applications would have come in. While criticism of pencils and refrigerator magnets is legitimate, we have to admire an effort that drew 26,000 legitimate applicants to the most significant exercise of representative democracy ever contemplated in California.

It should be clear why Maviglio is engaged in this public relations effort to undermine Proposition 11. He is doing it for his own political purposes.

California school districts are in a difficult position. With the downturn in the economy and chronic state budget deficits, they have taken cuts over the past five years. Any “easy” reductions and use of one-time funds have been exhausted.

The dire budget situation and choices in the 44,000-student Sacramento City Unified district are an example – and, unfortunately, not unique.

From 2002 through 2009, Sac City Unified schools chopped $145 million out of what was once a more than $500 million budget.

The last two years have been particularly harsh – cuts of $75 million. The district has used reserves and one-time money, including $51 million in federal stimulus funds. The district has cut 292 teachers, six nurses and five librarians. It has cut 21 management-level people. It has cut clerical staff and aides.

Now the school board has to figure out how to deal with a $31 million shortfall for the 2010-11 school year.

Board members last Thursday voted to approve what they consider to be “last- resort” options: raising kindergarten through third-grade class sizes from 25 students per class to 30, and laying off 340 teachers, 38 school administrators, five school clerical workers, 87 central office workers, and 60 counselors, social workers and psychologists.

But that doesn’t have to happen.

Health coverage is one area to examine for savings. Rather than reducing benefits, consider cost-sharing. Give teachers and other staff some financial stake in their own use of the health care system.

In the United States, private coverage already typically requires cost-sharing through premiums, co-pays and deductibles. Public programs such as Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor also require cost-sharing.

But in Sac City Unified, teachers who choose Kaiser have no co-pay; those who choose Health Net have only a $5 co-pay. In contrast, non-teachers have $15 co-pays for office visits. If all employees accepted $15 co-pays, it would save $1.2 million. That would pay for 16 teachers – or 21 custodians, 12 counselors or 33 instructional aides.

If all Sac City Unified employees contributed $50 per month toward premiums, that would save another $1.9 million, enough for another 25 teachers – or 33 custodians, 19 counselors or 53 instructional aides.

Wouldn’t this be better than layoffs and larger class sizes?

In addition, the superintendent, managers and supervisors have accepted three furlough days. If teachers and other staff accepted furloughs, too, that would save $3.2 million, the equivalent of 43 teachers, or 56 custodians, 32 counselors or 89 instructional aides.

A temporary freeze of automatic “step and column” increases for teachers for their years of service and education would save $2.5 million, or jobs of 32 teachers.

Elsewhere in the state, teachers and staff who don’t want larger class sizes or layoffs are making reasonable concessions. Sacramento teachers and staff also must show that they are part of the solution.

The word “McCarthyism” is overused, but in this case it’s mild. Liz Cheney, the former vice president’s ambitious daughter, has in her hand a list of nine Justice Department lawyers whose “values” she has the gall to question. She ought to spend the time examining her own principles, if she can find them.

A group that Cheney co-chairs, called Keep America Safe, has spent the past two weeks scurrilously attacking the Justice Department officials because they “represented or advocated for terrorist detainees” before joining the administration. In other words, they did what lawyers are supposed to do in this country: ensure that even the most unpopular defendants have adequate legal representation and that the government obeys the law.

Cheney is not ignorant, and neither are the other co-chairs of her group, advocate Debra Burlingame and pundit William Kristol, who writes a monthly column for the Washington Post. Presumably they know that “the American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’ representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre” – in other words, older than the nation itself.

That quote is from a letter by a group of conservative lawyers – including several former high-ranking officials of the Bush-Cheney administration, legal scholars who have supported draconian detention and interrogation policies, and even Kenneth W. Starr – that blasts the “shameful series of attacks” in which Liz Cheney has been the principal mouthpiece.

Among the signers are Larry Thompson, who was deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft; Peter Keisler, who was acting attorney general for a time during George W. Bush’s second term; and Bradford Berenson, who was an associate White House counsel during Bush’s first term.

“To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions,” the letter states.

But maligning is apparently the whole point of the exercise.

The smear campaign by Cheney, et al., has nothing to do with keeping America safe. It can only be an attempt to inflict political damage on the Obama administration by portraying the Justice Department as somehow “soft” on terrorism. Even by Washington’s low standards, this is unbelievably dishonest and dishonorable.

“Whose values do they share?” a video on the group’s Web site ominously asks. The answer is obvious: the values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

The most prominent of the nine Justice officials, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, represented Osama bin Laden’s driver, Salim Hamdan, in a case that went to the Supreme Court. In a 5-3 decision, the court sided with Hamdan and ruled that the Bush administration’s military tribunals were unconstitutional.

Are Cheney and her pals angry that Katyal was right? Or do they question the “values” and patriotism of the five justices who voted with the majority as well?

