Honor a vet on Veterans' Day - by hiring one

Photo courtesy Wash. State National Guard

The best way to honor those who've served and sacrificed for our country is simple: give one a job. 

According to the Labor Department, the national unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans is 12.1 percent.

That's sadly higher than the state unemployment rate of 9 percent. And even 9 percent is too high.

Our state has a huge population of veterans, because we've always been a hub for the Army, Air Force and Navy.

From the submarines at Bangor to the planes at Fairchild in Spokane, this is a place with a lot of active-duty G.I.'s and veterans who've served out and choose to make this state their home.

We're home to a massive Army-Air Force base (Joint Base Lewis-McChord) and seven different Navy and Marine bases. 

So 12.1 percent unemployment for veterans is a problem that hits home to us.

It's fine to honor veterans on Veterans' Day by flying the American flag, going to parades or calling up vets in your family to wish them well. Those are fine and noble things.

What's better is giving a veteran a job -- or, if you're not in a position to hire somebody, passing on tips to people that do hire, or veterans who need a job.

Most jobs are never advertised. It's all word of mouth. So if you can, please pass on a good word to a vet -- or about a vet you know -- not just on Veterans' Day, but all year round.

There are also some good resources out there for vets and people who'd like to support them: 

• A new national site by the Labor Department for veterans, My Next Move, is a comprehensive starting point for vets looking for a new career out of uniform.
• The Washington state Department of Veterans Affairs has a number of programs to help vets and get them jobs, including Hire Vets First and Shop Vets First.
• The state Veterans Conservation Corps is made up of three separate programs to train and employ veterans in the conservation field, doing work like the restoration of streams, wetlands and forests.

Mainstreet Fairness Act introduced in Congress yesterday has support here

A bi-partisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate yesterday would generate an estimated $483 million for Washington state and local governments during the 2013-15 biennium, according to the Washington State Department of Revenue.

The Marketplace Fairness Act would require out-of-state companies with more than $500,000 a year in remote sales to begin collecting and remitting sales tax on sales to customers in Washington and other states that adopt certain changes to their tax laws to simplify collection. Washington already has adopted those changes with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, so it could begin collecting these taxes 90 days after the bill is signed into law.

The bill was co-sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Illinois), Sen. Mike Enzi, (R-Wyoming), and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee).

House Ways and Means chair Ross Hunter welcomed news of the proposal with this statement:

“This bill represents what can happen if Congress chooses to function in a bipartisan manner. It delivers fairness to local, Main Street merchants who have been forced to compete with Internet retailers who escape sales taxes. It’s also a forward-looking response to the changing global marketplace.

“For Washington state, this measure could produce an enormous financial benefit – as much as $245 million a year – at a time when we are facing draconian cuts to education and critical services.

“State and local governments and businesses have been seeking this kind of modernization of the sales tax system for years. When you see Democrats and Republicans joining together in Congress to push for this, you know it’s an idea whose time has come.”

Here is more information on the Marketplace Fairness Act.

Would a cheaper textbook be of interest to you?

State news about higher education has been pretty bleak recently, but one program is bringing some relief to college students. Started by the 2009 Legislature through funding from the state and Gates Foundation, Washington has now opened the Open Course Library.
What is the Open Course Library? Rep. Reuven Carlyle spearheaded getting the state to fund its half of $1.5 million investment and wrote about it back then his blog, reuvencarlyle36.com:

Today I’d like to tell you how a ONE TIME state investment of $750,000 in precious tax dollars has the very real likelihood of turning into a $41 million savings ANNUALLY for college students in Washington. Are you awake now?
...
Unfortunately, tuition is only one piece of the puzzle and yet it sucks the oxygen out of the room of so many other issues that impact the ‘total cost of attendance’ for students. The best example? Every family, whether rich, poor or squarely in the middle, has the exact same sense of moral outrage staring at textbook bill that now averages more than $1,000 a year for a regular full time student.
I have long held a fascination with the ruthless cost of textbooks at our colleges and universities. One of the projects I am most proud of from my first term in the Legislature is a $750,000 appropriation that I worked very, very hard to successfully include in the 2009-2011 budget. The appropriation created an open textbook and course material program for our state’s community and technical college students.

You can read a post about the Open Course Library launch at Carlyle's blog: Beginning of the end for $100 college textbooks: Legislature, colleges, Gates Foundation partner
 
The Seattle Times Editorial Board also weighed in on the event:

Students who used to pay nearly $200 for a new pre-calculus textbook can pay only $20 — or use it online for free.
The $1.26 million in expected savings for the 2011-2012 school year represents real money for community-college students, who often are older and paying for their own education and living expenses.
The real prize is $41 million in annual savings if all faculty at the state's 34 community- and technical-colleges begin assigning open-source texts to their students.

