LEGISLATORS DON’T DESERVE A RAISE

When working in the private sector, pay raises are contingent on one or a combination of 3 things: The merit and successes of the individual, the current and projected health of the organization, and the health of the overall economy. Because of the final factor (and its contributions to the second), annual raises of any measurable size have become something of a rarity since the start of the Great Recession. Consider that for the fiscal year ending this past May, the growth in American production wages grew at their lowest rate - 1.7% - in 47 years. That’s a full percentage point below the alleged (and understated) rate of inflation of 2.7%.

Despite the working class facing such tumultuous times, the political class thinks they are free of such encumbrances. It has been the buzz in Albany that state legislators are looking for a raise this year. They currently make a base salary of $79,500 and want to take it up to $100,000, an increase of more than 25%.

When you consider the 3 factors behind raises, our senators and assemblyman aren’t deserving of a $20,500 raise, let alone one of $1,351 (which is what it would be were they to see just 1.7% like their constituents).

Let’s first consider the merits of in the individual. $79,500 is a rather exorbitant sum to be paying a part-timer. These positions were devised to offer regular people a chance to contribute to the development of the Empire State by having sessions for 6 calendar months per year and during those sessions mandating 0 to 4 days per week in the state capital (the Assembly’s legislative calendar for 2012 showed only 66 in-session/budget days for the period of January through June). When the 6 months were up or when the legislature wasn’t in session during the week, the legislators could go back to their “real jobs” on the farm, in their offices and plants, or at home raising their families. Sadly, the system been mutilated so much that people are led to believe that being a legislator is a full-time, year-round job equipped with regional offices and full-time staffs. Realistically, under such circumstances, one could look at the second half of the year as being nothing more than politics, rather than policy, a means to perpetuate incumbency through alleged necessity and importance (really, what does attendance at parades and dinners contribute to the overall welfare of our state?). So, we need to look at the seats for what they are - and what they should be – and realize that we cannot permit their income growth.

Now, let’s look at the organization through which they are employed. The state government is facing a $2 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2013, which follows budget gaps of $10.4 billion in 2012, $8.5 billion in 2011, $21 billion in 2010, and $7.4 billion in 2009. If the fiscal health of the state is directly attributable to their budgets, the laws that they introduce, and the tough-but-necessary cuts they are afraid to make, then how, just by looking at those 5 years alone, do the legislators deem themselves worthy of reward? If anyone ran a company like they run a state, that individual would be among the ranks of the unemployed, either through termination or the total collapse of their firm.

And, it’s that factor that leads to the last: the overall health of the economy. Every bill among the hundreds passed every year by the legislature (571 this year) either steals rights and freedoms or adds to the cost of living and doing business in New York State. Because of that, businesses face incomprehensible government-created financial burdens when compared against their competitors from other states. My company, one of thousands across the state, pays an extra $740,000 per year to do business in New York (refer to my 2008 column “Why your loved ones have left NY” at http://tinyurl.com/ConferNY). That has forced businesses to stagnate/downsize/close/leave, which in turn has caused the same to happen to our residents, young and old alike: In the period from 2000 to 2010, 3.4 million people left New York State (2.1 million more arrived, but it still contributed to a net loss of 1.3 million people).

It’s that final factor of assessing job performance that is the most damning to our legislators. They are complicit in the destruction of the once accurately-named “Empire State”. They’ve driven our government to ruin, which has done the same to our economy and each and every one of us in it. Only a politician would think they deserve a bigger paycheck for that.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 13 August 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

THOUGHTS ABOUT OBAMACARE: PART THREE

Back in May of 2011, Democrat Kathy Hochul pulled off a major coup, besting Republican Jane Corwin in the race for the 26th Congressional District seat that had been vacated by the resignation of Chris Lee. This was a huge victory for the Democrats, as the Republicans had held control of the 26th since 1968.

Political wonks across the nation claimed that Hochul’s upset was a statement against Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, whom the Democratic National Committee had painted as someone Corwin would vote lockstep with. At the time, Ryan’s 2012 federal budget proposal called for a major overhaul of Medicare which would have transformed the oldster care from a guaranteed benefit program into a system under which care was provided by private insurers yet was funded by government subsidies. The voters feared for the program’s future – and theirs – and thusly showed their displeasure at the polls.