The letter from the conservative lawyers points out that “in terrorism detentions and trials alike, defense lawyers are playing, and will continue to play, a key role.” It notes that whether terrorism suspects are tried in civilian or military courts, they will have access to counsel – and that Guantánamo inmates, even if they do not face formal charges, have a right to habeas corpus review of their detention. It is the federal courts – not defense lawyers – who have made all of this crystal clear. If Cheney and her group object, they should prepare a blanket denunciation of the federal judiciary. Or maybe what they really don’t like is that pesky old U.S. Constitution, with all its checks, balances and guarantees of due process. How inconvenient to live in a country that respects the rule of law.

But there I go again, taking the whole thing seriously. This is really part of a “death by 1,000 cuts” strategy to wound President Barack Obama politically. The charge of softness on terrorism – or terrorist suspects – is absurd; Obama has brought far more resources and focus to the war against al-Qaida in Afghanistan than the Bush-Cheney administration cared to summon. Since Obama’s opponents can’t attack him on substance, they resort to atmospherics. They distort. They insinuate. They sully. They blow smoke.

This time, obviously, they went too far. But the next Big Lie is probably already in the works. Scorched-earth groups like Keep America Safe may just be pretending not to understand our most firmly established and cherished legal principles, but there is one thing they genuinely don’t grasp: the concept of shame.

Everyone has a theory about the financial crisis. These range from the absurd to the plausible – from claims that liberal Democrats somehow forced banks to lend to the undeserving poor (even though Republicans controlled Congress) to the belief that exotic financial instruments fostered confusion and fraud.

But what do we really know?

Well, in a way the sheer scale of the crisis – the way it affected much, though not all, of the world – is helpful, for research if nothing else. We can look at countries that avoided the worst, like Canada, and ask what they did right – such as limiting leverage, protecting consumers and, above all, avoiding getting caught up in an ideology that denies any need for regulation. We can also look at countries whose financial institutions and policies seemed very different from those in the United States, yet which cracked up just as badly, and try to discern common causes.

So let’s talk about Ireland.

As a new research paper by the Irish economists Gregory Connor, Thomas Flavin and Brian O’Kelly points out, “Almost all the apparent causal factors of the U.S. crisis are missing in the Irish case,” and vice versa. Yet the shape of Ireland’s crisis was very similar: A huge real estate bubble – prices rose more in Dublin than in Los Angeles or Miami – followed by a severe banking bust that was contained only via an expensive bailout.

Ireland had none of the American right’s favorite villains: There was no Community Reinvestment Act, no Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. More surprising, perhaps, was the unimportance of exotic finance: Ireland’s bust wasn’t a tale of collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps; it was an old-fashioned, plain-vanilla case of excess, in which banks made big loans to questionable borrowers, and taxpayers ended up holding the bag.

So what did we have in common? The authors of the new study suggest four ” ‘deep’ causal factors.”

First, there was irrational exuberance: In both countries buyers and lenders convinced themselves that real estate prices, although sky-high by historical standards, would continue to rise.

Second, there was a huge inflow of cheap money. In America’s case, much of the cheap money came from China; in Ireland’s case, it came mainly from the rest of the euro zone, where Germany became a gigantic capital exporter.

Third, key players had an incentive to take big risks, because it was heads they win, tails someone else loses. In Ireland, this moral hazard was largely personal: “Rogue-bank heads retired with their large fortunes intact.” There was a lot of this in the United States, too: As Harvard’s Lucian Bebchuk and others have pointed out, top executives at failed U.S. financial companies received billions in “performance related” pay before their firms went belly-up.

But the most striking similarity between Ireland and America was “regulatory imprudence.” The people charged with keeping banks safe didn’t do their jobs. In Ireland, regulators looked the other way in part because the country was trying to attract foreign business, in part because of cronyism: Bankers and property developers had close ties to the ruling party.

There was a lot of that here too, but the bigger issue was ideology. Actually, the authors of the Irish paper get this wrong, stressing the way U.S. politicians celebrated the ideal of home ownership; yes, they made speeches along those lines, but this didn’t have much effect on lenders’ incentives.

What really mattered was free-market fundamentalism. This is what led Ronald Reagan to declare that deregulation would solve the problems of thrift institutions – the actual result was huge losses, followed by a gigantic taxpayer bailout – and Alan Greenspan to insist that the proliferation of derivatives had actually strengthened the financial system. It was largely thanks to this ideology that regulators ignored the mounting risks.

So what can we learn from the way Ireland had a U.S.-type financial crisis with very different institutions? Mainly, that we have to focus as much on the regulators as on the regulations. By all means, let’s limit both leverage and the use of securitization – which were part of what Canada did right. But such measures won’t matter unless they’re enforced by people who see it as their duty to say no to powerful bankers.

That’s why we need an independent agency protecting financial consumers – again, something Canada did right – rather than leaving the job to agencies that have other priorities.

