“You must find a way to get in the way and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. … You have a moral obligation, a mission, and a mandate, when you leave here, to go out and seek justice for all. You can do it. You must do it.” – On recounting advice John Lewis received from Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. told by John at Bates College’s 150th Commencement

My life and John Lewis’s life has been defined by our civil rights activities throughout the South. John was the son of sharecroppers who came to Eastern Tennessee around 1960 by way of Troy Alabama, his birthplace.

I, of course, was born as the son of a Tennessee cotton farmer in the town of Eads in Western Tennessee. Eads was located outside of Memphis and not far from the banks of the Mississippi. In Jon Meacham’s recent book, His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and The Power of Hope, Jon said Lewis’s life “was linked to the painful quest for justice in America.” And that link to John’s life is exactly how I came to know and appreciate the work of John Lewis. For John and I were focused on creating a reality-based in justice and equality for all.

John and I met when I was 17 years old and had just enrolled in the only historically Black College in Memphis – Owen College (now renamed LeMoyne-Owen College). Similarly, John had become enrolled at American Baptist College in Nashville, in Eastern Tennessee. Students at LeMoyne-Owen College in 1960 had started participation in the southern lunch-counter and anti-segregation interstate movements to protest the “separate but equal” accommodations laws. At that time, these laws were mandated by the U. S. Supreme Court from the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case.

The majority of most civil rights meetings, especially with the Big Six as they are called – Martin Luther King, Jr., Southern Christian Leadership Conference; James Farmer, Congress on Racial Equality; John Lewis, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee; A. Phillip Randolph, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Roy Wilkins, NAACP; and Whitney Young, National Urban League, took place at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, where most dine at the renowned Four-Way Grill. This provided me with ample opportunities to experience and engage with civil rights giants on a regular basis. John, similar to many of us, frequently moved throughout the south focusing on voter registration and political education.

John and I worked at ACTION, a federal domestic volunteer agency formed during President Nixon’s administration. And it was during these civil rights activities that John that assured me that voter registration and education would be kept alive.

In the February 2009 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine, Marian Smith Holmes wrote about a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement:

On Sunday, May 14, 1961—Mother’s Day—scores of angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes, and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. “Burn them alive,” somebody cried out. “Fry the goddamn ni**ers.” An exploding fuel tank and warning shots from arriving state troopers forced the rabble back and allowed the riders to escape the inferno. Even then some were pummeled with baseball bats as they fled.

The passengers on this bus were Freedom Riders, civil rights activists who fought for the implementation of desegregation on public buses in the south. John was a Freedom Rider and actively participated in these protests.

Although Tennessee was not one of the states chosen to participate in this fight, the Freedom Rides, I decided to spruce up my car and drive alone from Memphis to New Orleans, to do what I described at the time as: “testing justice in America.” I drove straight through the heart of Mississippi and, unknowingly traveled, I later discovered through Time Magazine, on one of the most dangerous highways in America.

I joined John and other civil rights activists and others in Marches fighting injustice. Our fight, in other words, continued as we both participated in the Marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, including Bloody Sunday – a brutal and violent day for John. Important to note that we were fighting and marching for justice and equality in voting rights for Black Americans, especially for my people in Somerville, Tennessee, where hundreds of “Tent City” families there had been driven from their homes by the Ku Klux Klan because of trying to register to vote.

John was often referred to as a “troublemaker,” a label that I am often confronted with here in Howard County, Maryland. Here again, I learned from John that fighting for justice requires courage, a culture of ignoring the torpedoes, and a resoluteness of a bear continuing full speed ahead. John has been referred to as a “saint that walked among us.” And I am proud and honored to have had the opportunity to have joined this Saint, this giant, a revolutionary, in the fight for peace and justice.

Sherman Howell is a freelance writer who addresses social, political & economic issues on global level. He resides in Howard County.

The Kirwan Commission’s real aim is hiking teacher pay by $3 billion a year, and it is why the state teachers’ unions are so strongly backing it – more teacher pay. Kirwan aims at “making teacher salaries more competitive with other professions.”

The teachers’ unions, whose membership and coffers would boom, have even launched an expensive lobbying campaign to pressure political leaders to enact Kirwan’s pay hikes.