The Republicans did little to steer away the criticisms during the special election, nor did they call out the Democrats at their own game. It’s the latter which will come back to haunt them -- and a majority of Americans when they come of retirement age in the future.

Had the GOP not been so overconfident in thinking that the Democratic acquisition of the seat was unattainable – and had they done their homework – they would have realized that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which had already been signed into law a year earlier, will have a deleterious effect on Medicare recipients. They could have easily countered the Democrats by identifying their hypocrisy.

Their arrogance aside, the national Republican leadership obviously didn’t study the bill in detail before it became law, and it took them many more months to uncover the intricacies of “Obamacare”. We still see this to this day as Republican Congressmen and talk show hosts continue to unearth portions of ACA that they should have known about some time ago. Among them is the Medicare portion. They have noticed a gutting of the program; I’m sure you’ve heard presidential candidate Mitt Romney say that President Obama is taking $500 billion from Medicare.

Well, Romney, like the Democrats before him in 2011, isn’t being truthful.

The $500 billion statement is a stretch. Maybe that amount will be accumulated over time (as in 2 or 3 decades), but it won’t be in the short term. And, by short term, I mean 10 years out since that is the magical period that Democrats and Republicans (and the Congressional Budget Office) tend to focus on.

Maybe he got his numbers confused. The $500 billion is really close (well, at least when we’re talking in billions) to $455 billion, which is the total amount saved in reform of Medicare AND Medicaid over Decade One. Maybe in his mind, it’s, “Medicare? Medicaid? What’s the difference?” Regardless of this being a mistake or a purposeful bending of the truth, he’s wrong in both delivery and intent.

What Romney should focus on – and what the National Republican Committee should have focused on in the Corwin campaign – is the fact that over time – like when I and my fellow Generation Xers hit Medicare age – having access to care will be a real struggle. Medicare recipients will be looked at as modern day lepers by health care providers because the ACA will be making it economically-unfeasible for a doctor or hospital to provide their services to seniors.

In recent years, when it comes to Medicare, the federal government has reimbursed hospitals at a rate of two-thirds what private insurance would have paid. Similarly, they paid doctors about 80% of what insurance would have. So, even today, providers are taking a hit.

That hit, though, will grow considerably over the next 70 years: Reimbursements will see a gradual downward spiral, bottoming out at a 39% rate for hospitals and 26% for physicians. As time goes on, fewer and fewer doctors will accept Medicare patients because it won’t be worth their time or money -- they can actually make a profit when dealing with the insured versus those on Medicare. Numerous surveys of physicians have found that anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of them are considering not accepting Medicare patients because of the ACA.

So, when my peers hit their 60s, there will be very few – if any - doctors and hospitals who will be willing to care for them. Without access to private care, the government will have to “save the day” and open public clinics and hospitals along the lines of the VA system, but for aged civilians.

Hmm…maybe that’s been the plan all along. I certainly wouldn’t put it past Obama and his cronies.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 06 August 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

THOUGHTS ABOUT OBAMACARE: PART 2

Beginning in January of next year, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will impose a 2.3% excise tax on manufacturers and importers of medical devices. There will be just a few exemptions for items such as eyeglasses, contact lenses, and over-the-counter kits and tests, but most every device used by doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and ambulance crews will be affected by the tax. In its first 10 years the tax will add $20 billion to federal coffers.

At the same time, the tax will be certain to cost Americans their jobs.

For starters, this is not an income-based tax. It is a tax levied solely against revenues, regardless of whether the company actually had a profit. So, a manufacturer that might be in the red -- maybe it’s having a bad year from an operations standpoint or is investing heavily in growth -- will have to pony up, which can set them on the path to financial destruction.

Likewise, a company operating at a low profit margin (which is likely in this highly-competitive global economy) might see its profits split in half, pushing it to unacceptably-low levels which will inhibit investments in assets, research and development, and expansion.

This new tax will also lead to more outsourcing. It’s not that the gap between domestic and foreign manufacturers is directly widening because of the tax (the excise is equally applied to imported goods), but, it is widening indirectly. If American firms adjust their selling prices upwards to compensate for the government’s pilfering of their revenues, lower-priced products produced offshore will become even more attractive to cost-conscious purchasing agents at hospitals and medical device distribution companies.