And beyond that, we need a sea change in attitudes, a recognition that letting bankers do what they want is a recipe for disaster. If that doesn’t happen, we will have failed to learn from recent history – and we’ll be doomed to repeat it.

RICHARD WAINSCOAT University of Hawaii Institute of Astronomy file, 1998
Nearly 14,000 feet high and remote, the summit of Mauna Kea is prized by those searching space. But it is also sacred to native Hawaiians.

If you’re one of the millions who sat riveted to James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar, you probably sympathized with the indigenous Na’vi when American colonists bulldozed their magical rain forest to mine unobtanium, the prized mineral on Pandora, planet Polyphemus’ moon.

When the corporate/scientific/military confederation “negotiated” with Na’vi elders to quell growing unrest – bearing the usual “community benefits” trinket – you probably groaned. And when the invaders, unable to cajole the natives, bulldozed their Tree of Souls, where guiding ancestors’ voices could be heard, and bombed their giant Hometree dwelling, did your fists clench with rage?

Were you relieved – maybe you even cheered aloud – when the native defenders turned back the invaders before they could destroy their holiest Tree of Souls, connecting place to their deity, Eywa?

If you responded like many people did in the Hawaii theater where I saw Avatar, the answer is probably yes.

It doesn’t take a cultural anthropologist to recognize Avatar’s story line parallels in Hawaii, except that in the movie, ambitious (if sympathetic) biologists rather than Christian missionaries laid the groundwork for business and military interests, using genetically engineered human-Na’vi hybrids to infiltrate the culture. Unlike on Pandora, it took a century of bulldozing Hawaii’s revered places to finally reach native Hawaiians’ holiest spot – 14,000-foot Mauna Kea. Here, too, people connect with ancestors and deities.

Leaving the theater, I bumped into some Hawaiian friends waiting for the next show, a family with deep ancestral roots to Mauna Kea. This got me thinking about the campaign by the University of California and Caltech (allied with University of Hawaii astronomers and pro-business politicians) to bulldoze a pristine plain below the mountain’s already-developed summit cones to add another giant observatory to their science colony – the Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT.

The California astronomers’ “unobtanium” quest – research papers revealing “the secrets of the universe” and identifying planets beyond our solar system – is certainly more noble than mining minerals, but it’s another example of promoting one culture’s notion of progress by overriding another’s reverence for the land. As in the movie, behind the Mauna Kea invaders stands the big money of a starry-eyed entrepreneur, Intel co-founder and telescope donor Gordon Moore.

For Hawaiians, Mauna Kea’s summit is where their genesis story took place; it’s the burial ground of their most revered ancestors. Hawaiians still conduct traditional spiritual and astronomical ceremonies there, despite the visual and noise intrusions of 20 telescopes crowding the summit. Biologists also revere the mountaintop, home to species found nowhere else on Earth, including plants and insects that rival those in Cameron’s film.

Decades of insensitive development have fueled public anguish over Mauna Kea’s industrialization, replete with weeping elders and young activists gritting their teeth in rising frustration. Two legislative audits lambasted state agencies for collusion with astronomy interests, and two courts ruled against the last UC/Caltech telescope project – the Keck Outriggers – for violating state and federal environmental and cultural laws, one ruling halting the project.

Seeking a peaceful solution to the increasingly polarized controversy, Hawaiians and local Sierra Club leaders met last year in private with TMT board chairman and UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry Yang, Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau and a Moore representative, to implore the Californians to build the TMT at their second-choice site in Chile.

Ignoring all that, TMT officials decided in July to forge ahead with their Mauna Kea plans, pulling out all the stops to get what they desire. But this is America, not Pandora, so instead of enlisting military mercenaries, as in the movie, the Hawaii invaders hired an army of attorneys, lobbyists and planners to put a positive spin on their intrusive project and get around environmental and cultural laws governing the state conservation district where the telescope colony resides.

Hawaiians and environmentalists are again forced to defend in court the state and federal laws designed to protect places like Mauna Kea and native people like the Hawaiians – the same laws the last UC/Caltech project violated.

After spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars supporting California astronomers’ fight against the islanders, the University of Hawaii (desirous of sharing TMT’s prestige and precious telescope time), recently asked Hawaii’s legislature for $2.1 million to “ensure” the TMT bid. Local businessmen and politicians are being courted by astronomers – and pressured by powerful members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation – to back a huge project that will bring lucrative construction contracts to the summit.

Last month, the same Hawaii judge who in 2007 halted the previous UC/Caltech project dismissed islanders’ first legal challenge in the TMT battle – while observatory and construction workers picketed his courthouse with pro-TMT signs.

Whether that decision means Hawaii’s judges are now under intense pressure to support TMT is anyone’s guess. But if islanders are prevented from using the legal system to protect their sacred mountaintop, what choices remain for them?

Fortunately, no one is talking about following the Na’vi’s tactic of fierce resistance – aloha is too strong a tradition here.

Even so, peaceful civil disobedience could be just around the corner if islanders’ next day in court is like their last one.

Republican gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner are mixing it up, and it’s not pretty.

Whitman and her surrogates at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association are attacking Poizner for the political war crime of supporting Proposition 39 in 2000.

Approved by 53 percent of the vote, the measure permits local voters to approve school construction bonds by 55 percent majorities, instead of the two-thirds majority for most other bond and tax hike measures.

It was backed by several leaders including Whitman campaign chairman Gov. Pete Wilson, along with California Chamber of Commerce President Allan Zaremberg, and California Business Roundtable Chairman William Hauck. The Jarvis folks opposed it.

Proposition 39 had its intended impact. Since its passage, voters have approved 80 percent of the local bonds that have come before them. Before it passed, more than 40 percent of local school bonds failed.

As he campaigns for governor, Insurance Commissioner Poizner is tacking to the right and is having buyer’s remorse over Proposition 39. He told The Bee that he no longer would support the measure, this after donating $200,000 to it back in 2000.

Poizner’s flip is sad and weak. But what may be worse is that Whitman is talking about Proposition 39 at all. The former eBay chairwoman was too busy to even register to vote when Californians approved the ballot measure.

As every business guru will tell you, one of the most important aspects of leadership is setting a good example.

By giving 20 staff members 10 percent pay raises on her way out the door, former Assembly Speaker Karen Bass provided more proof, if any were needed, that she is woefully out of touch with the times.

It is a pitiful, politically tone-deaf parting gift to the state.

Even allowing for the possibility that some lower-paid staffers deserved more money, to quietly grant the promotions and pay hikes on her final day is unconscionable. Instead of looking out for her own, Bass should have been thinking more about state workers who are getting slammed with pay cuts and furloughs and about Californians getting crunched by cuts in services forced by the budget crisis.

In her defense of what she called “modest increases,” Bass argued that the Assembly needs to keep good people and that she was still being frugal because she had earlier cut other positions that more than covered the cost. Her action “reflects and respects the tough times we are in,” she said in the written statement.

Really? Do you know anyone else getting 10 percent raises these days? The move also seems in conflict with her April order freezing Assembly staff salaries except in rare cases. Bass was too raise-happy last year as well, and was forced to rescind them for about 120 staffers, including 10 on the new list.

Bass stepped down as speaker so she can concentrate on running for Congress in a friendly district in Los Angeles, where she will likely replace fellow Democrat Diane Watson, who is retiring. Our advice for voters there: Buyer beware. They should take a hard look because once in Washington, Bass would have even more opportunity for monetary mischief.

Speaking of leadership, his predecessor’s miscue gives new Speaker John A. Pérez a high-profile opportunity to show some. He should take back the raises.

Doing so would also be in his self-interest. Polls show that Californians have a very low opinion of the job state lawmakers are doing.

Uncorrected, these pay raises will only further damage public confidence in the Legislature. It desperately needs that support for the tough decisions ahead to get the state back on track.

In a city where the phrase “bipartisan initiative” is becoming an oxymoron, the urgency of containing the damage the Supreme Court could do to our electoral system creates an opportunity for a rare convergence of interest and principle.

At issue is the court’s astonishingly naive decision in January that allows unlimited corporate spending to influence elections. Its 5-4 ruling in the Citizens United case was a shocking instance of judicial overreach and reflected an utter indifference to how politics actually works.

Liberals and Democrats are already mobilizing to fight against Citizens United because they fear the impact of unconstrained corporate activity on elections and legislation. But conservatives and Republicans also should be alarmed that this decision could encourage politicians to extort campaign cash from businesses. Is it really so hard to imagine a congressional leader quietly approaching a business executive and suggesting that unless her company invests heavily in certain key electoral contests, this regulation or that spending program might be changed at the expense of her enterprise?

That’s why both parties should join to pass a bill that Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., hope to introduce this week placing some rules around the new electoral casino that the Roberts court has opened. The proposal is expected to win Republican co-sponsorship. And it should.

The measure does not try to overturn the court’s ruling. Instead, it puts boundaries around this precedent-shattering decision and might make executives think twice before unleashing company treasuries.

It also would limit the capacity of politicians to work out cozy deals with business, thus helping prevent extortion and other corruption.

Its provisions would require full and timely disclosure of corporate political expenditures, and make it as difficult as possible for companies to hide efforts to influence elections by funneling their money through front groups. Corporations would have to disclose political expenditures to their shareholders and make them public, through links on their Web sites and in their annual reports.

Politicians now have to tell viewers or listeners as part of their advertisements that they approve the message in question. The Schumer-Van Hollen measure would put the same responsibility on corporate officials. If a third-party group were used, the leading financial backer would have to appear in the ads, and the five largest contributors to the message would have to be identified. If a corporation is trying to affect an election, the voters should know about it.

