Author: SacBee — Opinion

A friend of mine once had a Toyota that wouldn’t die.

The odometer had only a dim recollection of passing 100,000 miles, the body was dinged and the paint was faded and the interior was worn, but the thing just kept running. He finally parked it at the airport, removed the plates and walked away.

But that was more than 20 years ago, long before Toyota became the world’s biggest car manufacturer. Now the gas pedal doesn’t work right on some of the company’s models and the brakes don’t work right on others. A brand name that once meant “indestructible” has become a punch line for late-night jokes.

The company’s stock has lost 20 percent of its value over the last few weeks, helped along Wednesday by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s warning that the U.S. owners of nearly 6 million Toyota and Lexus models with the accelerator problem shouldn’t even try to drive the cars. LaHood quickly withdrew his doomsday alert, explaining that all he meant to say was that people shouldn’t delay getting them fixed.

Not what I’d call a message of reassurance.

The obvious lesson for Toyota: Be careful what you wish for. Toyota set out to conquer the world. In succeeding, the company grew so fast that its vaunted mastery of quality control – the craftsmanship and care that made people want to buy a Toyota in the first place – couldn’t keep up.

For years, Toyota dominated the rankings for both initial quality and reliability. But the company’s models had begun to slip well before the current public relations disaster.

I think this is more than a retelling of the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. It also may be a Promethean tale of punishment for having stolen fire from the gods.

Toyota is not the only thief.

Last week, I dropped by the annual Washington Auto Show, which is much like the extravaganza in Detroit, only smaller. I wanted to get a sense of whether the rumors of a U.S. automaking renaissance might be true – and indeed, both Ford and General Motors put on impressive displays.

There was lots of excitement about the not-quite-here-yet Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid that will run almost exclusively on electricity – but there was also a buzz about the Nissan Leaf, an all-electric hatchback that will make it to the showrooms first. Ford’s array of state-of-the-art automotive engineering was impressive – the Fusion, the Escape – but there were bigger crowds checking out the wares of the South Korean manufacturers, especially Hyundai.

The Koreans are doing what the Japanese once did – offering more features for less money – and they seem to have solved the quality- control problems that once plagued both Hyundai and Kia. For the next decade, they are my candidate to eat everybody else’s lunch.

But back to Prometheus: No matter what company from what country, when you looked under the hood you didn’t see a carburetor. Nor did you see an air cleaner, a distributor or any of the other parts that backyard mechanics of a certain age will fondly remember.

Automobiles used to be mechanical devices. Now they are collections of mechanical parts that are told what to do by computers. In most cars, the gearshift, pedals and steering wheel are nothing more than proxies for electronic controls. When something goes wrong with a car, you don’t start by opening the hood and unbolting pieces from the engine one at a time, the way we used to. You plug in a reader device and ask the vehicle what its problem is.

Technology has made automobiles much safer, more efficient and less damaging to the environment. But a computer is only as good as its software. Some experts believe that Toyota’s acceleration problems may actually be caused by faulty programming, not a faulty pedal.

And the brakes on the Prius, which are used not just to stop the car but also to recharge the hybrid’s battery, have already undergone one software rewrite, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Toyota’s competitors should go easy on the gloating. Their cars are fly-by-wire, too, and thus equally at the mercy of information-age technology – the fire we purloined from Mount Olympus.

Raise your hand if you think it’s a great idea to make our cars precisely as dependable and problem-free as, gulp, our personal computers.

“I am not an ideologue,” protested President Barack Obama at a gathering with Republican House members last week. Perhaps, but he does have a tenacious commitment to a set of political convictions.

Compare his 2010 State of the Union to his first address to Congress a year earlier. The consistency is remarkable. In 2009, after passing a $787 billion (now $862 billion) stimulus package, the largest spending bill in galactic history, he unveiled a manifesto for fundamentally restructuring the commanding heights of American society – health care, education and energy.

A year later, after stunning Democratic setbacks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Obama gave a stay-the-course State of the Union address (a) pledging not to walk away from health care reform, (b) seeking to turn college education increasingly into a federal entitlement, and (c) asking again for cap-and-trade energy legislation. Plus, of course, another stimulus package, this time renamed a “jobs bill.”

This being a democracy, don’t the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don’t they understand Massachusetts? Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.

Liberal expressions of disdain for the intelligence and emotional maturity of the electorate have been, post-Massachusetts, remarkably unguarded. New York Times columnist Charles Blow chided Obama for not understanding the necessity of speaking “in the plain words of plain folks,” because the people are “suspicious of complexity.” Counseled Blow: “The next time he gives a speech, someone should tap him on the ankle and say, ‘Mr. President, we’re down here.’ ”

A Time magazine blogger was even more blunt about the ankle-dwelling mob, explaining that we are “a nation of dodos” that is “too dumb to thrive.” Obama joined the parade in the State of the Union address when, with supercilious modesty, he chided himself “for not explaining it (health care) more clearly to the American people.” The subject, he noted, was “complex.” The subject, it might also be noted, was one to which the master of complexity had devoted 29 speeches. Perhaps he did not speak slowly enough.

Then there are the emotional deficiencies of the masses. Nearly every Democratic apologist lamented the people’s anger and anxiety, a free-floating agitation that prevented them from appreciating the beneficence of the social agenda the Democrats are so determined to foist upon them.

That brings us to Part 2 of the liberal conceit: Liberals act in the public interest, while conservatives think only of power, elections, self-aggrandizement and self-interest.

It is an old liberal theme that conservative ideas cannot possibly emerge from any notion of the public good. This belief in the moral hollowness of conservatism animates the current liberal mantra that Republican opposition to Obama’s social democratic agenda – which couldn’t get through even a Democratic Congress and powered major Democratic losses in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts – is nothing but blind and cynical obstructionism.

By contrast, Democratic opposition to George W. Bush – from Iraq to Social Security reform – constituted dissent. And dissent, we were told at the time, including by candidate Obama, is “one of the truest expressions of patriotism.” No more. Today, dissent from the governing orthodoxy is nihilistic malice.

“They made a decision,” explained David Axelrod, “they were going to sit it out and hope that we failed, that the country failed” – a perfect expression of liberals’ conviction that their aspirations are necessarily the country’s, that their idea of the public good is the public’s, that their failure is therefore the nation’s.

Then comes Massachusetts, an election Obama himself helped nationalize, to shatter this most self-congratulatory of illusions.

For liberals, the observation that “the peasants are revolting” is a pun. For conservatives, it is cause for uncharacteristic optimism. No matter how far the ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end the bedrock common sense of the American people will prevail.

The ankle-dwelling populace pushes back. It re-centers. It renormalizes. Even in Massachusetts.

Ray Tretheway

It’s not every day that a politician weeps in public, at least when they haven’t just lost an election or admitted an affair.

