Last week a caller commented on how much more efficient the Medicare program is administered than private insurance. Whenever anyone claims that government does something more efficiently than the private sector be suspicious! There are two great reports that are interesting and can be found at http://www.heartland.org/pdf/32923a.pdf and http://www.heartland.org/pdf/32924b.pdf on the Heartland Institute website.

I want to thank Cheryl Lepsch from Jammies for GI’s for being a guest on my show. Her unrelenting quest to help returning and injured soldiers with WHATEVER they need is amazing. I received an e-mail right after the show from a man who said he was going to open his wallet wide and wanted her phone number. For anyone who is able to pick up electric razors, portable DVD players for soldiers limited to their beds or break away pants she can arrange for them to be picked up. Call her at 695-6867. We will make sure that our troops get them. She has a way for everyone to help. Please go to facesforfundraising.com for an opportunity to purchase a 16 x 20 poster of the American Flag that is made up of faces colored by all of you. They cost $25.00.

I also want to thank Lenny Roberto from Primary Challenge for being a guest. Primary Challenge is looking for voters who will spend fifteen hours per year to help pick and endorse candidates. Have you ever gone into the voting booth and wished there were better candidates to choose from? This is how you can help. You can call Lenny Roberto at 683-3484 or 207-7138 or go to primarychallenge.org. All they need is your name, address and political affiliation. Primary Challenge needs good democrats and republicans to step up and be part of the solution.
The topic for the show was our worsening economy and the unions that must recognize signs that companies are going to fail if major changes aren’t made. In a March 1, 2006 Wall Street Journal article by Jeffrey McCracken the Jobs Banks are detailed. “Since 1990, GM’s union payroll including former subsidiary Delphi Corp. has fallen to about 137,000 from 358,000.” This is a huge decline and caught in this decline are scores of workers who sit in rooms called “rubber rooms” where they do nothing all day. This is not their fault; it is in their contracts. “GM employees constitute slightly more than half of the 14,700 auto workers in the Jobs Bank. In second place with 3,600 Jobs Bank workers is auto parts maker Delphi.” This total number is expected to rise to 17,000 next year. Detroit will trim 60,000 more jobs this year. There is not way GM will be in existence in five years unless the Jobs Bank is completely eliminated and costs are brought down so the company is profitable. People who sit in these rooms cost the employer between 100,000 and 130,000 (wages and benefits). I asked the listeners why the unions don’t seem to get it. Greg from Grand Island is the head of his union and was a great caller. He gets it and helps his union members understand that if they don’t work really hard and help to make the company profitable none of them will have jobs. A retired GM employee called and added to the history of these jobs banks.
If ALL workers don’t understand that a company must be profitable or will cease to exist this community is in for a very big fall.

On Saturday I had the pleasure of having Dr. Satish Mohan on Straight Talk. I was happy to hear there is a buyer for our waste pellets and we will be earning $200,000 per year starting this year. Longevity Pay was brought to light and it was disclosed that if you work for the Town of Amherst for ten years you get a $2,000 birthday check. It goes up from there and we have people who get a $7,000 check on their birthdays! Unbelievable! Who thought this was OK to put in a contract? How do we get it out?

When Dr. Ben Chavez was my guest Ken Hamilton called in regarding a new charter school opening in Niagara County called the Niagara Charter School and I told him I would post his website. Sorry Ken!!! I forgot! I had an ADD moment. Here it is www.niagaracharter.org There are still six opportunities to get information. You can’t expect your children to value education if you don’t. You have choices and the choices you make for them will impact the rest of their lives.

I wanted to thank Dr. Ben Chavez for taking the time to spend an hour on the air with us to discuss how the education system must serve kids. He truly is one of America’s top educators. The response to him was very positive. I hope we have some teachers apply to teach at his high school and come back and start some schools here with this same philosophy. Our children deserve no less. You can go to American Indian Public Charter School at AIPCS.org

Here are some of the points Dr. Chavis made:

• He pays students at the end of the year for perfect attendance ($50.00 for sixth, $75.00 for seventh, $100.00 for eighth and $150.00 for perfect attendance all three years). He says that when you are dirt poor money motivates. He has a 99.6% attendance rate. If students don’t show up he goes and gets them.
• Increasing dollars into education is not the answer. The district has an eight percent pass rate on state exams and his school is over 80%. His school gets $6,000 per child.
• He pays his teachers well ($42,000 to start) and pays himself $30,000. He recruits his teachers like a coach recruits athletes and only the best are hired.
• When kids fail it is the principal’s fault. If an athlete was not doing well you wouldn’t call his or her parent in and blame it on them. You would call the coach in charge of the athletics. Schools are in charge of academics and are completely responsible for success in that area.
• “Look, I was dirt poor growing up in Arizona. Dirt poor. My dad used to burn my wrists with cigarettes when I was bad. I used to watch him beat my mom all the time. So now I have a Ph.D. Nobody’s going to tell me that being poor or picked on is an excuse to fail. I didn’t.” Being poor has nothing to do with academic success
• Last year their school made a profit which was reinvested in the program. Last year all the students went to Washington D.C. and the year before Mexico City. “I run this school like a business. We don’t waste money around here. Our textbooks are the finest available in the state.”
• He has been approved to open a high school in June.

I also want to make sure everyone knows that I really do not intend to poison the opossum. It upset some of you. I was just speaking on the behalf of the surviving members of the rabbit’s family; it is extensive. Witnessing the death and subsequent digestion of the little hopper upset me. We will make every effort to embrace the opossum. We now think the hawk was really a large owl. I will have someone look at the tape and let you know.