Don’t you love elections? In the campaigns for the important ones, we get to see frantic tap dancing. We get to see some foaming at the mouth.

This year’s campaigns promise to entertain. In New York, we already see our Governor Andrew Cuomo moving to the right. He knows he has most Democrats’ votes in the bag. Now if he can just win over some Republicans. Then he could boast that he can win votes from both sides of the street. If Hillary Clinton does not run, he could use such credentials to win the nomination to run for the White House.

So to burnish those credentials, he is standing tall for charter schools, and staring down the teachers’ unions. This will earn him more votes from the right for sure.

In this year’s elections for Congress, we will see many Republicans run. We will see many Democrats scamper, and scurry, and hide. Those in close elections must run from Obamacare. Majorities of voters tell pollsters they just don’t like it.

So what do you do if you are a Democrat in a district where a few votes could end your career? When Obamacare comes up, you change the subject. You talk with your armpit about making changes. If you voted for it, you are in real trouble.

The president has postponed this provision and delayed that provision. Twenty-five times or more. To little avail. His shenanigans have not moved the needles in the polls. Ten layers of lipstick and rouge cannot silence the oinks of this one. If you are a Dem in a close race, you have to live with it. Or, the opposite.

Meanwhile, if the president’s plane flies over your district, you leap into a bomb shelter. When his name comes up, you pretend you are deaf. You sure don’t invite him to your campaign rallies. Not if you want to win, you don’t. His approval ratings are down as low as 38 percent in one recent poll and averaging about 43 percent across the board.

A lot of Dems are squeezed between the proverbial rock and a hard place for the upcoming campaign.

Meanwhile, we can already hear a few war cries for the 2016 election for the White House.

Likely candidate Ted Cruz has called for the end of the IRS as we know it. Now, normally only extremists applaud this idea. But this time around?

It is clear to a lot of folks that this administration used the IRS to punish its conservative opponents. It has battered opponents of this administration with audits. It green-lighted most liberal groups that applied for tax-free status. It held up the process for 200 conservative groups. Held them at bay for two election cycles. This sort of stuff frightens folks. Sickens some.

The president told Bill O’Reilly there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in this scandal. A few days later, the woman who headed up that department took the 

Fifth before a congressional committee. The purpose of the Fifth is to protect your backside from prosecution — for criminal activities. Or if you are a heroine, to protect others. Right down to the last smidgen. Note that the word incriminating has “crim” in it. As does the word criminal.

My point is that the idea of abolishing the IRS could become very popular the next few years. Along with another idea Cruz presented: Permanently banning former members of Congress from lobbying members of Congress.

He proposed repealing every word of Obamacare. He proposed term limits for federal lawmakers.

Majorities of voters tell pollsters they like these ideas. Which should make for some very entertaining election campaigns the next few years.

From Tom…as in Morgan.       

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home near Oneonta, in addition to his radio shows and new TV show. For more information about him, visit his website at www.tomasinmorgan.com 

Editor’s note: The authors say they wrote this letter in response to the editorial by Norman Poltenson, entitled, “Pre-K is a failure, so let’s make it universal” in the Jan. 31 issue of The Central New York Business Journal.

There is overwhelming, research-based evidence that early education creates critical opportunities, especially for at-risk children living in poverty. Studies have shown that it more than pays for itself in long-term life improvement impacts, such as lower arrest rates and improved graduation rates, which were not measured by the [federal government’s] Head Start impact study.  

There have been numerous reports that actually demonstrate positive impacts from the Head Start program. Eliana Garces’ (UCLA) and David Deming’s (Harvard) rigorous studies determined that Head Start graduates were more likely than their peers to graduate from high school and attend college, and less likely to be unemployed. Another study by Jens Ludwig (University of Chicago) discovered that reduced childhood mortality was a result of Head Start participation, due to various early screening processes and appropriate treatment referrals.  

A researcher from the University of California learned that parents of Head Start attendees are much more likely to spend additional time reading to their children and taking them to museums, thus enhancing their overall educational experience. Even dads who did not live with their families ended up spending an extra day a month with their children. Alternate early education initiatives were found to have similar long-term positive outcomes.

As Nicholas Kristof points out in his recent New York Times article, on which much of this background information is based, preschool could be the only national issue that has a majority of support from voters of both parties. In our region, Senator [Kirsten] Gillibrand (D) and Congressman [Richard] Hanna (R) have joined together to sponsor legislation that expands access to pre-kindergarten programs nationwide.   

“High-quality early learning guarantees a reduction in spending on entitlements, welfare, and incarceration,” U.S. Representative Hanna said. “It also lowers obesity rates, helping to reduce health-care costs. By focusing on early education, we can begin to break the back of intergenerational poverty, producing more taxpayers and a more competitive America through a better-educated, growing middle class. We cannot guarantee every child equal success in life, but we can promise them the opportunity to be successful.”

According to economist and Nobel Laureate James Heckman, investing early in children’s lives yields the highest return in human capital, due primarily to future reduction in crime, increased earnings, and higher tax revenue. Every dollar spent on quality early learning can produce returns of $7 to $17, with the largest returns occurring between birth and third grade.

Investing in preschool today at approximately $8,000 per child per year is much more cost effective than paying $90,000 per child per year for juvenile-detention services later, or subsidizing living and service costs during a lifetime of unemployment. The United States trails most of the world’s developed nations when it comes to four-year-old preschool participation, and that seems to be reflected in our lackluster high-school completion. We rank as low as 21st for OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) for high-school graduation rates, falling far behind the top five — Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Japan, and the United Kingdom. 

“If we expect our children to walk through the doors of our colleges and universities tomorrow, and succeed in our economy in the years ahead — we need universal pre-K,” said Sen. Gillibrand in a February news release.  “High quality early learning leads to strong cognitive, social, emotional and language development — key skills for a bright future.”

Peggy O’Shea
President & CEO
The Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Counties, Inc.

Barbara W. Henderson
Vice President for Programs & Community Initiatives
The Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Counties, Inc.

Brenda E. Episcopo
Executive Director
United Way of the Valley and Greater Utica Area