scoutingagain

HUD's 2011 budget is aroung $48 billion or 1.2% of the Federal budget. Get rid of it. Get rid of earmarks, another 1%. Get rid of NPR another 0.0004%. Total so far ... 2.2004% of the budget. The 2011 Federal budget is $3,800,000,000,000. The projected deficit is $1,200,000,000,000. Do the math. We need to cut spending by over 30% to balance the budget...or increase revenues(taxes). Discretionary spending? That's everything execept interest on the debt. SA

Earmarks represent less than 1% of the national budget. Eliminating them I think is a good thing because the practice has become so corrupt over the last 10 years it has eroded faith in the government, rightfully so. Already were seeing some whining and rationalization from some of our elected officials on why eliminating them is a bad idea from both sides of the aisle. Balony. Get rid of them but it won't do much to balance the budget. NPR gets $16.4 million from federal grants. Or approximately 0.0004% of the national budget. Ok get rid of it. Illegal immigrants do not get federal entitlements. They have to prove they are entitled to them to get them and they can't. There may be state and local aid that they get, but they don't impact the federal budget much. In fact most that are here are working, pay into soc. security under false id's and won't collect it. Getting rid of them will put Soc. Security deeper into the Red sooner. Anyone that tells you we can balance the budget without the kinds of cuts and sacrifices outlined by Beavah is a liar. Any one who believes the budget can be balanced without those kinds of sacrifices is "denser than lead". I suggest folks read the link to the David Stockman editorial posted in another thread. Read the Deficit Commission recommendations. Elect respresentation that is willing to give us the hard truth and lead us out of this mess. It's not the politicians that vacillate, it's us. SA

Here's an article with more details of the proposed plan from the bi-partisan deficit commission: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703805004575607691377554472.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond Yes, it's set up under Obama's watch so for the sake of argument call it the Obama plan. Does mean the loyal opposition has it's usual plan of No? If so I'll give the President credit for at least putting a plan on the table. More than the opposition has done. It's easy to pick away at a plan, but much tougher to come up with an alternative. Some basic provision as I understand them: Elimination of the mortgage interest tax deduction for mortgages > $250K Increase in the gas tax by $0.15 Increase the retirement age to 69. Decreases in the rate of increase of Soc. Security benifits. Graduated soc. security benefits based on means. (wealthy get less benefits) Cutting the federal workforce by 10%. Cutting defense spending by $100 billion. Major changes to the tax code. Basically lower rates and eliminating deductions. There's a lot more. The plan cuts spending by $3 for every dollar of increased taxes. All this over 10 years and all we do in decrease the rate of deficit spending by $4 trillion. We don't even begin to pay down the debt. That's how bad our fiscal situation is. As far as I'm concerned there's not much in the plan anyone serious about fiscal responsibility should object to. If you really want a ballanced budget, a plan coming up with nearly 2 times the savings and revenue increases would need to be proposed. Where else do folks propose that come from? We havn't seen anything yet. None of this will happen though. Our political "leaders" on both sides of the aisle lack the courage to lead. As Beavah noted somewhere the only way our current political system(Republicans and Democrats) can deal with the debt is to force inflation. Pay the debt down with inflated dollars. SA

"Otherwise, you're out of the gene pool. The private health insurance industry just makes the selection process clearer to those who have coverage." Now if they would only get terminally ill before they procreate you might have something. Perhaps the Death panels could also do genetic screening and sterilize those folks who will become terminally ill and can't pay for their own helath care so we can break that cylcle. SA

That's because gun control laws have been so successful in keeping weapons out of the big cities in the East and West. To be read with a health note of sarcasm. SA

"Anybody betting that they decide to tackle social security and medicare, da biggest "socialist" deficit programs ." The first thing on the agenda when they come back will be how much to extend the Bush tax cuts that John McCain decribed as irresponsible. The debate will be to how much to increase the debt, either by $3.2 billion, by only extending cuts up to those making >$250K/yr or by $4 billion by extending to everyone. No one is talking about cutting government spending, providing real leadership on the deficit, or making the tough choices that need to be made to bring fiscal sanity to the Federal Government...with the possible exception of Rand Paul. The biggest mistake both parties make when they're elected is they think people voted FOR them, when for the most part the only reason they got the vote was people didn't want to vote for the other guy/gal and they were the only alternative. That's no mandate. It wasn't for Bush, it wasn't for Obama and it isn't this time around either. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. As long as we elect Republicans and Democrats, who've been in charge as long as I can remember, the Federal Government will stay in the hands of those who have bought both parties. There's a reason TARP was started under Bush and kept going under Obama. If things don't get better economically by 2012, we the electorate will either flip flop again and vote Democrats back in, or maybe, just maybe, we'll figure out both parties are governing based on the desires of their own special interests,(you pick'em, big labor, big oil, big banks, big defense, insurance co's, etc.) and vote in candidates interested in protecting the interests of the American people. Who want's to put money on that? SA