But Maryland’s teachers are not underpaid. Yes, some teachers, who are paid on a seniority rather than a performance basis, earn somewhat less than professionals with similar education and experience qualifications.

But most are highly overpaid. In aggregate, when all compensation (benefits, leave and job security) is accounted for, the average teacher earns as much as 40% more than those in comparable private sector professions.

No teacher shortage

Another false “crisis” that Kirwan’s massive pay hikes seek to remedy is the “teacher shortage,” with many teachers allegedly fleeing the profession. This is belied by the facts. Under 10% of Maryland’s teachers retired, quit, or were fired last year – less than half the leave rates for similar professional jobs. And they left the profession at a much lower rate than teachers across the country.

Maryland already spends a whopping 93 cents of every public K-12 education dollar on personnel (i.e., teachers and administrators) – not on instructional materials, facilities, or technology. That is the highest share by far in the country and 11% higher than the U.S. average (82%).

Statewide, Maryland’s per pupil spending averages about $16,000 per student, but the state’s economic and geographic diversity means district-level figures vary widely. Rural Talbot County spends very little compared to even the stingiest of states while Baltimore City spends the third most ($17,500) of the largest 100 districts nationwide, while ranking as the third worst in outcomes for all districts. Three other counties – Montgomery, Prince George’s and Howard – also rank in the top ten for per pupil spending nationally.

If one adds in the $5.3 billion in unfunded teacher retirement benefits (for generous pensions and healthcare) that Maryland school districts and state legislature fail to fund, the current real cost of a public school student’s instruction increases dramatically.

No meaningful reforms

Those figures are no matter to the teachers’ unions and the education bureaucracy who want $4 billion dollars a year more by 2030 – without meaningful governance or instructional reforms.

To fund the new expenditures, Baltimore City would be required to double its district’s spending share. That would require hiking Baltimore’s already burdensome property taxes on homeowners and businesses, driving them out of the city and further shrinking the tax base.

Meanwhile, two recent polls by University of Maryland-Washington Post and Goucher College suggest – erroneously – that Kirwan is a hit with the public. They claim to find that taxpayers are willing to pay higher taxes to improve public education – as if educational excellence can only be achieved through more spending.

But both polls find that over three-quarters of state residents know “nothing” about Kirwan. Seventy-four percent of Goucher’s respondents say they support “personally paying more in state taxes to improve [public education].” But Goucher never asks how much.

The Post poll introduces Kirwan’s recommendations as “major new programs aimed at improving Maryland’s public school system.” Even after such a leading prompt, only a small majority of Marylanders favor raising income taxes by even a quarter percent – which would fund only a tiny fraction of Kirwan’s cost – while a majority opposes a half-percent hike. By 2030, income taxes would have to rise by 40% — four times the half-percent increase offered in the Post poll.

A 2018 poll conducted by the Maryland Public Policy Institute found that, when given a choice, voters overwhelmingly oppose more spending as the primary means of improving education: 72% agreed that “to improve learning opportunities in public schools, policymakers should refocus on reallocating resources more efficiently and effectively, instead of continuously increasing the education budget.”

Tough choices avoided

Marylanders – unsurprisingly – want better, high-quality schools on the cheap. The tough choices are simply being avoided by Kirwan’s backers; the result would be cuts in other discretionary state and local spending or dramatic increases in income, property, and sales taxes.

Since Kirwan’s training, certification, and professional development programming have no consequences for poor-performing teachers or those who fail to improve, nothing will change in schools.

With union protections and a seniority-based pay scale, the rotten apples get the pay bump just the same and the beleaguered students can expect no real benefit.

But the teachers’ windfall – higher salaries and plumped up pensions – will carry a dramatic cost.

The Kirwan proposals will put the Old Line State into the red to the tune of $19 billion and increase the unfunded pension and healthcare liabilities owed by the state by billions more.

Maryland taxpayers will continue to feel the burn for decades to come as these new pay and pension entitlements cannot be easily clawed back unlike the necessary instructional or governance reforms – if those are ever enacted.

Sean Kennedy is a visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, a non-partisan public policy organization based in Rockville, Md.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s worst nightmare is starting to come true. Trumpcare has passed the U.S. House of Representatives. If the Senate finds a way to give President Trump what he wants, it could spell a heap of trouble for Hogan in 2018’s general election.

