Of flooding, the role of government and such

The Charleston Gazette-Mail recently ran an editorial that hit the nail on the head. Here are the opening paragraphs:

THE RECENT deadly floods offer clear examples why it is so important for West Virginia lawmakers to figure out how to fund a healthy and responsive state government as the state’s traditional sources of revenue shrink.

A storm like the one in June would cause anyone to dip into the Rainy Day Fund to keep services running. That is what the fund is for. But in recent years, West Virginia has been relying on its savings account too much just to cover its usual bills.

West Virginia would have been hurting anyway with the drop in coal severance taxes and other fluctuations. But making matters more difficult were $300 million worth of business tax cuts in recent years. By now lawmakers should have figured out how to make up that lost revenue. Instead, the state has been cutting spending.

Gazette reporter David Gutman recently pointed out that many of the agencies being cut are precisely those that could help people deal with the flood. This includes:

*the State Police, which will see a cut of around $2 million, 11 percent below 2014;

*The WV National Guard. With funding flat since 2013, this amounts to a 5 percent cut if you factor in inflation;

*the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which has had flat funding for the last five years, another cut when inflation is factored in;

*the state Early Warning Flood System, which is down by 11 percent since 2013 and will get a $25K budget cut next year;

*the Bureau for Public Health's aid for local water systems has been flat since 2013 and will be cut by 24 percent next year.

Other state agencies that have been cut include the Department of Environmental Protection, which among other things regulates nearly 400 non-coal dams and the WV Conservation Agency, which maintains 170 flood control dams as part of the Department of Agriculture. It will cut by around $450,000 and will be funded at about 25 percent less than in 2013.

This is just nuts, a needless disaster waiting to happen due to bad decisions of the past and the anti-tax mentality of the WV legislature's majority.

 

BELIEVING IN WHAT?

A few years ago, none of the members of Jay Leno's audience could name any of the twelve apostles, as Stephen Prothero notes in his 2007 book Religious Literacy. If that wasn't bad enough, the most frequently quoted "Bible verse" in America is "God helps those who help themselves," which we owe to Benjamin Franklin.

I don't know how many times I've heard people attribute the Declaration's "all men are created equal" to the Bible.

Among the factoids Prothero notes in his book are the following:

*Only half of Americans can name even one of the four canonical Gospels;

*Most don't know the name of the first book of the Bible;

*Only one third know that it was Jesus who delivered the Sermon on the Mount;

*Most didn't know that Jonah was a book in the Bible (check Goat Rope archives for a long series on that little book).

The sad part is, those questions refer to religions embraced by the majority of Americans. When it comes to knowledge of other faiths, the picture is even worse.

Prothero points out that in today's world, regardless of one's own beliefs, some basic knowledge of religions is a necessity of good citizenship. He even came up with a basic religious literacy quiz that he started giving to students but now is sharing with the general public. How do you think you would do?

Find out by clicking here.


TO BE OR NOT TO BE. Here's Barbara Ehrenreich on the human toll of the debt crisis.

THE END OF AN ERA? This item argues that the end of the Bush era will also mark the end of right wing anti-government ideology.

THINKING BIG. Here are 10 big ideas that changed history.

URGENT MALAYSIAN SHREW UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED