Dr. Jack's commentaries

WKGC Commentary---8/22/01

Dr. Terry Jack

The Game

Last week the Lynn Haven Rotary Club invited me to have breakfast with them and present their program. I was pleased to accept their invitation as they do good work and are a very friendly club. And, they do serve a very good breakfast.

My homily that day was about games that are played in Washington. Our President must play three games if he is to be thought effective: the agenda game; the media game; and the most difficult of all, the coalition game. Today we expect the president to set the nation’s agenda, and his administration is evaluated in terms of whether that agenda is successfully implemented. The president is the nation’s Head of State so he is the subject of intense media scrutiny, which he can then focus on his agenda. Next the president must put together the coalitions that are needed to push policy options through a very fragmented political system. These games are necessary and understandable, but there is a game that Congress plays that is insulting to taxpayers. I call the game the pay game.

Only members of Congress could develop a plan to pay themselves that would provide for an automatic bump in their pay unless voted down by the membership. Try that one out on your boss—automatic raises unless you refuse them. While you’re at it you could ask for a Lexus, but I don’t think you’re going to get it.

But then Congress is another animal. Members now make just over $145,000, but unless they stop the automatic raise this year, they will take home $150,000. I really don’t begrudge their salaries, but the game they’re playing is insulting. It is politically difficult to vote for a pay raise, but it should be. We don’t send folks to Congress to make the easy calls. If our representatives think they need more money they should make their case and vote on it straight up. If they don’t have the political courage to do so, they need to look for work in the real world where pay raises are earned.

Bay Haven Does Not an Educational Heaven Make

Aug. 20, 2001

I usually find the editorials served up by The News Herald to range from the benign to the extremely provocative. But their August 12^th piece entitled “Welcome the Competition-Bay Haven: Education in Bay County is on the way to seeing what works” reflects no understanding of the real world. Don’t get me wrong, as I’m a true believer in competition, I say welcome to the neighborhood Bay Haven Charter Academy. But if the author of that editorial thinks privatized management and the mandatory involvement of parent volunteers will really change anything he or she has had one too many Bud Lights’ at whatever watering hole they frequent. Think about it! A mandatory volunteer is an oxymoron if ever there was one. I really don’t think Bay Haven Charter Academy will serve autistic students, or students with visual, hearing, or orthopedic impairments. Nor will they serve truants, adjudicated juveniles, or other students defined as “at risk” of not graduating. And pity the poor kid who gets in who has not grown up in a family where education is appreciated and parents are willing to stay up until 3:00 a.m. to help with an English essay or a science project. Mandatory parental involvement; please!

The editorials real disservice however was the obvious disdain for the men and women who labor honestly in Bay County’s educational vineyards. Teachers don’t expect catered lunches or fresh flowers on their desk, but if we are unwilling to pay them at a level commensurate with what they do for society, the very least we can do is say thank you.

Chris Matthews’s column in the August 5^th issue of the News Herald was an interesting exercise in futility. Mr. Matthews expressed frustration with the 22^nd Amendment and called for repeal sooner rather than later. You will recall I’m sure that this addendum to the Constitution limits a president to two terms. When such proposals were introduced at the Constitutional Convention, they were overwhelmingly defeated.

True, our first President didn’t accept a third term, but only because after many years of public service he was weary and wanted to retire. But George Washington didn’t believe a third term was dangerous or unpatriotic. In letters to friends, written before and while he was President, he reiterated his conviction that a President should be permitted to serve as many times as he was physically able and the people saw fit to select him.

A good course in American Government will remind us that the Constitution was never intended to be a democratic document and the 22^nd Amendment makes it less so. Democracy is generally defined as the right of the people to select any person to hold public office and thereby guide the direction of public policy. The really undemocratic principle is the suggestion that the choice of the people must be curbed by arbitrary rules. The notion that such restrictions are needed is a public confession of a lack of faith in the democratic process of government and of an unwillingness to abide by the verdict of the electorate.

Truth be told, very few folks could survive the cauldron that is contemporary American politics, so there is no need to make a big deal out of this. But if repealing the 22^nd Amendment ever replaces flag burning as the "burning" issue, repeal, repeal, repeal!