High Hopes for Health Care
• July 26, 2011

 

-In a recent New York Times op-ed, Paul Krugman, echoing Abraham Lincoln, remarked that the case for universal health care was “an appeal to our better angels, urging politicians to do what is right, even if it hurts their careers.” His politics and bias, whether you agree with them or not, are immaterial here. More important is to understand his use of a phrase now firmly ensconced in the American rhetorical canon, one which may help us to see how the passing of a landmark piece of legislation on Sunday fits into the larger picture of American social policy.

Better angels. It’s a Lincoln original, a curious turn of phrase he used, against the advice of his Cabinet and colleagues, to describe an aspect of America’s internal conscience. It implies the smallest lozenge of good residing within everyone, heavenly, metaphysical, one we strain to hear over the din of heated argument and impassioned emotion. Our ongoing struggle with this innate empathy also calls to mind a stark truth: that American crusades for civil and social justice, the ones we now deem unshakable and sacrosanct, were never popular with contemporaries.

At the turn of the 19th century, those who had fought so hard to guarantee free speech in the Constitution faced its erosion by sedition laws. In Lincoln’s own time, emancipation was reviled by the South and thought imprudent and reactionary in the North. A century later, a handful of legislators, state politicians, and citizens showed they would go to any length to curb the presidency’s quest for civil rights chartered by law. To question the spirit of these movements today, now removed from any political or prejudicial skew, would be to question what is now snugly assimilated into the country’s heritage.

Do we possess the prescience to feel certain the cause for health care will be remembered similarly? No, but we have a feeling it will be. Of the three fundamental rights Thomas Jefferson ascribed to humanity, life and liberty are the most easily stripped by the vindictive, heartless, cutthroat side of mankind. We must never allow that side to take ground. We must recognize for ourselves and for each other that the cause for life, like the cause for liberty, will be threatened constantly by the shallow, inhuman interests that lurk on the fringes of a harsh world. We must pledge to never lie beholden to these. We must pledge to take the steps necessary to ensure that our citizens, one and all, have the resources they need to preserve their own life and the lives of loved ones.

This may require us to quiet ourselves for a moment and listen within to that which binds us together as Americans, and as human beings. The better angels of our nature.

Liquor Moratorium Needs Loosening
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-May we request a moratorium on, you know, the moratorium?

Meaning, of course, ABRA’s liquor moratorium for Georgetown, which begins at Wisconsin and N Streets and applies to every restaurant within a third-mile radius, and is now up for its five-year renewal later this year. Several weeks ago, the ANC gave its blessing to a renewal, with the recommendation that two more available licenses be issued in order to, as ANC 2E05 Bill Starrels put it, “dampen the bidding wars.”

Such a comment touches on the larger issue at stake: that any restaurant hoping to sell liquor within the heart of Georgetown must bid for a finite resource. Too finite, in our opinion. Currently, new establishments seeking a license must purchase it at a premium from defunct restaurant owners, who may hold onto their license as long as they like until they get the price they want.

You can see where simple economics comes into play. Demand is skyrocketing, while supply remains dismally low, not to mention hoarded for profit. A Georgetown liquor license nowadays goes for $70,000. And insofar that any restaurant larger than a take-out sandwich joint cannot hope to profit without liquor sales, we can expect any prospective eateries to set up shop elsewhere, where they won’t immediately be set back a hundred grand.

Which is a shame. As Ginger Laytham of Clyde’s remarks, “This is not just a restaurant issue, it’s a whole community issue.” We agree. With a struggling retail market that seems to only attract national chains, this neighborhood more than ever needs to facilitate the establishment of locally owned restaurants and bars where Georgetowners, their friends, and visitors alike can gather to socialize and enjoy the cachet unique to this community. While we are sensitive to the notion that establishments selling alcohol may be catalysts for disorderly conduct, we also point out that incidents like the recent Philly Pizza fiasco don’t always require getting liquored up.

Does all this necessitate a complete repeal of the moratorium, or the handing out of licenses carte blanche? No, but we believe the law could do with a bit of curtailing. We urge ABRA and the city council to issue more liquor licenses to Georgetown, and to enact legislation that would lower the value of those already issued — by adding expiration dates for defunct licenses, for instance — so they are less of a cash cow and more of a transferable, affordable resource.