Certain companies would be explicitly barred from incurring political expenditures: domestic corporations under foreign control, recipients of government contracts and TARP money recipients. Think about it: If a company is getting government money, why should it be able to turn around and use receipts that include that money for electioneering?

The bill’s strong ban on coordination between candidates or parties and corporate entities in their political activities is essential to containing the ability of elected officials to pressure companies – and to prevent parties from becoming mere extensions of corporate interests.

And to give candidates a chance to fight back against a corporate onslaught, the bill strengthens requirements that broadcast, cable or satellite outlets offer candidates and parties the lowest unit rate for their ads and provide them with reasonable access to airtime.

Republican leaders such as Sens. Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl have shown some sympathy for this idea in the past.

The conventional view is that this bill is destined to be caught up in Washington’s mire of partisanship because Republicans will welcome corporate expenditures to strengthen their political position.

It’s not clear to me why the GOP would want to proclaim itself as the corporate party by opposing a bill of this sort. Many Republicans, above all Sen. John McCain, have been at the forefront of trying to clean up the campaign money system in the past.

And it is clear that rank-and-file Republicans know how radical and foolish this Supreme Court decision was. A Washington Post-ABC News poll last month found that 76 percent of Republicans opposed the ruling, along with 81 percent of independents and 85 percent of Democrats.

A bipartisan coalition of that sort is rare in politics these days. Congress should be eager to take its lead from a public far more realistic about politics than is the Supreme Court’s majority.

NEW ORLEANS – Warren Buffett leads a troop of officials, reporters and a guy with a boom mike into the just-finished new apartment.

Five years ago, after the levees failed, this area was 10 feet underwater. Now, on this bitterly cold March morning, it is a construction zone ringed by chain-link fences, and one of the richest men in America wanders around what will eventually be some family’s home. Model furnishings have been placed just so. The smell of new is still in the rooms.

This is part of the inaugural meeting of the Purpose Built Communities network, to which civic leaders from around the country have come. And it is an attempt to export “What Works” as in my 2007-08 series of columns by that name, about programs that have shown success saving young people in crisis. One of the most ambitious of them was the East Lake Foundation in Atlanta, founded in 1995 by developer Tom Cousins.

Cousins achieved near-miracles – violent crime down 96 percent, 78 percent of kids passing the state math test after only 5 percent could do it before – in what had been one of the worst and most dangerous public housing projects in the country. There were many elements to that success: offering better schools, creating an early- learning center, building a YMCA, evicting felons.

But the centerpiece was that in the airy new apartment complex Cousins built to replace the housing project, half the units are held for middle-income families, the other half for poor, government-subsidized families. The idea being that middle-income people would, just in their daily doings, model for their neighbors the habits and behaviors of a successful life.

It worked, spectacularly.

And Purpose Built Communities is the outgrowth. Founded by Cousins, Buffett and philanthropist Julian Robertson, it offers expertise, guidance and partnerships to those seeking to replicate East Lake’s success in their own blighted communities. Its member network includes projects in Rome, Ga.; Jackson, Miss.; Indianapolis; and Memphis. There is no charge for its services.

Purpose Built Vice President Carol Naughton says community leaders in other cities who want to learn more should visit www.purposebuiltcommunities.org. Or, she says: “Give me a call. It’s that simple. Give me a call at (404) 591-1400 and we’ll start the conversation. We can kind of coach you about how to build this initial organization, about who your partners can be, who can bring resources to the community and advocate for the community. And who those resources are ‘within’ the community, too.”

It is not easy and it is not magic. It takes time, tears, toil and setback to grow hope in places where it has not grown before. But do it, says Cousins, and “you will see the children that would’ve been lost in the normal process become stars, become bright.”

“There is,” says PBC President Chuck Knapp, “a difference between a project and a movement.”

They want this to be a movement.

“Whenever you have something happen like East Lake,” says Buffett, “people say, ‘That’s just because one guy had a passion for it, wouldn’t stop and went through a brick wall, made it happen.’ But the ‘real’ test is whether it’s replicable. Once you do it beyond where the founders started it, it becomes evident to other communities: If the community cares enough about getting it done, it will get done.”

And this, he says, “needs” to get done in dozens of communities. Not just one or two, not just five or six.

“When you’ve got East Lake with 95 percent of the kids now meeting grade level or above when 5 percent were doing it before … you’re turning out human beings who are going to get a chance to live up to their potential. And you can’t ask for more than that.”

Mark G. Yudof

Re “To help UC, first slow bloat at the top” (Editorial, Feb. 28): Growth in nonacademic personnel is a tempting target in these days of budgetary shortfalls at universities across the nation.

In the case of the University of California, the inconvenient truth is much of the growth has been in the parts of the system that are not funded by the state – the medical enterprise, research and auxiliary services.

It’s easy to miss the bull’s-eye by underestimating the scale of the total UC enterprise, as The Bee did in an editorial as it sought to compare the pace of administrative growth vs. the growth in enrollment.

