Recent editorials from Texas newspapers

Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Texas newspapers:

San Antonio Express-News. Nov. 26, 2017.

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the nation. We’re also the 76th most literate. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?

That’s according to Central Connecticut State University’s annual America’s Most Literate Cities study. In 2016, we ranked 76th out of 82 cities. We were squeezed among Fresno, California, and Corpus Christi.

The study combines a number of metrics to gauge how literate a city is, and how that literacy is applied in daily life. The question isn’t so much whether adults can read - although Bexar County does struggle mightily on this issue - it’s: How are adults using their literacy skills to boost civic and cultural vitality?

The study’s indicators include number of bookstores, education levels, internet resources, library resources, periodical publishing and newspaper circulation.

We lag in all categories. In general, Texas fares poorly in these rankings. Laredo is last. San Antonio and Corpus aren’t too far behind. Houston ranks 70th. Fort Worth is 64th.

Austin stands out as Texas’ most literate city, ranking 17th in the study.

It can be just as instructive to look at the top of the rankings as it is to mull why San Antonio consistently finds itself at bottom.

Seattle is the nation’s second-most literate city, for example. Is it really surprising, then, that local officials bowed out of the bidding for Amazon’s second headquarters? Why would Amazon, based in one of the most literate and educated cities in America, place its second headquarters in one of the least literate and educated cities?

No doubt, Austin’s high level of literacy and education is fueling job growth there.

The point here is that it’s not enough to merely be a big city. The workforce has to be there, too.

There are some encouraging signs: the arrival of Google Fiber, the possibility of revisioning University of Texas at San Antonio’s Downtown Campus and the emergence of Texas A&M University-San Antonio as a promising and affordable option for young people.

But UTSA’s paltry graduation rates must improve. And this study is yet another reminder that workforce development should be a community priority. Year after year, San Antonio ranks nearly last in literacy. It undercuts our economic potential and community aspirations.

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Houston Chronicle. Nov. 27, 2017.

Open a bank account using a stolen identity and you might find yourself behind bars.

Open millions of accounts using stolen identities, and you might be the world’s second largest bank.

Between 2009 and 2016, Wells Fargo created an estimated 3.5 million sham deposit and credit card accounts created under customers’ names.

Scandals like this one are why we have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which fined Wells Fargo $100 million for its scam. Now more than ever, the nation needs a strong CFPB to help keep big banks in line.

You’d think that a president who once accused hedge funds of “getting away with murder” would find common cause with this regulatory agency. Instead, Donald Trump wants the watchdog to go belly up for the wolves of Wall Street.

The CFPB director, Richard Cordray, resigned this month, and Trump is trying to find a temporary replacement in Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney (For those checking, that’s the same OMB director who has failed to deliver on a once-promised Hurricane Harvey recovery package).

Consider this just another example of Trump’s compulsion to stand on the side of the rich and powerful against the American middle class. He might as well put an arsonist in charge of a fire department. Mulvaney has a record of trying to eliminate the CFPB, including co-sponsoring a bill to do just that when he was in Congress. His appointment would also open the bureau to potential back-door dealing - a longtime Mulvaney aide now works as a key lobbyist for a major bank, Santander, which faces a $10 million fine for illegal overdraft fees.

A bureaucratic battle has Mulvaney fighting with Leandra English, the CFPB’s deputy director, for legal control over the agency. All this wrangling for power should be unnecessary. Trump needs to pick a formal appointee and submit that person to Senate approval.

Corporate profits are sky high and the stock market continues its eight-year-long surge, but paychecks remain stubbornly stagnant. The middle class deserves a qualified director to head up the only federal agency solely dedicated to balancing the playing field between Main Street and Wall Street. When debt collectors illegally threaten veterans, or payday lenders trick working families into a pit of debt, or mortgage companies charge more on the basis of a customer’s skin color, the CFPB must be fully empowered to set things right.

Less than a decade has passed since reckless financial institutions brought the global economy to the brink of collapse. The American people may have forgiven banks for their sins, but the CFPB exists to ensure that we don’t forget.

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The Dallas Morning News. Nov. 27, 2017.

It’s hair-on-fire time in Congress. Lawmakers responsible for looking out for folks back home are in a mad dash to get a mountain of past-due work completed by year’s end.

Buried under the headline-grabbing controversies is one of life and death: 400,000 Texas kids could be dropped from the Children’s Health Insurance Program if Congress doesn’t act immediately.

What started as a nagging concern when Congress failed to meet a Sept. 30 funding deadline has turned into a frightening crisis.

In the eight weeks since lawmakers stalled out on CHIP, they have repeatedly assured their worried constituents and state governments that “we’ve got this.”

Now it seems that nothing could be further from the truth.

Texas is one of at least five states that say they have no choice but to alert families and begin winding down programs that provide crucial care for low-income children. Letters could go out soon noting that service will be disrupted if not outright ended.

Nationally, nearly 9 million youngsters receive care through CHIP. Since September, it has limped along thanks to fast-diminishing funds from previous years.