The excise is an act of hypocrisy from an Administration and Congress that alleges a focus on job creation. There are currently 400,000 people working in the medical device industry in the United States, and one study estimates that more than 10% of them could become unemployed because of the tax.

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The conspiracy theorist in me is made uncomfortable by a new reporting requirement of the ACA.

Beginning this year, employers with more than 250 employees must list on each W2 form the dollar value of the company’s contribution to that worker’s health insurance. Doing so is optional for firms employing less than 250. Theoretically, it’s being done to educate the masses about the real cost of health insurance.

I theorize, though, that the W2 requirement is really about future taxation. Incrementalism is the way that change is brought about in public policy; bit by bit you add or remove things until, over years, the issue is completely altered from its original state. This could be one of those subtle changes that accumulate over time: Get people used to seeing health benefits on their W2 which gets them into ultimately believing that it’s taxable income, and, sooner or later, you can start taxing them.

The Democrats have been quick to say that my theory – shared by many others of the very far right persuasion – is hogwash, that they won’t tax employer-provided insurance.

Well, that’s not what the recent past shows. Both they and the Republicans alike have hinted at such a new revenue stream.

In 2010, President Obama’s deficit commission – led by Erskine Bowles – was adamant in its desire to eliminate the current tax exemption and treat insurance as taxable income. So, if your employer paid half of your health insurance, you would have to pay taxes on that half. The commission believed this would bring in a staggering $100 billion per year, something that surely had the political class licking their chops.

That same year, in his “Roadmap for America’s Future”, the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, called for the elimination of the tax exemption on employer-provided insurance. He would replace it with a tax credit that could be used by individuals to purchase insurance on their own. This would only increase the ranks of the uninsured: the credit ($2,290 single, $5,170 family) wouldn’t even come close to allowing the individual to cover what would have been the employer’s contribution to insurance, thus making insurance even more unaffordable for millions of Americans.

So, it’s not like taxing health insurance isn’t being debated in Washington circles. It certainly is, adding some legitimacy to the conspiracy theory.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 30 July 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

THOUGHTS ABOUT OBAMACARE: PART ONE

Recently, the editorial board of the other daily newspaper of this region wagged their fingers at conservatives, chiding them for their disagreement with the Supreme Court’s upholding of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The meat of the editorial said that the Court’s decision was constitutional, as are the very acts of judicial oversight and Congressional lawmaking, so the Constitution-loving far-right were hypocritical in their criticisms of the Court, especially that directed at Chief Justice John Roberts.

I thought it was a dangerous statement to be made by a metropolitan newspaper because it assumes that all Court decisions are sound and lacking in political expediency. We have a long history of morally and legally bankrupt decisions made by the Court. The right will cite Roe v. Wade, whilst the left will reference Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.

One, much-less divisive, that immediately comes to my mind – since, like the personal mandate of ACA, it demands market participation and penalizes for the lack thereof – is 1942’s Wickard v. Fillburn. In that case, the Court sided with the USDA, saying it had the right to force Ohio farmer Roscoe Filburn to destroy his 23-acre wheat crop (the Agricultural Adjustment Act said he was allowed only 11) that he had intended to use only to feed his livestock. The Court’s reason (or lack thereof), was that by growing his own wheat for his own farm’s consumption, Fillburn decreased the amount he needed to buy on the market which would have an adverse effect on interstate trade.

It doesn’t matter what political persuasion you claim, you know that Wickard v. Fillburn was wrong.

Some think the same about the Court’s decision regarding ACA.

Let them. And, don’t label them as ignorant for doing so.

 

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I’m frustrated with the media reports, government websites, and broadcast public service announcements touting the “free” services that health insurance companies must provide under ACA, things like colonoscopy screening for colon cancer, Pap smears and mammograms for women, well-child visits, flu shots for all children and adults and screening for blood pressure, cholesterol, and depression for men.

Under ACA, you may not have to pay a co-pay or deductible for those services, but that certainly does not make them “free.” They are anything but.