"What's more, there's nothing to insure that a ruling won't be overbroad or muddled enough to effectively limit or prevent "local option," at least not without many years of expensive litigation. There's no reason at all to believe things will simply and smoothly revert to local option. " I agree 100% which is why the BSA should strongly consider voluntarily implementing the local option without being forced by the courts. I believe there would be a sufficient number of COs that would not exclude openly gay leaders that if one wanted to join there would be a unit available to them. Just like there are opportunities for women to lead. Women have not organized against those COs that exclude them as leaders and I see no reason why the handful of openly gay people that want to serve as BSA leaders would do so as long as they had an opportunity at membership somewhere. SA

I agree local option would kick in as it did for women. It would have no effect on those units that did not want to have "avowed" homosexuals as a part of their adult leadership, just as those units that do not want women as adults leaders are free to do so. For those units that really wanted to stay with the BSA and not have gay leaders there would be no changes to their program, if that's what they wanted. However, there would be some COs and units that would be sufficiently upset that they would drop their charters. And I suspect that there would also be an effort to start a new, private scoutlike organization, that had no connection to the government, that would bar "avowed" homosexuals from serving as leaders. I agree with NJ. There is a possibility that a court could rule in a way that sexual orientation by itself cannot be used as a reason to reject an applicant. So the BSA, if it thought such a ruling could happen, would probably preemptively open things up via the local option. And yes, you might get a handful of openly gay men to sign up as adult leaders and the only time you might run into one if your unit didn't accept them would be a large camporee and you would have no idea who they were. Just as Pack points out, that's the way it is now. SA SA

On my son's college application there was a place for "other awards and recognition" where he listed his Eagle. He also included his experiences working at the council camp in his essay. He used the generic online application accepted by many large institutions. His acceptance letter from an out of state, state university where several thousand applications are processed each year, included a hand written acknowledgement of his leadership experience. I'm certain the Eagle was noticed. My nephew, also an Eagle in another state, applied for a college internship at one of the state agencies. The interviewer explictly told him the fact he included his Eagle on his resume helped him get an interview. Don't know if there was a place on the application for it. Now no one gets into college or gets hired just because they are an Eagle Scout. However it helps them get noticed. HR and Legal departments can make all the rules they want, but ulitmately a hiring manager or admissions officer makes a decision. They are human and have thier own biases based on their own experiences. Just my recent experience. YMMV SA

"is there an appropriate time for a registered member or leader to NOT wear the uniform at an ECOH?" At my son's ECOH I did not wear my uniform, I wore a jacket and tie. Why? Because I wanted to be there as a parent, not a scouter. I did not wear my Eagle medal either, because I wanted the focus to be on my son's accomplishment. My son did invite, his HS Science teacher to the COH. He work a jacket and tie, and his Eagle Medal. In his case, I was very happy to see him wear it. Among other things, it suprised and impressed many of the scouts and other HS students that were there that also had him as a teacher. Having him there, acknowledging his past as a scout and fellow Eagle said something about the longevity of the award and the brotherhood of scouting. SA

To get back to the original question: I suppose if Barney Frank were to do the kind of about face that Ken Mehlman pulled I'd have to reconsider my opinion. I mean if Barney were to stand up in front of the national media and say, "Yep, I'm ashamed. I've chosen to live an immoral lifestyle all my life and now I change my mind. I'm going desire women from now on and will support the revocation of gay marriage laws." If he did that, I'd reconsider. (Note some sarcasm and probably poor attempt at humor.) SA

Just so all can stay up with current events. SA http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100826/pl_yblog_upshot/former-bush-campaign-manager-flips-on-gay-marriage

Seems like most folks regard entitlements are something someone else gets. If it's a government program they take advantage of it's a needed service or tax incentive. The middle class see TARP, and corporate bailouts as socialist entitlements. The young see Social Security and Medicare that way. Since most people take advantage of public education or thier facilities at some point, most don't seen that as an entitlement. If one really examined government socialist like programs one would really need to include: Social Security Medicare Mortgage interest deductions Uninsured medical care Government scholarships to colleges and universities In-state tuition to public colleges and universities Government pensions Make work earmark projects Defense expenditures on programs not really needed for national defense and on and on. Other than pure libertarians, I hardly hear even the more vocal conservatives complain about most of the above programs. We have become a society hooked on government entitlements and havn't faced the reality that we aren't willing to pay our fair share of taxes to maintain them. This hasn't happened in 18 months. It's been going on for the last 40 years or more under both parties. SA

Yes, I read the comments. Really liked the article and thought it was very positive for scouting overall. The comments though demonstrate the amount of misinformation out there that is probably hurting the image of the BSA. We need more articles like this one, and more importantly more adult leaders willing to serve youth like described in the article. SA

Congratulations Pack. I'm jealous. If I win the lottery keep an eye on the horizon for a Sabre 362. That will be me and the Admiral coming for a visit. SA

Just curious. How many who took calculus in college can solve even a simple problem two years after graduation? I can still tie all the required scout knots, nearly 40 years after initially learning them. But don't ask me to solve even the most simple calculus problem. As a sailor I use the knots regularly. Calculus not so much. SA

