We want Justice to be politically independent

Kevin Drum had a nice post today about the fact that we very much want the presidency to be isolated from what happens at the IRS and the Department of Justice.  We absolutely to no want executive branch using these agencies for political gain.  Thus, in these “scandals” it’s not surprising that none of this has gotten anywhere near President Obama.  And that’s a very good thing.  Drum:

Chris Matthews, for example, was howling the other day about Obama’s ignorance of the AP phone record subpoena, which he thought was indefensible. “You don’t think Bobby would have called Jack?” he asked incredulously. And he’s right: Bobby would have called Jack. And that would have been wrong, which is why the Justice Department is now kept at a much greater distance from the White House. This is universally considered a good thing, which explains Jay Carney’s “Are you serious?” when he was asked about this by reporters a few day ago. Surely we haven’t forgotten so soon after Watergate exactly why we prefer for the president to be kept very far away from criminal investigations?

Ditto for the IRS, which for similar reasons is an agency that we’ve deliberately set up to be independent of the president. We don’t want the president to have any influence over the IRS, and we don’t want him kept apprised of the details of ongoing inquiries. It would have been a scandal if Obama had known any details about the IG investigation of the IRS’s tea party targeting.

Meanwhile, here in NC, the new Senate budget proposal is calling for taking the State Bureau of Investigations– which investigates public corruption among other things– and moving its oversight from the independent state Attorney General’s office (our AG is elected statewide, not appointed by the governor) and moving it to the state Department of Public Safety, which is overseen by a gubernatorial appointment.

The SBI supplied much of the manpower in the recent probes into the campaigns and administrations of former Govs. Bev Perdue and Mike Easley, both Democrats. SBI investigators helped build cases against Jim Black, a former Democratic Speaker of the House who went to federal prison on a public corruption charge, and Meg Scott Phipps, a former Democratic state Agriculture Commissioner who served time in federal prison for perjury and obstruction of justice.

The State Highway Patrol and Department of Correction also have been the targets of numerous investigations, as have other state agencies.

For 75 years, Cooper said, the SBI has “provided a check on power.” Prosecutors, courts and the public, he argued, have relied on the investigations because of the SBI’s independence.

“No matter who controls the state legislature, the governor’s office or the attorney general’s office, this system works best,” Cooper said. “Putting the SBI under any governor’s administration increases the risk that corruption and cover-up occur with impunity.”

To our governor’s credit, he opposed this.  The Republican Senator who proposed it said will save $2 million a year.  To which all I have to say, some times it actually costs money to do the right thing.  Deal with it.

NC: the big picture

The N&O had a story earlier this week ostensibly about the legislature’s attempts to override local smoking bans, but it was really a nice take on the big picture of the over-reach of the Republican legislature:

The clash between state lawmakers and local governments had become readily apparent earlier this session.

Republican legislative leaders pushed to approve measures to void the city of Raleigh’s lease on the Dix property, transfer control of the Charlotte airport to a regional authority, redraw Wake County school board districts, give the state all environmental regulatory power and limit local governments’ ability to impose design standards on homes.

House lawmakers continued the effort this week, giving final approval Tuesday to a measure that limits the ability of cities and counties to ensure the safety of low-income housing and crack down on neighborhoods with high crime rates.

A day earlier, the House passed legislation 73-41 to prevent local governments from automatically deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks, a move that would affect firefighters and police officers.

Another provision in the bill restricts a locality from requiring a business to assume any liability for its carbon footprint. If approved, it would end Durham County’s commuter ordinance that requires businesses to implement plans to manage its employees’ transportation needs.

“There is no apparent limit to the micromanaging that this legislature will consider,” said Russell Killen, mayor of Knightdale, which recently voted to ban smoking at a 70-acre park it plans to open this summer. “I simply cannot understand why this legislature appears to want to remove all local control and have legislators from Manteo to Murphy making all of the decisions on how … self-reliant small towns shape their communities,” Killen said.

Municipal leaders for months have argued – to little avail – that local governments represent the will of their communities better than larger government bodies.  [emphasis mine]

And, of course, that’s an argument we’ve been hearing Republicans make for as long as I can remember.  The Wrightsville Beach case is quite instructive:

Wrightsville Beach leaders point to a recently passed anti-smoking referendum as a perfect example.

In November, Wrightsville Beach residents voted by nearly a 2-1 margin in favor of a measure to ban smoking on the town-owned shorefront.

“This wasn’t the decision of a board majority,” said Tim Owens, town manager for Wrightsville Beach. “This was the direct will of the people.”

The smoking legislation would affect 15 county governments, 41 municipal governments and 35 of North Carolina’s 58 community colleges that prohibit smoking on all outdoor public grounds, according to the state Division of Public Health.

Republicans often accuse the federal government of “arrogance,” but it is truly hard to imagine more arrogant government policy-making than what we’ve been seeing here in NC.

No Sharia for us!

Hooray!  As a citizen of NC, it looks like I’ll be protected from the scourge of Sharia law, as the NC House has successfully passed a bill on this.  Apparently, our constitution is in real trouble, and only NC Republicans stalwart efforts to pass anti-Sharia laws, etc., can save us:

Bill sponsor Rep. Chris Whitmire, R-Transylvania, disagreed.

“Take it as fact that this is a very, very present threat that must be dealt with,” Whitmire said. “We are making sure that the most fundamental basis on which we exist is protected.”

Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, disagreed with arguments that the state and federal constitution already protect citizens against foreign law. ”I’ve always wanted to depend on our own constitution. But we have seen that document put in, frankly, grave danger,” he said.

“In the United States, there is the Sharia law,” said Blust. “It is fundamentally at odds with U.S. jurisprudence. The two systems cannot be reconciled. Individual rights are not recognized.”

Blust said the “goal” of proponents of Sharia law is to infiltrate other cultures. He said Democrats should be aware of the threat.

“Some of the groups of people that are championed on the progressive side are absolutely trod upon under Sharia,” Blust warned. “For example, homosexuals are stoned. I don’t want to see that creeping here.”

Rep. Larry Pittman, R-Cabarrus, agreed, likening the threat of Sharia law to Pearl Harbor. That comparison is also frequently used by anti-Islamic activist Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy.

Good Lord!!  These people are elected damn representatives and living in some completely alternate reality!  How depressing.  And how embarrassing for the sane Republicans out there (who I’m still waiting to hear speak up).  I love how they are trying to get liberals on board because if we don’t, they’ll be out there stoning gay people on Hillsborough Street before you know it.  I totally accept that there’s plenty of crazies when it comes to politics.  I have a very hard time accepting the fact that they are now writing the laws for my state.  

No end to the crazy

Now, I really don’t much about B-corporations.  But I do know that when the legislature is voting on things out of a fear of Agenda 21, that the Republican caucus truly is pathetic:

State House lawmakers Wednesday night voted down House Bill 440, a proposal to create benefit corporations in North Carolina.

Benefit corporations, or “B-Corps,” are a hybrid of standard for-profit and non-profit corporations. They allow the corporation, while making a profit, to serve a primary “public benefit” purpose other than maximizing profit for shareholders.

Sponsor Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, said “web chatter” on the bill alleges that it’s part of a secret conspiracy to promote the UN’s “Agenda 21″ sustainability efforts, which conspiracy theorists allege is actually a socialist plot.

“What I just find amazing is that there’s some perspective that this bill some sort of hidden ‘Agenda 21′ bill,” McGrady said.

“This is not a conservative or liberal bill at all. It’s actually an entrepreneurial bill,” he said, noting that similar laws in 14 states have been supported by Republicans, including the governors of South Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania.

“Those coming up younger than us – they want to make a profit, but they want to be about good things,” he said. “This lets them do that.”

“I think you’re seeing that capitalism would like to help those areas where it can,” said Rep. Leo Daughtry, R-Johnston. “People want to do good things.”

But critics of the bill said its goal is to move the corporate system and capitalism in general toward socialism by suggesting that there’s a higher, better purpose than maximizing profit. Members also received a handout from free-market think-tank Civitas, reinforcing that point.

Good God– we allow b-corps and the the next thing you know government is going to take control of all the industries and people aren’t going to love capitalism enough.  Again, nice to see that the Republicans are actually split on this and that there’s some remnant of sanity (and for the record, the contraception provision was pulled from the previous bill I wrote about).  Poor Laura Leslie deserves combat pay.

No contraceptives for you!

Those liberals and their contraceptives!

RALEIGH, N.C. — Virtually any employer in North Carolina could opt to but insurance plans that do not include contraception coverage under a bill that cleared the House Judiciary A committee Wednesday. The same bill bars cities and counties from offering health insurance plans that pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.

On the bright side, it shows that there’s still some sane Republicans in the legislature:

“To suggest in the 21st century that a woman could be prevented from having access to birth control, even as far to the right as I am, that’s going off the cliff,” said Rep. Bob Steinburg, R- Chowan. “This is going too far.”

Then again, my guess is Mr. “as far to the right as I am” Steinburg is probably onto some crazy stuff, just different (or not, but he does seem to have a bit of a temper).  Anyway, back to the bill:

North Carolina law already allows employers with religious affiliations to offer health plans with no contraception coverage. This bill extends the definition of “religious employer” to “include any employer, whether incorporated or not and whether for-profit or not, ‘that has a religious, moral, or ethical objection,’ to providing such coverage.”

So, in short anybody can simply deny contraceptive coverage to their employees.  Heck, why not allow them to have religious objections to health care in general.  Regardless, this is just dumb policy.

“This bill has the potential to cause great harm,” Rebecca Mercier, a Chapel Hill doctor, pointing out that contraceptive medications have uses outside of preventing pregnancy.

“This bill is based on some fiction that contraception is controversial in this country and morally ambiguous. It is not. It is an essential pillar of women’s health care here and throughout the world,” she said…

Rep. Deborah Ross, D-Wake, offered an amendment to pull the contraception provision from the bill.

“It’s simply not good policy,” she said, adding that preventing contraception coverage might lead more women to seek abortions.

Schaffer insisted the bill didn’t make much of a change to current law.

“We’re not attempting to change the law,” she said, pointing out that there are already health plans that allow some employers to opt out of contraception coverage. “We’re attempting to extend the conscience rights of religious employers.”

That drew a rebuke from Rep. Alma Adams, D-Guilford, who said the bill obviously changed the law because it would put more women in situations where they would not be able to obtain birth control.

“More women are going to be denied,” she said.

Again, I’m not exactly amazed, but sadly shaking my head that people who supposedly want there to be fewer abortions are making it harder for women to get birth control.  Hello, McFly?

NC needs laws against riding bicycles in supermarkets

Sure, there’s no evidence this is happening now, but you never know.  It could all of a sudden be an epidemic and then we’ll be glad we’ve got the laws on the books.  It is obviously unsafe to shoppers and we cannot expect store managers to enact or enforce reasonable policies against this– they might be liberals.

So, what am I getting at here?  The logic (or lack thereof) behind NC’s new stealth anti-sharia law proposal (they are smart enough to not call it that):

RALEIGH, N.C. — The latest version of a bill intended to protect the constitutional rights of North Carolinians from “foreign laws” is on its way to the House floor after a contentious hearing in the House Judiciary C Committee.

House Bill 695, entitled “Foreign Laws/Protect Constitutional Rights,” is the most recent iteration of legislation intended to keep courts from recognizing Islamic Sharia law in North Carolina.

Similar measures have been considered or passed in more than 15 other states.

The first version of the legislation was passed by ballot initiative in Oklahoma. It specifically named Sharia and was promptly blocked by a judge who declared it unconstitutional because it singled out a religion.

Since then, newer versions of the measure in states from Arkansas to Florida have been more carefully worded. House Bill 695 makes no mention of religion at all, and it wasn’t mentioned in committee.

Also, some great reporting from Laura Leslie by putting this in the proper context of what’s really going on rather than relying solely on the text of the law.  So, why do we need this law?

After House Rules Committee Chairman Tim Moore signaled that the bill was unlikely to pass, Cleveland and co-sponsor Rep. Chris Whitmire, R-Transylvania, agreed to amend it so that it would apply only to family law and child custody issues under sections 50 and 50a of state law.

Moore, R-Cleveland, who crafted the change, said it should reduce the chances of unintended consequences in the business community.

“I think this covers what the bill sponsors are trying to do. There’s no reason foreign law should be used in such matters,” he said.

After the meeting, Moore said he didn’t know of any cases in which North Carolina courts have allowed Sharia or any other foreign laws to infringe on anyone’s constitutional rights, but he said the sponsors were trying to prevent that from happening.  [emphasis mine]

That’s right– you never know!  And you never know, there might be an epidemic of bicycle riding in grocery stores or murderous squirrels or whatever!  This is not how a sensible legislative body makes laws.  Of course, there’s been little evidence so far that we are dealing with a sensible legislative body.

Local control. Or not.

I actually find it somewhat tiresome to point out hypocrisy in politicians of any stripe, as I just take it as par for the course.  But the NC Republicans’ complete aversion to local control in government is both so brazen and so wrong-headed.  Two different WRAL stories on the matter today.  First:

RALEIGH, N.C. — House lawmakers voted largely along party lines Monday night in favor of two bills that would limit the power of cities and counties to inspect housing, require emissions reductions or allow union dues deductions.

One measure, House Bill 773, would curb local programs that increase inspections of low-income housing in problem areas.

Last session, lawmakers approved a rental registry for landlords as a way to help local police deal with crime-ridden properties. The measure also allowed additional property inspections for areas considered blighted.

Got that?  So, if a particular locality decides that they have a problem with landlords or auto pollution that is unique to them the NC legislature will forbid them from legally addressing the problem.  Apparently, one-size-fits-all government after all, so long as that one-size is what the NC Republican legislature wants.  Meanwhile, they also want to limit the ability of localities to regulate outdoor smoking.  Why?  Because one of them wants to smoke at Wrightsville Beach, damnit!

A key Senate committee voted Tuesday to overturn outdoor smoking bans in cities, on beaches, and on community college campuses.

Under Senate Bill 703, no local ordinance on outdoor smoking could be more restrictive than state law. State law places no restrictions on smoking outdoors.

Sponsor Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, said blanket bans on smoking in public places around the state are making it “impossible” for adults to consume “a legal product.”

He said the issue came to his attention recently when Wrightsville Beach enacted a beach smoking ban.

“If you’re on a windy beach in NC you ought to be able to consume a tobacco product,” Newton said. “I find it ridiculous that we can’t be outdoors and have somewhere for people who choose to smoke, to smoke.”

For supposedly believe that the government closest to the people knows best, they sure don’t buy it in Raleigh where they clearly believe Raleigh always knows best.  Of course, I’m still waiting to hear conservatives complain about this.

Abortions, pre-term birth, and NC

So, when they’re not cutting taxes for the rich, NC Republicans seem to be about making all the laws about abortion they can.  I mentioned earlier a bill that is absolutely horrible from a public heath perspective by requiring teens (under 18) to have parental permission to discuss anything sex or drug related with a doctor.  Apparently, allowing teenagers to discuss matters confidentially with a medical professional other than a parent leads to the dissolution of the American family.  Of course, the fact that many teens are already in dysfunctional families and may damn well have good reasons to not discuss with their parents is not actually considered by the Republicans who know best.  Anyway, this bill requires parental permission for an abortion (certainly justifiable and Constitutional under most circumstances) but expects the parents to get it notarized.  Please!!

The latest abortion bill is about educating teenagers about the risk from abortions on future pre-term labor:

RALEIGH, N.C. — A proposal to require schools to teach students that abortion causes preterm births is headed for the Senate floor despite dueling University of North Carolina experts and an unclear committee vote.

Senate Bill 132 says the state’s mandated health curriculum on reproductive health and safety ”shall include information about the preventable causes of preterm birth, including induced abortion as a cause of preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies.”

“It’s a bill based on science. It’s not based on political ideology,” sponsor Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke,  told the Senate Health Committee Wednesday. ”It’s based on the scientific evidence that you will have a future risk of preterm birth if you decide voluntarily to have an abortion.”

What evidence is there, however, is hotly disputed within the scientific community of experts on preterm birth and reproductive health.

UNC School of Medicine Associate Professor of Pediatrics Dr.Marty McCaffrey is a member of the state’s Child Fatality Task Force. He spoke in support of the bill, calling the evidence that abortions increase risk of later preterm births “immutable.”

Citing studies and meta-studies of data, McCaffrey said evidence shows abortion as a risk factor for preterm birth “dwarfs” smoking as a risk factor.

“It’s been estimated abortion may be responsible for 31 percent of preterm births in North Carolina,” he told the committee. “It’s time to educate our young citizens about preterm birth.”

But UNC School of Medicine Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology Dr. David Grimes called the bill “unnecessary and uninformed.”

“Senate Bill 132 would establish a state-sponsored ideology,” he said. “The statement is scientifically false.”