You will be paying for them, for sure -- as will everyone else whether they use such services or not -- in higher insurance premiums. Without the cost-sharing achieved through co-pays, the insurance companies will have to recoup their expenditures somehow, so they’ll embed them in their rates.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch….or a free doctor’s visit.

 

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The Grand Old Party will have a rough go of it if “Obamacare” becomes a centerpiece of the presidential election campaign and the associated debates later this year. Presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney won’t have a leg to stand on if he calls out the costs and regulations of ACA. He will especially struggle with the former, because his version of health care reform (“Romneycare”) isn’t very frugal.

Romneycare is lacking in cost containment, which was the whole point of the law. In 2008, a family plan in Massachusetts was $13,788. Health professionals believe that that will double by 2020. In recent years, the growth of premiums in the Bay State cost has been twice the national average.

Looking beyond only the insured, over the next 10 years, Romneycare will cost Massachusetts taxpayers $2 billion more than originally anticipated.

How can he argue against the ACA with a track record like that?

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.


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This column originally ran in the 23 July 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

OVERCOMING UNDERACHIEVEMENT

Editor’s note: This is the final part in a four-part series

Over the past few weeks we’ve looked at the dismal academic results of America, results that are unbefitting of a nation that spends the most on education and enjoys the richest economy. The focus of this series was not on policy, but rather on the students and how this generation has lost the hunger for personal betterment that previous generations possessed.

It should be noted, though, that not all of today’s teens are underachievers. There are some exceptional performers – as matter of fact, many of them – who buck the trend and really set themselves apart from their peers.

I’ve been working with children and teens as a volunteer over the past 19 years; I’ve led boy scouts, talked to elementary and high school students, and spoken to college students. In that time, I’ve witnessed (or have been privy to) a decline in appropriate character and ethic, but, at the same time, I’ve seen the best and brightest become better and brighter. I would go so far as to say that the exemplary youth of today rival those of my generation. The highly-driven youth of 2012 have a greater diversity of thought, participate in more productive activities, are highly intellectual and set themselves up for even greater achievement in adulthood. Whereas the typical teen has become less functional, the outliers have become more functional – they truly are young adults.

While a majority of their peers might raise concern for what America’s future holds, the strength of the superior students is astounding. They possess the fortitude and leadership that could, when they come of age, help change some of the underachievement relished by their generation. With these intelligent kids becoming the captains of industry and the makers of public policy, America will be in some good hands in the decades to come.

But, to guarantee that they can overcome the pervasive underachievement, we adults need to lend them a hand and help motivate their fellow students. We’re all stakeholders in this – parents and the childless alike – because we’re already investing a princely sum of our money in the education of the young, and their outcomes yield the workers and contributors of tomorrow. Strong students become strong adults which yield a strong economy and strong country…without a proper foundation the entire house will collapse.

So, what can we do?

For starters, we need to make academics sexy. The message from pop culture is that school isn’t fun. Maybe it’s not with all the rote procedure. But, if we sprinkle in some real world applications of biology, physics, math, business, etc., kids can see real benefit to their studies. To do that properly, schools need to reach out to the community and vice versa. There’s nothing more powerful than speakers and field trips specific to the subject matter. Every school district is chock full of interesting residents who can leverage the assets of that community. Let students tour your workplace. Visit classrooms and talk about your employment, public service, passions, or topics of interest. Volunteer to speak to any and all age groups. You could be the spark that ignites a lifetime of appreciation for science, engineering or history.

Second of all, we need to foster character. We can create a focused, high-quality pupil by building their self-esteem, self-awareness, and awareness of the Greater Good. To do so, we need to get more youth (and adult volunteers) involved in organizations like the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Youth Cadets, church groups, 4-H, FFA and the like. All of them contribute mightily to leadership development, volunteerism, morality, work ethic, civic responsibility, and personal responsibility, things you don’t (and in some case really shouldn’t) get from the classroom. But, all of them contribute to behavior in the classroom - and at home - and can create a more driven student.

