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From the Los Angeles Times

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Fighting the national debt, out of their own pockets

Tired of watching endless partisan fights in Congress, a few people are taking simple action on the national debt: They mail the government a check.

by Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times

November 26, 2011

Atanacio Garcia isn't waiting for Washington to reduce the national debt.

The 84-year-old retired postal worker from San Antonio, a man of simple means and a simple credo, donates $50 a month from his pension, plus whatever he makes from collecting aluminum cans in his neighborhood, to reduce Uncle Sam's IOU.

"I'm a believer in our country," said Garcia, an Army veteran who has promised that he will contribute "until the debt is paid off or until I die."

Garcia, a father of five who has lived in the same two-bedroom home for decades, is among hundreds of public-spirited Americans who have sent money, from pocket change to million-dollar checks, to the federal Bureau of Public Debt at P.O. Box 2188 in Parkersburg, W.Va.

Since President Kennedy signed legislation 50 years ago setting up the little-known program that accepts donations to pay down the debt, about $83 million has been collected, including $2,440.80 from Garcia.

While Congress generates widespread public disgust with its hyper-partisan fights over reducing the national debt — which this month surpassed $15 trillion —this tiny corps of debt-busters has quietly found a way to take a micro-stab at the problem, motivated by a sense of patriotism, not politics.

"God willing," Garcia pledged, "I will continue to do as much as I can for the country."

Donations have come from school bake sales and an Ohio woman who left $1.1 million from her estate. One note with a $300 gift said: "In completing my 1040 federal tax forms for 2010, I determined that I did not need to pay any federal income tax this year. I did not make very much money in 2010, but I still feel I should pay at least something to offset some of the benefits I receive as a citizen."

Eskimo Pie Corp. in the 1990s, when the debt was a piddling $4 trillion, pledged to donate toward debt reduction a nickel for every box of ice cream bars sold in a month; it offered the Treasury Department $71,894. The department, facing the prospect of counting all those nickels, told the company to send a check.

President Reagan donated $1 million in leftover private funds from his second inaugural in 1985.

For years, one man sent a check equal in dollars to his age. A veteran who wanted to express his gratitude for successful surgery at a VA hospital sent $17,500.

It doesn't seem to matter to the donors that five decades' worth of contributions does not even cover one day of interest on the nation's red ink. In fact, the debt is so high that it would take roughly a $48,000 contribution from every American to retire it.

For their gift to America, donors receive a thank-you note from the bureau for helping "ensure that we do not burden future generations with a huge debt."

Even though Congress has failed to devise a plan to reduce the deficit, that hasn't stopped lawmakers from offering ideas to get the public to chip in, such as establishing a checkoff box on income tax returns for donations.

Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) introduced the Debt Contribution Act this year to "facilitate patriotic Americans making contributions to pay down our debt." Stivers said he gives $700, or about 5%, of his monthly paycheck.

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) recently introduced a bill to create a website to receive contributions and give donors the option of identifying themselves to be "recognized and thanked." The bill also is meant to needle millionaires who have come out in support of higher taxes on the wealthy.

One citizens' group, the Assn. to Reduce the National Debt, wants to raise at least $1 million to show that "the American people are serious about the debt crisis and demand real, immediate solutions to the problem," said New York attorney Seth Eisenberg, the founder.

Judy Goldschmidt, a Binghamton, N.Y., mother of three, sent $100 to the group to voice her frustration with Washington. "I really think it's important to make a statement," she said.

The Bureau of Public Debt does not release donors' names, but a spokeswoman said the donations have ranged from a single penny to $3.5 million. The patriotic sum of $17.76 also has been received.

Garcia began contributing in 2009 after growing tired of Washington's inaction. These days Garcia, who usually votes Democratic, is critical of both parties.

"It bothers me to see the Republicans and the Democrats fighting," he said, expressing disappointment with the failure last week of the bipartisan congressional "super committee" to meet its deadline to agree upon a debt reduction proposal. "They could think more about the nation and less about their party. … I do pray they come to their senses."

Those who know Garcia aren't surprised by his strong feelings about fiscal responsibility. He doesn't own a cellphone or a computer, and he and his wife wash their dishes by hand and dry their clothes on a line. He usually pays for the basics in cash — after clipping coupons. When scouring the neighborhood for cans to raise money for his debt donation, he also picks up trash.

Garcia's nephew, T.J. Garcia, said that his Tio Nacho is driven by a "deeply rooted religious faith and care for his fellow man."

But giving his hard-earned money to the federal government? Some would call that a foolhardy action.

When a group of millionaires this year called for raising taxes on the wealthy to reduce the debt, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, challenged them instead to contribute their own money. But the 200-member Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength didn't exactly rush to the bank.

"Some problems are too big to be solved except through collective effort and shared sacrifice, and this is one of them," the group responded in a letter to Hatch.

Hatch said he wasn't surprised that more people don't make contributions.

"Most American taxpayers understand that any debt the government has is owing to reckless government spending, and taxpayers have no desire to enable that bad habit," he said. "They would prefer to send their charitable contributions to their schools and churches, which will put the money to better use."

Avoiding any hurtful comments to debt donors, Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, an Arlington, Va., budget watchdog group, said that they generally seem to be "very well-intentioned, patriotic people who have a genuine concern for the fate of their country."

"However," he said, "it makes little sense to send a few bucks to the Treasury while we are hemorrhaging more than $1 trillion a year. " He advised would-be donors to devote themselves instead to demanding balanced-budget plans from Congress.

Atanacio Garcia agrees that his $50 monthly contribution is infinitesimal when weighed against the national debt. But he refuses to be discouraged and tries to persuade others to join him.

Atanacio Garcia's state House representative, Trey Martinez Fischer, was so moved by a letter he received from Garcia about his efforts that the lawmaker dug into his own pocket and sent $100 to the Bureau of Public Debt. Another friend, Patti Radle, a member of the San Antonio Independent School District board, contributed $20.

"I did warn him that that was all I was going to contribute," Radle said.

Garcia acknowledges that his is a lonely mission. "My wife doesn't agree with me."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-debt-donors-20111127,0,7702312.story

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LAPD's approach to Occupy L.A. will be put to the test

The Police Department under Chief Charlie Beck, well aware of a history of clashes with civilians, has put on a charm offensive toward protesters. Monday's camp shutdown may be a defining moment.

by Andrew Blankstein, Kate Linthicum and Hector Becerra, Los Angeles Times

November 27, 2011

When the tents started spreading out across the City Hall lawn seven weeks ago, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck quickly realized that the Occupy L.A. protest could become a defining moment for his department.

Beck immediately made it his business to know what was going on inside the loosely organized movement. He talked frequently to several protest leaders on the telephone and kept in close contact with civil rights lawyers who were advising the demonstrators. His officers made a point of talking up protesters on the ground — and trying to ignore the smell of marijuana that wafted through the camp. On Thanksgiving Day, two LAPD commanders delivered turkeys to demonstrators.

The charm offensive was all leading up to Monday morning, when the LAPD may begin clearing out the camp.

As police in New York and Oakland and at UC Davis and UC Berkeley have come under criticism for what some consider heavy-handed treatment of Occupy protesters, Beck said he's determined for things to go more smoothly in Los Angeles. But he admits he's not sure they will.

"I have no illusions that everybody is going to leave," Beck said. "We anticipate that we will have to make arrests.... We certainly will not be the first ones to apply force."

The stakes for Beck and his department are high.

The LAPD has a checkered record in dealing with protests. Clashes between officers and demonstrators at the 2000 Democratic National Convention brought a string of lawsuits and a series of reforms in how the department handles crowd control.

The city has paid out more than $12 million in civil settlements since officers used batons and fired foam bullets to disperse the crowd at a MacArthur Park rally for immigrant rights on May Day 2007. The incident, caught on video and broadcast around the world, was a black eye for the department and prompted another reform campaign.

Beck was appointed chief two years ago with the enthusiastic recommendations of civil rights groups and community activists, who said he brought a new way of thinking about defusing community tensions. Beck had worked with these groups in the aftermath of the Rampart corruption scandal a decade ago, supporting a series of reforms.

He has applied some of the same principles in his handling of Occupy L.A. But while some civil rights activists have praised LAPD restraint so far, some question why the department is forcing a showdown that could turn ugly.

Police "have been restrained up until now, but it's not over," said civil rights attorney Carol Sobel. The deadline, she said, "made people dig in their heels. There were discussions taking place. There was no reason not to let it play out further and see what the city could do."

The chief has talked on and off with some protesters over the last few weeks, hoping they might agree to voluntarily vacate the lawn, and officials from the Police Department and the mayor's office have met regularly with protesters. At one point, the city even offered the protesters a package of incentives that included downtown office space and land for gardening if they left. But on Friday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced that it was time for the encampment to end — and set a deadline of 12:01 a.m. Monday.

It's a different tactic from the one used by New York police against Occupy Wall Street protesters earlier this month. There, officials kept the details of the eviction top secret and were later criticized for trying to keep the media away from the raid.

Beck said he believes being open is the best approach. But it does have risks.

By announcing when the crackdown will begin, the department risks confrontations by die-hard activists or provocateurs drawn to the site. Indeed, LAPD sources said they are worried less about the Occupy campers than about outsiders who might come to City Hall seeking conflict.

Among protesters, many believe the LAPD has been more cordial than police in other cities.