Grimes formerly directed abortion surveillance efforts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I found a NYT piece about the Finnish study and while you certainly cannot claim that abortion “causes” pre-term labor, there’s certainly something going on there as the study controls for all the covariates that readily come to mind (i.e., socio-economic status, smoking, etc.) and the Finns are surely not a particularly conservative lot on the issue of abortion.  But here’s what the researchers have to say:

“The risk is low,” said the lead author, Reija Klemetti, a researcher at the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare, “and abortion is a safe surgical procedure. But having more than two can have consequences, and this information should be included in sexual education programs.”

Now, I don’t know that I’d say the risks are “immutable” but I wonder if those saying there’s no link to pre-term birth are driven by ideology just as much as those putting it into the sex ed curriculum.  That said, if you really want to reduce abortion than the evidence is damn clear that you should be focusing your efforts on 1) birth control and 2) poverty.  I find it hard to believe that sharing this information with teenagers will have even a marginal impact on abortion rates.

Great News! You’ve just been screwed by NC’s regressive tax “cut”

Okay, first the facts:

RALEIGH — Top Senate Republicans detailed a much-anticipated plan Tuesday to overhaul the state’s tax system by cutting personal and corporate income taxes in exchange for a broader sales tax applied to everything from haircuts to car repairs.

Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, said the forthcoming legislation would trim the personal income tax from the highest 7.75 percent rate to 4.5 percent over three years and cut the corporate income tax from the current 6.9 percent to 6 percent.

The combined local and state sales tax would fall from 6.75 percent to 6.5 percent, but it would apply to hundreds of services currently exempted, including prescription drugs. The food tax would increase from the current 2 percent to the full sales tax rate, more than a three-fold increase.

Doesn’t take a degree in economics to recognize that this is a massive redistribution of wealth from poor and middle income North Carolinians to wealthy ones.  It’s absolutely transparent.  To eliminate the food exemption of all things!  The NC Senate put out a webpage where you can calculate your tax cut, and it seems to me they are just too honest.  I put in a rough estimate of my income along with the other basics, and here’s my result:

That’s right, a tax “cut” of $1000.  That’s right, my taxes would go up plenty.  Or lets look at the taxes of someone with a a similar family (married, 4 kids) but only earning 35,000 a year.  Surely, they need help.

And great news!  They get to pay an additional $1000+ in taxes.   Well, alright, then, let’s check out a Republican base voter.  Married, family of 4, $400,000 dollar income.

$16,000.  Now we’re talking tax cut.  

If there was any question whose side the Republican legislature is on, this should undoubtedly answer it.   Now, in fairness, spreading the sales tax across services as well as goods is actually a smart idea to broaden the tax base and make it more equitable and stable.  But that’s only a good idea if it’s done in such a way to keep it from becoming even more regressive.   Yet, here, it represents an absolutely massive regressive shift in overall tax policy.

Oh, and according to the Q&A despite massive cuts to state revenues it won’t actually hurt anything NC residents count on.  And how does it do this?  Why rhetorical sleight of hand, how else:

That’s the great thing about the Tax Fairness Act – it will protect vital state services like public education, roads and public safety while giving working families more take-home pay. How? By holding the line on government spending. Just keeping what we have and slowing the growth of spending will provide the largest tax cut in state history.

Ohhhhh “holding the line.”  Why didn’t I think of that?  To think, massive tax cuts, but no cut in the quality of education, roads, police, etc., because we’ll hold the line.  I can hardly wait.

Pre-K in NC

Great Op-Ed in the N&O about the Republicans’ plan to limit eligibility for pre-K in NC (and you know what a bad idea that is).  But just in case you didn’t:

Children who participate in these programs are more likely to graduate from high school, hold a job considered semi-skilled or higher, attain a four-year degree and earn more as adults. And that is good for our businesses and our state’s economy.

Key to these economic outcomes are two critical factors: the quality of the programs and access to the programs.

•  Quality: Some policymakers have been led to believe that improvements in school performance for children in early learning programs diminish as they get into elementary school. Some call it “fade-out.”

But decades of data and longitudinal studies do not support this conclusion when early learning programs are high-quality.

A 2012 Duke University study of our state’s early learning programs shows North Carolina third-graders have higher standardized reading and math scores and lower special education placement rates in those counties with more funding for those programs. In fact, researchers found that the expected savings in reduced special education and instructional costs for children in these programs is at least equal to the cost of the programs – a break-even or savings of taxpayer money.

This study is not alone. A quantitative statistical analysis of 123 studies across four decades of early education research – a meta analysis – found that by third grade, one-third of the achievement gap can be closed by early education.