So it was a little startling to see Ray Tretheway well up during an otherwise festive, celebratory forum Tuesday evening before the Sacramento City Council designated a 1 1/2-mile stretch of Stockton Boulevard as “Little Saigon.” The city’s first official ethnic neighborhood recognizes all the hard work and success of Vietnamese American residents there.

Council members sat through a polished presentation by supporters, complete with PowerPoint slides and heartfelt speeches from business owners, residents and others. When it came time for council members to chime in, most were ebullient as well.

Tretheway, however, struggled for the right words. He talked about serving in Vietnam, and like many in that generation, not knowing why he was there. He mentioned the chilly reception when he returned home, and compared that experience to the hurt and harassment faced by the first Vietnamese who resettled in Sacramento two decades ago.

“Now I know why I was there,” he said, dabbing his eyes, not quite explaining what he meant.

The next day, he filled in more of the back story.

He had a desk job with the 34th Engineer Battalion in the Mekong Delta for about 15 months in 1968-69. He says he never fired a shot and the closest he came to harm was when a shell hit the barracks next to his and once when a sniper took a shot at him.

While he didn’t face the horrors of combat, he was scarred by the experience nonetheless. He hasn’t talked publicly about his Vietnam experience in detail, and says he didn’t talk to anyone about it for a decade afterward.

Tretheway, who has represented the Natomas area since 2001 and faces what could be a tough re-election fight in June, says he didn’t plan to get all emotional (“It surprised the heck out of me”) and wasn’t seeking sympathy.

Instead, he says that earlier Tuesday, Councilman Kevin McCarty, who championed the proposal, told him he had received some “bad” e-mail from Vietnam vets in opposition. Then, as the Little Saigon supporters spoke, Tretheway says he was struck by their unity and pride. And it hit him that fate had put him in a place where he could help heal lingering wounds from the war.

Now 62, his life seems to have come full circle. “It was totally cathartic,” he says. “After 40 years, I just found out that I had come to peace with myself about why I was there.”

Some of us have those moments of clarity in our lives. Ray Tretheway’s just happened to play out in full view of the city.

– [email protected]

Fabian Núñez

Many Californians have a negative perception of the state Legislature, but this afternoon lawmakers will have an opportunity to bolster their public image. They will be given an opportunity to put aside bickering and hyper-partisanship, and complete their constitutional duty to confirm Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s nominee to the lieutenant governor’s office.

The governor’s choice for the post, a Latino moderate Republican senator named Abel Maldonado, will appear in front of a Senate panel to seek confirmation.

While it will be convenient for Democrats to object to a Republican taking a seat previously held by a Democrat, we must realize that more is at stake. Our credibility is on the line. Sen. Maldonado is all we could ask for of a Republican – a moderate with a history of working with our party to pass critical pieces of legislation. If the Legislature fails to confirm him, it will only be because of detestable partisanship and senseless infighting.

The disconnect between Sacramento and California’s voters is growing. Our state faces another billion-dollar budget deficit. Higher education is suffering, pension obligations are growing, and we still must find solutions to a pending health care crisis.

The voters need evidence that Sacramento is not run by inefficient ideologues who would rather fight over a simple appointment than address our most pressing issues. In fact, 93 percent of Americans said in a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll that politicians spend too much time on partisan infighting.

With the Legislature’s approval rating at an all-time low, it’s time for my former colleagues to once again earn the trust of voters and demonstrate that Sacramento is capable of negotiating in good faith.

Sen. Maldonado is a man of good faith. He has proven time and again that he is someone Democrats can count on to genuinely consider issues put before him without a partisan lens clouding his vision.

He’s shown the proven desire to govern for the people. Look no further than his support of raising the minimum wage. In 2006, Sen. Maldonado joined me and other Democrats to pass legislation that increased the minimum wage by $1.25. He took a courageous stand on the side of the working poor when most ran from the issue. He ignored party ideology and focused on the well-being of Californians.

Some will say this is the wrong time for Democrats to allow Republican to fill a position previously held by a Democrat. I say it’s absolutely the right time. Sen. Maldonado’s confirmation hearing will test our lawmakers’ credibility and shape my party’s reputation.

Even President Barack Obama implored lawmakers to stop the partisan mudslinging in his recent State of the Union address. He called on them to stop “treating every day like it’s election day” and demanded that “the confirmation of well-qualified public servants” stop being “held hostage to the pet projects or grudges of a few individual senators.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Voters won’t begin to trust lawmakers again until they can confirm a well-qualified candidate.

I call on my former colleagues on both sides of the aisle to heed the words of our president and take this opportunity to show the public it can judge candidates based on their merits.

The Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday all but killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ill-conceived plan to raise $400 million by installing speed cameras at intersections across the state. May it rest forevermore, and not in peace.

California is in difficult straits. It must raise revenue and make cuts that add up to $20 billion, while keeping government operating. But despite support from the normally reasonable Legislative Analyst’s Office, this proposal is wrong, as senators from both parties contended.

Under the governor’s plan, cities could install cameras programmed to nab speeders. Motorists going 15 miles an hour over the speed limit or more would receive tickets in the mail.

The governor claims this would raise up to $400 million yearly to be split among the courts and local government. Courts certainly need to remain open. They may even need a little more money, as we urged earlier this week when we advocated that more be spent on drug courts.

But speed cameras are not the way. Sure, lawmakers are tempted to raise fines when budgets are tight. But that doesn’t make it right. Criminal sanctions should be used to enhance public safety, not impose what would be a back-handed tax hike.

A speeding ticket costs more than $400. That’s real money. Penalties of this magnitude would force many motorists to make tough decisions between paying for essentials and complying with the law.

This budget proposal raises major policy issues. As such, the idea ought to go through the appropriate legislative committees. This concept did surface, briefly. Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill to authorize speed cameras last April 14. She withdrew the legislation without a hearing on April 27. That was wise.

There also is the troubling prospect that one company – Redflex – is behind the push. Redflex supplies cameras to locales around the country. The company had retained the blue-chip lobbying firm Platinum Advisors last year. Although Platinum no longer represents the company, Redflex has continued its marketing effort.

In a recent report to its investors, Redflex offered several reasons why its revenue might fall below expectations. Here is one reason: “the costs of lobbying in various key legislative contexts.”

The Governor’s Office maintains the measure is aimed at public safety. Legislators scoff at that view. Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat from Long Beach, called the proposal a “cynical attempt to generate revenue.” Citizens would rise up in anger, and they would be right.

Of course, the Legislature either will have to make deeper cuts or find other ways to raise the money. There needs to be a serious discussion about taxes – sooner rather than later. But the use of cameras to raise revenue would be, as one lobbyist said Wednesday, a tax raised by “chickens.”

I’ve had high hopes for Adm. Mike Mullen ever since I learned that his mom was an assistant to Jimmy Durante and his dad was a Hollywood press agent whose clients included Bob Hope, Ann-Margret, Phyllis Diller, Jimmy Stewart, Carol Burnett and Dyan Cannon.

