Guest Column - Wisconsin State Journal
The recent guest column entitled, “Wisconsin’s entrepreneurs of the future,” by the head of Georgia’s Research Alliance commended the State Journal for urging Wisconsin to invest more in scientific research and development.
The writer was responding to a recent editorial about James Thomson’s research commercialization model which noted that Thomson has recently founded two companies based upon his stem cell research.
The writer then proceeded to tout Georgia’s own research alliance, designed to nurture the growth and success of young companies with research dollars and a state-wide university research infrastructure.
State support for a friendlier research environment for young companies like Thomson’s was seen in Gov. Jim Doyle’s recent announcement that companies sponsoring stem-cell research exclusively in Wisconsin will no longer have to buy a costly license to use Wisconsin’s leading stem-cell technology.
The governor’s generous support for his $750 million dollar public-private research initiative sent a message to the nation that Wisconsin intends to be the leader in this new and exciting field.
Clearly this message has also been received by hundreds of brilliant and enterprising scientists throughout our country. Wisconsin citizens can be proud of our governor.
Both our governor and the media regularly hammer home the view that a vibrant and growing stem cell research program in Wisconsin will produce high paying jobs for our state in the future.
What both governor and the media have failed to do, however, is to point out the narrow window of opportunity that exists for Wisconsin to lead this nascent research enterprise toward both higher paying jobs and, at the same time, affordable cures for Wisconsin citizens with cell-based diseases ---Parkinson’s and diabetes to mention only two.
Wisconsin needs a state wide, non-profit, non-partisan and independent consumer-based watchdog group to ensure that our taxpayers and future consumers of these stem cell discoveries can both afford and access them. As thousands of baby boomers are about to enter the health care delivery system as elders they will need both affordable and accessible treatments, many of them for cell-based diseases...
It seems ironic to me that a state with such progressive and innovative traditions as Wisconsin, which now presumes to be the preeminent leader in stem-cell research, may be a “Johnny-come-lately” in bringing more affordable and accessible medical treatments to all its citizens. The need for Wisconsin taxpayers to develop policy and rules to govern and control who owns any future stem cell discoveries made by for-profit businesses but funded in part or whole by the Wisconsin taxpayer is clear.
There also exists a need for greater transparency in the relationship between the Wisconsin’s Department of Administration (DOA), the University of Wisconsin (UW), including its affiliate the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and its subsidiary, The WiCell Research Institute, and other for-profit biotech commercial interests. Without greater citizen understanding and input into decisions regarding Wisconsin’s growing bio-tech industry, the cost to consumers will only increase.
Citizen advocates from the many cell-based disease groups need to band together and pull up a seat at the stem-cell stakeholders table and become full partners in these deliberations.
The fundamental question that Wisconsin taxpayers need to be asking is whether or not they will have any control over private profits from medical cures resulting from taxpayer funding of stem cell research. And, will the people’s representatives in our legislature step forward, before it is too late, to ensure that all Wisconsin taxpayers will benefit from more accessible, affordable and accountable medical products resulting from their stem cell invested tax dollars? The worst thing that Wisconsin taxpayers and potential consumers can do is to continue to sit passively by and rely on the promised “trickle down” effect.
Wisconsin citizens deserve better than that. They deserve both more affordable health care and jobs!
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Katrina
Housing markets
The economic and social ladder
Community access to surrounding environment
Federal gov’t can help with Housing choice vouchers
Subsidized rent in private sector
To get out of public projects
Retrenchment in concentrated poverty since 2000
Federal income supplements such as the Earned Income Tax Credit can play an important role in making housing more affordable for low-income families
How are the poor faring in the ownership society?