There are many more ways we can increase student achievement and I’m sure the most successful students out there can contribute to the discussion and let us know what drives them. From them, you’ll probably find that “love” is a common denominator, from the parents who raise them to the teachers who teach them to the volunteers who give their time to them. It’s time everyone pitched in and shared the same with today’s youth: They are, as a whole, an underachieving lot who only need some solid guidance – from family and neighbors alike – to become the good pupils that we were way back when.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 16 July 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

SOME TRAITS OF UNDERACHIEVING YOUTH

Editor’s note: This is Part Three of a four-part series.

Based upon statistics provided in the previous 2 columns there is a glut of minors who are underachieving in the classroom (or, as noted last week, totally uncommitted to the classroom). Which of their behaviors contribute to this underperformance? For the sake of brevity (and not making this a 10-part series), here are just 3…

Today’s kids lack work ethic. Elbow grease at home and in a working environment helps to develop a work ethic that carries over into studies. Unfortunately, today’s youth are not afforded the chance for such enrichment.

Many of the Baby Boomer class and the generations before them had either permanent or temporary access to farm life (regarding the latter, think of how many kids used to spend weeks of their summers on a grandparent’s or uncle’s farm). That exposed the impressionable youngsters to visible rewards (harvests and cattle auctions) that were the result of sweat, hard work, planning, focus and patience. Those days are long gone for teens for smaller family farms have been replaced by larger, more-efficient farms. To put it into perspective, in the 1940s there were over 6.5 million farms. Now, there are just over 2 million.

But, the pastoral experience is only one part of the labor equation. It used to be that teens everywhere could get summer and evening jobs. At the turn of this century, half of all 16-to-19 year-olds held a job. The Great Recession and the resulting “new norm” put youth employment in the crosshairs. Because of the lack of economic opportunity, cost-cutting endeavors by businesses fighting to survive, and adults willing to take what were teens’ jobs in order to survive as well, less than 30% of teens now hold a job.

Unfortunately, that availability of free time does not equal better grades because work is a lesson in itself. As the old adage says, it builds character. So, without work (especially in the formative years), character cannot be built. And, character is the catalyst for achievement.

Today’s families emphasize the extra-curricular over the curricular. It used to be that kids might choose an interest or two that took some of their free time. Now, they chose (or are forced into) schedule-intensive sports while ballet, band, horse-riding lessons, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and more are heaped upon that. The materialism of modern life has driven this, making the parent feel inadequate if he/she can’t keep up with the assumed expectations of our society. They believe they can’t do right by their child if the child is not perpetually busy. It’s sad, as it contributes to financial and emotional stress of parents and it robs kids of their childhood (and the freedom and spontaneity it should have) as well as the time that they need for books (far more important than any sport). The exhausted kids can’t focus on schoolwork, nor do they have time to: Approximately three-quarters of American youth participate in some structured extracurricular activity that consumes up to 9 hours per week. 10% of them devote more than 20 hours per week to it.

Today’s youth are destined to underachieve thanks to electronics. Sci-fi tales of years gone by predicted a technologically-advanced world in which the human existence would be made better by computers and other efficiencies. We’ve come to that era with high-speed computers, the internet, smart phones and more.

But, rather than making our lives easier, they’ve made our lives more difficult, since we’ve become incapable of thinking, analyzing, communicating, calculating and even relaxing without them.

Well, at least that’s the situation that’s befallen the young. Consider these damning numbers: The average American child spends 7.5 hours of every day in front of the TV or computer or engrossed with some other electronic device like a phone.  Not only are they failing to live life or study, but numerous studies have also shown that early and constant exposure to electronic media lead to psychological problems, attention disorders, and cognitive issues. Some scientists have even noticed severe changes in the way that brains function. Technology has weakened – even dramatically hurt - today’s students.

What is most confounding about all of this? Suppose that between extra-curricular activities and electronics a kid devotes a total of 61.5 hours per week. Compare that to academics: A University of Michigan study showed American students average just under 4 hours of homework per week! Where are our priorities?

Next week, the series ends on a positive note as we look at some of the really special youth who are bucking the trend, and outperforming their peers in dramatic fashion, giving us a sense of hope for Tomorrow. 

 

 

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 09 July 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

THE BASIS OF UNDERCHIEVEMENT

Lackadaisical students have always existed, but never in such volume since America became an industrialized nation and never with such vigor as we see today. For those my age and older, think back to the worst students in your class: Back then, even the biggest of slackers still made it a point to do work and strive for some achievement because they had a greater sense of pride and a greater fear of repercussions from their teachers and, more importantly, their parents. Today’s classrooms (and the homes that breed their occupants) are so different.