That’s the dream USO tour.

On Tuesday, the craggy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff showed that a lifetime in the military has not knocked all the showbiz pizazz out of him.

“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“For me personally, it comes down to integrity – theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.” In heartfelt testimony to the senators, Mullen said: “I have served with homosexuals since 1968.”

Acknowledging that they face death daily, he said that “putting individuals in a position that every single day they wonder whether today’s going to be the day, and devaluing them in that regard, just is inconsistent with us as an institution.”

In 1993, when Bill Clinton tried to do the right thing by allowing gays and lesbians in the military to be themselves, a predecessor of Mullen’s, Colin Powell, directed the embarrassingly public and retrograde rebellion by the generals against it, leading a conga line of heavy brass over to the White House to tell the president not to exercise his authority as commander in chief and order an end to one of the last vestiges of discrimination in the armed forces. Powell helped shape the gutless compromise that those who protect our country must live by a code of honor even while they’re legally bound to be less than honest.

Still traumatized by the 1993 pummeling Clinton endured, the Obama White House is inching forward, trying to avoid friendly fire from gay groups that want the law changed now and hostile fire from conservatives that want the law left alone.

Before Mullen and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates even made their opening statements, John McCain went on the attack against overturning the policy. Noting that gays and lesbians had served “admirably” and even given their lives, he said: “I honor their sacrifice, and I honor them.” Just as long as they deny their identity and pretend to be something they’re not.

The conservative senator, who has always been known for honor and clarity, cited “vast complexities” as a reason not to change the hypocritical policy, whatever that means, as well as the fact that “the Senate vigorously debated it in 1993.” Yeah, nothing’s changed since 1993.

Even Powell now admits that “we definitely should re-evaluate it.” And Roland Burris, the Illinois senator, reminded his colleagues that it took Harry Truman to integrate the services: “At one time, my uncles and members of my race couldn’t even serve in the military, and we moved to this point where they’re some of the best and brightest that we’ve had – generals and even now the commander in chief is of African American heritage.”

McCain jumped on his even-keeled fellow Republican, Bob Gates, and accused him of usurping congressional authority by saying the military was pre-emptively preparing for a repeal of the law.

The Arizona senator said the law was “imperfect but effective,” even though Mullen’s military journal, Joint Force Quarterly, called it a “costly failure.”

Three years ago, McCain told a group of college students that he would drop his objections on the issue “the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy.’ ” But on Tuesday, when that day came, McCain ignored the top brass and found his own military emeritus. He waved a letter at Gates and Mullen, saying it was “signed by over 1,000 former generals and flag officers who have weighed in” against changing the policy.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said that if they began to loosen one restriction, others might unravel, leading to a louche atmosphere brimming with “alcohol use, adultery, fraternization and body art.” Don’t ask, don’t tat.

In 1993, Sam Nunn, the conservative Georgia Democrat who was the leader of the Armed Services Committee, famously gave lawmakers a tour of a submarine to show what close quarters sailors endured, implying that it would be impossible to separate the men from the men if gays were out.

So it was a welcome sign of how things have changed that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stepped up to torpedo the hypocrisy, is an admiral.

In December, customers of the El Dorado Irrigation District received a notice from EID that signaled significant rate increases for water, wastewater and water recycling services.

The notice generated an angry response from many ratepayers and community groups and caught the interest of the local media. EID regrets that these proposed rate hikes coincide with a bad economy, high unemployment, and an uncertain financial future for many people, families and businesses in the communities we serve.

We are a public agency dedicated to providing high-quality water, wastewater treatment, recycled water, hydropower and recreation services in an environmentally and fiscally responsible manner. We strive to provide the safe and reliable utility services our customers deserve at a price they can afford. We also work diligently to ensure that EID meets or surpasses all federal and state laws and regulations regarding the operation of a water and wastewater utility.

We held four public workshops over the past month to listen to our ratepayers, and our board and staff have participated in many meetings with community groups. We have heard both support for and opposition to the proposed rate increases. It is the degree of opposition, however, that led the district to take another look at our financial situation.

Since December, the district board of directors and staff have worked together to further reduce operating expenses; negotiations with our employees are addressing benefits and other personnel costs. We are also negotiating better prices for the hydroelectric power EID produces. We are delaying capital improvement projects wherever possible, and we have found a way to restructure the district’s debt – all with the intent of reducing the impact of the proposed rate increases on our customers. As a result of these actions, district staff presented the EID board of directors with a “Plan B” on Jan. 25 that cuts the 35 percent rate increases proposed for 2010 by about half – to 18 percent or lower. Information on “Plan B” is available on the district Web site at www.eid.org. We encourage customers to attend a public hearing tonight, when the board of directors will consider the rate increase proposals.

The proposed rate increases were originally contained in the revised 2010 calendar-year budget the board adopted in late November 2009. Our budgets must show sufficient revenue projections to cover operating costs and debt payments, plus net revenues that exceed debt service costs by 25 percent.

These are legal requirements in our bond covenants, but also sound business practices relied upon by well-run utilities.

It is clear that the proposed rate increases are driven in part by the requirement to cover our debt costs. The level of borrowing would not have been needed if past boards had instituted a rational, long-term plan to replace and maintain our aging 1,300 miles of water pipelines and 600 miles of wastewater collection lines, our 21 water pump stations and 64 wastewater lift stations, our five water and three wastewater treatment plants, our 22.3 miles of high Sierra canals and flumes that deliver water to all EID customers, the dams that store the water and our security systems to protect these assets from human acts and natural disasters. The current board has reversed that neglect, but the investment required to replace and maintain district facilities comes at a heavy cost.

Measured by the original costs, the district is the steward of $840 million worth of in-the-ground assets. Of course, it would cost much more to recreate those assets today. For the past eight years, this board has insisted on a capital improvement plan to replace and maintain that infrastructure. Our customers shouldn’t have to accept costly and lengthy water outages if treatment plants and pipelines fail through neglect. The district appreciates our customers for their many suggestions, as well as voicing their criticisms regarding the proposed rate increases. We know our customers live busy lives, and we understand that they rely on us to operate the district in a safe and reliable manner. We will work with them to regain the faith that they may have lost in our ability to fulfill our commitment to them.

We regret the upheaval caused by the proposed rate increases. The board will consider the proposals at the public hearing tonight. Please note that to accommodate a larger number of customers, we moved the hearing to the El Dorado Adventist School gymnasium, 1900 Broadway, in Placerville. The starting time is the same, 6 p.m.

Never has a Bee editorial achieved what it desired with such speed as when it called on the Legislature to look at downsizing the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (“Does ABC not have enough work to do?”; Jan. 28).