Abject poverty in New Orleans
School choice vouchers
Out of wedlock births and teen pregnancy or non-marital births
40% are living below the poverty level
Extreme poverty
Norms exist from multiple generations, peer pressure
Home vouchers are school vouchers
Decades of research
Two parent home environment is best
Strong connection between out of wedlock births and extreme poverty
The social class gap in growing
Our middle class is shrinking
Poverty is 18,000 for a family of 4
More and more moving into the 25,000 income level – moderate poverty
This moderate income level is only possible when both parents work outside the home
The federal governments role is to create effective policy tools and funding including
Home vouchers, mixed income housing, earned income tax credits
The 550 million dollar program reduced to 100 million and since dropped completely
Public housing money to restore the 5% poorest housing into economic integrated/mixed housing – now all funding has stopped
More housing units for medrate and middle income housing
Don’t segregate the poor form jobs and schools
Economic and social mobility is slowing
Concentrated clusters of poverty in the cities
Causes are due to the reduced manufacturing industry, the 1950 interstate highway system, opened up suburbia to development but isolated the poor in the ghettos,
Destroyed moderate income homes, large congregate apartments segregated the poor from middle class schools and jobs
Less and less social mobility
Inclusionary zoning
Manufacturing dropped from 25% to 10%
Milwaukee, Cleveland, Philly, Detroit, the great migration north, in 20th century
95% concentrated poverty, in spite of the barriers they face at home and in their neighborhood,
Need mor access to integrated neighborhoods both racially and economically
The suffer disproportionately
The need to include low and moderate housing in your developments, inclusionary housing
The economic and social ladder
Community access to surrounding environment
Federal gov’t can help with Housing choice vouchers
Subsidized rent in private sector
To get out of public projects
Retrenchment in concentrated poverty since 2000
Federal income supplements such as the Earned Income Tax Credit can play an important role in making housing more affordable for low-income families
How are the poor faring in the ownership society?
Abject poverty in New Orleans
School choice vouchers
Out of wedlock births and teen pregnancy or non-marital births
40% are living below the poverty level
Extreme poverty
Norms exist from multiple generations, peer pressure
Home vouchers are school vouchers
Decades of research
Two parent home environment is best
Strong connection between out of wedlock births and extreme poverty
The social class gap in growing
Our middle class is shrinking
Poverty is 18,000 for a family of 4
More and more moving into the 25,000 income level – moderate poverty
This moderate income level is only possible when both parents work outside the home
The federal governments role is to create effective policy tools and funding including
Home vouchers, mixed income housing, earned income tax credits
The 550 million dollar program reduced to 100 million and since dropped completely
Public housing money to restore the 5% poorest housing into economic integrated/mixed housing – now all funding has stopped
More housing units for medrate and middle income housing
Don’t segregate the poor form jobs and schools
Economic and social mobility is slowing
Concentrated clusters of poverty in the cities
Causes are due to the reduced manufacturing industry, the 1950 interstate highway system, opened up suburbia to development but isolated the poor in the ghettos,
Destroyed moderate income homes, large congregate apartments segregated the poor from middle class schools and jobs
Less and less social mobility
Inclusionary zoning
Manufacturing dropped from 25% to 10%
Milwaukee, Cleveland, Philly, Detroit, the great migration north, in 20th century
95% concentrated poverty, in spite of the barriers they face at home and in their neighborhood,
Need mor access to integrated neighborhoods both racially and economically
The suffer disproportionately
The need to include low and moderate housing in your developments, inclusionary housing
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
The Marriage Amendment
(This Guest Column first appeared in Unity of Madison’s October 2006 Grace Notes Newsletter It has been revised and is not necessarily the views of Unity of Madison.)
On November 7th, 2006, Wisconsin voters will be asked whether we should add an amendment to the state constitution. The proposed amendment reads:
“Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”
This constitutional ban would permanently deny civil unions and marriage for lesbian and gay couples, and it would seriously jeopardize other legal protections for thousands of unmarried opposite sex couples who are presently living together. While this amendment is aimed principally at gay couples, many citizens may not be aware that this mean-spirited amendment could also affect your non-gay best friend, your parents, grandparents, children, and perhaps like me, even yourself someday.
My case I believe is a good example. After reading this I believe you will see that this proposed amendment is really an anti-family amendment. If passed, it will exclude legal and civil rights for over 109,000 unmarried opposite sex couples who are now living together in Wisconsin. Thousands of these couples, like my partner and I, are senior citizens. I worked for over forty years as a professional social worker. My ex-wife and I married and raised four beautiful children, and we now have five lovely grandchildren. After our youngest entered her freshman year at UW-Madison we amicably parted.