Talk to a teacher and you’ll hear horror stories of huge numbers of kids who are completely incapable of – or more accurately “disinterested in” - meeting deadlines or completing assignments or preparing for exams, despite the modern students being spoon-fed their expectations through their syllabus, regular updates, and the internet (the latter of which allows teachers to post and rehash virtually everything of note, making it instantly accessible to students and parents alike 24/7). They’ll tell you that these same students relish just getting-by, and see a passing grade as some sort of reward akin to a good student earning a “90” on an exam.

Look at the statistics and you’ll see that approach to schooling. We discussed outcomes last week. What about those who don’t contribute to the outcome?

You would think that my school district (Royalton-Hartland) which -- thanks to the short commuting distance to Lockport, Amherst, and the like -- sees an income level atypically high for a truly rural district, would have a higher graduation rate (commensurate with the socioeconomic make-up of the community) than the pitiful 82% it sports. It’s not much more than the state’s overall graduation rate of 74%, which is driven down by the high dropout rates associated with dirt-poor urban areas like those in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. A 26% dropout rate is not the fault of the schools and in this era it is unacceptable, especially when every American knows how competitive the job market is and that its future remains cloudy. It’s so different from when we had agrarian and simple production economies in which one could get by comfortably in life following an uneducated adolescence.

While that 74% is bad enough, consider another number that contributes to the educational malaise: attendance. In Buffalo City Schools over 42% of all students miss 18 or more days per year, a month of school. Wow.

Those numbers point one type of parent, those who don’t love their children enough to ensure that they, one, attend school and, two, graduate from school. In today’s world it’s neglectful, outright abusive, to allow a minor to skip out on the system that prepares them for the Real World. By deemphasizing the value of an education and allowing a teen to be free-willed to that end, they destine the child to failure in adulthood and a lifetime of low-income wages and/or public assistance.

But for every parent who doesn’t love a kid enough, there’s another one who loves his child “too much”. The goals of parenting are to provide physical, emotional, and intellectual nourishment to your offspring while helping them become quasi-independent teens and, ultimately, truly independent adults. Many modern parents don’t foster an environment that creates those building blocks of dependence. You’ve heard of these helicopter parents who shield their youth from the harsh realities of the world and the life lessons that are necessary to overcome them. They protect their children from everything, from losses on the ball diamond to failure in the classroom, where they aggressively blame every teacher for every bad grade and totally take student accountability out of the equation, never addressing the pupils’ weaknesses and/or lack of drive, let alone the motivation and ability to succeed that was robbed from them by the overprotection.

Helicoptering has become such a sickness that numerous college professors have shared with me concerns over such parents continuing this behavior well into their kids’ college years. This practice has actually been legitimized and recognized by federal policy that forces health insurance companies to cover the insured’s sons and daughters until 26 years of age. Didn’t adulthood once begin 8 years earlier? How is it suddenly acceptable to baby someone into her 20s? By doing so, there’s no need to strive for achievement!

The discussion will continue in next week’s column when we look at the traits of the underachieving students who come from the ranks of the unloved and overloved.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 02 July 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

A GENERATION OF UNDERACHIEVERS: PART ONE

According to the recently-released Business First rankings, my school district (Royalton-Hartland) hasn’t performed very well. In the latest study Roy-Hart ranked 62 out of 97 districts in Western New York, putting it in the 37th percentile. It was 9 out of 10 in Niagara County with only Niagara Falls seeing lower performance. In specific subjects it placed 47th (science), 50th (English), 56th (math) and 80th (social studies). The District also rated 80th in the number of graduates receiving advanced designations.

A lot of parents and community stakeholders will be right in saying some of the teachers and the education system itself (diluted by the morass of local, state and federal controls) are to blame, but they’d only be kidding themselves if they didn’t accept some of the blame as well. That’s because the most damning statistic in the report was Business First’s Achievement Index, which looks at a school’s performance as related to socioeconomic factors within that district (like income).

