Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2007 > July > 09
Monday, July 9, 2007
Study’s merits in the eye of the beholder
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An extraordinary thing happened last week — so extraordinary, it was front-page news.
Activists determined to torpedo the expansion of nuclear power produced a “study” purporting to link high cancer rates to Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle in Burke County near Augusta. The spin put on the “study” commissioned by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League was that Georgians would die of cancer if two new reactors proposed for Vogtle get built.
As AJC reporter Margaret Newkirk noted, however, it took Georgia Power “approximately a nanosecond” to refute the charge. Utility officials note that a six-year study of cancer rates within a 50-mile radius of Plant Vogtle and the Savannah River Site, financed by the U.S. Department of Energy, found that “most cancer rates in the area are about the same as in similar communities” and about what you’d expect in non-metro areas. It was conducted by researchers from the University of South Carolina and Emory University.
The “study” commissioned by nuclear power opponents took raw numbers and did not factor in other possible causes for a rise in cancer rates, says Georgia Power spokesman John Sell.
In this instance, the purported study targeted a single company, giving Georgia Power a survival interest in debunking the allegations leveled. Ordinarily, in the rush of the news, they’re taken as gospel, regardless of the sponsor’s agendas.
Studies involving race are particularly suspect. Lending practices and prison populations are frequently presented as evidence of discrimination. The problem, however, is that many of those who conduct the studies stop when they get the answer they’re looking for. And on issues like global warming or the environment, unless we know the preconceptions of those who analyze the data, it’s hard to know whether, as with race, they found evidence of what they already believed — or whether the evidence led them to one conclusion to the exclusion of other possibilities.
One currently popular topic of study is how and where we live. Sometimes the problem is how the study is conducted, but it can also be how a study’s conclusions are framed. One example is commuting distance, a fixation of traffic-choked places like Atlanta. In “Volunteering in America,” a study released Monday, long commutes are blamed for reducing volunteerism.
Without question living in one place and working in another lessens our awareness of local volunteer opportunities and, to some extent, reduces the time we have available for outside activities, including volunteering. But, as the study also noted, other “key social and demographic trends” affect volunteerism. The others are community attachment, high school graduation rates, poverty and the “prevalence of nonprofits and their capacity to retain volunteers from year to year.”
The study was commissioned by the Corporation for National & Community Service, which sponsors three major federal programs: Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America. The study was based on data obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I don’t take issue with the study, but with the fixation on commuting. Among its other findings is that high home ownership and high education levels lead to high volunteer rates, which are highest in communities associated with Middle America: Minneapolis-St. Paul, Salt Lake City and Charlotte, among others.
The commute, however bad it may be in gridlocked metro Atlanta, is a popular villain. But it’s one of a number of factors determining whether people volunteer. The unfortunate reality of any metropolitan area is that it’s big and often incomprehensible, the sentiment that gives rise to incorporation of places like Sandy Springs and Johns Creek. In big cities, people either don’t know of local opportunities or they find their time used unproductively. And, too, the rise of paid volunteerism in programs like AmeriCorps cultivates an expectation of compensation.
Long commutes are bad. But they’re not the cause of all America’s ills.
Permalink | Comments (66) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Hidden taxes not the Grady solution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia is holding $142 million that should have been returned to taxpayers. It wasn’t.
The Legislature has on the table a proposal to spend at least $85 million per year to support existing trauma care hospitals. That’s half the sum hospitals say they absorb in uncompensated trauma care. This is a bottomless pit — if, indeed, legislators intend to get serious about funding a statewide trauma care network.
Then there’s PeachCare — a program that demonstrates the inability of the fiscal conservatives who run Georgia to exercise any discipline in containing the growth of discretionary programs that function as near entitlements. Georgia’s solution is to beg Congress for more federal money via a new funding formula.
And now the state is on the verge of taking on Grady Memorial Hospital’s financial woes as its own. Frankly, the solution to Grady’s money troubles is beyond the state’s expertise. Previous legislatures have generally followed the Grady version of the advice allegedly given in 1961 by Gen. Douglas McArthur to President John F. Kennedy, though I always associated it with the legendary Georgia Sen. Richard B. Russell: “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”
And why not? Because its political and cultural complexities are a quagmire, as are Grady’s.
On most matters that fall within the purview of lesser governments — cities, counties, authorities — the state has nothing to offer but money. It has no expertise running airports and transit systems, fixing pipes or managing hospitals. All, when broken on a massive scale, are land wars in Asia.
Grady’s financial troubles, as spelled out by the business community’s task force, are overwhelming, the sums staggering. This year’s cash shortfall is projected to be $120 million. Longer term, it’s estimated to be $40 million to $55 million per year. Capital needs are in the $200 million to $300 million range. And on top of that, there’s the perpetual show-stopper, racial politics, the killing field of all solutions that involve structural change.
Even if class and race issues are negotiated, serious legal and political questions remain about how money is extracted from property owners in Fulton and DeKalb for Grady’s support. A new governing system could address some of Grady’s day-to-day management ills, but legitimate questions exist about any board’s relationship with elected officials who are obligated to levy and collect the taxes.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) launched an adventure last week, appointing a special committee to study “the current situation at Grady” and to “create a plan to keep Grady viable in the future.” And in their spare moments, the committee should study “the current situation” in the Mideast and “create a plan” to bring peace to Israel.
The wise, or more seasoned leader does not make an addict’s troubles his own.
The state should proceed with great caution, focusing primarily on legal obstacles that prevent locals from developing a business model at Grady that can work. The speaker suggests a $1 per phone tax, similar to the 911 levy, to pay for the statewide trauma network and for any other commitments that might be made to Grady. It would produce about $80 million, by some estimates.
A point of order should be raised here about the pending $142 million tax rebate and funding for the proposed trauma network, along with future Grady commitments.
Gov. Sonny Perdue proposed raising speeding fines to fund the trauma network. Richardson proposes adding a tax surcharge on phones. Perdue reasons that wreck victims need emergency care. Richardson reasons that phones are used to summon help. Such is the thought process of fiscal conservatives drifting into Washingtonia. Georgians did not elect Republicans to be smarter about hiding tax increases.
If Grady funding and the trauma network are state priorities, the governor should propose, and the General Assembly should levy, an honest-to-God, straight-up tax increase. Or they should pocket and spend the $142 million now set aside for a property tax increase. Don’t hide tax increases in fees, surcharges and add-ons.
Permalink | Comments (85) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
