Rick Weiland's 15-second ads graduate from cute to powerful with this piercing indictment of Mike Rounds's harmful politics:
Simple, sincere, and memorable. Well done, Rick!
* * *
Related Viewing: Of course, policy critiques and Mike Rounds's dedication to transferring wealth from retirees and kids to his rich friends aren't all Weiland's got. His other new ad talks about how everyone else is talking about the Mike Rounds EB-5 scandal:
I don't think Mike Rounds has had a good week since before Dakotafest. I don't think he's going to have another. Expect the next Rounds ad to focus on Harry Reid and Barack Obama.
I apologize for my obtuseness but what tax cut is Rounds proposing for Headstart? I thought most of the previous cuts from the sequestration had been restored although they probably shouldn't have since the Headstart program has been shown to be a total waste.
The government's own Head Start Impact Study found that any positive effects were minimal and had completely vanished by the end of first grade. The study showed that Headstart children performed no better than students who were not participants of Headstart.
Perhaps Weiland should be more concerned about reforming a failed government program rather than trying to politicize a program that continues to send scarce taxpayers dollars down a blackhole.
Head Start is an essential part of early childhood development in poorly-served areas and Mike Rounds is an ALEC drone.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/with-volunteer-help-head-start-to-debut-new-playground-monday/article_94491b11-77a5-531a-94aa-8a060854c9ba.html
"ALEC promotes a very specific pro-corporate agenda. Democrats slip and fall for the big-money agenda, but Democrats like Rick Weiland and me are most outspoken about the improper influence of big money in politics, and Republicans like Wick and Mike Rounds are most instrumental in defending that influence."
https://madvilletimes.com/2014/05/hal-wick-thinks-alec-fair-and-balanced-just-like-fox-news/
Resist the Privatization of America:
http://respriv.org/
Don, I have to leave, but I can tell you that Head Start has it benefits.
I flunked kindergarten. There was a reason for that. Upshot, children should not have to flunk kindergarten.
Don: Just because children who have participated in head start do not outperform their peers who didn't does not mean that it had no benefit. The fact that they can keep up with their classmates is proof that it was beneficial. Without head start those children might always lag well behind their classmates.
Coyote, does the fact that you will need to take a shower tomorrow even though you took one yesterday mean that yesterday's shower was a total waste? The long range success rate of Head Start is far better than the equivalen success rate of most rehab or diet programs. It is just what it says it is, a "start."
http://www.thenation.com/article/181762/venture-capitalists-are-poised-disrupt-everything-about-education-market
As John Adams famously said, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence"
Everybody who has replied so far seems more willing to believe their own wishes and anecdotal evidence instead of evidence found in a controlled study by the government. Why is this?
Dr Grover Whitehurst at the Brookings Institute (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) succinctly puts it:
"If this conclusion by the authors isn’t clear enough, I’ll put it in less academic language:
There is no measurable advantage to children in elementary school of having participated in Head Start. Further, children attending Head Start remain far behind academically once they are in elementary school. Head Start does not improve the school readiness of children from low-income families."
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/01/16-preschool-whitehurst
And still no one has explained to me what tax cuts Weiland is talking about in his commercial.
Russ Whitehurst's One-Man Crusade Against Early Childhood Education
http://www.ecepolicymatters.com/archives/2026
"Head Start, which had to drop children from its rolls due to the sequester, would get $8.6 billion, fully reversing the cuts. And while Republicans refused to finance Obama’s push for universal pre-kindergarten classes, they granted his request to expand Head Start partnerships that benefit toddlers and infants."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/members-of-congress-to-unveil-massive-spending-bill-in-bipartisan-compromise/2014/01/13/71db3a8c-7c9e-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html
"The dollar investment in Head Start programs has a high rate of return. For each dollar invested in Head Start, there is an economic gain of $7-$10. Some research suggests it could be as much as $17. This is realized in reduced expenses of grade retention, special education services, and a higher earning potential and economic success in adulthood, thus reducing dollars needed for welfare and the criminal justice system."
http://www.sdheadstart.org/home.aspx
mr. coyote? wuff, wuff?