During the past decade, a period of significant changes within the UC system, the greatest growth in nonacademic, full-time equivalent positions has been in teaching hospitals (52 percent of total growth), followed by auxiliary services, such as residence halls and parking services (10 percent) and research (9 percent).

And the system launched the first new public university of the 21st century, UC Merced.

One-fourth of UC employees – and a roughly equal proportion of administrators – work at five medical centers and associated teaching hospitals. The Bee lumped these employees together with academic administrators. Similar distinctions should have been made for the research universe, which constitutes about a third of the enterprise.

We can’t move money around. The truth is when we receive a dollar in a research grant or a dollar for patient care, we can’t move it to another account. Making administrative cuts to our medical centers or research enterprises will not yield the desired savings.

There are also misconceptions about the functions performed by personnel within the category of managers and senior professionals, which can also result in a distorted view of “administrative” growth. This personnel category includes, in addition to managers, high-level computer programmers, doctors and dentists, nursing supervisors, pharmacists and engineers. And this category makes up only 5 percent of all UC full-time equivalent positions.

That said, it’s not wrong for anyone to emphasize the need to search vigilantly for administrative efficiencies. As stewards of the University of California, we owe it to the California taxpayers to look constantly for ways to make the best use of UC resources, and we have been doing so for some time – even before the most recent state funding reductions.

In an institution of this size and scope, there’s always more to do. And we’re on it.

Ward Connerly

Imagine you decided to draw a bath, turned on the water, and then left the room to answer the phone. When you returned five minutes later the tub was overflowing. What would you do first? Turn off the water streaming into the bath or open the drain a crack? Of course, you’d turn off the water to stop the flooding from getting worse.

Now, imagine a corrections system overflowing with prisoners. How much good is releasing prisoners early without doing something to slow down the flood of people entering the system?

This scenario describes the problem and choice confronting California. Laws requiring lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent offenders, and mindless minimum sentences imposed under the state’s “two-strikes” and “three-strikes” laws, have contributed to an overcrowded prison system. Confronted by a court order to reduce its prison population and a budget crisis requiring steep spending cuts across the board, California has made the mistake of opening the drain a crack while leaving the spigot wide open.

A new state law will provide for the release of approximately 6,500 prisoners over the next year. Local officials must recalculate how they plan to shorten sentences for good behavior and other credits. These recalculations will lead the state to release eligible offenders early. Offenders convicted of serious, violent or sex crimes are not eligible. The measure will purportedly save the state more than $100 million.

California’s secretary of corrections called the law a “win-win situation” because it will cut down on recidivism and allow parole agents to focus attention on more-dangerous former convicts. Sentencing-reform advocates, including Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a nonpartisan advocacy group that opposes one-size-fits-all sentencing laws, could only shake their heads at such a statement.

If the secretary is right, then why were these 6,500 people sentenced to such long terms in the first place? Wouldn’t it make more sense to assess risk and recidivism factors and make those part of the sentencing calculation? Unfortunately, California’s mandatory-sentencing laws prohibit such sensible reckoning.

Mandatory minimums in California, as elsewhere, impose mandatory prison time on offenders who might be better served by shorter sentences, drug treatment or other graduated sanctions.

There are more than 41,000 prisoners serving time under California’s “two-strikes” and “three-strikes” laws; two-thirds of whom did not commit crimes against people. Many are housed in maximum-security prisons that cost taxpayers an average of $31,000 per prisoner per year. It is these laws that created California’s prison morass and led to the current attempt to address it through the early expulsion of prisoners.

But some California law enforcement officials don’t see early release as a way out of the crisis. They are expressing (and stoking) fears that the release will lead to a new crime wave. They quickly found their poster child in Kevin Peterson. Peterson was charged with attempted rape just 12 hours after being released.

“Our greatest fear has been realized,” said the head of a crime victims’ advocacy group. And the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association seized on the Peterson arrest and filed a lawsuit to stop further releases.

Those of us who support reform of California’s harsh sentencing laws appreciate the concerns raised by law enforcement and victims-rights organizations.

The problem, however, lies not in the fact that some people will serve shorter prison sentences, but rather in California’s motivation, approach and execution. Hasty action in the throes of a legal and budgetary firestorm is not the way to make sound policy.

To be fair, the alleged new crime of Kevin Peterson cannot be blamed on the new law. After all, Peterson’s release was accelerated a mere 16 days by the new program. But his case raises questions about whether the law should have applied to someone, like Peterson, who had previously committed violent felonies but was serving his current sentence for violating parole, which is considered a nonviolent offense.

Questions also have arisen about how to implement the law. In the wake of Peterson’s latest arrest, Attorney General Jerry Brown suggested the law should not be applied retroactively, a view that seems likely to reduce the savings the law was expected to achieve.

California’s release program, however necessary and well-intentioned, is not going to solve the state’s prison-overcrowding problem. It’s the equivalent of trying to stop the tub from overflowing by slightly opening the drain.