It pains me to report that the Legislature has been downsizing the department by scandalous neglect for the past few years, and Californians are less safe for it. In addition to being fully sworn peace officers, ABC investigators have a specialized knowledge in combating crime that other law enforcement agencies frequently rely on. In just the past year, ABC investigators shut down an illegal drug-dealing operation that had connections to violent gangs throughout Southern California (Operation Grasshopper), and it is inconceivable that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder could have crowed about the largest law enforcement action ever taken against a drug cartel from Mexico (Project Coronado) without the contributions made by ABC investigators on the Inland Regional Narcotics Enforcement Team.

ABC investigators – often alone – work in the most undesirable places at the most undesirable hours around the most undesirable people society has to offer. Added to that responsibility are their new post-9/11 duties as part of the homeland security safety net.

There are 81,000 licensed liquor establishments. It’s important to keep in mind that the criminality going on in these establishments does not stay in them, but permeates into neighborhoods and across city and county lines.

The state wastes money training ABC investigators in specialties no other peace officers have, only to lose them to higher-paying law enforcement agencies. And to further exacerbate the problem, just recently hit them with furloughs equivalent to a 15 percent pay cut.

For the record, the ABC investigators that the editorial chided for wasting their time busting a Super Bowl betting pool at a country club were responding to a variety of complaints of illegal activity going on at the club. To not have responded would have generated further complaints that they weren’t doing their jobs. If they’re not responding to public complaints, it further erodes the public’s confidence in the police.

Should The Bee and any legislator reading that editorial be sincerely interested in learning more, they can call Shelley Bishop, president of the California Association of State Investigators, who also conducts TRACE program operations, finding the alcohol suppliers to kids involved in fatal accidents – yet another of the many valuable jobs ABC investigators do.

A New Orleans store displays merchandise with “Who Dat!” – the rallying cry of Saints fans. The NFL acknowledged Tuesday it doesn’t have exclusive rights to the slogan or the fleur-de-lis symbol.

The New Orleans Saints are underdogs going into Sunday’s Super Bowl. But as the spat over “Who Dat?” proves, underdogs can sometimes bite back.

Who Dat? – for those of you who’ve been napping – is the rallying cry of Saints fans, otherwise known as the Who Dat Nation. As the Saints marched through the playoffs, the slogan has become a lucrative one for shops and companies that sell shirts, caps and other Saints paraphernalia.

Wanting a piece of the action, the NFL aggressively pursued a trademark of the Who Dat? and demanded that vendors stop selling Who Dat? merchandise not officially licensed by the NFL. One of those receiving a cease-and-desist letter was Lauren Thomas, owner of the Fleurty Girl T-shirt shop in New Orleans. Thanks to the NFL’s heavy-handed actions, Thom and Fleurty Girl suddenly became causes célèbres.

Louisiana politicians, ever quick to pounce on something that might distract voters from the generally dismal state of Louisiana, started beating up on the NFL. So did everyone else. Geez, NFL, didn’t New Orleans lose nearly everything in Katrina? Now you want to take away Who Dat?

On Tuesday, the NFL finally got smart. The league acknowledged it did not have exclusive rights to the Who Dat phrase or the fleur-de-lis symbol.

Score one for New Orleans.

No one owns “Who Dat.” Nor is anyone sure of the origin of the phrase. A minstrel song? Perhaps. A Southern University chant of the 1960s? Maybe. The debate rages. The ownership of “Who Dat” is now resolved, but not the question: “From Where Dat?”

Jill Duman is a journalist, parent and part-time playground attendant.

How do you know when you’re in a family? When you’re asked to clean up messes you didn’t make and pay for expenses you didn’t incur.

That’s what it’s like to be a parent in most families. Increasingly, it’s what it feels like to be a parent in California school districts, which have lost $18 billion in state funds over the past two budget cycles.

Of course, the budget news is not good throughout the entire state. City and county governments are cutting positions, reducing services, furloughing workers, trimming hours. If your city reduces summer programs and library hours, city residents suck it up. But schools are different.

Schools are where we send our beloved sons and daughters each morning with a backpack full of expectations for their success. We may never attend a city council meeting or even know our county supervisor. But if we have kids, we go to school. We know our principal, and we certainly know our teachers.

We see our individual schools and districts as united in a common goal – providing a better future for the children whose interests we share. We feel like family, and when you’re family, you dig deeper. So we provide: hand sanitizer, Kleenex, classroom help and, yes, money from our own pockets, through auctions, fundraisers and parcel taxes, to pay for what the state budget is taking away.

But the budget crisis that is haunting our state and national leaders is eating away at our own paychecks.

Between furloughs, salary cuts and layoffs, we as parents have less to spend. We want to help, but we can no longer do it alone. In districts across the state, we are asking teachers to do what families do in a crisis: help with a solution. In many districts, that means reopening teacher compensation agreements with the view toward making sacrifices like furlough days, salary cuts and freezes in negotiated cost of living.

Some teachers have agreed to pitch in. Salary concessions have come up in the Sacramento City Unified district. Last year, teachers and staff in the San Juan Unified district agreed to cuts in health benefits.

Teachers in the Folsom Cordova, Twin Rivers and Natomas unified districts agreed to furloughs.

Thus far, Davis teachers have not followed suit even as the Davis school board considers layoffs for 80 teachers and credentialed staff. Last year, the Davis Teachers Association said “no” to a 2.5 percent pay cut proposed by the district’s superintendent as a way of closing a multimillion dollar budget shortfall.

A one-time bailout from the federal government, two voter-approved city parcel taxes and another enthusiastic round of fundraising by the nonprofit Davis Schools Foundation saved the day. This year, the anticipated budget deficit is up to $5.6 million – nearly $2 million more than what it was last year. Still, Davis teachers have refused to even discuss salary concessions, citing a recent poll among members showing an even split on what is sure to be a polarizing issue.

Worse still, the association’s current president explained to school board members recently that the district’s teachers “take offense” when they are criticized for refusing to look at salary reductions, even though the jobs of colleagues hired as far back as 1999 may soon be on the line. Teachers, she said, “have been giving all this time” – through long hours, uncompensated prep time and out-of-pocket expenditures.

And those teachers who could face layoffs? “We don’t really know them,” she told the board. “Do we care about people? Yes. But we’re not really a family.”

For parents, the issue of teacher compensation is always complicated. We entrust the hopes and dreams of our sons and daughters to professionals who teach because they love kids, but also because they want a paycheck. We are miffed if we sense that the latter objective is emphasized over the first; that the second-most important adults in our kids’ lives are doing for money what we think they should do for love.

But in many districts, the relationship between teachers and parents is also colored by the huge role parents play in the public schools. In towns like Davis, we are passionate about education and willing to put time, effort – and yes, money – into what we believe should be top-notch schools.

The teachers who work in our district have to put up with a steady infusion of parent involvement, but they also reap the benefits of all that energy: drivers for field trips, abundant classroom volunteers and chaperones, and all those parental checks that fund educational needs on the classroom, school and district level. We parents believe we are part of a family that wants the very best for our children. We feel betrayed when it seems that some family members are unwilling to do their part.