A New Shade of Gray
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Well, city council Chairman Vincent Gray has gone and done it.

After months of prodding and speculation in the media and among political types in the District, Gray has decided to take on incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty and run against him.

He made his announcement at a spirited rally where the key rhetorical elements were “one city” and “we can do better,” which got the people in attendance at Reeves Municipal Center going, but didn’t give too many clues on substance or policy difference that Gray might have with the mayor.

Still, the announcement accomplished at least two things: it ended speculation about Gray and transferred it to speculation about who was going to run for Gray’s chairman position.

The one certain thing is that Gray will not be chairman next year, and that’s the big risk in his decision: that he could become Linda Cropp, the sitting council chair four years ago who decided to run for mayor and got soundly trounced by Fenty, managing to lose every precinct and ward in the city. Now that he’s opted to run against Fenty, Gray cannot run for re-election as council chair, an election he was a sure bet to have won. He could be a man without a job if he fails to unseat the sitting mayor.

Gray is obviously optimistic about his chances. On the surface, his is in the very least a serious candidacy, although the probabilities for success remain very, very iffy. Gray may have been encouraged by a recent poll that showed a decided unhappiness among voters with Fenty, but it was a poll from which you could extract mixed meanings.

Many district voters and residents, many of them in the poorer and majority black areas of the city such as Ward 8, 7, 6, 5 and 4 (Fenty’s own ward), are not happy with the way Fenty has governed, even if quite a few others praise his action-fueled ways, citing favorable homicide and crime stats, a major school takeover and reform effort that’s beginning to show favorable results in some areas and general quality of life improvements. It was a poll that seemed to say “we like some of what you’ve done, but we don’t like how you did it.” Which is to say that Fenty was perceived as distant, somewhat arrogant, a “does not play well with others” (especially the city council) kind of leader, often high-handed, secretive and single-minded. A poll also showed that in a one-on-one race against Fenty, Gray would narrowly win.

Yet these objections, while heated, also seem somewhat ephemeral — they’re not the sort of thing you on which you can place a big political bet. More troublesome may be the results of an investigation into Fenty’s bypassing the council in awarding contracts on parks and recreation projects. And just this week, the anger of residents where four people were killed in mass shootings was high after Fenty — rumored to be vacationing in Jamaica — failed to show up at the site. To be fair, the mayor’s presence at scenes of tragedy and trouble has been consistently high in the past.

Then there’s the question of how legislation will fare on the council when a number of its members are engaged in running for office, and that would be especially in the case of Gray. It’s budget time, and Fenty last week presented his budget for fiscal year 2011 to the council and to the public, a budget fraught with potential controversy, given its unsightly $500 million-plus deficit. At the meeting with the council, Fenty greeted Gray with a hug, the first time the two men apparently had seen each other or talked in months.

Fenty’s relationship with the city council — especially Gray — has deteriorated drastically, beginning with the choice of Michelle Rhee as public schools chancellor, the selection of which the Washington Post knew about before Gray was informed. Rhee’s own drastic reform efforts, which include high doses of national publicity, the mass firing of teachers and stalled contract talks with the teacher’s union, seemed to mimic Fenty’s style.

Such treatment obviously rankled Gray, especially after he supported Fenty in his school takeover effort.

But Fenty is also a tough, high-energy campaigner with a big war chest of nearly $4 million. This late in the game, that’s a lot to catch up with, although Gray is rumored to be trolling for support with the Cafritz family and folks like Judith Terra, a former Fenty supporter.

Then there’s Don Peebles, the bucks-rich developer who may yet run, which might distract the focus of voters, if not the contributors.

Gray — now dubbed Vince Gray on his campaign website — is a careful sort who likes building consensus. Fenty, at least if the polls are correct, is seen as someone who likes to act and make decisions and not look back or apologize.

Gray’s decision sparked a scramble among candidates looking at his council chairman seat in an increasingly volatile city council. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, the council’s longest sitting member, has already unequivocally said he will run. Solid rumors have it that Kwame Brown, the appealing and popular at-large member will also run, and there are speculations about Phil Mendelson, another veteran at-large member who faces a re-election challenge, is also considering a bid for the seat.

