School choice, Catholic schools, gay parents, and Archbishop Chaput

I meant to make mention of Ronnie Polanecsky's excellent column yesterday in the Daily News, pointing out that while Archbishop Charles Chaput is pushing for a state law that would, essentially, direct taxpayer money to Philadelphia's Catholic schools, his subordinates are also making it virtually impossible for Catholic families to choose which Catholic school they want to attend. His notion of "school choice" then, is one in which the church gets to choose—not you.

Since Chaput seems to be putting his muscle behind this effort, though, I feel it's important to point out something: Chaput was the archbishop in Denver when a Catholic school there rejected a student because that student had two mommies.

Now: I don't like that, but that's certainly the right of a church-affiliated private school.

But I also don't really want my tax dollars to subsidize discrimination against my gay neighbors, either.

If Chaput can promise that Catholic schools will take any student—basically, if Catholic schools will take any student that public schools take, and respect their rights to conscience like any public school would—I might sign on to his efforts: I wouldn't mind have some options beyond Philadelphia's public schools. But I don't think Chaput can or will do so—Catholic organizations are increasingly abandoning public service rather than have to serve or recognize the rights of gays. I don't begrudge them that choice: They have to obey their own consciences. I don't choose, however, to subsidize the Catholic conscience with public money.

The Inquirer's weird obit for Cardinal Bevilacqua

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua died Tuesday night. I arrived in Philadelphia in 2008, after he'd retired, yet his name has been regularly in the news the entire time I've been here. Why? Because he was running the archdiocese when it apparently kept a lid on child molestation accusation. As the Philadelphia Inquirer's obit notes, "In September 2005, after a 40-month grand jury investigation into clergy sex abuse in the archdiocese, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office issued a report excoriating Cardinals Bevilacqua and Krol for systematically allowing hundreds of abuser priests to go unpunished and ignoring the victims."

But aside from an oblique reference to governing the archdiocese during a time of "crisis," the Inquirer's obit doesn't explicitly reference the sex abuse scandal until the 12th paragraph.

It's an odd choice. But to be fair, it appears to be one that the Inquirer makes regularly: It's recent news story announcing Joe Paterno's death made no direct reference to the Jerry Sandusky scandal until the sixth paragraph.

Whenever a public figure endures a major scandal, it's often said of him: "Well he did a lot of good things, but his role in Watergate will always be in the first paragraph of his obituary." It's perhaps unfortunate for Richard Nixon that he didn't die in Philadelphia—his resignation might've been omitted entirely from the Inquirer's obit.

In defense of Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney may indeed have unkind feelings about America's poor, but I don't think this quote is proof of that:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney told CNN. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

This isn't a "screw the poor" moment. Romney is clearly saying that the safety net has covered the poor, so he wants to focus on getting the middle class moving again. It may be awkwardly phrased, but it's actually a pretty Clintonesque formulation.

Now: It's not been so long since Romney's campaign had great fun taking a quote from President Obama wildly out of context, so if this new quote dogs him in the campaign, it'll be hard to be sympathetic. But an honest evaluation of his comments doesn't really come out quite as anti-poor as it initially seems.

I thought the Obama Administration was making domesting oil drilling impossible

Oil well drilling activity continued to increase in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to API's 2011 Quarterly Well Completion Report: Fourth Quarter. The report estimates that 6,149 oil wells were completed in fourth quarter 2011, a 10 percent increase from year-ago levels.

"There's good news that domestic drilling continued to increase into the fourth quarter of 2011," said Hazem Arafa, director of API's statistics department.  "And with policies that allow greater access to the vast energy resources right here at home, we can provide even more of the energy our country needs while hiring more American workers and generating more revenue for our government."

via api-ec.api.org

Is America's economy fair?

That's the question in this week's Scripps Howard column, following up on yesterday's Gallup poll and President Obama's State of the Union comment that "We can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules." My take:

"Fairness" can be a slippery concept, so let's use Obama's formulation as our guide. In the American economy, does everybody get a fair shot? Does everyone do a fair share? Does everyone play by the same set of rules? No. Yes. No.

No, not everybody gets a fair shot. Sixty-five percent of American men born poor stay poor, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Sixty-two percent of those born rich stay rich. Other studies show that it's much easier to rise from humble circumstances if you're a native of Canada, Norway, Finland or Denmark than in the United States. The poor often lack the education and resources to advance in today's high-tech economy.

Yes, the people who are able to obtain jobs do their fair share. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that American workers doubled their productivity between 2008 and 2009, and then did it again in 2010. Some of that is due to workplace mechanization, but some is surely due to American workers continually finding ways to "do more with less."

No, not everyone plays by the same set of rules. Banks get bailed out by taxpayers and their executives still collect bonuses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but homeowners stuck with bad mortgages are sneered at as "losers" by television pundits. If you're rich, it's tough to stop being rich, no matter how badly you screw up.

If you're less well off, one mistake can doom your whole life.

It didn't used to be this way in America. There were once opportunities to rise from humble circumstances. That's not really the case anymore. Horatio Alger may have become famous writing rags-to-riches tales about opportunity in America. But Horatio Alger is dead and mostly forgotten. And it's not fair.

I guess I could've applied the test posed by John Rawls and asked if this economic system would've been agreed to by most Americans if they were blind to whether they'd be advantaged or disadvantaged by it. My guess: No. But I don't think the tweaks would actually be all that massive under such a scenario.

Ben thinks the economy is unfair ... to free enterprise. Bwahahahaha!

Gingrich would bomb Cuba, is awesomer and less Communist than Reagan

Adam Serwer:

During his interview with Univision's Jorge Ramos this morning, Newt Gingrich was asked just how far he was willing to go in order to eliminate the Castro regime in Cuba. Gingrich said that he thought it was "baloney" that Obama intervened in Libya (a decision Gingrich was on both sides of on multiple occasions) but apparently hadn't thought of bombing Cuba. Gingrich said this contrast was "fascinating," and wondered why Obama "doesn't quite notice Cuba."

You know, I've wondered the same thing about Ronald Reagan. He too bombed Libya and didn't bomb Cuba! I blame Saul Alinsky and Kenyan anti-colonialism for Reagan's weakness.

More seriously: We don't expend much in the way of resources in toppling Castro because Castro represents no security threat at all the the United States. None. Zero. Zilch. He doesn't like us, and we don't like him, but the Communist regime there isn't going to do anything to us. We might see offing the regime as democracy promotion, but the rest of the world would see it (not without cause) as imperialist meddling. Gingrich should maybe shut up.

A very interesting poll on the fairness of our economic system.

Via Gallup, we learn that Americans are roughly divided on whether the country's economic system is fair—but that 62 percent believe that the system is fair to them personally.

Here's where it gets interesting. Fifty-six percent of Democrats believe the system is unfair. Fifty percent of independents believe the same. Only 42 percent of Republicans think the system is unfair.

Weirdly, though, more Democrats than Republicans believe they've profited from that system:

The columns, from left, are "fair," "unfair," and "no opinion."

There's a rough correlation between whether Republicans believe the economic system is fair and whether they believe the system is fair to them. That correlation pretty much disappears for independents and Democrats. Why is that?