With all that is at stake for schools, now would seem as good a time as any for communities to have the conversation that comes up in every family when members aren’t pulling their weight. It’s a conversation about obligation and interdependence. If you take, you’re also expected to give. We are all in this together. Those are family values.

Mike Murphy

Up until this week, it appeared that the front-runners in the California’s governor’s race would enjoy not just a cakewalk, but a sleepwalk.

Suddenly, challenger Steve Poizner has gone and shaken up the somnolence in one primary. He’s accused the GOP front-runner, Meg Whitman, of being a bully.

For the sake of entertainment, we say – bully for him.

Poizner, the state insurance commissioner, came across an e-mail that that Mike Murphy, an adviser to Whitman, sent to Poizner’s pollster last week asking, “Is there anything we can do to get SP to reconsider this race?” The e-mail also stated that Whitman, the eBay billionaire, was preparing to spend $40 million or more “tearing up Steve if we must.”

On Monday, Poizner went on the offensive. He called on the FBI to investigate what he called “an attempt to effectively manipulate the election process.” He also noted that Murphy had told one of Poizner’s senior advisers that he would put the insurance commissioner “through the wood chipper” if he did not drop out of the race.

Usually when someone is accused of criminal extortion by a state constitutional officer, he keeps his mouth shut. Not Murphy. After Poizner called for the FBI investigation, Murphy effectively suggested that Poizner might need to find space on a psychiatrist’s couch.

“I’m starting to worry about the Commissioner’s mental condition,” Murphy said in a statement.

Wait a minute: It took Murphy this long to wonder about Poizner’s mental state? Heck, anyone crazy enough to desire the California governor’s office is deserving of a screening. Whitman herself needs to schedule an appointment. So does Jerry Brown, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The Poizner-Murphy feud is a gift that keeps on giving, partly because it provides so much fodder for commentators. On Monday, Republican political consultant Ray McNally called Poizner’s action “a mouse-like stunt.” Former federal prosecutor Donald Heller, meanwhile, took a shot at Murphy, saying, “It takes a true imbecile” to put this kind of threat in writing.

No doubt, many voters would prefer that candidates stick to the issues and devote their campaigns to matters of substance instead of slime. Yet who knows? Perhaps this tempest will engage voters in a GOP race that, unlike the Democratic contest, offers some competition and choices.

One can only hope.

Steve Poizner

The nation’s top two military leaders made a welcome but long overdue declaration on Tuesday: The “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that prevents gays from serving openly in the armed forces is wrong. It damages the military’s integrity and should be repealed.

Until that happens, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced, the military will enforce the law in “a more humane and fair manner.” That, too, is a step in the right direction, but the Pentagon should go further and halt discharges related to sexual orientation.

Justice won’t be done until the law – flawed in its inception 17 years ago – is fully repealed.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” has forced thousands to lie about something at the core of who they are. And even as the nation fights two wars and the military struggles to fill its ranks, the law has led to the discharge of 13,000 service members, including some essential personnel such as medics, pilots and linguists.

Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put the issue squarely before Congress, but it would take unusual political courage to vote on repealing the law before the midterm election in November. In the House, a repeal bill, HR 1283, introduced last year by then-Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, has 187 co-sponsors, including 31 from California.

Gates told lawmakers Tuesday that a high-level group in the Pentagon will work the rest of the year to prepare for repeal and “minimize disruption” to the military. But he also said that once Congress repeals the law, it would take a year to fully implement.

It would be a sweeping social change, and getting it right is important. Still, the measured timetable smacks of yet another compromise on top of the unworkable deal that created the law in the first place.

While the law’s supporters say repealing it would hurt morale and “unit cohesion,” several studies and the experiences of allies have shown that such concerns are overblown.

The public, as well, is ready for change. A Gallup Poll in June found that support for allowing gays to serve openly in the military had risen to nearly 70 percent.

President Barack Obama pledged in his first State of the Union address last week that he would work to “finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”

Congress should act quickly to get a bill to Obama’s desk. Repeal of this discriminatory, wrongheaded law can’t come soon enough.

We like to think that in days gone by, the young venerated the elderly. But that wasn’t always so. In “As You Like It,” Shakespeare’s morose character, Jaques, calls old age “second childishness and mere oblivion.” Walt Whitman hoped that the tedium and pettiness of his senior years would not infect his poetry.

Developmental psychologists, when they treated old age at all, often regarded it as a period of withdrawal. The elderly slowly separate themselves from the world. They cannot be expected to achieve new transformations.

“About the age of fifty,” Freud wrote, “the elasticity of the mental processes on which treatment depends is, as a rule, lacking. Old people are no longer educable.”

Well, that was wrong. Over the past few years, researchers have found that the brain is capable of creating new connections and even new neurons all through life. While some mental processes – like working memory and the ability to quickly solve math problems – clearly deteriorate, others do not. Older people retain their ability to remember emotionally nuanced events. They are able to integrate memories from their left and right hemispheres. Their brains reorganize to help compensate for the effects of aging.

A series of longitudinal studies, begun decades ago, are producing a rosier portrait of life after retirement. These studies don’t portray old age as surrender or even serenity. They portray it as a period of development – and they’re not even talking about uber-oldsters jumping out of airplanes.

People are most unhappy in middle age and report being happier as they get older. This could be because as people age they pay less attention to negative emotional stimuli, according to a study by the psychologists Mara Mather, Turhan Canli and others.

Gender roles begin to merge. Many women get more assertive while many men get more emotionally attuned. Personalities often become more vivid as people become more of what they already are. Norma Haan of the University of California, Berkeley, and others conducted a 50-year follow-up of people who had been studied while young and concluded that the subjects had become more outgoing, self-confident and warm with age.

The research paints a comforting picture. And the nicest part is that virtue is rewarded. One of the keys to healthy aging is what George Vaillant of Harvard calls “generativity” – providing for future generations. Seniors who perform service for the young have more positive lives and better marriages than those who don’t. As Vaillant writes in his book “Aging Well,” “Biology flows downhill.” We are naturally inclined to serve those who come after and thrive when performing that role.

The odd thing is that when you turn to political life, we are living in an age of reverse-generativity. Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money. According to Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children.

Second, they are taking freedom. In 2009, for the first time in American history, every single penny of federal tax revenue went to pay for mandatory spending programs, according to Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute. As more money goes to pay off promises made mostly to the old, the young have less control.

Third, they are taking opportunity. For decades, federal spending has hovered around 20 percent of GDP. By 2019, it is forecast to be at 25 percent and rising. The higher tax rates implied by that spending will mean less growth and fewer opportunities. Already, pension costs in many states are squeezing education spending.