Despite having the 31st best quality of life in all of WNY, Roy-Hart students performed so poorly in the classroom that they ranked 93rd in achievement, 4 from the bottom. It’s an unexpected outcome because it’s always been assumed that the better the socioeconomic make-up of a community, the better the grades (highly-regarded Williamsville is the old stand-by when making such a claim). That simple – yet telling - statistic would lead one to label Roy-Hart’s students as major underachievers, a statement about households as much as classrooms.

Looking at Big Picture, though, it’s not so much that Roy-Hart is an anomaly, rather it’s a reflection of the norm: We have a nation of underachieving students.

If the theory that quality of life yielded better classroom performance, the United States would absolutely crush the rest of the world in public education. We aren’t. The United States sports the second largest economy in the world with a gross domestic product at $15.04 trillion (the European Union, in the first spot, sports a collective $15.4 trillion). The US remains $4 trillion ahead of the third-best (China) and $11 trillion ahead of the countries in fourth and fifth (India and Japan). Despite such a stellar quality of life, American students are lagging behind. In a 2010 study the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranked our students 14th overall. Some of the countries ahead of us are South Korea (1), Canada (3), Japan (5), Australia (6) and Poland (12). This is despite the United States spending more per pupil (just over $11,000) than anyone else but Switzerland (which spends just a hair more than we). It should be noted that we spend a third more on education than first-ranked South Korea does.

I’ve written at length before at the collapse of the once-vaunted American education system under the weight of federal oversight (for something best left to local control with only minimal state input) and standardized testing (which begat teaching to the test and not to mastery of the subject). But, when you look at how the outputs just don’t match the inputs -- both here in our neighborhood and throughout our collective nation -- and the label of “underachiever” gets thrown around, the discussion needs to be expanded to include parental expectations of a kid’s learning and that child’s participation within the process.

Today’s parents – which include the second half of the Baby Boomers and my generation (X) – are, shall we say, a little “different.” The standards that their parents once set for their children (and their parents’ had set before them) seem to have been cast aside and replaced with a kinder, gentler approach to parenting which has yielded a generation of mentally, emotionally and intellectually weaker children all of whom contribute to America’s mediocre success in education and will, more than likely once these kids have aged, have the same effect on our economy, public policy and society.

In next week’s column we’ll look at some real world examples of the modern parents’ indifference to education and how that has contributed to what looks like a generation of underachievers.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.


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This column originally ran in the 25 June 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

A DECLARATION OF DEPENDENCE

In a couple of weeks we will be observing the quintessential American holiday — our Independence Day. From coast to coast, people will celebrate with their usual vigor the greatness that are these United States. Sadly, much of that patriotism will not be based on true Americanism. Instead, for a majority of our citizens, the vision of what America has been, is, and will be is but a mutation of what our nation is supposed to represent.

In its simplest terms July 4 celebrates the independence that our Founding Fathers achieved from the British in 1776. But it’s much deeper than that. When they cut ties with the motherland, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the other signers of the Declaration of Independence were also cutting ties with — then and for the future — onerous forms of government. They were founding a nation, perchance a heaven on Earth, based on the basic yet so magnificent premise that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Founding Fathers believed that we as individuals were just as independent from control and oversight as our embryonic nation was from the grip of Great Britain. Our singular destinies were based in self-determination and we — not the government — were to decide how we lived our lives. That new form of self-rule that they devised at the time (which was so eloquently defined by the Constitution 11 years later) ensured that the federal government was an object of and by the people (not the other way around) and was there only to provide for an environment that guaranteed the protection of our natural rights and ensured that no one, not even the government itself, could infringe upon those rights and prevent anyone from pursuing his life’s dreams.

The times have changed, however. Many of the same Americans who will celebrate our formative document and its philosophies have willingly decided to abandon those tenets. They clamor for a form of government that our nation won its freedom from. Slowly but surely, even subconsciously, they have declared their dependence.

They want a ruling body that will do more than create and execute the rule of law. They want and need a ruling body that will provide for their everyday comforts — from income to food to housing to health care to retirement. They want a federal government that, in defiance of the Declaration of Independence, will not allow the pursuit of Happiness but will instead outright issue Happiness, or at least a sickeningly limited version of it, while snuffing out the Happiness of those souls from whom it pilfers its resources.