The Republican Party’s mania with obliterating Barack Obama’s massive health insurance law has led the majority party in Washington to ignore common sense.

“Repeal and replace” is a GOP obsession – though an estimated 24 million people could lose their insurance, tens of millions more could be out of luck due to pre-existing conditions and medical programs for the poor could be cut 25%.

It also would damage the nation’s economy. That’s especially true in Maryland, where healthcare is one of the state’s biggest employers.

It is almost certain to be the No. 1 issue in the 2018 mid-term elections, even if the Senate approves a diluted Trumpcare bill.

What a devastating state of affairs for Republican Hogan. Until the House vote last week, he appeared in excellent shape to win a second term.

Now he has to figure out how to tiptoe around this explosive issue that already is proving highly unpopular.

Unfavorable poll numbers

A Washington Post-ABC poll last month found 61% of Americans opposed Trumpcare. A Quinnipiac poll the month before found Trumpcare support stood at just 17%.

Most Americans, it appears, would rather stick with the existing – though seriously flawed – Obamacare medical insurance program and fix parts that aren’t working well (“keep and improve” as opposed to the GOP’s “repeal and replace”).

Wait until the Congressional Budget Office issues its cost and impact analysis of the House-passed version of Trumpcare. It could expose the bill’s soft underbelly. Public resistance could grow louder.

For Hogan, House passage of Trumpcare might be the beginning of bad news.

He could be trapped in a nearly untenable position: A Republican who might have to disavow his own party leaders in Washington to survive.

Hogan won election in 2014 by promising “no new taxes.” Does that mean he will let Trumpcare’s 25% cut in federal Medicaid funds lay waste to Maryland’s health programs for the poor and near-poor? Where would he find hundreds of millions in state dollars to cover those unfunded programs?

How does he run for reelection with Trumpcare hanging over his head?

Justifying the Republican plan

How does Hogan justify to voters his party’s plan to let insurance companies charge outrageously high premiums – or deny coverage entirely – for people with “pre-existing conditions”? This could be anyone with acne, anxiety, depression, diabetes, obesity, cancer, pulmonary problems, asthma or even allergies.

How does he tell older working Marylanders that under his party’s plan their insurance premiums could jump an unaffordable 500%?

How does he explain a cut of $600 billion in taxes that supported Obamacare – a massive windfall for wealthy Americans, insurance companies and medical device companies?

How does he justify $880 billion in healthcare cuts to Medical Assistance for the poor?

Hogan & Company should be praying that the Senate junks the House bill and takes a few years to figure out what to do next.

Otherwise, the GOP across the country – including here in Maryland – could take a shellacking for its all-out effort to appease its conservative base.

Gift to Democrats

There’s no doubt Democratic candidates for Maryland governor will tie Hogan to Trumpcare.

Every candidate will be running ads with tales of how middle-class and working-class Marylanders would be hurt, how lives hang in the balance.

It is a gift from heaven for Democrats.

One Republican pollster called the GOP’s insistent quest to wipe out Obamacare “political malpractice.”

Until recently the notion of Democrats regaining control of the House by picking up 24-plus seats next year appeared wishful thinking. Thanks to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s determination to pass a draconian Trumpcare bill, that’s no longer the case.

Little wonder Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi – the former Nancy D’Alesandro from Baltimore’s Little Italy – was practically giddy.

Every Republican will be vulnerable, unless he or she disowns the GOP’s No. 1 issue and risks losing support from Trump’s supporters. “This vote will be tattooed to them,” Pelosi vowed.

That includes Republican Hogan, who has made an extensive effort to distance himself from Donald Trump and his controversial comments and proposals.

That may not be enough to give him immunity from this highly contagious political disease.

When virtually every healthcare group – from the American Medical Association to the American Hospital Association to AARP – as well as virtually every insurance group vehemently opposes the Republicans’ “repeal and replace” crusade, smart politicians should pay attention.

Failure by the GOP to “listen and learn” could prove fatal come November 2018 – both in Maryland and nationwide.

Barry Rascovar’s blog is www.politicalmaryland.com. He can be contacted at brascovar@hotmail.com.