In the private sphere, in other words, seniors provide wonderful gifts to their grandchildren, loving attention that will linger in young minds, providing support for decades to come. In the public sphere, they take it away.

I used to think that political leaders could avert fiscal suicide. But it’s now clear change will not be led from Washington.

On the other hand, over the past couple of years we’ve seen the power of spontaneous social movements: first, the movement that formed behind Barack Obama, and now, equally large, the Tea Party movement.

Spontaneous social movements can make the unthinkable thinkable, and they can do it quickly. It now seems clear that the only way America is going to avoid an economic crisis is if the oldsters take it upon themselves to arise and force change. The young lack the political power. Only the old can lead a generativity revolution – millions of people demanding changes in health care spending and the retirement age to make life better for their grandchildren.

It may seem unrealistic to expect a generation to organize around the cause of nonselfishness. But in the private sphere, you see it every day. Old people now have the time, the energy and, with the Internet, the tools to organize.

The elderly. They are our future.

When we chose to come to the University of California for medical school, we thought, perhaps naively, that we were going to a public institution whose purpose was to teach, to do research and to provide public service. This understanding was based on the university’s mission statement. Alas, the university’s actions often show that this is, in fact, not the case.

As medical students, we spend hours each day poring over lecture notes, textbooks and primary medical research data trying to understand how the body works (physiology), how things can go wrong (pathophysiology) and what we can do to fix it. This is the overt medical school curriculum, and the University of California does a terrific job of teaching us these principles.

Yet buried within the standard medical school curriculum exists a hidden, or modeled, curriculum whereby we learn by watching what our mentors do. Every action that our teachers take, in the hospital or in the clinic, we watch and take note. We think, “This is what being a doctor is like.” We also watch and take note of what our executives, deans, provosts and chancellors do, observing how they work as part of a team, how they motivate others to do good work and how they set the priorities of a “world-class” institution of higher learning. Shouldn’t it be that the priorities that guide the institution mirror those that have driven us to become doctors?

• To not allow our actions to cause harm.

• To prevent and, if possible, treat disease.

• To remember that we are members of society with special obligations to our fellow human beings.

We are fortunate to have many faculty members and administrators who truly believe in this covenant and who actively practice these ideals in their work. However, time and again, the University of California teaches us, in the hidden curriculum, that these are not the institution’s priorities.

Over the past year, the University of California office of the president and the Davis campus have increased student fees by 32 percent. They have decided to close the CAARE Program, the only clinical program in Northern California that is capable of doing forensic examinations on physically and sexually abused children. And UC Davis Medical Center has refused to accept low-income patients who are enrolled in the County Medically Indigent Services Program because of the reduced funding they carry.

All of this is happening while the regents approve $3.1 million in bonuses to hospital executives and while the University of California spends $500 million on a new emergency room and surgery suites and $35 million on a new telehealth education center, both being built in Sacramento.

These decisions are part of the hidden, modeled curriculum, and it is not one that any of us expected. What is it teaching the future doctors of California?

We are tired of seeing those who cannot care for themselves and those who cannot afford health care left on their own. We are tired of seeing our fees rise, forcing us into more debt, encouraging more of us to go into high-paying sub-specialties while the institution continues to grow and spend money.

How can this be happening in an institution, paid for by taxpayers, whose very purpose lies not in revenues, market share and performance bonuses, but rather in education and public service? Perhaps it is because the University of California is the new AIG, most interested in cutting nonprofitable programs, raising capital by hiking fees and retaining executives who are rewarded for profits rather than compassion and service.

We are learning to take the money when you can, to abandon patients if it makes financial sense, and if others have to suffer because of it, so be it. If this is not the case, someone show us, because that’s exactly what the hidden curriculum has taught us over the past year.

It’s about time. Toyota on Monday told worried and confused customers much of what they have been waiting to hear about a problem that has been festering. The world’s largest automaker announced last month that it was recalling 2.3 million vehicles because of a possible defect that could cause gas pedals to stick and the cars to accelerate unexpectedly.

The company said that it will begin notifying owners this week when to bring in their cars for the needed repair. Dealers will start doing the work this weekend. The free fix involves installing a precision-cut steel reinforcement bar designed to eliminate the excess friction that has caused the pedals to stick in rare cases.

The recall includes some 2007-10 Camrys; some 2009-10 Corollas and RAV4s; 2005-10 Avalons; 2007-10 Tundras; 2008-10 Sequoias; the 2009-10 Matrix; and the 2010 Highlander. It does not cover Lexus and Scion models.

Many of the recalled vehicles also need another fix because they are part of an earlier recall of more than 5 million vehicles in which the gas pedal could get hung up on the floor mat. In those cases, the pedal is being made shorter or the mats are being replaced.

Toyota would not be the company it is today without California consumers. Nearly a fourth of the 1 million new cars registered in California last year were Toyota brands.

The company has a lot to answer for. There are troubling questions of when its engineers knew about the problem, why Toyota’s leaders didn’t warn consumers earlier, and whether they misled federal safety officials. Some analyses say that over the last decade, there have been 19 deaths connected to unintended acceleration in Toyota brands, including the horrific crash last August in San Diego that killed an off-duty California Highway Patrol trooper and three family members.

While Toyota wants to protect its image and stock price, its top officials need to remember that they owe loyal customers timely, complete information to make sure their cars are safe.

A Legislative Analyst’s Office proposal that asks the Legislature to use its powers to reduce state personnel costs puts majority Democrats on a collision course with their most loyal allies: public employee unions. So far, the Democratic leadership’s reaction has been disappointing.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg says he opposes imposing lower wages outside the collective bargaining process. “We need to save money in a way that’s effective,” Steinberg told The Bee last week. “That means working with the people on the front lines. Don’t go around them.”

Steinberg ignores reality.

California’s collective bargaining process is dysfunctional. Collective bargaining assumes that employers or workers give up something and the other side gives something in return. But the state is broke. It has nothing to give. It can only take. Because state law allows existing contracts to remain in place if no agreement is reached, employee unions have an incentive to outwait lame duck Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, betting that a new administration will offer something better.

Only the Legislature can break the logjam. It has the authority to reduce salaries and benefits. A failure to exercise that authority will lead to deeper cuts for local government, the poor, blind and disabled, schools, and the public at large. The governor’s proposal would cut $2.5 billion from personnel costs through a combination of salary reductions, increased employee contributions to pension plans and attrition.

The 5 percent salary reductions proposed would be less costly to employees than the current three-day-a-month furloughs and less disruptive to the public. It’s a reasonable sacrifice given the magnitude of the state’s deficit, and lay-offs, pay cuts and hits to retirement savings that private-sector workers have endured.

According to the legislative analyst, the governor’s second proposal, a 5 percent increase in employee contributions to the retirement system, is legally risky if not done through collective bargaining. This proposal is worth risking a court challenge. No one, not the Legislature, the governor, nor unions, should ignore the public’s growing anger over lavishly generous public employee retirement benefits.