That speaks to a certain instability on the new council, which recently celebrated its 35th anniversary under Home Rule. Six council members are up for re-election this year, many of them first timers. That makes this year’s budget deliberations a possible arena for political combat.

In this atmosphere, and with this late start, what are the odds on Gray’s run? It remains a long shot, but there are some things he can (and some that he must) do to give himself the best chance. The most difficult might be catching up in the financing sweepstakes. He (and Fenty) must also be careful to not let their differences create a have-and-have-not political climate. But Gray has to do more than complain about Fenty’s style. Fenty and Gray represent two different political generations in Washington, something that can favor Gray, who can draw support from folks used to being politically active. But he has to, at some point, make policy distinctions between himself and Fenty. It’s one thing to be prickly about Rhee and her methods, or Fenty and his methods. He’s got to show how a Gray administration would be different in substance, not just style. Both Vincent and Vince have to show up at the candidate forums which are a hallmark of D.C.’s election campaigns.

The Blame Game, Again
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-Remember that big, rollout announcement that the Washington Teachers’ Union and Chancellor Michelle Rhee had finally reached an agreement on the teacher’s contract?

The pact announcement was a big feather in the caps of both Rhee and D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who are joined at the political hip in their quest for reforming District schools.

So what’s happened? Well, nothing, sort of.

The pact, which would need to have the approval of CFO Natwar Gandhi and the city council, as well as ratification by the teacher’s union membership, remains in limbo. The problem — actually, make that problems, are:

Among other things, the pact calls for 20 percent pay increases over 5 years for the teachers. Part of that money was supposed to come from private funding, the rest from DCPS.

Except it appears — and appears is the operating word — the money isn’t there. Not according to Gandhi, who’s also objecting to the private funding. Initially, Rhee had stunned everyone by announcing that there was a surplus in the budget, which led to a lot of acrimonious revisiting of the firing of nearly 300 teachers last fall.

But Gandhi says there is no surplus, and that there is, in fact, a deficit. Both Rhee and Gandhi testified last week, but could only offer uncertainties. Councilmembers complained that no one seemed to have a handle on the numbers.

Gandhi complained that the private funding comes with unacceptable conditions and allows the funders too much control.

Rhee and some council members blamed the CFO’s office for not providing accurate numbers. Union leaders fretted over the confusion, which holds up a contract vote.

All parties are searching for ways to cut the DCPS budget, and to find additional moneys.
Meantime, there’s recrimination — again — blame gaming and confusion. That’s certainly not a healthy way to conduct either contract negotiations or budget planning.

Show Us the Money
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Say, you might ask, whatever happened to the teacher’s union contract?

What happened to that $34 million-dollar deficit or that surplus that wasn’t there?

And how are Chief Financial Officer Natwar Ghandi and DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee getting along?

Last time we looked, things looked mighty confusing on the budget front. Rhee and Gandhi were arguing while testifying before the city council on money matters, Gandhi arguing a) there wasn’t any surplus and b) he wouldn’t sign off on control by parties providing private funding.

But now it seems everything, we’re happy to say, is fine and dandy. Sort of.

On May 11, the Washington Post, the District schools and the mayor reported that the city was set to fund the teachers contract, its pay raises, retroactive and current. That agreement, which would cause $38 million in cuts elsewhere in the District budget, would pave the way for an eventual teachers’ union members vote on the contract, worth $140 million.

Mayor Fenty, Rhee and Gandhi appeared together at the announcement to give the appearance of unity. The solution of cuts in the budget, shifting of stimulus funds and private funds at a later date, appeared okay with Gandhi. The agreement must now await a rank and file vote by union members.

Meantime, Rhee has been busy. She announced that she will double the number of senior managers for public schools in the form of “instructional superintendents” with salaries ranging from $120,000 to $150,000. She also announced recently that DCPS would be hiring 400 new teachers.

But some answers still remain hazy. Where is all this money for new hires coming from when just a week ago we heard so much talk of surpluses that weren’t there and deficits that were? If it comes purely from budget cuts, lauded as the perfect stopgap, the District will still pull funding away from public programs on an already spare pocketbook, and just might find itself in a similar pecuniary pickle down the road. The mayor’s solution may not be as elegant as he would have us believe, and it warrants closer scrutiny. [gallery ids="99130,102678" nav="thumbs"]