Overhead in overdrive in the stupid college savings boondoggle

Yet another reason to not vote for Ed FitzGerald for Governor of Ohio.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald's college savings account program will cost taxpayers $522,000 in annual overhead, about one-quarter of the program's $2 million budget, county records show.

That percentage is significantly more than the vast majority of large charities spend to administer their programs, according to Charity Navigator, a non-profit watchdog that tracks budgets of $1 million or more.

"I think that it does seem high," Charity Navigator spokeswoman Sandra Miniutti told Northeast Ohio Media Group on Friday.

Of the 7,000 philanthropic agencies Charity Navigator tracks, less than 4 percent spend a quarter or more of their budgets on administrative costs, Miniutti said. Most spend 15 percent or less, she said.

This whole savings account thing is a perfect example of Democrat boondoggling. Tax the parents, funnel money to kids, buy votes, raise the cost of education. Then repeat as often as possible and if anyone attacks the plan, tell them they must hate the children.

The program's likely overhead is drawing criticism from County Councilman Dave Greenspan, a Republican who has frequently questioned initiatives by FitzGerald since the Democratic county executive announced he is running for governor.

"Would you as a taxpayer give to a charity that had at least a [25 percent] administrative burden on the giving?" Greenspan said. "The answer is no. I believe it's no. I wouldn't do it."

But the FitzGerald administration objected Friday to comparing the savings account program's administrative expenses to those of charities.

"This program cannot be easily compared to this broad set of non-profit organizations. It has to be judged on its own merits," said Matt Carroll, chief of staff to FitzGerald.

The "merits" are easy to identify. This government program will give money to kids who will flunk out much more often than private charities will. Also accounts will be opened for everybody, and not everybody goes to college.

A similar program in San Francisco only had a 12 percent participation rate within its first three years. FitzGerald hopes to improve on those results by marketing his version of the program.

The county council's budget and finance committee will debate the request Monday.

The FitzGerald administration had hoped to launch the savings account this month. But concerns from county council over the program's details have delayed it.

The whole culture of savings argument is just dopey. You can't really encourage saving by giving people money they didn't earn. I hope this thing dies an appropriate death and the money is somehow returned to the taxpayer. Why do I live here again?

Emily Stimpson replies to Rod Dreher

Emily's piece is titled "Why I'm never leaving the Catholic Church." Although she doesn't mention Rod Dreher by name, she links to the same TIME article which we did. Her response is excellent; excerpt:

In 2002, as one horror story after another emerged, I never once questioned the truth of my Catholic faith. I’d already done the questioning and found the answers. There was no going back. Once you see that two plus two equals four, you never ask yourself if it equals five.

Don’t get me wrong: As the scandals unfolded, I mourned for the children horrifically abused by sons and daughters of the Church. I still do. I also mourn for all the men and women who are still being cheated, who are still being hurt.

Today, far too many Catholics live as the culture tells them to live and think as the culture tells them to think. They wound others as others wound them. Likewise, in far too many places, the Church’s sons and daughters are helping them do that by continuing to proclaim the Milquetoast “Be Nice” Gospel I learned in school.

That doesn’t just make me sad; it makes me angry.

But it doesn’t make me want to leave the Church.

Rather, it makes me want to work harder to give others what I’ve been given. I want them to find the healing, peace, and joy that comes from knowing the truth, loving the truth, and living the truth.

I can’t do that, however, if I deny the truth. And that’s what leaving the Catholic Church would be—a denial of the truth.

Popes and priests come and go. So do good moments and bad in the life of the Church. If our faith rests in those people or is a product of one moment, it will be a faith without roots. It will never grow strong. It will never mature.

So Emily Stimpson decided to work harder instead of deciding to give up and leave. If she had left, she admits that it would be equivalent to denying the truth. So it might actually demand more work to constantly be writing article after article explaining why she left and keeping all her stories straight. It's sort of one of those paradoxes.

"To whom shall we go?" She's doing the right thing; may she be rewarded on Earth and in Heaven.

So "tolerance" is a genetic trait?

This is why we need the Catholic League. Bill Donohue represents boldness, balance and common sense in defense of the truth.

Bill Donohue comments on the reaction of a gay group, the New Civil Rights Movement, to a Chicago eatery that is featuring a hamburger topped with a Communion wafer:

Five years ago we protested the desecration of a Communion Host by P.Z. Myers, an anti-Catholic atheist professor. Yesterday, I decided not to protest the antics of Kuma's Corner, a Chicago restaurant, for serving a burger with a Communion wafer. The difference: Myers secured a consecrated Host and drove a nail through it; the sandwich shop played games with an unconsecrated wafer. While Kuma's showed disrespect, what Myers did was despicable.

Now I have learned that the New Civil Rights Movement, a homosexual outfit that is ever so sensitive about gay issues, is taking utter delight in the burger spoof. The guys who work there predicted that I would be "stroking out." Sorry to disappoint, boys. In fact, the only angst I feel is toward people like them. They say that what Kuma's Corner did risks the wrath of "every Christian born without a tolerance gene or a sense of humor." I'll remember that the next time they complain about one of my gay quips.

By the way, I thought tolerance was a function of nurture, not nature. So what is it? A preference or an orientation? Please advise as this is very confusing to a straight guy.

"Please advise as this is very confusing to a straight guy." Donohue is a messaging genius.

I've read that some gays are afraid that if a "gay gene" is ever discovered then there will be orientation-based abortions. I suppose if these same gays realized how intolerant they are of people who have a Christian sense of morality, they would be even more scared at the notion of a tolerance gene actually existing. But I'm sure they don't really believe there is a tolerance gene and they have shown time again that they cannot see any intolerance in the mirror.

"Jack? Pot? Jackpot! That's a joke, son!"

I'm totally opposed to people being cruel to animals. But animals being cruel to other animals is hilarious.

I always wondered why there isn't a band called Foghorn Leghorn. Oh, wait, there is one.



Oh, heck yeah.

Not many people want Obama's health insurance

UK Daily Mail has the exclusive: Less than 1% of visitors are signing up for Obamacare on state health exchange websites. Here's the summary:

• California's program registered an estimated 0.58 per cent of website visitors in its first day
• Obama administration won't say how many Americans signed up on the central website that covered insurance exchanges for 36 states
• Kentucky's 5.3 per cent application rate seems to be the nation's highest
• Other states wouldn't provide statistics, or tracked only the creation of new online accounts, not numbers of completed applications

I have a friend who really is poor and doesn't have health insurance. He basically works as a handyman, maybe makes $20,000.00 a year. His wife gets disability, SSI or whatever. He's the perfect candidate for some type of government insurance program like Obamacare supposedly offers. But I don't think he's ever even been on the web, and he's not going to sign up. You have to go after people like that, but the government doesn't work that way. They don't really care about people like my friend.

This part cracks me up:

Millions want to get covered,' according to the Obamacare system's main Twitter account on Wednesday afternoon.

'Americans across the country – millions of Americans – are taking advantage of the opportunity to shop for affordable health insurance that they could not attain before now,' White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted on Monday.

But without enrollment figures, it's impossible to know whether Obamacare is seeing a flood of new customers or just a trickle.

The White House did not respond to a request for those numbers.

Not ready to brag yet I guess. Don't forget to give them another hit.

Father Kevin Estabrook's homilies are online

Earlier I linked to a post about priests blogging from our friend, Dymphna. She mentioned that it okay its strictly "homilies, apologetics and other writing." I think she would approve of Father Kevin Estabrook's blog which is a collection of his great homilies along with some related Catholic art. Here is an excerpt from his sermon on St. Francis from today's Mass.