North Carolina is already a national model for high-quality early learning programs, being the second state to enact a Quality Rating and Improvement System. North Carolina’s programs have the quality components that get the results businesses want: appropriate teacher-to-child ratios, teachers educated in early childhood development, strong parental involvement and coaching, and screening and referral services to catch problems early.

North Carolina also leads the country in tying subsidies for child care to the quality of the programs. Programs receiving subsidies must have a star rating of three or higher.

Today, 70 percent of all young children in North Carolina’s regulated early learning programs attend high-quality programs rated with four or five stars.

Sadly, the latest proposal it to make it much harder for poor NC residents to get their children into one of these programs.  John F. spelled it out quite nicely on FB in response to this:

Living below the federal poverty level (FPL) means that a family has “insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health.” Child care was never a part of this equation so setting the eligibility requirements at 100% of the FPL is essentially asking working parents to decide between child care, food, shelter, and clothing for their children.

Yep.  But it’s okay, because we can use the savings to give tax cuts to wealthy North Carolinians!  That will surely have more long-term benefit for this state than investing in programs that have been proven to increase school performance and life success for at-risk kids.

Math in NC

Well, just this morning I was commenting that perhaps math is a little too close to science for some NC legislators, and then I come across this excellent commentary:

The scientific method the Republican-run legislature is against now is … counting. Yep — in its desperate attempts to get rid of North Carolina’s renewable energy program, the legislature has given up the radical, liberal, lamestream, obviously subjective “science” of, um, actually counting votes. You see, when the votes were actually counted, the bill that would have removed the renewables program (and said that wind, among other things, was not renewable) died in the state house, failing to emerge from committee by an 18-13 vote.

Okay, hmm … you’re Republican legislator Mike Hager, you hate the renewables program, and your bill has just been defeated by an indisputable margin of five votes. What to do … what to do? Easy. You reintroduce the bill. And when it next comes up in committee, this time in the state senate? You have a voice vote — and have your finance committee chair, Republican Bill Rabon,refuse to count the actual votes. In a voice vote so close that both sides claim they would have won if the votes had been counted, Rabon declares that the bill has passed and runs off.

No, I wish I were, but I am not making this up. We have given up counting votes in North Carolina. The Reign of Error rules supreme here.

There’s still more committee blah blah to go through, and the whole senate, and all that kind of “I’m Just a Bill” stuff. But the facts are hideously simple. Despite the cries of Democratic state Sen. Josh Stein (“North Carolina is not a banana republic”), um … Josh? Yes it is.

Honestly, just sad.

Pre-K in NC

Any regular reader of this blog knows that investment in pre-K for at-risk kids is quite clearly one of the best, smartest, long-term beneficial investments we can make as a society.  Thus, the corollary is that shrinking that investment is… let’s just say, not so good.  I’m sure regular readers can also guess which direction NC Republicans are heading on this:

A proposal to cut in half the number of children eligible for the state’s free Pre-K program won tentative House approval Thursday.

House Bill 935 would lower the number of eligible children to about 31,000 by changing the legal definition of an at-risk child.

Under current law, a 4-year-old is considered at-risk and eligible for the program if his or her family makes less than 75 percent of the state’s median wage. That’s about $39,000 a year for a family of three.

Children are also currently eligible if they have an active duty military parent, limited English proficiency, developmental problems or chronic illness.

More than 60,000 children a year in North Carolina are eligible for the program under the current guidelines.

The proposal would reduce the family income threshold to the federal poverty level, about $19,500 for a family of three – about half the current maximum.

Children with limited English proficiency or chronic illness would no longer be automatically eligible.

So, if you think that’s still plenty generous enough, here’s a little math for you via a FB friend:

A little math: A single mom of two, working 60 hours a week for $8 (a little over minimum wage in NC), would make $24,960 a year before taxes, assuming no sick days and no vacation. That puts her outside the new cutoff. The average cost of a 40-hr week of child care for a 4-yr-old in NC is $7,774 a year – higher in urban areas. Paying that for one child would leave her with a little under $18K a year – less than poverty level. If both need child care,she’s left with less than $10K. Financially, she’d be better off quitting altogether and staying home with them – which of course would cost the state more, not less.

You know, though, math is awfully close to science.  And we certainly don’t need egg-head scientists telling us what to do.  And besides, I’m sure that a bunch of those kids who will be denied pre-K aren’t white like me.