Something’s different about September. Something changes with its arrival. It’s school and the renewed emphasis on education. It’s football and volleyball, and cooler temperatures, and football, and staying closer to home, and football.
It’s also a good time to clear the desk of some accumulated notes and clippings, while trying to keep this Big-Ten thing straight. Are the Huskers Leaders or Legends?
Several e-mailers have sought to make sure we were aware of the controversy that swirled when Nebraska’s Attorney General, while in his candidate-for-U.S.-Senate campaigning mode, compared welfare recipients to scavenging raccoons, albeit pretty darned smart raccoons. Yes, we’ve seen the video, and read plenty about it.
The story he tells is that a rural Nebraska road-repair project has to be halted due to the discovery of some environmentally endangered beetles. So the construction engineers devise a plan to capture the beetles and provide them with relocation rescue. The plan involves using dead rats to lure the beetles into buckets. But the raccoons are watching this and, because they are not stupid, they figure out that the easy way is to wait for darkness and then scavenge the beetles straight from the buckets.
Just like welfare recipients all across America, if we don’t incent them to work, they’re gonna take the easy route—that’s the essence of the candidate’s comments comparing welfare recipients to the raccoons.
We understand why his spokesman would later say the candidate regrets the comments—he should—and that they were "inartful." Yes, and in poor taste, and offensive, and ridiculous. (On the other hand, some of the gestures were pretty entertaining, such as depicting scooping grapes out of a jar and using a hand-held camera to videotape the action.)
Most to be disliked about the Attorney General/Senate candidate’s failed analogy is that it played to misconceptions and stereotypes and failed to acknowledge realities of the welfare mechanism in Nebraska. That mechanism is not an easy route. Welfare-to-work is the policy. Work incentives are used. There are requirements for being eligible and retaining eligibility.
Nebraska policy makers reformed the basic welfare program—aid-for-families-with-dependent-children—a number of years ago. Recipients have to establish they are poor: there are income tests and resource limits. Cash assistance is time-limited and conditioned upon participating in "Employment First," i.e., education, skills-development and/or work programs. Able-bodied recipients must sign agreements obligating them to participate in these programs. Reneging on an agreement ends cash assistance.
There were no strings attached, or conditions to be met, or obligations to be fulfilled in order for the raccoons to gobble up the beetles. So, a lousy comparison.
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It will be interesting to see how Nebraska policy makers proceed on the health-insurance-exchange component required by the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. By January 1, 2013, states have to demonstrate to the federal government that they will have these insurance marketplaces up and running by a year later.
These exchanges/marketplaces are intended to facilitate health-insurance purchasing for otherwise-uninsured low- and moderate-income individuals and families and also small businesses. The exchanges also will be the means by which premium-assistance subsidies will be distributed and for Medicaid and Medicare enrollment.
If a state will not or cannot set up an exchange, either on its own or as part of a regional, multi-state approach, the federal government will step in and do it. A state-federal-partnership model is a newly identified possibility.
Recently, the Nebraska Legislature’s Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee and Health and Human Services Committee conducted a joint briefing, which included presentations from the state Department of Insurance and by the state director of Medicaid Services. They await a lot more guidance from the federal government.
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From the headlines-that-spark-curiosity file: First, "Death more likely than losing federal job." Job security for all federal workers was 99.43 percent in 2010. Second, "Regent guilty of taking shovel"; a member of the NU Board of Regents was convicted of larceny, but acquitted of trespassing; a lot of arrogance in that tiny story. Third, "Bar Opens in Ohio Statehouse"; yessir, a full-service bar in the basement café.
And finally…. If we didn’t know better, and we think we do, we might have concluded that Aug. 24 full-page newspaper ad paid for by the Democratic State Central Committee about the Attorney General/Senate Candidate—"The Tail (sic) of Jon Cumberland Bruning, Part One"—had some input from former state senator Ernie Chambers. Part of the text was presented in poetic verse and rhyme, accompanied by a cartoon drawing. Senator Chambers was well-known around the capitol for using such a form and approach for expressing his views on legislation and personalities.
And finally #2…… Keep this in mind: there’s an "N" in Legends.
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