"To be honest I can't think of any teachers who ever volunteered on their own time to help a scout unit, even when da school itself was the CO. " Then you never met my son's HS Science teacher, Eagle scout and drama coach who my son chose to give his mentor pin to and showed up at his ECOH proudly wearing his Eagle medal in front of dozens of my son's HS friends who showed up for the ceremony and helped on his Eagle project. Nor have you met my son's wrestling coach or my Jr. HS Band leader also Eagle scouts that would occaisonally help out, or the several teachers and public school employees that work at our Council summer camp and often work hours well beyond what they're payed. SA

Bet they do a background check to find out one of these guys is a member of BSA to prove he's not Gay. SA

If one reads and understands Merlyn's posts, you'll see he has no objection to BSA units having the same access to public school facilities, parks etc. as any other private group does. SA

"Now IF the files should happen to contain information about incidents that were not reported to local law enforcement or were not otherwise legally settled, THEN you'd be looking at a cover up, and the BSA would deserve everything that came its way as a result, and I would expect some major internal reforms to come from that." Not reporting to law enforcement is not necesarrily a cover up IMO. Transferring a camp staffer to a different camp after a reported incident is a cover up, but I dont' see the BSA doing that. The BSA is not a public school. It is a private organization. It may choose to revoke membership for many reasons. For those that may involve criminal activity and there is enough evidence to support that suspicion, reporting to law enforcement should be done. However, there may be other cases where allegations are made, BSA's internal investigation does not turn up enough information to confirm or deny the allegations and they choose to revoke membership as a precaution. In that case, I'm not sure notification to law enforcement would be warranted. It's very easy to turn child abuse allegations into a witch hunt and from what I've seen the BSA does it's best to protect it's youth members while remaining aware that not all allegations have merit and that even a hint of an allegation can ruin an otherwise decent individual's life. To some that may sound like a cover up, but I don't think that's the case. SA

I agree that the invitee does not have to show up to a meeting or scout function to be considered invited and the mere invitation would be sufficient. That being said, in absence of the invitee showing up, I don't think it's unreasonable for an SM or other person authorized to approve of advancement to ask for a copy of an e-mail, letter or invitation documenting that a scout has invited a friend to join or rejoin. SA

Agree with the above. Scope of this project would have been approved in my council as well...unless as others have noted, this is a private camp that occaisionally lends it facilities out to others. If that is the case it would be a no go. A private summer camp that occaisionally does good deeds is no more eligible for an Eagle project than Goldman Sachs or ExxonMobil. Both do good deeds but are fundamentally private, for profit concerns. SA

"JoeBob, are you seriously suggesting that many people intentionally opt not to buy insurance (when they could otherwise afford to buy it), just because they can get emergency care in public hospitals even without insurance? " Actually I do know folks in this category, or I did until MA required that they buy insurance. Most were single, self-employed or employed with an employer that did not provide health insurance. In this category, purchasing an individual policy was prohibitively expensive. Particularly when the option of free or near free care was available at several municipal hospitals. Many took the chance they would not need care except for catastrophic injuries or illnesses. Now nearly all purchase a more affordable plan that is mandated under the MA Health Care program. SA

Well the Republican Health Care Plan put into place here in Massachusetts by Republican Governor Mitt Romney and supported by Republican State Rep. now Republican Senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, requires all adults to purchase Health insurance, and show evidence thereof annually, or pay a fine. To be fair, this plan could not have been put in place without state Democratic legislature support, but the concept of forced purchase of health insurance was initially in Mitt Romney's plan when it was proposed to the legislature. It's been in place now for several years, and I'm sure if anyone had an issue with it, it would have been challenged. It may have been and the MA Supreme Courty may have upheld it. Don't know what the US Supreme Court would do, but I suspect similar arguments would be made with a similar outcome. So don't get the idea that if the current piece of legislation doesn't get passed, the issue of forced health insurance is going away. This is part of the 80% of the plan that both parties support. If a Republican Health Plan is proposed by a new Republican congress it's probably going to be in there. It one of the few ways to lower costs, by sharing the risk with a larger pool. It's one of the reasons insurance costs are rising so high in CA and other states. Healthy people are pulling out of the system, leaving those more likely to make claims, so insurance companies raise rates. The free market in action. However as long as we continue to have disfunctional government, regardless of which party is in power, you won't have to worry about being required to buy health insurance. You will need to continue to wonder under what circumstances your insurance company will cancel your coverage, you will need to consider how much more you will have to pay for health insurance every year, you will need to be concerned about any pre-existing condition you or a member of your family has if you ever change jobs though. Personally I don't think the current plan will pass though, even with a simple majority, and neither party is likely to enjoy a super majority for the foreseeable future. So the best recommendation I have and best wishes to all is to stay healthy. SA

" I wonder if James Dale might have initially simply accepted the decision as part of life, and gone on without a challenge?" And as scouters would we really expect that from someone who has earned scouting's highest honor as a youth? If your challenged, meekly accept the result and move on? Give up? SA