The state (and the federal government) must enact permanent, front-end reforms that will reduce the flow of prisoners into the system. At the top of that list should be repeal of all mandatory-minimum-sentence laws, including the fatally flawed “three-strikes” law.

Anne Stuhldreher is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation in San Francisco.

Big business and advocates for the working poor often have trouble finding common ground. But that shouldn’t be a problem for the next few weeks leading up to April 15. New research shows they both have more than ever at stake this year in boosting California’s woefully low participation in the country’s largest program for the working poor – the earned-income tax credit. They just need to realize it.

The earned-income tax credit is the most effective and efficient anti-poverty tool you’ve never heard of. Created by then-President Richard Nixon, and expanded by both Republican and Democratic presidents, it gives a financial boost to people at the low end of the pay scale. People who earn up to $48,279 can claim refunds as high as $5,657. The average is about $1,900. Research shows the earned-income tax credit lifts more children out of poverty than any federal program. That’s because the credit gives a big raise – up to 40 percent – to working low-income parents.

But it’s also an idea with as much appeal for bottom-liners as for bleeding hearts. That’s because Californians claimed about $5 billion in refunds from the tax credit last year. And studies show people spend them right away, on big-ticket expenses like fixing the car. This immediate spending fuels local sales, pays local wages and creates local jobs. In fact, Moodys.com says putting cash in the pockets of those who need it most is the most effective economic stimulus around.

But there’s a problem. The stimulus is only as strong as the number of eligible families that claim the refunds, and California has one of the lowest rates in the country, according to the IRS. A new study from two California State University, Fresno, economists estimates that 800,000 eligible Californians who could claim them, don’t. If it happens again this year, California will miss out on nearly $2 billion of economic activity – $1.4 billion in business sales will never happen; $342 million in wages will never be paid; $88 million in tax revenue will never make it to our state’s empty coffers. The study was commissioned by the New America Foundation.

People miss out because they don’t know about it. Or they think they don’t earn enough to file a federal tax return. Latinos and childless workers are among those most likely to not participate.

Fortunately, foot soldiers up and down the state are getting the word out through organizations like the United Way and Legal Aid. And California first lady Maria Shriver is reaching out through her “WE Connect Campaign,” letting people know about programs they’ve never heard of and making it easier for them to apply.

Normally that might be enough. But this year is different. With double-digit unemployment rates and people earning less overall, more Californians than ever are likely eligible for the tax credit. With our safety net unraveling, these dollars are critically important to families. With our economy sputtering, the same is true for businesses.

It’s time for the business community to join the chorus, making sure everyone who could get the refund does. Chambers of commerce should sound the alarm to their members. Businesses can tell their employees about nearby free tax-preparation services. Retailers can hand out information in checkout lines. And media of all types – especially Spanish-language stations – should run public service announcements on heavy rotation.

There’s a lot of griping in California that we don’t get our fair share of federal resources but pay much more than our due. With April 15 a few weeks away, here’s an opportunity to turn that around, not just out of the goodness of our hearts but for the economy.

For more information about tax-preparation assistance, call (916) 498-1000.

California’s big pension funds thought they were building a perpetual-motion machine.

Now the gears are stripped and the wheels have fallen off. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System are taking some steps to confront the problem. But thanks to a 1999 decision by lawmakers and then-Gov. Gray Davis, it may be too little, too late.

In their latest move, the pension funds revealed that they are considering lowering the expected annual rates of return on their investments, as The Bee’s Dale Kasler wrote last week.

It’s not an academic exercise. The funds have been too optimistic for too long, at the expense of taxpayers and, ultimately, the state workers and educators they represent.

CalSTRS estimated it would earn an average of 8 percent. Its portfolio lost 25 percent in the 2008 market crash. CalPERS estimated its rate of return would average 7.75 percent. Its portfolio fell 23 percent because of the crash.

If the pension funds lower their assumed rates of return, taxpayers would need to make larger payments now. That would be painful. But by ignoring the gap between wish and reality, the pensions’ liability would worsen, leaving future taxpayers to pay bills due now.

That’s not fair to anyone involved.

The immediate problem dates back to the late 1990s, when the pension funds took recklessly wrong turns.

In 1999, the first year of Gov. Gray Davis’ tenure, lawmakers and labor lobbyists pushed through SB 400 by then-Sen. Deborah Ortiz, a Sacramento Democrat. Sponsored by CalPERS itself, the bill vastly increased pension payments to state workers, particularly those who wear badges.

The bill analysis prepared by otherwise clear-eyed legislative staffers said that if lawmakers were to pass the measure, as happened, the annual cost by 2009 and 2010 would be “in the $650 million range.” The analysis was based on CalPERS’ assessment of its “superior return on system assets.”

Hubris is a horrible trait. As we learned from the dot-com bust and the 2008 crash, what goes up always comes down. Instead of paying $650 million, state taxpayers will pay $3.1 billion this year, and $3.5 billion in the fiscal year starting in July.