Even though Congress has shown a particular knack for not getting stuff done in 2017, we had reason to believe CHIP would be a different story. The children’s medical initiative has long enjoyed bipartisan popularity on Capitol Hill.

How foolishly optimistic of us. Time has run out on the “probably everything is going to be all right” strategy.

Hurricane Harvey left Texas even more vulnerable because affected families were allowed to waive co-pays and enrollment fees to participate in CHIP. As a result, Austin now projects that funds will be exhausted by the end of January, if not sooner.

The Children’s Health Coverage Coalition, made up of more than 30 leading Texas health care and advocacy organizations, points out that coverage disruptions would be traumatic.

CHIP covers children in families who earn too much for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance. If funding isn’t renewed, the state is likely to send those Texas children into the insurance marketplace, which will be unaffordable for many.

Much of the perennial good will toward CHIP stems from cost savings to taxpayers: Preventive care is far less expensive than treatment for serious health problems.

However, the program’s popularity has run into the wall of how to pay for the $15 billion program, especially with the White House showing it little love and Congress reflecting a shocking lack of urgency.

At present, CHIP’s best hope seems to be in the Senate, so we echo the call of the Children’s Health Coverage Coalition in asking Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to intervene.

Every time you think Republicans and Democrats have hit bottom on their unwillingness to work together for the good of Americans, highly charged politics result in lawmakers only digging a deeper hole.

This time it’s on the backs of children, including those still suffering Hurricane Harvey’s aftermath.

This is a heartbreaking crisis of Congress’ own making. Fix it now.

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The Monitor. Nov. 28, 2017.

Many families living with cancer unfortunately face not only expensive treatments, but also high transportation and living expenses associated with that health care. For many low-income families in the Rio Grande Valley, getting local care becomes a financial necessity. That’s why a new $2.2 million grant, part of which will fund clinical trials for children cancer patients in the RGV, will undoubtedly be helpful to so many families here.

The funds are part of 39 grants being given by the St. Baldrick’s Foundation to help allow more kids nationwide access to clinical trials. The Vannie E. Cook Jr. Children’s Cancer and Hematology Clinic, in McAllen, will receive $54,966, and is one of only four grants to be given in Texas.

With this grant, children living with cancers in the Rio Grande Valley area will have access to the same care and treatment at the Vannie E. Cook Jr. Children’s Cancer and Hematology Clinic, as they would if they were living in Houston or San Antonio, along with access to clinical trials - often a child’s best hope for a cure, foundation officials said in announcing the grants this month.

“The majority of childhood cancer patients are treated on a clinical trial,” Baldrick’s CEO Kathleen Ruddy said in a news release. “Research relies on enrolling large numbers of patients on clinical trials to ensure results are meaningful and advancements are made. Funding from St. Baldrick’s will ensure more kids have access to clinical trials, giving them a better chance at survival and a future with less long-term effects.”

The grants also will help to give institutions the resources they need to do more research. Baldrick’s officials say that child patients who are fighting cancers “need treatments as unique as they are and that starts with funding research just for them.”

We wholeheartedly agree and we are thankful during this busy holiday season that more Rio Grande Valley families hopefully will be able to stay local and not have to endure hotel stays and costly travel just to seek cancer treatments.

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Texarkana Gazette. Nov. 28, 2017.

In refusing to hear a Texas case, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday delivered a victory for school prayer, a subject near and dear to hearts of many readers.

Since 1997, the Birdville Independent School District in Haltom City, near Fort Worth, has had two students, picked at random from a list of those wishing to do so, open school board meetings. One student would lead the Pledge of Allegiance while the other would make a one-minute statement. The statement was usually in the form of a Christian prayer.

Two years ago, a graduate of the district and the American Humanist Association filed a lawsuit against the BISD, claiming the practice was a form of “coercion” to recognize a specific religion, namely Christianity.

You see, those in attendance would be asked to stand if a prayer was offered and the graduate said that made him feel “violated and uncomfortable.”

Well, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down the lawsuit, saying a polite request to stand does not rise to the level of coercion.

And so the case went to the nation’s highest court, which let the lower court’s ruling stand.

That means the Birdville school board is free to continue allowing students to open its meetings with the pledge and, if the student chooses, a prayer.

Which in our view is just fine.

We like that the board allows student involvement. And we like that students are allowed to express themselves. They aren’t compelled to offer a prayer, but if they choose to do so why would anyone object? We have both freedom of expression and freedom of religion in this country. As long as the district is not leading the prayer or endorsing any religion, we don’t see a problem.

No one can expect to live a life completely free from the sight or sound of religious views and, indeed, there is no such right under the Constitution. There are a lot of folks in this country and we have a wide variety of views and beliefs. We all have to live together and that means compromise - or just putting up with minor frustrations. It seems for quite a while people of faith have been putting up with a lot of complaints and obstruction from the other side. No reason why that pendulum can’t swing both ways.