Read more about this ground-breaking Washington program in this Seattle Times article, Low-cost textbooks for college students make debut.

And of course, don't forget to check out the Open Course Library's website.

Rep. Kagi recognized for student advocacy work

Each year, the Shoreline Community College Foundation hosts a breakfast to help raise funds for student scholarships and emergency loans.  This year's breakfast also honored state Rep. Ruth Kagi for her student advocacy efforts both within the community and the state legislature.  She was the recipient of this year's "Distinguished Service Award."

As a member of the Foundation's Board of Directors, Rep. Kagi has long been committed to helping students who otherwise wouldn't be able to access the community college system.  As the state faces further budget cuts which may affect state-funded student financial aid programs, Rep. Kagi says organizations like the Shoreline Community College Foundation are more important than ever.

Foundation president J. Scott Saunders accepted the award on Rep. Kagi's behalf, because on that very morning the 32nd District legislator was slated to be in Washington DC to give a presentation about our state's efforts to improve foster youth educational outcomes.  More info about the DC presentation, as well as Rep. Kagi's foster care presentation next week in Denver, will be posted soon here on The Advance.

Governor's proposed budget cuts

With a special session coming up November 28, and the regular legislative session starting in early January, the governor has put a list of further budget cuts on the table.  The current two-year budget needs to be adjusted, as revenue is now expected to be $2 billion less than what was anticipated.

Governor Gregoire's office has setup a website, with proposed cuts laid out by area:  Budget Reduction Alternatives.  You can also view all of the cuts in one document here.

Over at TVW you can also watch the governor lay out her proposal and take questions from the press:

Washington's Zackery Lystedt law inspires other states to protect student athletes

We’ll never know for sure how many traumatic brain injuries are being prevented by the Zackery Lystedt law that Washington state lawmakers passed unanimously in 2009.  But we do know our state law is having an impact nationwide. 

The Zackery Lystedt law (a.k.a. EHB 1824) required school districts to raise awareness of the dangers posed by traumatic brain injuries and barred student athletes who are suspected to have a head injury from practicing or playing in games until a health care professional clears their return.  Reps. Marko Liias, Eric Pettigrew, and Pat Sullivan were co-sponsors of the measure.

Today’s national AP story on how New laws on concussions protect student athletes reports that Washington’s Zackery Lystedt law has already served as an inspiration and/or template for laws in 31 other states, with more apparently on the way.

Bob Colgate, the assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations told the A.P. that awareness of the risks has spread nationwide “among states, the NFL, NCAA and youth football leagues after Washington's state legislature adopted its Zackery Lystedt Law in 2009,” and “the law has served as a template for state legislation.”

Saving even one student athlete from a life-long tragedy is important. The Zackery Lystedt law will save many.  To learn more about this issue, visit the National Conference of State Legislature’s page on Traumatic Brain Injury Legislation. The TVW video of the original House Education Committee hearing on HB 1824 shares the personal story of the athlete who inspired a national movement:

Investing in our communities with tax-dollar funded jobs

Detractors of state government sure love talking about how our government can't create jobs, only inhibit job growth. But, as the Seattle Times reports today, maybe they should check with the residents of Aberdeen, who are more than happy to welcome state-funded jobs constructing the components of a 520 bridge replacement, which have replaced the dwindling timber industry jobs in the area. Smart investments of tax dollars are bolstering new industries in high-demand fields, and bolstering communities hard hit by the recession.   

Excerpt:

"In a county that has limped along with a 13 percent unemployment rate, one of the highest in the state, the $367 million contract to build the pontoons — some as long as a football field and weighing 11,000 tons each — is pumping new life into a once-thriving timber town that fell on hard times and stayed that way for years.

The pontoon project will produce 300 union-wage jobs over several years. While it's not the only burst of recent good news for Aberdeen, it's clearly the most visible...

The project has meant nothing but good news to Aberdeen.

"The restaurants are ecstatic to have them here," Mayor Bill Simpson said. "People always knock down Grays Harbor County, but I see it as a booming area, doing better and better all the time."

Merchants agree.

"It's bringing a lot of smiling faces," said Dave TerBush, who works for Home Depot. "It's all positive for the harbor. We've been discovered."

Added Deanna Russell, owner of Teri's Steakhouse, which opened about a year ago downtown: "It has done nothing but boost the economy, a real plus to the community."

Our own representative, Dean Takko from Longview, is also quoted with regards to the booming business at the nearby port, which is exporting Chryslers and biodiesel made in America. "If you would have told me five years ago we'd be exporting cars to China out of Grays Harbor, I would have said you're crazy. It's huge. The biodiesel plant is running at 100 percent capacity."