SB 400 was a bipartisan blunder. The Senate approved it 39-0; the Assembly voted for it 70-7.

A year earlier, as Gov. Pete Wilson was leaving office, he struck a deal with teachers that increased state payments into teacher retirement.

Because of the way CalSTRS is funded, the state cost is less. But it’s still real money, $1.3 billion in the coming fiscal year, according to the Department of Finance.

The teacher-retirement board could act to align its rate of return in September, though it would require legislation.

CalPERS could act next February.

The pension fund guardians need to take this and other steps to fix the problem. For the sake of current and future pension beneficiaries, unions and their lobbyists who so aggressively pushed to sweeten pensions a decade ago need to engage in the issue.

No machine runs forever. But campaigns do seem to be perpetual.

Initiatives aimed at government workers likely won’t appear on this year’s ballot. But if pension funds remain a mess in 2012, initiative promoters will have a rich target.

Suggested reading from The Bee’s editorial board.

‘Earth’s nine lives’

by Fred Pearce, New Scientist (March 5)

Interested in tracking science on a weekly basis? Then the British publication New Scientist is an essential read. Last week’s edition includes an article that helps make sense of several “big-picture” trends that are shaping the planet’s future.

The article by the magazine’s senior environmental correspondent, Fred Pearce, examines the status of nine planetary life-support systems deemed vital for human survival.

Some of these you know, and they are close to home – such as fresh water and wildlife diversity. Some are more obscure, such as carbonic acid in the oceans.

Some, such as climate change, have received loads of attention and research. Others, such as the buildup of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, are less studied. As a result, their threat level is less clear.

The magazine’s cover includes a secondary headline – “Why the planet is healthier than you think” – that is catchy but not reflective of Pearce’s bottom line. As the article notes, the risk of ozone depletion has diminished, thanks to international efforts, but the threat remains. The planet is a long way from exhausting its supplies of fresh water – assuming you consider 50 years to be a distant future.

Meanwhile, thanks to chemical fertilizers and human sewage, the planet is releasing more nitrogen into land and water than these systems can safely process.

“However you cut it, our life-support systems are not in good shape,” Pearce concludes. “Three of nine boundaries – climate change, biodiversity and nitrogen fixation – have been exceeded.”

The one ray of hope is the international effort to protect the ozone layer, “which is gradually healing,” he writes.

“At least it shows action is possible – and can be successful.”

– Stuart Leavenworth

‘The Great Grocery Smackdown’

by Corby Kummer, Atlantic magazine (March)

The local food movement is picking up steam across the country and close to home. Organic farmers and chefs are carving out a niche in the Sacramento region.

So my attention was drawn to a piece by the Atlantic’s longtime food editor about how Wal-Mart Stores Inc. – yes, Wal-Mart – is involved in local food sustainability.

Through its Heritage Agriculture program, the retailing behemoth is buying produce from family farms near its huge warehouses. While the program accounts for only about 5 percent of Wal-Mart’s produce sales, the goal is 20 percent – and that would be a huge boost to small and medium farmers, Kummer writes.

Wal-Mart isn’t suddenly neglecting its bottom line, he notes. While it might pay slightly more for locally grown produce, it can come out ahead by saving on transportation and cutting out wholesalers. It’s also positioning itself against the likes of Whole Foods for environmentally conscious shoppers.

For California, particularly the Central Valley’s multibillion-dollar agriculture industry, the program could cause some pain initially. Wal-Mart is the largest buyer of California produce, and it won’t be buying as much if it’s purchasing more from local farmers. And so far, a Wal-Mart spokesman says, since the Heritage projects are focused on areas where agriculture has declined, California is not part of the program.

– Foon Rhee

‘The Pit: A Story of Chicago’

by Frank Norris Doubleday, Page & Co. (1903)

Well-known California writer of “The Octopus” (1901) about the stranglehold of Southern Pacific Railroad tentacles on the economy, Frank Norris wrote a second book in what was to be a trilogy before his untimely death in 1902. That novel, “The Pit” (published posthumously in 1903), is a great psychological study of speculation, worth re-reading today as the United States works it way through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The gambling theme dominates the novel about trying to corner the wheat market in the Chicago Board of Trade: “They call it buying and selling,” says one character. “But it is simply betting.”

Another describes the attraction: “A man gets into this game, and into it, and into it, and before you know he can’t pull out – and he don’t want to.”

After a big win in the market, the main character, Curtis Jadwin, says: “Charlie, this wasn’t speculating. It was a certainty. It was found money. If I had known a certain piece of real estate was going to appreciate in value I would have bought it, wouldn’t I.”

His friend is skeptical: “All the worse, if it made it seem easy and sure to you.”

The irrationality, obsession and selfishness that overtake the characters in “The Pit” give new meaning to the current term “irrational exuberance” coined by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan during our recent speculative bubble.

– Pia Lopez