No Favor--Educating illegal immigrants

Much has been written and needs to be written about our lack of a comprehenive national immigration policy. In the meantime, the State, Local and Federal Governments are spending large amounts on educating the young of these immigrants. We are not doing them much of a favor.

Even if they graduate with MBA's or demonstrate the reality of string theory in our daily lives or find the answers to deadly diseases, it is still illegal to hire them.  My own Governor, Martin O'Malley of Maryland says it will ensure continous access to the best minds for our State's businesses.  No one however, has explained how that works.   The Governor says they must "endeavor" to become citizens, if so then why don't they endeavor first to becoome citizens and then go to the University.

No one has even touched on the limited amount of financial aid there is available or the limited budgets of local schools, which before they are eligible for College they must receive elementary and secondary educations.  These are the same local schools whose budgets are being cut and teacher's are being scrutinized and perforance tested.

I understand the desire for your children to go to college and I welcome all to take part because that diversity does bring education in its own right.   But, what's the end game?  I fear its much like the government telling twenty-somethings that pay into Social Security and Medicare that it will be there when they are seventy (it won't be at the current age 62).  Another good deed by the Government which ends in frustration.



  

A Note to Authors and Editors

I've harbored this feeling for a long time when I read history, but the recent reading of Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family by Jo Ella Powell Exley brought it to the forefront again.  This is an excellent read of the pioneering of the Southwest, particularly Texas by following one family from Virginia to the Texas area in the 1830's; and how the capture of one of their children by the Comanche Native Americans would produce one of the greatest War Chiefs of the Southwest, Quanah Parker.

It is well reviewed and well written, with a great deal of first person accounts as to locations of the sites documented.  Now my  peeve,  there are not maps!  Not one drawing, not even one big one showing the general area of discussion.  To me this is unforgivable when writing history, what good is knowing about every individuals movements if you provide no geographical references.  Ms. Powell inserted detailed location descriptions but no illustrations of those places to make them real to the reader or at least me.

Which is why Allen W. Eckerts series on the Bloody Frontier of the French and Indian War remain my most enjoyable reads in my fifty some years.  He documents every location with where that site is today, so if I want to go see where Tecumseh was born I can do so.

So my plea to the writers of history:  Give us maps with your great stories, help the reader to understand the geographical context of the events.

Welcome to the 112th Congress

As an old Hill staffer this is always a special time, every two year's the world, at least the world of the U.S. House of Representatives is born anew and anything is possible.

This group, however, face issues and demands that are far greater than any of their more recent predecessors. I am reminded of my time on the old Committee on Post Office and Civil Service in the early-1980's when recruiting Members of Congress to serve on this Committee was getting harder. The Committee had oversight of the U.S. Postal Service and all Federal employee matters including their pay, retirement and other benefits.

When encouraged to join Members often responded, "why should I get on that Committee and make every Federal employee and retiree unhappy with me? The good (read easy) things have already been done, there's nothing left to be done but to begin to take things away to meet the new Budget demands." And they were right.

Shortly, thereafter the Congress ended the old federal retirement system and replaced it with one more like the private sector and heavily dependent on a 401k like portion based on the employee's willingness to contribute funds to it. It also ended Federal retirees who also had Social Security coverage from prior career work from receiving their full retirement income from both systems and similarly, Federal retirees could no longer receive Social Security benefits based on an spouse's Social Security earnings, when that spouse dies.

So, good luck to the new Congress, the easy stuff has been done, but then again, if the issues were easy, the Country wouldn't be in this situation.