When coupled with lifetime health benefits, these pension obligations contribute heavily to state, local government and school districts’ soaring deficits. If unions won’t agree to a modest 5 percent increase in employee contributions to help pay for benefits far richer than those available to the vast majority of workers in the private sector, they risk a public backlash.

The governor’s final proposal – across-the-board personnel cuts for all departments – doesn’t make sense, especially for special funded programs. For example, why cut the work force at the Department of Motor Vehicles, a fee-supported agency? Cuts at DMV would do nothing to reduce the state’s general fund deficit, but would fuel public antipathy toward government by lengthening the two-hour-long waits at DMV offices.

Majority Democrats in the Legislature can help shape the governor’s personnel proposals in ways that are fair to the public and state workers, or they can bow to union bosses and let the state drift deeper into crisis.

When I heard Scott Brown, the newly elected senator from Massachusetts, describe himself as a “Scott Brown Republican,” I groaned. It sounded as if he’s coming to Washington to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

We don’t need another knight in shining armor, don’t want another political messiah come to deliver the nation from evil. We’ve already got one in the White House and another one in Alaska ready to ride her snowmobile into town and save the day.

Both the Senate and the House are liberally sprinkled with lone wolves who believe the legislative process revolves around them alone. Instead of “E Pluribus Unum” – “Out of Many, One” – our new motto could be “I Did It My Way.”

I hope the erstwhile Cosmo centerfold is smart enough to realize there is something more corrosive to our political system than bitter partisanship – and that’s, ahem, naked self-interest. Clearly, though, his status as the Next Big Thing appears to have gone to his head: When asked by ABC’s Barbara Walters whether he had presidential ambitions, he refused to rule out a run for the White House in 2012. He might want to take a long drive in that ancient pickup truck of his until the spell wears off.

Actually, a lot of what Brown told Walters in a lengthy interview sounded quite reasonable. On abortion, he supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose. On gay marriage, he believes the issue should be left up to the states – and in Massachusetts, which allows gay marriage, he says the question is “settled.”

On health care, his record makes more sense than his rhetoric. As a state legislator, he voted for the reform bill that established universal health insurance in Massachusetts. But now he opposes the Senate reform bill, which is modeled on the Massachusetts program. At least he’s not the first senator from his state to be for something before he was against it.

Yet on the two big economic issues – soaring unemployment and the need to confront the federal deficit – Brown doesn’t sound reasonable at all. He told Walters that his problem with President Barack Obama’s announced freeze on discretionary federal spending is that “we need to do it immediately,” not in the 2011 fiscal year.

Leaving aside the question of how Obama would implement an immediate freeze, short of impounding funds, it would be insanely counterproductive to cut federal spending at a moment when the economy is struggling to find its legs and begin creating jobs.

But the most troubling passage from the interview was the part about being a “Scott Brown Republican” and intending to “go down there and be accountable, accessible, open and honest … to bring good government and fairness back to the equation.”

It’s impossible to argue with that laundry list of virtues, except to note that he left out motherhood and apple pie. The last thing Washington needs is another politician who refers to himself as his own brand and promises to chart his own lonely path.

Look at how the health care reform initiative reached its current parlous state. In the House, legislation had to be tailored so that Rep. Bart Stupak could save us from what he believed was unacceptable language on abortion. At least he was speaking for a number of like-minded colleagues, though. On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Joe Lieberman stood alone to hold the health care bill hostage and save us from any number of monsters, including one idea – letting 55-year-olds buy into Medicare – that he had actually advocated on the campaign trail.

Our political system suffers from many problems and may be bordering on dysfunction. But one thing we don’t have is a shortage of elected officials who see themselves as saviors of all that is good. Obama was elected to change Washington. If everybody in town tries to sing “My Way,” we get a serenade – but we don’t get the solutions the country so urgently needs.

Republicans were amused watching Democrats get tied into knots on health care by the all-about-me ethos. But what goes around comes around, and now the GOP’s crucial 41st vote in the Senate – the vote that can thwart just about anything the Democrats want to do – belongs to a man who promises only that he will march to his own drummer. Good luck with that.

In times of crisis, good news is no news. Iceland’s meltdown made headlines; the remarkable stability of Canada’s banks, not so much.

Yet as the world’s attention shifts from financial rescue to financial reform, the quiet success stories deserve at least as much attention as the spectacular failures. We need to learn from those countries that evidently did it right. And leading that list is our neighbor to the north. Right now, Canada is a very important role model.

Yes, I know, Canada is supposed to be dull. The New Republic famously pronounced “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” (from a Times op-ed column in the ’80s) the world’s most boring headline.

But I’ve always considered Canada fascinating, precisely because it’s similar to the United States in many but not all ways. The point is that when Canadian and U.S. experience diverge, it’s a very good bet that policy differences, rather than differences in culture or economic structure, are responsible for that divergence.

And anyway, when it comes to banking, boring is good.

First, some background. Over the past decade, the United States and Canada faced the same global environment. Both were confronted with the same flood of cheap goods and cheap money from Asia. Economists in both countries cheerfully declared that the era of severe recessions was over.

But when things fell apart, the consequences were very different here and there. In the United States, mortgage defaults soared, some major financial institutions collapsed, and others survived only thanks to huge government bailouts. In Canada, none of that happened. What did the Canadians do differently?

It wasn’t interest rate policy. Many commentators have blamed the Federal Reserve for the financial crisis, claiming that the Fed created a disastrous bubble by keeping interest rates too low for too long. But Canadian interest rates have tracked U.S. rates quite closely, so it seems that low rates aren’t enough by themselves to produce a financial crisis.

Canada’s experience also seems to refute the view, forcefully pushed by Paul Volcker, the formidable former Fed chairman, that the roots of our crisis lay in the scale and scope of our financial institutions – in the existence of banks that were “too big to fail.” For in Canada essentially all the banks are too big to fail: Just five banking groups dominate the financial scene.

On the other hand, Canada’s experience does seem to support the views of people like Elizabeth Warren, the head of the congressional panel overseeing the bank bailout, who place much of the blame for the crisis on failure to protect consumers from deceptive lending. Canada has an independent Financial Consumer Agency, and it has sharply restricted subprime-type lending.

Above all, Canada’s experience seems to support those who say that the way to keep banking safe is to keep it boring – that is, to limit the extent to which banks can take on risk. The United States used to have a boring banking system, but Reagan-era deregulation made things dangerously interesting. Canada, by contrast, has maintained a happy tedium.

More specifically, Canada has been much stricter about limiting banks’ leverage, the extent to which they can rely on borrowed funds. It has also limited the process of securitization, in which banks package and resell claims on their loans outstanding – a process that was supposed to help banks reduce their risk by spreading it, but has turned out in practice to be a way for banks to make ever-bigger wagers with other people’s money.