The night after meeting Francis, Pope Innocent had a dream. Pope Innocent dreamt he stood looking out over the Lateran Church and watched with fear as the proud and ancient building shook, the tower swung, and the walls began to crack, it was in danger of collapsing in on itself. Suddenly, a small common looking man came towards the Lateran. He was dressed in peasant garb, was barefoot, and wore a rope around his waist for a belt. Rushing to the falling Church, he set his shoulder in under the wall and with a mighty push straightened the whole falling church, so that it again stood aright. The pope then recognized the man as Francis of Assisi.

The Pope interpreted his dream to mean that St. Francis would been instrumental in reforming and strengthening the Catholic Church.

This story is very interesting, especially in light of the story where St. Francis knelt in prayer in the crumbling San Damiano chapel. As Francis knelt and prayed in front of the crucifix, Jesus began to speak to him, saying, “Francis, rebuild my Church.”

Father Estabrook is the newest priest at my parish, St. Angela Merici. So I was happy to find his homily site. I actually remember hearing this homily from two Sundays ago. I didn't know the meaning of the name Amos was "burden-bearer". The man definitely puts effort into his homiletic work. Kudos to him!

Interesting Panel Discussion on Pope Francis

The two men on the panel are really the only ones who make any sense. I knew one of them when we both lived in Pittsburgh, Father Frank Hoffman, aka Father Rocky.

Not holed up in the bunker yet

Recently I've been getting crazy emails about how Pope Francis is absolutely destroying the Catholic Church. These emails claim that Pope Benedict is the real Pope and has been blackmailed into exile. Supposedly Pope Francis has a crucifix which is really some sort of Wiccan magic wand. Or something insidious like that.

One reason I laugh at these kinds of conspiracies is how predictable they are. Back when John Paul I died in office there were plenty of conspiracies tailor made to fit pet agendas. One person told me he was killed because he was going to bring back the Traditional Latin Mass. This astounded me considering that another fan of the TLM told me that Albino Luciani had started the unforgivable practice of waving, smiling and shaking hands with people while in procession at the beginning of Mass. Upon suggesting this might be his interpretation of laetificat juventutem meam I was met with an unimpressed silence and a very holy frown.

Since John Paul II didn't die after a month after his election, the conspiracy theory I heard about him was that there were two Pope John Pauls. The real one was locked away somewhere and the one you saw on television or at WYD celebrations was a modernist plant with plastic surgery sent into the Vatican in the early eighties to destroy the church. If that were true I'm sure that was that agent's last mission, having failed so badly. There was reportedly a Mass celebrated by the soon-to-be-Saint John Paul II at Assisi where someone had put a statue of Buddha on top of a tabernacle. "But the Pope didn't put the statue there, did he?" I asked. "No, but he didn't remove it either, which he should have," I was informed. "Maybe he thought it was a statue of an angel. Some of them are as chubby as Buddha, you know," I suggested. I received more holy frowns for my insolence.

I'd had some conversations with Traditionalists of a more general nature which I remember fondly. Rich was a truly great guy who had a saintly devotion to the Latin Mass. He had read a lot of books about spirituality and I learned a lot from talking to him, but every once in a while he'd get really angry and blurt out an unqualified assertion. "Millions and millions of souls are going to hell all because of the Second Vatican Council!" Rich stridently stated. "Are you sure of that? How do you know that?" He was sort of apologetic and said "Well, I don't really know; I could be wrong about all of this of course."

My point is that defectibility doomsday predictions have so far been pretty far off the mark. They sometimes get downgraded to semi-doomsday predictions before dissipating altogether, or if they completely lack even a kernel of truth they go straight into the bin.

But laying wild-eyed craziness aside, I know a lot of serious people have real concerns about the current Pope's messaging that have nothing to do with weird conspiracies, rumors or exaggerations. But I still think those people can at times be prone to making overstatements. I'm in agreement with R. R. Reno's take and tone on our current Holy Father's recent interviews. More about this later.