Looking at what our citizens have come to expect over the years -- and what they are now demanding amidst the throes of the economy’s struggle to regain its footing -- it’s obvious that the majority don’t value independence anymore. On July 4 they should lock their doors and stay away from any and all of the festivities. Celebrating as they would otherwise would be but a display of total hypocrisy.

If they truly believed in what the day stands for, they should demand that the government get out of the business of providing a cradle-to-grave existence and, instead, put an end to the taxes and freedoms it extracts from productive sectors of the economy and the free nature of good people in an effort to make functional its corrupt – and, yes, totally un-American -- system of social and corporate entitlements, alleged security and the resultant bastardization of freedom. Ending the federal government’s destructive actions and getting back to our roots would allow every one of us to pursue our own version of Happiness….the very thing that America and independence are all about.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.

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This column originally ran in the 18 June 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers

LEGALIZE FIREWORKS IN NEW YORK

With the piece de resistance of pyromania – Independence Day – nearly upon us, it’s that time of the year when thousands of New Yorkers make their annual pilgrimage to Pennsylvania where they can legally purchase recreational explosives that will illegally be used to supplement their July Fourth festivities back home. It’s ironic that New Yorkers have to tiptoe around the law – which prohibits the sale, possession or use of fireworks – before and during a holiday that celebrates personal freedom.

It’s time that we changed the 103 year-old law and allowed people to have some fun.

Last year that nearly happened – albeit it in limited fashion – when the state legislature approved a bill that would have allowed the sale and use of handheld or ground-based party explosives (aerial displays would have remained a no-no). Governor Cuomo vetoed the bill. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the end for future legislative attempts; over the years numerous bills have been resubmitted annually before finally receiving executive approval and - as we’ve seen with his recent about face on marijuana - the Governor’s mind can change. But, going forward, it would be nice to see rockets and Roman candles added to the list of permissible items.

The economic benefit would be astounding. The abbreviated list that would have been allowed under last year’s bill would have resulted in $50 million in sales per year. $2 million would have gone to state coffers in the form of sales taxes. If larger and more exciting displays were allowed as well, both of those numbers could double. Instead, dollars are being spent in neighboring states before the fireworks are brought home.

More important than that, though, is the fact that we would glean social benefit. If someone wants to celebrate a holiday or special event and, in the process harms no one, let him do it. Why should we take away something that’s joyous and entertaining to people? Those New Yorkers who now break the law are subjected to harassment by neighbors and police and they could face a potential penalty that is 15 days in jail and/or $250 in fines.

If the state allowed the sale of fireworks, there would still need to be some limits. This goes back to my interpretation of personal liberty -- also briefly mentioned above -- that one can do as he chooses as long as the rights of others aren’t affected. The first such right would be property rights. As we saw last July in Buffalo, a family lost their home and a second, vacant home went up in flames when illegal fireworks struck them. The second right is the right to peaceful existence. You wouldn’t want someone blowing off explosives in a populous neighborhood on a week night when people are trying to sleep for work or school.

To mitigate such concerns we should rely on the most primal form of rule: local governments. It is best left to the towns, villages and cities to best determine when and where fireworks can be used. Aerial displays should be outright banned within all densely-populated areas -- hamlets, suburbs, mobile home parks, cities, etc -- due to the proximity of homes and the risk of unintended fires occurring as they did in Buffalo. But, the people living in those areas shouldn’t be excluded from using the safer ground displays and noisemakers on the holidays. Likewise, those who live in rural areas should be allowed to launch the most-impressive rockets since there is no risk of igniting another’s’ home. Locally-determined limits could also be imposed on when fireworks could be used. Most towns have noise ordinances, so the control of such boisterous activity is not something new. Common sense exceptions could be granted for use of fireworks on specific holidays (Memorial Day weekend, July 4, Labor Day weekend, New Years Eve, and maybe even most Saturdays).

We can certainly make Independence Day much more festive and colorful in New York by eliminating Big Government – and empowering Small Government – recognizing that in 46 other states people can pursue the right to ignite small scale explosives on their property…and their parties are better for it!

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.




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This column originally ran in the 11 June 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers