Editorial: Our boomer-elders are a state asset

Nov 23, 2009 at 06:56 PM

It's increasingly clear that money for public work is going to be scarce in Minnesota for a number of years. But the state's human capital forecast for the next decade is more hopeful. The reason: The number of 65- to 74-year-olds is about to spike.

Minnesota will soon be rich in physically active, well-educated, "young" senior citizens. That will be true for the rest of the nation, too, of course, as the first wave of the baby boom generation turns 65 in 2011.

What makes that gray wave especially good news for Minnesota is that its older adults already lead the nation in volunteering. They already have acquired the habit of regularly donating time for activities that shore up the quality of life in their communities -- delivering meals, stocking food shelves, mentoring young people, chauffeuring the nondriving elderly, caring for preschool children and more.

Data collected from 2006 to 2008 by the U.S. Census Bureau specific to the Twin Cities area show that more than 40 percent of boomers and more than 37 percent of people age 65 and older reported doing volunteer work in the past year. Those were the highest responses among 25 metropolitan areas surveyed. The number of people who have passed their 65th birthday is expected to double in the Twin Cities in the next 20 years, as the number of younger people stays flat.

Some of those "younger" elders will still be in the workforce for a while. Most economists now expect paid labor by workers past age 65 to become more common, even after today's rocky economy stabilizes. But the sheer number of boomers says that even if a larger share of them than their predecessors collect paychecks into their 70s, the number of 65- to 74-year-olds able to devote more time to volunteering will still swell in the coming decade.

That added human capital was mentioned repeatedly at a Nov. 17 conference at the University of Minnesota that considered ways to confront a looming problem for Minnesota: How will a financially strapped state deal with the rising cost of long-term care for the state's frail elderly?

The conference, sponsored by Aging Services of Minnesota, brought together administrators of long-term care facilities and services from around the state to discuss strategies for affordably meeting the needs of the frailest, most disabled share of the elderly population.

The people most in need of those services are typically past age 85. A number of conference participants said that the strategic deployment of volunteers -- many of them younger senior citizens -- will be important to enabling more "older elders" to age in place, and hold down care costs.

That idea could meld nicely with another presented at the conference, by state Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont. She proposes consolidating all administration of state government programs that affect the over-65 set into a Department of Aging.

Too often, Rosen said, providers of long-term care services are confounded by complicated, duplicative regulations, requirements and programs now housed in the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services. Consolidating their administration would likely lead to better coordination and some cost savings.

A Department of Aging could also be a fine place to house something that state government had during the late Gov. Rudy Perpich's administration, and could use again -- an Office of Volunteer Services. It could be a clearinghouse of information about how best to recruit, train and deploy volunteers in ways that keep a community's frail elderly residents independent as long as possible. It could also steer would-be volunteers to service opportunities they might not have otherwise considered.

For years, state and local government planners in Minnesota have spoken about the impending retirement of the baby boomers as a set of problems to be managed. They would do well to consider ways in which the silver tsunami also presents an opportunity to be seized. It's true that as boomers become elders, they won't pay as much in taxes, and they'll want more of some government services (public transit comes to mind). But if boomers continue to volunteer in big or bigger numbers, they could be key to getting public work done in an affordable way, and in a way that adds meaning to their own lives as well.

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E.J. Dionne Jr.: Afghanistan plan may land in the middle

E.J. Dionne Jr.| Nov 23, 2009 at 08:25 PM

When there is no good solution to a problem, a president has three options. One is to avoid the problem. The second is to pick the least bad of the available options. The third is to mix and match among the proposed solutions and minimize the long-term damage any decision will cause.

Afghanistan has presented President Obama with exactly this situation, and he is soon likely to settle on something closest to the third approach.

This will make no one very happy. Yet it might be the least dangerous choice.

If we wanted to be successful in Afghanistan, we wouldn't choose to start from where we are now. We wouldn't have put this war on the back burner for so long, and we would have dealt much earlier with the debilitating deficiencies of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Obama can change none of this. And unlike enthusiasts for an all-out counterinsurgency strategy, Obama knows he has to make a decision that's sustainable over the long run, which means taking into account domestic economic and political realities.

One of these is the weariness over a truth that Andrew Bacevich, the hardheaded foreign-policy analyst, put more plainly than most: "that permanent war has become the de facto policy of the United States."