At some points, police have seemed to be almost overly cautious. Officers moved slowly to make arrests when a group of two dozen activists sat down with arms linked on Figueroa Street two weeks ago during a march organized by labor unions and community groups in conjunction with Occupy L.A. While an official LAPD videographer filmed the carefully choreographed arrests, several public relations officers stood by, ready to answer questions from the dozens of journalists who were watching.

Protester Ryan Rice, who was arrested in another protest later that day, said Los Angeles police were much less aggressive than those he encountered while being arrested during the Oakland police raid on the Occupy encampment there last month. He feels he was treated with "kid gloves" by Los Angeles police, something he credits not to progressive thinking among officers "but a political leash that's holding them back."

Veteran Los Angeles civil rights attorney and police reform advocate Connie Rice (no relation to Ryan Rice) agreed that the contrast with other cities has been notable.

During a visit to the Occupy Wall Street camp at Zuccotti Park a few weeks ago, Rice said, she was struck by the tense relationship between police and protesters.

She found the NYPD to be "hostile, bristling, intimidating, rude and purposely unhelpful, just like the LAPD used to be. People [there] were remarking why can't NYPD be more like LAPD," Rice said. "I said, 'It took a lot of work.'"

There is a split within Occupy L.A. between those who think protesters should work with police and those who call it treason. Some criticized an Occupy leader who has served as liaison with police as being in collusion with authorities and called for the creation of a committee against police brutality.

At the camp Saturday, some said they believed eviction was now a foregone conclusion. The question was how many people would stay behind to resist, and whether they would do so peacefully.

Protester Clark Davis walked through the encampment and reminded people about the city's deadline to move. He informed them about civil disobedience training taking place later in the day, and told them there would be an early evening screening of a documentary, "A Force More Powerful," about international nonviolent resistance movements.

"The mood I'm getting is that everyone is pretty much ready for this thing and obviously they're going to behave in a way they deem appropriate for this situation," he said. "Most people are aware of what's going on, and most people seem intent on not caving in and just surrendering and packing their stuff and getting out of here."

PJ Davenport, another Occupy L.A activist, said she recently asked an LAPD commander why officers hadn't already cleared the camp. The commander "said very succinctly that it would be a PR nightmare for the LAPD," she said.

But Davenport said she knows both sides need to behave.

"If a person becomes violent, hopefully they're quickly removed from the group, and we've asked for this all along, to remove any violence."

Beck said he remained hopeful that the lawn could be cleared without violence.

"This is a police department that is very good with the application of force if we need to be. Nobody questions that," he added. "But I also want to be known as a department that can avoid the application of major force."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-occupy-lapd-20111127,0,6814740,print.story

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A small piece of immigration reform

The Department of Homeland Security will roll out a pilot program next week intended to speed up the deportation of immigrants with criminal records by weeding out low-priority cases.

November 27, 2011

Next week, the Department of Homeland Security will roll out a pilot program intended to speed up the deportation of immigrants with criminal records by weeding out low-priority cases. It's a sensible plan, and one that could restore some sanity to a deportation system that wastes time with harmless immigrants and thereby allows dangerous ones to escape its attention.

Under the pilot program, teams of prosecutors in Baltimore and Denver will review all pending immigration cases in those cities and then decide whether to issue temporary reprieves to the elderly, students, children, victims of domestic crimes and those with a close relative who is a U.S. citizen. Reprieves would be limited to those without criminal convictions. If all goes well, the program would be expanded nationwide in January.

Until recently, government attorneys were required, with rare exceptions, to treat immigrants convicted of serious crimes with the same urgency as those who are merely here illegally. The new guidelines will allow them to place the high-priority cases — those involving criminals — on a fast track for a hearing before a judge. At the same time, this could help free up overburdened immigration courts by reducing dockets.

This isn't the first time the Obama administration has promised to implement reviews and prioritize. Last summer, Homeland Security officials pledged to evaluate about 300,000 deportation cases already filed in immigration court. So far, the results have been less than stellar. The American Immigration Lawyers Assn. released a report that found the new rules were applied unevenly. In San Francisco, for example, a 14-year-old boy facing deportation to Mexico because he brought a pellet gun to school received a last-minute reprieve, yet an undocumented immigrant with no criminal history was deported even though he too qualified for a stay because he had spent 22 years here and had a U.S.-born child.

Federal officials have shrugged off the results, saying the new rules are a work in progress. That's a weak excuse, and one that could do more harm than good. Dithering encourages some critics to imagine that the administration is bent on amnesty and others to conclude that prioritization is a hollow undertaking intended chiefly to placate Latino voters.

The new deportation policy is not a real solution. Only Congress can provide that, by enacting legislation that both secures borders and offers a path to legalization for those already here. But the policy, if evenly and thoughtfully implemented, could introduce reason and proportion into a system too often lacking in both.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-dhs-20111127,0,5026866,print.story

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From Google News

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Former LAPD Chief Predicts The Future Of Policing

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