With regard to being prone to overstatement about the present Papal interview material, I remember back when female altar servers were approved by Pope John Paul II. It was shortly after I converted, and I knew people who thought that was the beginning of the end of the Catholic Church’s tradition of a male priesthood and anything resembling reverence in the Mass. One friend who was extremely upset pointed out that seeing "cute girls" up in the sanctuary was going to make it impossible for red-blooded dudes like us to concentrate on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I think he might have had a bit of a point if he just would change the word impossible to more difficult. I wasn't worried so much about that; I'm not sure how distracting a girl wearing a shapeless white alb can be, especially compared to what I've seen some female Eucharistic Ministers wearing for years before altar girls were legalized. Not to mention women dressed horribly in the pew in front of you. Plus there are many more things to distract parishioners during Sunday Mass: football games, how your stocks are doing, the work week ahead, etc. And this was all before the iPhone was invented.

I was, however, temporarily convinced that female altar servers were not a good development and allowing them was a definite concession to secular pressures. I think I was completely wrong about that and recent history has proven that I was wrong. The dome has not cracked, lightning bolts have not been sent down from Heaven upon Masses with female acolytes, cute or otherwise. As a result, I have absolutely no problem with altar girls now and frankly I barely even notice it.

The Pope is first and foremost a Father in his essence and so my relationship to him always reminds me of my own relationship to my father. I sometimes get bored listening to my father talk about some conversation with some guy named Bill he had about something I totally forget now. But I'm intrigued when he explains how vacuum tubes work. I think my brother would rather hear news about what Bill So-and-so said and could care less about the vacuum tubes. But we love him no matter what he's off about. Most of the things we all agree on are discussed only cursorily.

Of course our father taught us right from wrong when we were children; he was indeed our first teacher. The Pope is also a teacher, I realize, but I accept his teaching as an adult who can examine my own conscience and decide whether what he is saying applies to me. When the Pope goes on and on about fighting poverty my eyes glaze over, I'll admit. I don't feel bad about this; even Jesus got sick of hearing about "the poor" sometimes (Mt. 26:11), although he directly commanded one rich guy to give ALL his money to the poor (Mk. 10:21). Obviously that was what that prig needed, and there is a time and place for everything. However I'll listen to the Pope and throw in an extra $50 when I can spare it. My eyes may glaze over but I still love the guy. Like I said in the comments before, I don't think he's talking about me when he says " It is not necessary to talk about these issues [abortion and same-sex marriage] all the time." I do know some people who are so obsessed with fighting abortion that their marriages have suffered or even failed. In other words, they may have saved the lives of unborn children, but they didn't harvest the grace of the sacrament of marriage and instead, they entirely blew their vocations and alienated their families. Randall Terry is a public poster child for this phenomenon. Maybe these people are analogous to those who said "Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons in your name? (Mt. 7:22)" It would appear to be so.

Another Francis, Francis Cardinal Arinze, was asked once about why the Bishops weren't fighting more against abortion and talking about it more. He said something like "You don't need a Bishop to tell you that abortion is wrong. An eight year old preparing for First Holy Communion can tell you it's wrong. (paraphrasing)" This comment is put a little less flippantly than "It is not necessary to talk about these issues [abortion and same-sex marriage] all the time," but contains a very similar underlying message.

The people I hear talking about contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage the most in America are members of the Democrat Party. They sometimes call the first two "women's services" and the last one "marriage equality", but those are merely code words. This is why one Bishop changed his party affiliation to Republican, by the way, and it made the news. Was Pope Francis upset by this at the time? I hardly think he would be. The Democrats are trying to push all this stuff on everybody, and we're pushing back. But we're not pushing back "all the time." It's not what solely defines us as Catholics.

These are random musings to be sure, and I'm jumping all over the place I realize. But I hope this gives people an idea of why I'm not in the bunker yet over Pope Francis and his different style. I think that Reno criticizes some of the Pope's words respectfully and I think respect is a key attribute in this dialogue. I've seen what is commonly called "Catholic Fundamentalism" by liberals—something I would merely call "speaking the truth without charity" (Ep. 4:15, I Cor. 13:1ff)—and it may not be as widespread as some Jesuits think, but its effects can be quite harmful, especially on the young and impressionable.