I am now seventy one years old. Several years after my divorce, I met a woman I will call Sue. After living apart for about eight years and after my health continued to worsen, we decided to share a home together. Both Sue and I had experienced painful divorces and were wary of pursuing another marriage this late in our lives.
Both of us have had professionally fulfilling and productive careers. Sue’s family has become my family and my family has become hers. Together we now live a secure and modest life together. Throughout our lives we have both been and continue to be good tax paying citizens. We have both pursued careers serving others while also being active in civic and community affairs. For this we believe we have earned a right to continue to pursue our happiness in a private life of our own choosing.
There is no doubt in our minds that if this mean-spirited amendment passes my health insurance and other legal protections and privileges that we now jointly share will end. Up until now Sue has participated in my health planning, sat with me in the hospital through several major surgeries, and signed on as a power of attorneys for my health care. As a domestic partner I am also on Sue’s family insurance plan. These and innumerable other legal and civil rights, which we now enjoy as domestic partners, will come under attack if this amendment is passed.
Before you vote on November 7th I urge you to ponder why, after fighting for racial and women’s rights, we are now being asked by our legislators to once again deny another segment of Americans their legal rights and personal freedom and happiness.
Our legislators, who now remain perpetually in office based on a pay-to-play arrangement with powerful special interests, have decided to appeal to fear and our darker side and to use a small minority group to divide us and draw our attention away from real social ills, such as lack of adequate health care, our right to decide and address our own local community problems, and shrinking resources for education and human services, to name only a few. On November 7th let all Wisconsinites stand together and vote NO and send a loud voice to the politicians that we have had enough.
Respectfully,
William R. Benedict, NSP Steering Committee Member
On November 7th, 2006, Wisconsin voters will be asked whether we should add an amendment to the state constitution. The proposed amendment reads:
“Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”
This constitutional ban would permanently deny civil unions and marriage for lesbian and gay couples, and it would seriously jeopardize other legal protections for thousands of unmarried opposite sex couples who are presently living together. While this amendment is aimed principally at gay couples, many citizens may not be aware that this mean-spirited amendment could also affect your non-gay best friend, your parents, grandparents, children, and perhaps like me, even yourself someday.
My case I believe is a good example. After reading this I believe you will see that this proposed amendment is really an anti-family amendment. If passed, it will exclude legal and civil rights for over 109,000 unmarried opposite sex couples who are now living together in Wisconsin. Thousands of these couples, like my partner and I, are senior citizens. I worked for over forty years as a professional social worker. My ex-wife and I married and raised four beautiful children, and we now have five lovely grandchildren. After our youngest entered her freshman year at UW-Madison we amicably parted.
I am now seventy one years old. Several years after my divorce, I met a woman I will call Sue. After living apart for about eight years and after my health continued to worsen, we decided to share a home together. Both Sue and I had experienced painful divorces and were wary of pursuing another marriage this late in our lives.
Both of us have had professionally fulfilling and productive careers. Sue’s family has become my family and my family has become hers. Together we now live a secure and modest life together. Throughout our lives we have both been and continue to be good tax paying citizens. We have both pursued careers serving others while also being active in civic and community affairs. For this we believe we have earned a right to continue to pursue our happiness in a private life of our own choosing.
There is no doubt in our minds that if this mean-spirited amendment passes my health insurance and other legal protections and privileges that we now jointly share will end. Up until now Sue has participated in my health planning, sat with me in the hospital through several major surgeries, and signed on as a power of attorneys for my health care. As a domestic partner I am also on Sue’s family insurance plan. These and innumerable other legal and civil rights, which we now enjoy as domestic partners, will come under attack if this amendment is passed.
Before you vote on November 7th I urge you to ponder why, after fighting for racial and women’s rights, we are now being asked by our legislators to once again deny another segment of Americans their legal rights and personal freedom and happiness.
Our legislators, who now remain perpetually in office based on a pay-to-play arrangement with powerful special interests, have decided to appeal to fear and our darker side and to use a small minority group to divide us and draw our attention away from real social ills, such as lack of adequate health care, our right to decide and address our own local community problems, and shrinking resources for education and human services, to name only a few. On November 7th let all Wisconsinites stand together and vote NO and send a loud voice to the politicians that we have had enough.
Respectfully,
William R. Benedict, NSP Steering Committee Member
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