BWAHAHAHAHA!
If you would've said "hardly a bastion of liberal thought," I could have agreed with you. But mainly I'm puzzled by the huge axe you have to grind against Head Start. This is really the biggest problem facing us?
And no, I'm pretty sure the draconian cuts from the asinine "sequestration" have not been restored. I'm pretty sure they remain in place, since our dysfunctional Congress doesn't pass budgets normally, but keeps the lights on via "continuing resolutions" (though I don't have a source to point to for reference; sorry).
Don Coyote has an axe to grind with Head Start because it is for the poor. Any dyed in the wool tea bagger like the coyote hates anything that may help poor children compete with rich children, they must know their place of course. That place would be in the assembly lines making little stones from big ones while the educated puppet master gets all the moolah for their efforts. Also, coyote's view that Head Start is for faces of any color by white.
Pre-school education, head start etc. have been shown to increase self-control in children and provide lifetime benefits that aren't immediately measured.
http://dakotatoday.typepad.com/dakotatoday/2013/08/-education-in-self-control-may-reduce-many-social-problems-and-costs.html
Don, and others, as promised, I am back to comment about the benefits of Head Start and similar program.
I am one of the "baby boomers," which means that when I (and those my age and older,) were kids, there was no such thing as pre-schools or Head Start.
My family was low-income as were the other families in the neighborhood where we lived. The neighborhood consisted of Chicanos, Blacks, and Whites. The kids entered into kindergarten at the usual age.
Guess what, I "flunked" kindergarten. What that means was I was not ready to enter into first grade because I lacked the needed skills and knowledge to succeed in first grade. At that time, the school I attended had a "Readiness First" class. It was a step between kindergarten and first grade. In my class there 25 - 30 students who also flunked kindergarten.
I don't recall all the details, but I do remember Mrs. Dobbs (now deceased,) made us work hard to get up up to par to go into the first grade the following year.
It is fine the look at studies, and no doubt there are plenty on both sides of the argument. The bottom line question to ask, IMO, is how many students nowadays flunk kindergarten? How many schools have a "Readiness First" or similar class?
I have volunteered at pre-schools that were very similar to Head Start. I could see first hand how children were developing skills to complete tasks, to learn to print, hear how words are used by different people, and develop social skills. For some students it means being around adults who can be positive role models who care about them.
Head Start may not live up to some people's desired expectations, but there are benefits that go beyond the academic.
Whatever we want our view of Head Start to reflect, we can likely find a source to support it.
One of the biggest benefits of Head Start was that it gave parents local control of pre-school education. There are various committees comprised of parents that govern their Head Start program.
Over the years Head Start has produced minority and local pre-school teachers and teachers that have moved on to other areas of education.
Head Start proved to be a lucrative training ground for many young people wanting to go into the education field.
Could we keep the discussion in context? Head Start is not being evaluated in a vacuum, the ad shows a choice in tax policy between spending on children or allowing the most wealthy to continue to horde more wealth. The decision wasn't made by any means testing or evaluation of programs, but by fulfilling the greedy anti-tax demands of the wealthy in America (those for whom programs like Head Start are less necessary typically). Any discussion of the value of Head Start is back fill - not the basis for that original spending decision.
Even if Head Start is of limited value (a premise I do not believe), that money should be invested in other valuable education programs for children - NOT used to line the gilded pockets of those with the most means.
O, great point. In fact, as you suggest, it is THE point.
Don Coyote, all of my kids went through Head-start and it was a godsend for them. I don't give a damn what your right wing garbage "studies" say, Head-start is a good program.
Excellent point, O. How far do we raise test scores by giving rich people more tax cuts?
Cory, you should know by now, tax cuts for the rich fixes everything.
not unlike recycling: sometimes swords make lousy plowshares but could make pretty good bridges.
Every now and again I read Charles Krauthammer, his obsession with tax cuts is often hilarious, if it weren't so sad.
Want to kill ISIS, give the rich a tax break
Want to fix roads, give the rich a tax break
Want to have sex, give the rich a tax break
Those tax breaks for the wealthy are doing harm to this country.
Sorry to change the subject from HeadStart, but this commercial is in no way powerful...it's ANNOYING. I probably saw it 15-18 times this afternoon. If I was thinking of voting for him before, he is very quickly losing ground. He needs some new material!
Krauthammer is a brilliant man for sure. He has found a niche in American politics that bring forth much more recognition than writing speechs for Democrats. By spewing the froth he spews, he is merely trying to protect what he has accumulated. The one true voice of the 1% of which he is a part.
Paula, I say the same about Mike Rounds ads, except that the Rounds ads make me laugh.
I'm with you JeniW, when I watch the Rounds ads I try to count the number of lies he tells, but I don't have enough fingers and toes.
Oops. Too many GRP's Ricky. Either that or Paula's really hooked on watchin' the tube. :-) That is a problem with political ads. Unlike the Geiko spot where the guy runs into the "THE END" title to prove "words really can hurt you" (I could watch it a million times), candidate ads wear thin pretty quick. Note to self: make sure to put something funny in there if you're gonna buy a lot of points in a single week.
@Tim. The Headstart study isn't a "right wing garbage" study. It's a governmental study by the HHS and not surprising it has met the same fate as most government studies do, tossed into the circular filing cabinet.
Still, no one has answered my original question of "Which tax cuts that Rounds is proposing are endangering Headstart funding" and also Medicare using Weiland's abacus demonstration.
To answer my own question, it appears Weiland is claiming Rounds is supporting Paul Ryan's 2015 budget proposal which some fever swamps claim that their back-of-the-envelope 'rithmetic show that "millionaires" would realize a $200K windfall from changes in tax rate brackets.
However:
1) Rounds has stated that he does not support the Ryan Budget.
2) Medicare is not funded by income tax but by it's own tax which is not being changed. Although Ryan is in favor of Medicare reform involving vouchers, Rounds is not.
So again what are the tax cuts that Rounds is proposing that endanger Headstart or Medicare? Or is Weiland just lying?
"Don:" go over to PP's and ask your stupid questions.
Don, how about the Bush Tax cuts, keep 'em or dump 'em? Plus, how do we know Rounds doesn't support the Ryan Plan? He said he did, before he said he didn't. What IS his plan, do you know? Do you suppose he wants to increase taxes (as he should?)
Rounds wants to kill "Obamacare" which is saving $billions on medical costs. Speaking of plagiarism, Rounds hasn't had an original idea in his whole life in politics.
These are Round's own words on the Ryan Budget and he only lists one reason he doesn't support it.
Although he appreciates their effort, Mike's long taken the position that he disagrees with any cuts to Medicare. For that reason, Mike does not currently support the budget plan offered by congressman Ryan, specifically because of the unclear revisions to Medicare.
Balanced Budget
South Dakota balances its budget every single year. The federal government should do the same. Mike supports a balanced budget amendment. The federal government should pass a budget every year. Mike commends the house republicans for at least taking steps to pass a budget. Although he appreciates their effort, Mike's long taken the position that he disagrees with any cuts to Medicare. For that reason, Mike does not currently support the budget plan offered by congressman Ryan, specifically because of the unclear revisions to Medicare.
Deficit / Debt
This is the full context of Rounds lack of support for Ryan's budget. This is from Rounds for Senate.
Don Coyote and his sidekick Sancho Ponzi, tilting at tax windfalls for the 1% since 2001.
But is it not odd/bizarre how Rounds used the last of the federal stimulus money to "balance" the SD budget?
Rounds is talking out of both sides of his mouth and through his nose on this one.
icymi: nice piece on Rick Weiland from Roger Larsen at the Huron Plainsman.
http://www.plainsman.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=24234