Americans have always been willing to battle terrorists. What they did not count on -- and were not led to expect when the Bush administration committed troops first to Afghanistan and then to Iraq -- were two long, violent, indefinite occupations costing thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Advocates of a big counterinsurgency strategy are offended at anyone who raises the financial costs of our commitments. Those most angered by any talk about the immense expense of these wars are typically the very conservatives who bemoan America's fiscal condition and the dangers of long-term deficits -- yet had no qualms over starting two wars and cutting taxes at the same time.

The costs are definitely worrying Obama and getting under the skin of congressional Democrats tired of attacks on their fiscal credentials.

That's why it's significant that a group of House Democrats led by Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chose last week, in anticipation of the president's decision, to introduce a bill requiring the president to set a surtax to pay for war costs in Afghanistan.

"As we've struggled to pass health care reform, we've been told that we have to pay for the bill," the Democrats said in a statement. "Regardless of whether one favors the war or not, if it is to be fought, it ought to be paid for."

The proposal may never become law but it sends a clear message: Any troop increase Obama proposes will be wildly unpopular with a large share of those who have been his strongest backers -- and most popular with those whom he cannot count on for support in any other area.

Obama knows that patience with permanent war is wearing out. This is why he will insist that he is not committing new troops indefinitely.

One senior administration official, emphasizing that final choices have not been made, described the policy Obama is likely to announce in early December this way: "It will not be open-ended, it will be limited in time, and the focus will be on strategy, not the number of troops." It's likely that the number of troops he'll send will be below the 40,000 proposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

The president has decided that Afghanistan is neither Iraq nor Vietnam. This is a view that puts him at odds with both the hawks, who constantly use the 2007 Iraq surge metaphor, and the doves, who constantly look to Vietnam as a cautionary tale.

Obama insists that a surge in Afghanistan cannot work in the same way it did in Iraq because conditions on the ground are so different. Yet in the wake of 9/11, he sees the United States as having vital interests in Afghanistan that it did not have in Vietnam: the need to defeat terrorists in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to be mindful about the impact of our choices on the future of Pakistan.

No issue has presented a tougher test for Obama's nonideological pragmatism than Afghanistan. Those with the greatest political stake in the debate reject the middle ground and doubt the president can think his way around the all-in-or-all-out dilemma. Yet this is exactly the kind of thinking Obama promised last year, and he's right to try to make it work.

E.J. Dionne's column is distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group.

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Pamela Alexander, Julie Stewart: Cocaine sentencing disparity must end

PAMELA ALEXANDER and JULIE STEWART| Nov 23, 2009 at 06:54 PM

We hope Congress was listening Wednesday when the nation's top prosecutor, Attorney General Eric Holder, told the Senate: "There are few areas of the law that cry out for reform more than federal cocaine sentencing policy."

Pending legislation in both houses of Congress would eliminate the so-called "100-to-1" ratio between crack and powder cocaine. That ratio means that offenders get a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for a crime involving 5 grams of crack -- but that it takes a hundred times that amount (500 grams) of powder cocaine to trigger the same prison term. Fifty grams of crack -- or 5,000 grams of powder cocaine -- garners a 10-year mandatory minimum.

Holder is right to put cocaine at the top of his reform list: No criminal-sentencing laws are more unjust and indefensible than those for federal crack-cocaine crimes. And for years, bipartisan support has been building to reform these laws. Republicans, Democrats, the Department of Justice, judges, the public, criminal-justice experts and the U.S. Sentencing Commission agree that the sentencing disparity isn't just unfair, it's also a nasty smear on the justice system.

The impact of that disparity falls heavily on African-Americans, who comprise 80 percent of those serving federal sentences for crack cocaine. Their sentences are almost 10 years on average, even though a typical crack-cocaine case involves just 52 grams -- the size of a candy bar -- and the defendants are overwhelmingly nonviolent and low-level. A conviction for 52 grams of powder cocaine would generate a prison sentence of less than two years.

An alarming byproduct of this kind of racial disparity is community distrust of the criminal-justice system. Police and judges confirm that citizens won't report crack crimes or serve on juries or even convict in crack cases because they know the defendants will be subject to unequal and discriminatory sentences.

Despite all of this, Congress has been painfully slow to act. It should take a lesson from Minnesota's sentencing law and pass the Fair Sentencing Act of 2009, a bill that would eliminate the sentencing difference between crack and powder cocaine. (Minnesota law makes no distinction.)

Public safety has a price -- one that, for the most part, we are willing to pay. But when a bad sentencing policy locks up the wrong people for too long, alienates the public, and frustrates prosecutors and defense attorneys alike, it's time to take a hard second look and make some adjustments. In Holder's words, "the stakes are simply too high to let reform in this area wait any longer."

Pamela Alexander, a former Hennepin County district judge, is president of the Council on Crime and Justice. Julie Stewart is president and founder of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

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Washington Post: The door is open for Katrina lawsuits

FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE WASHINGTON POST| Nov 23, 2009 at 06:53 PM

Photo by New York Times

The 76-mile Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet grew to two to three times its designed width, contributing to the levee break that flooded New Orleans, a judge ruled.

Ask residents of New Orleans who they think was responsible for the drowning of their city during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and without hesitation many will say the Army Corps of Engineers. U.S. District Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. backed that assessment in a blistering ruling last week that held the federal agency liable for damages. After earlier dismissing the claim that construction of the 44-year-old Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet shipping channel was responsible for the flooding of the Crescent City, he ruled that the Corps' neglect of the 76-mile passage contributed to the disaster.

The negligence, he wrote, "was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness." Noting that the Corps had known about the channel's deterioration for more than 40 years, he added, it "had an opportunity to take a myriad of actions ... and failed to do so. Clearly, the expression 'talk is cheap' applies here."

As the channel eroded, so did the levees. Duval wrote that it grew "to two to three times its design width." This "created a more forceful frontal wave attack on the levee" that was supposed to protect St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward from the storm surge.

The lawsuit was brought by seven plaintiffs. Duval ruled against the plaintiffs from New Orleans East but awarded $720,000 to those from St. Bernard and the Lower Ninth.

His decision could lead to thousands of people joining class actions seeking billions of dollars in damages. Lawyers for the plaintiffs are calling on the federal government to offer a universal settlement with the people of New Orleans.

The Obama administration and members of Congress should listen. While there are limits on how much people should expect -- the government is strapped for cash, after all -- it's difficult to see what purpose would be served by dragging this case through appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court.

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Readers Write for Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009

Nov 23, 2009 at 06:49 PM

GAYS VS. CATHOLIC CHURCH

My words were misrepresented

Statements and actions attributed to me in the Star Tribune's Nov. 17 article "Gays reject church's attempt to 'cure' them" are pure fabrication. I read that story and marveled that the Star Tribune would accept a quote like that and alleged acts by me without even attempting to find out if they were true -- which they were not.

According to Michael Bayly of a group called Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, "Archbishop Harry Flynn came to us -- we didn't go to him -- in the late 1990s and asked us to serve as resource people for the church."

Take it from the archbishop in question, this never happened, period. I understand that Bayly later recanted those remarks on his website, claiming he was "misquoted." That excuse is a transparent one and one the reporter adamantly denies.

There were other errors and untruths in this story, but the truly unfortunate thing is that the newspaper and the reporter let Bayly, with an agenda of his own, use them.

THE REV. HARRY J. FLYNN,

NORTHFIELD, MINN.; ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS,

ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS

WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

Invest in the country rather than bomb it

President Obama's advisers and critics agree there are "no good options" in Afghanistan. Doesn't that call for something new, bold and outside the box? Something unexpected, that will shake the situation loose, force new thinking?

How about the president take $50 billion from our bloated military budget and offer low-interest loans for small-business startups, and for building schools, roads and hospitals in Afghanistan?

Young people training to be suicide bombers could be offered an alternative -- a college education anywhere. That might cost us less than if they become suicide bombers.

JOHN N. PHILLIPS, MINNEAPOLIS

gophers lose to iowa

Brewster has shown he can't win in the Big Ten

A 12-0 loss to Iowa. Eight straight quarters of failing to score against the Hawkeyes. A 3-5 Big Ten record. Little discernible progress during his regime.

It's become patently obvious that Coach Tim Brewster is over his head and out of his element in the Big Ten.

Gophers fans cannot abide another 10-year reign of mediocrity nor can the school afford a $1 million recruiter.

Athletic Director Joel Maturi should admit his mistake, cut his losses and make a decision about the football program: Make it competitive or drop down to a lower division where, perhaps, it can be competitive.

JIM BUSH, MINNEAPOLIS

•••

One word should be used to sum up year three of Coach Brewster's administration: pathetic. With his coaching, the closest that Minnesota will get to Pasadena is watching it on TV.

