The time and opportunity to talk and share with one another has finally arrived. Your social justice council members want to warmly welcome each of you to this Lenten season’s seven week small group discussion meetings. We will be asking ourselves whether “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For?” What is the role for the spiritually led person in the public arena? What do our five Unity principles have to say about this?
In their introduction, the authors of Spiritual Politics, ask the reader to trust their own intuition and to also draw from the worlds ageless moral values, including fairness, responsibility, hope, trust, optimism caring, generosity and compassion, to better discern their path. Our theme will include that Spirituality today must go beyond concern for personal salvation to help others in need, and to engage with others to address the crises on planet earth. How can Unity’s five basic principles guide and inform us into assuming a more vibrant and fulfilling citizen role in our public square?
This coming Wednesday’s focus will be on Unity principles One and Two which reminds us to energetically embrace one’s external life by simultaneously going within. Together we will consider how we can embrace and harness the power of our spiritual growth to better help us move forward toward greater peace and social justice for all.
During the next seven Wednesdays we will practice moving both inward and outward in order to gain greater clarity about what God expects of us in the public square as persons of Spirit and as servant leaders? As we grow into deeper community with one another through our small groups and meditation, our compassion for and understanding of others also will grow.
Having read the suggested readings and considering the discussion questions before these meetings is encouraged but in no way required or necessary. Your presence and love are all that is required. With both excitement and joy we are looking forward to meeting each of you and talking and praying with you.
Finally your Social Justice Council wants to take this opportunity to thank each of you for all your support and love as we journey for greater social justice for all.
Social Justice Council Members: Bill Benedict, Sue Brown, Carrie Cameron, Marj Kutsche, Pat O’Laughlin, Diane Pauly, Sandi Penzkover, Susan Sponeybarger and Sandy Strietelmeier and Deenah Givens and Rev. Marshall Norman.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Payback for Tax Payer Funding Called For
Letter to the Editor
On February 13th of this year Governor Doyle will send his proposed $50 billion dollar budget to the legislature. In 2006 Doyle helped authorize $50 million in state funding for the University’s planned Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. This funding by our Wisconsin taxpayers was in part to further jump-start Wisconsin’s still fledgling stem cell research and development initiative.
During this same period Doyle also funded a $5 million plan to recruit and retain stem cell companies; $3 million has gone into Dr. James Thomson’s two companies---Cellular Dynamics, Inc. and Stem Cell Products, Inc. Steps were also taken to waive Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) royalty fees for companies that conduct stem cell research in Wisconsin. All of this funding, mind you, without establishing any terms whatsoever for obtaining any returns on the tax payers’ investment.
Such blatant generosity has been hailed by Jim Haney, executive director, of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, as contributing to “a critical mass” that can only be compared to Silicon Valley. Such hyped-up support has also caused Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, to tout Dr. James Thomson as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize.
The print media’s unceasing editorializing about Dr. James Thomson’s “research commercialization model” along with the imperative for ever more public funds to support this model “for a more robust job creation,” all suggest that much is going to be expected from you and I, the taxpayer in the years ahead.
All of this suggests to me that state funding for for-profit stem cell entities in Wisconsin will increase dramatically in the immediate years ahead. What is most surprising and disheartening is the fact that neither our public servants nor the media have yet shown any willingness whatsoever to assure accountability to the taxpayer for such public funding. If Wisconsin taxpayers are paying for this research they have the right to expect a reasonable share of the commercial profits and other benefits.
In addition to direct financial returns or commissions, for-profit entities that receive public funding should reasonably be expected to make their stem cell therapy products available to uninsured Wisconsin residents. They should also be expected to provide discounted prices to publicly fund health care plans, and to grant Wisconsin residents preference if their stem cell therapies are in short supply.
Wisconsin middle class taxpayers, the uninsured working poor and the sick should not continue to acquiesce and do nothing out of fear and trumped up accusations that such ethically sound taxpayer-centered accountability practices will somehow squash private competition and send our local scientist-entrepreneurs and in-state jobs packing.
Wisconsin needs to step up to the plate now and meet this responsibility to the taxpayers and to future generations who suffer from cell-based diseases. Now is the time to address and resolve these taxpayer inequities and assure more affordable health care to all of us.
Respectfully submitted
On February 13th of this year Governor Doyle will send his proposed $50 billion dollar budget to the legislature. In 2006 Doyle helped authorize $50 million in state funding for the University’s planned Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. This funding by our Wisconsin taxpayers was in part to further jump-start Wisconsin’s still fledgling stem cell research and development initiative.
During this same period Doyle also funded a $5 million plan to recruit and retain stem cell companies; $3 million has gone into Dr. James Thomson’s two companies---Cellular Dynamics, Inc. and Stem Cell Products, Inc. Steps were also taken to waive Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) royalty fees for companies that conduct stem cell research in Wisconsin. All of this funding, mind you, without establishing any terms whatsoever for obtaining any returns on the tax payers’ investment.
Such blatant generosity has been hailed by Jim Haney, executive director, of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, as contributing to “a critical mass” that can only be compared to Silicon Valley. Such hyped-up support has also caused Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, to tout Dr. James Thomson as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize.
The print media’s unceasing editorializing about Dr. James Thomson’s “research commercialization model” along with the imperative for ever more public funds to support this model “for a more robust job creation,” all suggest that much is going to be expected from you and I, the taxpayer in the years ahead.
All of this suggests to me that state funding for for-profit stem cell entities in Wisconsin will increase dramatically in the immediate years ahead. What is most surprising and disheartening is the fact that neither our public servants nor the media have yet shown any willingness whatsoever to assure accountability to the taxpayer for such public funding. If Wisconsin taxpayers are paying for this research they have the right to expect a reasonable share of the commercial profits and other benefits.
In addition to direct financial returns or commissions, for-profit entities that receive public funding should reasonably be expected to make their stem cell therapy products available to uninsured Wisconsin residents. They should also be expected to provide discounted prices to publicly fund health care plans, and to grant Wisconsin residents preference if their stem cell therapies are in short supply.
Wisconsin middle class taxpayers, the uninsured working poor and the sick should not continue to acquiesce and do nothing out of fear and trumped up accusations that such ethically sound taxpayer-centered accountability practices will somehow squash private competition and send our local scientist-entrepreneurs and in-state jobs packing.
Wisconsin needs to step up to the plate now and meet this responsibility to the taxpayers and to future generations who suffer from cell-based diseases. Now is the time to address and resolve these taxpayer inequities and assure more affordable health care to all of us.
Respectfully submitted
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