There’s no question that in recent years these restrictions meant fewer opportunities for bankers to come up with clever ideas than would have been available if Canada had emulated America’s deregulatory zeal. But that, it turns out, was all to the good.

So what are the chances that the United States will learn from Canada’s success?

Actually, the financial reform bill that the House of Representatives passed in December would significantly Canadianize the U.S. system. It would create an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency, it would establish limits on leverage, and it would limit securitization by requiring that lenders hold on to some of their loans.

But prospects for a comparable bill getting the 60 votes now needed to push anything through the Senate are doubtful. Republicans are clearly dead set against any significant financial reform – not a single Republican voted for the House bill – and some Democrats are ambivalent, too.

So there’s a good chance that we’ll do nothing, or nothing much, to prevent future banking crises. But it won’t be because we don’t know what to do: We’ve got a clear example of how to keep banking safe sitting right next door.

Claudia Page is co-director at the Center to Promote HealthCare Access, an Oakland-based nonprofit.

As a commuting, working mom, after putting my kids to bed, I do a lot of multi-tasking.

The the other night – thanks to my laptop and Wi-Fi – I enrolled my 6-year-old in an after-school enrichment class, moved money from my savings account to my checking account, paid overdue fees at the library, donated to Haiti relief, and checked in and printed boarding passes for my morning flight to San Bernardino.

The miles and hours most of us save conducting business online are hardly newsworthy anymore. But it is notable for those affected by the economic downturn, who have joined the growing number of people seeking health care, food and public services while dealing with unemployment or unstable employment, low-wage jobs and trying to make ends meet.

People seeking help trudge from one crowded office to another, filling in the same little boxes on piles of forms with their names, birth dates and addresses. They produce the same documentation at each location to verify who they are, what they earn and where they live.

They may be asked to return in person to be fingerprinted or for an interview. This process is inefficient and costly for county and state agencies. Essentially, each program or agency acts as an independent silo, keeping its own data. These programs are not connected, so they are prohibited from sharing information that could save time, stress and money.

Imagine if the silos were linked by a network. Information technology, of course, is not a cure-all for frustrating enrollment challenges many families face, but it is a critical component to helping qualified families access services that could keep them from spiraling into deeper poverty or sickness.

Can technology work for people needing help in these tough times? Yes. To date, One-e-App – a Web-based system for connecting families with support programs – has been used to screen more than 3.3 million people, generating roughly 6 million applications for more than 20 programs. An intuitive, Turbo Tax-like front-end asks only relevant questions for programs like Medicaid, food stamps, earned-income tax credit and other tax credits, low-cost auto insurance, energy subsidies and more.

There’s no need to stand in long lines with no guarantee of being seen, put forms in the mail or make countless copies of documentation.

Application data and documents are sent electronically for processing. They are then stored in One-e-App so they can be resubmitted if needed, or sent to a different program.

Suddenly, the silos are bridged.

The boarding pass I printed took me from Oakland to San Bernardino, where I testified before the House Committee on Agriculture to describe how technology can help improve access to food stamps and other programs. One-e-App was developed by two California foundations and is managed by a Bay Area nonprofit.

It is now used by organizations in 15 California counties, as well as Arizona, Indiana and Maryland, to help prevent many jobless people and struggling families from heading deeper into poverty. In some ways, it’s like a stop at your library, where you may have come for one book but leave with others that are even more helpful.

Many families may not know about the availability of certain programs to help them in times of need. One of those could be the very program that helps them keep a job or get health coverage for a sick child.

Improving access to programs also brings federal funds to cash-strapped states like California, which for the food stamp program alone leaves $3.7 billion on the table each year.

This issue is gaining attention, with more frequent media coverage of food insecurity and growing numbers of uninsured and jobless.

The public servants from federal, state and local governments who held and took part in the hearing, gave their undivided attention to the issues raised and pledged continued support.

I hope that while Reps. Joe Baca, D-Rialto, Jim Costa, D-Fresno, and Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., were checking in online for their return trips to Washington, D.C., they were also thinking about how technology can help bridge the silos to connect programs and agencies that could help struggling families.

The photo was so pathetic, the case so tragic. Brandy Foreman was so mortified by what she’d done that she tried to hide her face from the cameras by pulling up the collar of her shirt.

Foreman was responsible for caring for her 12-year-old daughter, Daelynn. Her task was hard. The girl had cerebral palsy, never walked or talked, and had an abnormally small brain. Foreman allowed her to waste away until her weight fell to 23 1/2 pounds, and she died.

Many failures led to Daelynn’s death. But surely drug use was one cause, as detailed by The Bee’s Andy Furillo and captured by photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. last week.

A few months before Daelynn’s death, Foreman’s boyfriend was released from prison, where he had been serving time for a drug-related offense. A few months after Daelynn’s death, he was arrested again for a drug offense, and sent back to prison. Foreman herself had been using methamphetamine daily.

Brandy Foreman is responsible for her child’s death, and will pay by serving 25 years to life in prison. But it makes you wonder: If California placed more emphasis on rehabilitation, could it prevent deaths and tragedies such as what happened to Daelynn?

Despite the hard times and budget cuts, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature need to reverse short-sighted decisions related to spending on drug treatment, specifically drug courts.

These courts are unrelated to Proposition 36, the initiative approved in 2000 that promised to keep drug offenders out of prison, but which has been of dubious benefit.

Rather, drug courts have been in operation in California since the 1990s. Drug offenders admitted to the program appear regularly before judges, stay in regular contact with probation officers, undergo testing, and more. Felons have a clear choice: Clean up or go to prison.

Drug courts have proved themselves. The Administrative Office of the Courts last week pegged cost savings at $7,150 for each felon who goes through the program. Participants simply did not reoffend.

Two years ago, the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated the state saved $3.50 for every dollar it spent on drug courts.

Proponents are not bleeding hearts. Superior Court Judge Richard Vlavianos of San Joaquin County spent a career prosecuting drug offenders before Gov. Pete Wilson appointed him to the bench.

“That background is really what got me to this point,” said Vlavianos, who is assigned to the drug court and sees results. “What we were doing was not getting change.”

His county’s findings: “Overall, drug court reduced the frequency of negative criminal justice outcomes and reduced the costs by a total of 30 percent. The greatest savings by percentage were in prison days and victimization costs.”

To his credit, Schwarzenegger is cutting the $27.8 million drug court program only slightly. But why not go the other direction?

Judge David Rosenberg, presiding judge of the Yolo Superior Court, is proposing that California dramatically expand the program by pumping $150 million into it.

If past is prologue, the state would save far more than that in reduced law enforcement and prison costs. Savings could go to help keep courts open or to the general fund.

When the budget is $20 billion in the red, lawmakers generally don’t look to add spending. But maybe, just maybe, California can find a way to spend a little more money in order to save money. In the process, the state might avert a few heartbreaks.