It is time that AD Maturi, after all these years of lower- to mid-tier bowl games, find a coach who will bring Minnesota roses, not weeds.

MIKE JARVINEN, ST. PAUL

•••

In keeping with the dictums and guidelines of corporate-think, perhaps the TCF people should cut an unprofitable division from the corporate family.

After giving its money and name to a new Gophers stadium, TCF should call it quits.

WILLIAM T. SMITH, ST. PAUL

KENNEDY DENIED COMMUNION

Catholic Church is blackmailing politicians

More than 40 years ago concern was expressed about electing John F. Kennedy president because he was a Catholic. There was fear that his church would try to influence his decisions. That was refuted by the voters.

Now, many years later, a bishop is trying to coerce a Kennedy's decisions. Were we wrong?

DICK CHERRY, BURNSVILLE

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Letter of the day: Palin still can raise temperatures -- both on the left and the right

Nov 23, 2009 at 06:50 PM

Photo by Detroit Free Press

Sarah Palin autographed her book, “Going Rogue,” Nov. 18 at the Barnes & Noble in Kentwood, Mich.

VINCENT PETERS, NEW BRIGHTON

TOM CARLSON, ST. PAUL

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New York Post: Fort Hood victims deserve honors

Nov 23, 2009 at 06:51 PM

A bill now before Congress would make official what's already plain: The 42 victims, including 13 fatalities, in this month's Fort Hood shooting were casualties of war.

Whether they took fire in Afghanistan, Iraq or Texas makes no difference: The twisted ideology that brought down the Twin Towers knows no borders.

Nor is it relevant that the alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, himself wore the uniform: He'd imbibed deeply from the wells of radical Islam -- even establishing contact with an Al-Qaida-linked imam in Yemen.

The bill, introduced last week by Texas Rep. John Carter, whose district includes Fort Hood, would grant those who were killed or wounded in the shooting the same legal status as combat casualties -- putting them in line for appropriate recognition of their valor.

For those who wore the uniform, that would mean the Purple Heart -- awarded to servicemembers who have shed blood on the field of battle.

The soldiers who fell at Fort Hood knew they might be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. Indeed, many were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

That their sacrifice, ironically, wound up coming at home, and through treacherous means, makes it no less heroic.

The civilian casualties, meanwhile, would be in line for the Secretary of Defense Medal of Freedom, the award created for civilian Pentagon employees killed or wounded on 9/11.

Survivors of the killed soldiers would also be eligible for maximum Defense Department benefits.

The Carter bill already enjoys broad bipartisan support, though it's likely to be opposed by those who, for the sake of political correctness, wish to pretend that the Fort Hood attack was something other than an act of war.

Yet amid a war that began with a surprise attack on U.S. soil, to pretend that such a thing can't -- and hasn't -- happened again is the height of foolishness.

More's the pity if such a denial robs Fort Hood's casualties of their due honor.

NEW YORK POST

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Editorial: Balance jobs and preservation needs

Nov 22, 2009 at 02:45 PM

St. Paul's Port Authority is poised to close on its biggest land deal in the last 20 years. To complete the purchase of the former 3M site that began last year, the agency is set to buy the last parcel and continue its work to revamp the 46-acre plot into a job-producing zone. Part of the Phalen corridor development, the plan is to attract a combination of light industrial, business and other enterprises to the area.

But a disagreement over whether a handful of buildings on the site should be preserved or torn down in two years could get in the way of sealing the deal. That shouldn't happen. The Port Authority should buy the land and come to terms with the city and community over the proper amount of time to let those structures stand.

Last year, the Port Authority agreed to buy the 3M site on the city's East Side in two stages. First, it bought 35 acres for $3.5 million. Now the agency is ready to buy the remaining 11 acres for $1.5 million.

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Letter of the Day: For Lutherans, there is sadness, Thanksgiving and dissension

Nov 23, 2009 at 04:57 PM

Photo by Star Tribune

In August 2009, members of the ELCA prayed together in for understanding just after the yes vote was taken and approved on the same-sex amendment.

Let me understand: Gays can be doctors, lawyers, medical professionals, professors, teachers, athletic Olympians, engineers, but there are Lutheran churches in this country that are leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America because gays are not good enough for the pulpit and must be kept away. They can go to church, put an offering in the envelope, and participate in what the churches have to offer, but must stay away from the pulpit.

I have spent almost 70 years as a Lutheran and am saddened that this is happening. Churches today are trying to keep a robust and lively membership, and this most surely will not have the folks lining up at the door to join. It truly is a sad day for Lutherans.

RUTH ANN JACKSON, DEEPHAVEN

•••

Thursday morning I read the news "Lutherans ready to split off." I knew it would happen and I didn't like it. I have been part of the ELCA in a way since I was baptized in 1918. I was ready to write again about it, but I didn't because I read the article right below that one: "Brothers, forever" ( the story of Carl and Bill Larson).

As an ordained pastor of over 60 years in the church I love, I found in this little story by Curt Brown what life in the church and the Scriptures is all about. Thank you very much. We need much more of this kind of writing that never really makes the news. In it there is love overflowing, a kind of magical wonder, a look at what matters in life in this broken world of ours. Keep it up and find more of it to make us glad and make us sing for joy and know what real Thanksgiving is.

THE REV. ROBERT S. NELSON, EDINA

•••

TOBY WALDOWSKI, WOODBURY

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Readers Write for Monday, Nov. 23

Nov 23, 2009 at 05:07 PM

HOUSE TAKES ON PAWLENTY

A group decision to support most vulnerable

Gov. Tim Pawlenty's elimination of essential public services through unallotment raises serious and important issues of constitutional law. The question is whether the governor's action was legal, not just whether it was wise.

Last week the Minnesota House of Representatives made a decision to support six poor, elderly and disabled people in their legal challenge to Pawlenty's actions. I was proud to support the decision by the House to file a friend-of-the-court brief on their behalf. Spending hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars to file a separate lawsuit would have been a far more difficult proposition.

So far, no other organization or government entity, aside from Legal Aid, has stepped forward to support these six people and the tens of thousands like them.

Contrary to a Nov. 18 letter, the House decision was not a unilateral act by House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, but a decision arrived at through a democratic process and at a public meeting.

Go-it-alone governing led Pawlenty to unallot programs on which our most vulnerable citizens rely for their basic needs. Anderson Kelliher led the Minnesota House of Representatives -- together -- in standing up to him.

REP. STEVE SIMON, DFL-ST. LOUIS PARK

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Mike Sweeney: With level playing field, future is bright for news

Mike Sweeney| Nov 22, 2009 at 02:01 PM

Photo by Star Tribune

Mike Sweeney is the chairman of the board of directors for the Star Tribune.

It has been almost two months since I became chairman of the new Star Tribune, and I'd like to share my impressions of our company, our newspaper and the evolution of the news industry. My colleagues have stressed the special obligation a news organization has to be open and transparent. If we ask you to have confidence in our reporting, we must let you know who we are and where we are going. To that end, although we are a privately held company, we will soon be sharing on our website the same information on our ownership, our board, our executives and our financial results that publicly held companies must provide.

Today we are a profitable company with a healthy balance sheet and the financial resources to fulfill our core mission of being Minnesota's most important news source. Following the financial restructuring completed in September, we are more efficient and more innovative. The combined readership of our print and online offerings has never been higher.

And we are continuing to innovate. StarTribune.com is by far the most popular Minnesota-based website, but we believe it can be much better. During 2010 we'll make a significant investment in the website, adding up-to-date architecture that will allow us to provide more robust information in a format that is simple to navigate. The printed version of our newspaper generates the majority of our revenue, and it won't be going away any time soon. We will print and deliver a great newspaper as long as our customers want it.

The quality of journalism at the Star Tribune has never been higher. Of the 270 people who work in our newsroom, 115 are reporters. And 100 community bloggers write for our website. In 2000, when technology was less helpful to journalists, we employed 126 reporters. No news organization in Minnesota comes close to matching our reporting resources and expertise.

In my 30 years in business, I have never seen a more exciting marketplace than today's news industry. Citizens are more interested in news than ever, and there are countless organizations willing to provide it. For-profit businesses and nonprofits are all vying for your attention. Large technology-driven companies like Google and Yahoo are competing with niche businesses like Politico and the Huffington Post. And the nonprofit world has responded with terrific sites like Minnesota's own e-democracy.org and MinnPost. Against this robust backdrop, our community is facing important public policy questions. One that particularly concerns us is whether the government should provide taxpayer dollars to subsidize news media companies. From the Star Tribune's perspective, the answer is a resounding "No!" We don't want or need taxpayer subsidies, and we see no reason for government to disrupt an already robust, innovative market.

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