Wow I woke up this morning and thought this was a quote from the Bush White House. Departing White House economist Christina Romer believes that we need more spending and less taxes now to help the economy and that these can be paid latter with budget cuts and increased revenue. But it wasn’t whew! But sadly it shows that many in DC have not yet learned their lesson. Sure it is nice and dandy to lower taxes but you cannot couple that with massive increases in new spending. Of course the same applies to simply raising taxes and increasing spending. These plans just do not work and leave us exactly where we are today with about $13.4 trillion in National debt. I also reject the notion that debt concerns should be shoved aside for the sake of jump starting the economy there are plenty of ways of taking care of both.
One of the best ideas Blue Dog Democrats had was called Pay Go. Sure you spend x amount of money on this program but you off set if with cuts over here. Sure you’re just off setting the spending but hopefully at least it leads to a balanced budget. But since 06 the blue dogs have caved into party leadership and pay go is dead in the water. Of course recently the Democrats in Washington are saying they are waiting for the Debt Commission to report back and the GOP is not much better. They have as yet not shown that much support for Paul Ryan’s plan and while talking tough about spending cuts have not gotten specific yet. So personally I can understand that while people appear to be willing to give the GOP a new chance it is going to be with a whole lot of new members who may not just show up and vote the party leadership line.
Personally I believe that President Harding had the right idea. Balance the budget, pay off the national debt, and give a tax break to all tax brackets. It worked back in the 1920s and could still work today. No one should just want tax cuts for tax cutting sake! If you give back three trillion dollars out of a revenue stream of five trillion you don’t have five trillion to spend anymore! So tough choices are going to need to be made here or all we are going to end up doing is again add to the national debt. And if you think that is not going to cause long term economic harm or hurt our national security you need to put down Paul “Debt” Krugman’s NY Times op-ed and grab a history book it is full of nations that crashed because of massive debt and unless we learn and learn quickly we could end up like them.
The MN Governor’s race is turning into a smear race against Tom Emmer with massive amounts of union and Dayton family money rolling into the group called Alliance for a Better Minnesota which has raised $1.7 million dollars so far. Now it is true that the group supporting Tom Emmer MN forward has raised about $1.1 million but a look at ads running show that the group supporting Dayton have run their ads some 2,400 times compared to the group supporting Emmer which has run their ads some 330 times. This may be due to the fact that Emmer has been the GOP candidate for a longer time then Dayton has been. The most recent attack ads Emmer is facing are the following according to factcheck.org:
• Accused GOP-endorsed candidate Tom Emmer of sponsoring a bill to "reduce penalties for drunk drivers." That’s misleading. The bill would have required that accused drunk drivers be penalized only if convicted. • Said Emmer was "arrested twice himself for drunk driving." That’s true — but the arrests were nearly 20 and 30 years ago. • Claimed Emmer voted against "corporations and CEOs" paying higher taxes. That’s false. He voted against a Democratic bill to raise state income taxes for all upper-income individuals — not corporations. • Claimed Emmer’s vote "created" a huge state deficit. That’s false as well. The deficit existed prior to Emmer’s vote against a Democratic plan to raise taxes to help close it.
These ads are an attempt to smear Emmer and an attempt to play class warfare in a state that is largely progressive in many areas with strong union support across the state. What is interesting though is that Mark Dayton recently called for an end to third party attack ads but only after months of relentless attacks upon Emmer the hypocritical behavior and was shown for what it was political grandstanding. The good news for Emmer is though that now despite Dayton’s lead over him over for many months that lead is now shrinking. According to a Minnesota Public Radio poll the race is tied up 34% a piece with 13% going to the independent Tom Horner. Though the RCP average is 8.3% in favor of Dayton this does show that Dayton is vunerable. However I would make one caveat here and that is while Dayton’s 527s are on the air his campaign has not run an ad since he won the DFL primary and Emmer has been up on the air all month. But I do believe that Dayton is going to have a hard time overcoming his anti-business record that he is being painted with. Talking about raising taxes on the very people who are small business owners and investors is not in my opinion going to play well in the suburbs of the twin cities.
As for Tom Horner if he is going to make a splash in this race he needs to do something creative much like Jess Venture did with his toy commercial. Sure it was cheesy but everyone remembered it and the media showed it how many times for free? It worked and it got people to pay attention. If Horner cannot come up with a game changing moment he may be regulated to playing spoiler though it is hard to say at this time who he is going to hurt more. Though there is always the chance that if the race becomes too nasty voters may become disgusted with the major parties and vote Horner in. One other bit of note here Tim Pawlenty has been mostly MIA during this race. That is a smart move on Emmer’s part as Pawlenty does not have that great of approval ratings and is widely seen as someone now more interested in national aspirations. Further the Governor not playing a larger role has made it harder for the DFL to hit Emmer as a continuation of the Pawlenty administration.
One this is clear this is race is not going to be the cup cake walk the DFL thought it was going to be. The GOP united behind one candidate though in my mind it should have been Pat Anderson who is now running for State Auditor she had a track record of fiscal responsibility and cutting jobs including her own when she was part of the Pawlenty administration. But the insiders rallied around Emmer and he is the nominee. As for me right now I am leaning towards Horner but nothing is for sure yet. In fact the only for sure thing in this whole race is that more money is going to be flowing in more mud thrown. Which sadly is not what the state needs right now we need a real debate over our budget deficit and how are we going to deal with that and attract jobs. But alas it seems that debate may not happen with all the personal attacks going on.
PS. I would add that MN Forward has according to Factcheck.org also supported a vareity of DFL members running for the state legislature who they consider pro business so any attack to say they are a partisan group is factually wrong as well.
Ray Bradbury celebrated his 90th birthday this past Sunday. He was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois, a medium-sized town of around 20,000 people about midway between Chicago and Milwaukee on the western shore of Lake Michigan. Bradbury has depicted Waukegan fondly, even idyllically, in his fiction, most notably in his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine -- even though the Waukegan conjured up in that book, which is set in 1928, is a bit larger than the Waukegan Bradbury was born into in 1920. The town's population grew by more than 50 percent during the '20s. By the beginning of the Great Depression, there were more than 33,000 people who called Waukegan home. The Bradbury family was not to be among these people for much longer, however.
They had already spent a year in Tucson, Arizona in the '20s, for reasons having to do with Ray's father's employment. Tucson was where Ray attended first grade. And in school year 1932/33, when Ray was 12, they were back in Tucson again. Then, after a few months cleaning up loose ends in Waukegan, not long before Ray's 14th birthday, they moved to Los Angeles, where they remained. Ray Bradbury himself is there to this day. It was in Los Angeles that he went through high school and in Los Angeles that he launched his extremely successful career as a fiction writer.
It is common to hear Ray Bradbury described as a "science-fiction writer," but this is misleading at best. Only a minority of Bradbury's total production is science fiction by any normal standard, and at least half of it is straightforward realistic fiction like Dandelion Wine. The fact is, however, that Bradbury's second, third, and fourth books, his first three books to come to widespread attention -- The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and Fahrenheit 451 (1953) -- were works of science fiction, or, at least, were widely believed to be. Bradbury was typecast early, you might say. He came to fame as a "science-fiction writer," and a "science-fiction writer" he will therefore forever remain.
For our purposes here, on the other hand, Bradbury's most important book is undeniably the third of those titles I just listed: Fahrenheit 451, his short novel about censorship, one of the most influential libertarian novels of the 20th century, first published nearly 60 years ago. And of all Ray Bradbury's books, Fahrenheit 451 is probably the one most entitled to be called "science fiction."
It describes an American society of the indeterminate but probably fairly near future in which possession of books is illegal. In an emergency -- if, for example, an individual is found to be in possession of a sizable collection of books -- the local fire department is summoned. The firemen arrive on a truck, dressed in fire-resistant clothing and carrying hoses. But their hoses pump, not water, but kerosene, which they use to drench the illegal collection of books they've been called to take care of, along with the rest of the house in which they're stored. Then they set the whole sodden mess afire and watch it burn to the ground.
Actually, not all books are illegal in Bradbury's America of the probably fairly near future. Or so, at least, it would appear. For when Guy Montag, the young fireman who is the main character of Fahrenheit 451, poses a question to his colleagues at the local firehouse -- "In the old days, before homes were completely fireproofed," he asks them, "didn't firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?" -- they answer him by consulting "their rule books, which also contained brief histories of the Firemen of America."
According to these rule books, the Firemen of America was "established [in] 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies." The "First Fireman," according to the rule books, was Benjamin Franklin. Like all state-sponsored official history, this relies on a certain level of ignorance in its readers if it is to have its full intended effect. The firemen reading the rule books should be unaware, for example, that by 1790 "the Colonies" had been politically independent from England for seven years, and that Benjamin Franklin, in 1790, was 84 years old and on his deathbed. It would help if the firemen reading these rule books were also unaware that Franklin really was a pioneer fireman, though it was in the 1730s not the 1790s, and he was, of course, the kind of fireman who puts fires out and prevents them rather than the kind who stokes fires and gets them going. Of course, in a society whose government banned the possession of any books that taught any contrary, revisionist history, such a level of ignorance might be fairly easy to maintain in the general population.
It might be argued that people don't have to have books, necessarily, to stave off such ignorance. They could get correct information about history from other media. And this is true. Today, for example, people can get such information from the Internet, and we haven't even reached the future yet. There is no Internet in Fahrenheit 451. There is only television. In fact, television is very close to omnipresent. But it is a kind of television that could exist only with the assistance of computer technology.
A typical middle-class home in the world of Fahrenheit 451 has an entire room devoted to TV, with the images being received on huge screens that cover three or four of the walls in that room. In some programs, the viewer is given a small part, addressed by name by the other characters, and assigned a few lines to speak. But never is any actual information of any lasting importance conveyed to the viewer.
Bradbury never makes it perfectly clear whether the utter mindlessness of television in the world of Fahrenheit 451 is a result of government censorship or an outcome of market processes. It unquestionably might be the latter. One of his characters, a retired English professor and secret lover of books named Faber, speaks contemptuously of "the solid unmoving cattle of the majority," and it is, of course, majorities that markets serve best. "Remember," Faber tells Montag at one point, "the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but it's a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line."
And why did the public itself stop reading of its own accord? Because so many of the individuals who made up that public wanted to avoid ever being offended by reading anything they didn't already believe. And most of the rest wanted to avoid having to think at all -- they wanted to avoid difficult decisions, the strain of trying to focus their minds on ideas that could plausibly be looked at and understood in more than one way.
Another of Bradbury's characters, a fire chief named Beatty, explains the part about being offended in a key conversation that takes place about a third of the way into the novel. "Let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we?" Beatty says to Montag.
Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! ... Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. ... There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time.
"Ask yourself," Beatty says to Montag, "What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say." According to Beatty, one part of what has to be done to make people happy is to make them feel equal to everybody else. "Surely," he says to Montag,
you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally "bright," did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.
"Why did the public itself stop reading of its own accord? Because so many of the individuals who made up that public wanted to avoid ever being offended by reading anything they didn't already believe." Keeping people happy, Beatty tells Montag, also requires that you avoid confusing them or expecting them to judge between competing ideas. "If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him," Beatty tells Montag, "give him one. Better yet, give him none. ... If the Government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it."
In the space of a crucial week, Montag himself opts to worry instead of being mindlessly happy. He has been vaguely aware for a while now that, despite the government's best efforts on his behalf, he is not, in fact, happy. His wife drifts mindlessly through her nights and days in a haze induced either by sleeping pills or by radio and TV. She no longer has anything to say to her husband, who has become, at best, an afterthought in her life.
Montag has been stealing the occasional book from the clandestine libraries he is assigned to burn. By the time of the beginning of Fahrenheit 451, he has accumulated maybe 20 of these books and has stuffed them into a hiding place he has devised behind an air-conditioning grill in the ceiling of his suburban house. He has tentatively decided to take a look at these books, see for himself what they contain, why they're illegal.
Then one night on his way home from work, he meets a 16-year-old girl on the street. It turns out she's his next-door neighbor, a girl who likes taking walks in the evening, a girl with a startlingly different way of looking at things and the world -- a girl who, perhaps unwittingly, encourages Montag's growing determination to rebel, if only in a small way, against the system that, at least through his employment, sustains him. Within a week of meeting the 16-year-old Clarisse, Montag has murdered his fire chief and destroyed his station's expensive, high-tech Mechanical Hound. He has left his wife, gone on the lam, and joined an underground organization of men and women, each of whom has committed one or more books to memory, awaiting the day when it will once again be legal to print, sell, and read such things.
Fahrenheit 451 has become one of the most influential libertarian novels of the past century, in large part through the efforts of schoolteachers in both public and private institutions of learning. Virtually anyone who has gone through 7th, 8th, and 9th grades in this country in the past 40 years has likely been assigned Fahrenheit 451 in an English class. When I was in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades myself only a few years earlier, between 1958 and 1961, Fahrenheit 451 was not yet part of the official curriculum; instead, it was one of those books students were likely to be seen carrying around with them, in some sort of cheap, mass-market paperback edition, to read on their own time, for pleasure.
The fact that students liked it was, of course, one of the reasons it became part of the official curriculum. Here was a book you didn't have to struggle to get kids to read. Also it was a book that would raise the hackles of few, if any parents; there was no sex in it at all, and only a few hells and damns by way of so-called bad language.
On top of all that, for a libertarian novel it was really fairly kind in its depiction of the state. It absolves the state of blame for starting the war on books. It acknowledges that powerful impulses toward mindless conformity and suppression of deviation exist in the population itself -- that, on a deep level, many, many people want to be "protected" by the state from the risk of being offended and from the necessity of thinking for themselves.
And so it is that a large segment of our population knows this book because it was assigned in school. For many, it is probably one of the few good things school ever did for them. The downside of the situation is that millions of these people, probably the majority of them, have not looked at Bradbury's remarkable little novel for years, since they were 13 or 14 years old.
It's worth another look.
Jeff Riggenbach is a journalist, author, editor, broadcaster, and educator. A member of the Organization of American Historians, he has written for such newspapers as The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle; such magazines as Reason, Inquiry, and Liberty; and such websites as LewRockwell.com, AntiWar.com, and RationalReview.com. Drawing on vocal skills he honed in classical and all-news radio in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston, Riggenbach has also narrated the audiobook versions of numerous libertarian works, many of them available in Mises Media. Send him mail. See Jeff Riggenbach's article archives.
Fiscal Hawks have been without a Republican who has stuck to his or her guns on fiscal issues for a long time. Yes the Governor of California in the early part of his career was supposed to be that guy but after his massive defeat he went to the left and well California is even worse off today than it was when he took over. Congressman Paul Ryan has not yet had to try and stick to his guns while being the leader of the Appropriations Committee with party leadership applying pressure on spending issues but he does give the rank and file hope that he will try and do what he can to implement his road map. But Christie is different here is a guy who the unions tried to bully and lost. And make no mistake this was a massive loss.
Christie must have known he was gambling big when he decided to cut $500 million in state aid to local school districts. After all if education is one of the biggest state expenditures and you need to cut something it should be up on the cutting block until the economy recovers. But the unions pulled out all the stops and it is not often that in a traditional blue state a Republican wins. But alas voters sided with Christie rejecting the National Education Association’s claim that all that was needed was for taxes on the rich to go up. Keep in mind that those making say $400,000 to the first million are typically the ones who are starting or have a small company and are investors as well. Now is raising taxes the best way to attract more people and more importantly jobs to your state? Of course not. Christie did the responsible thing by 1) arguing the state could not tax it's self out of its debt and expect job growth 2) that these cuts would be tough he did not attempt to down play the seriousness of the situation and 3) Christie took on the unions and took his case to the public. He out smarted them by stating a simple fact that IF the teachers were willing to take a one year pay freeze and 1.5% of their salary towards healthcare that would eliminate the need to cut some $820 million in cuts he was proposing. When the NEA bulked at the idea Christie was able to say "see look they want you the taxpayer to feel all the pain" and it took hold. A vast majority of school district spending plans where defeated and Christie was able to move ahead with his spending cuts and talk about the need for tax freezes as well.
Now we can only speculate on what might have taken place if Christie had lost but somehow I do not think Christie is a girly man governor like the one out in California and clearly with a Democratic controlled legislature he will need to keep working to ensure his budgets stay their course of being balanced and responsible. But it appears this is a fight he is willing to take on and while I doubt he will be running in 2012 his message to the GOP contenders is very clear. If you make the case for tough spending cuts and why they are needed and it is a forceful message you can rally a public that is deeply concerned about not just individual state debt but also our massive national debt. It has been a long time since fiscal hawks have had something to really cheer about but if Christie is any indication we might just have more to cheer about in the coming years as it may appear that more in the GOP are learning they need to actually practice what they preach.
I would further point out that according to the US National Debt Clock federal pensions make up the 3rd largest expenditure of the budget. I would further point to the above graph that even when the private sector was growing the public sector grew and when the private sector cut jobs? Well it still kept on growing as the above chart will show. While again Bush may have increased the government workforce Obama is doing it today on steroids and in fact it is causing money to be sucked out of the private sector and increasing the national debt and thus hurting private sector growth. Instead of raising taxes to afford this public workforce perhapes it is time to cut it. Yes this will mean people will lose their jobs but these are jobs that are not sustainable unless we take money from others that do in fact create jobs aka employers. So the states and the federal governments need to trim their workforces as part of a plan to balance budgets and shrink the national debt. The only other choice is to allow the government to keep on it's rapid growth and watch as the private sector and the taxpayer keeps on paying the price for this growth.
E-Rock
Link for US National Debt Clock: http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Lessons from the Bell, California Fiasco High government salaries means soaring pension costs that taxpayers cannot afford. Adam B. Summers | August 24, 2010
The City of Bell has become the poster child for bad government. Exorbitant salaries, lavish pension benefits, a looming default on $35 million in city bonds, and illegal property taxes have all come to light recently. And as a result, taxpayers across California are focusing new scrutiny on their own local officials.
The biggest long-term threat to taxpayers and budgets is the pension crisis. Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo was raking in a salary of nearly $800,000, and a total compensation package of more than $1.5 million that included benefits such as 28 weeks worth of vacation and sick time. That puts taxpayers on the hook for over $600,000 a year for Rizzo’s pension—for the rest of his life—when he retires.
The Bell scandal is a microcosm of a new class struggle—in California and across the nation—between taxpayers and government employees. Government employees have become the new privileged class.
The argument of public workers has always been that they do not earn as much in salary as comparable private-sector workers, so governments must make up for this inequity through increased job security and greater pension benefits. If this was true a generation or two ago, it certainly is not today. The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report on employee compensation revealed that, as of March 2010, state and local government workers earn, on average, nearly 44 percent more than do private-sector workers, including 34 percent higher salaries and wages and over 66 percent greater benefits.
California taxpayers are already paying pensions of over $100,000 a year to more than 12,000 former state and local government workers, including over 9,000 state and local employees covered by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and greater than 3,000 former school administrators or teachers covered under the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS).
At the federal level, a recent USA Today analysis, based on Bureau of Economic Analysis data, found that government employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double that of private-sector workers. Federal workers earned average pay and benefits of more than $123,000 in 2009, compared to a little over $61,000 in total compensation for private workers. Since 2000, federal worker compensation has increased 36.9 percent after adjusting for inflation while private-sector workers saw only an 8.8 percent increase.
The silver lining of the Bell fiasco is that it has awakened taxpayers to the magnitude of the public employee compensation problem (recent studies suggest the state has $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities), and hopefully shamed some elected officials into implementing some real transparency reforms.
The excessive pay and benefits received by many government workers will not be solved, however, by merely increasing transparency of compensation data or tinkering around the edges of the pension system by offering slightly less generous benefits for new employees or requiring them to work a couple of more years before being eligible for retirement. The entire system needs to be overhauled. New employees should be switched to a 401(k)-style defined-contribution system, with pay and benefits comparable to those in the private sector. Only by seriously addressing excessive public employee pay and benefits can state and local governments in California ever rein in their enormous and unsustainable bureaucracies and return to any semblance of fiscal responsibility.
I have no issue with states running their education system but I can say that this policy is nutty. How are you going prove "reasonably supervis and encourage the student to attend school" so if the kid just doesn't go to school no matter what the parent does the parent goes to jail? This is a bad idea and smacks of big government. Surely California can find another way to get kids to want to go to school rather than through threatening parents with jail and fines.
E-Rock
California may jail parents if kids are truant
Talk about parental responsibility. The California Senate just passed a bill that could send parents to jail for up to a year if their kids -- from kindergarten through eighth grade -- miss too much school.
Senate Bill 1317 is actually a public safety measure, according to State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), because children who don’t attend school regularly or drop out early are more likely to turn to crime.
"Three-quarters of our state inmate population are high school dropouts," Leno was quoted as saying by the Fresno Bee.
According to the Associated Press, parents whose kids miss too much school could be subject to up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine, though judges could put the punishment on hold to give parents a chance to get their kids to class.
The Fresno Bee reported that the bill would apply to parents or guardians of children age 6 or older in kindergarten through eighth grade.
To find someone guilty under the bill, prosecutors would have to prove that the parents failed to reasonably supervise and encourage the student to attend school.
How much school is too much school to miss?
Chronic truancy would be as missing 10 percent or more of the school year without a valid excuse, the Bee reported.
The bill is the brainchild of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for attorney general.
"It's much cheaper to focus to getting that elementary school student to school than it is prosecuting a homicide,” she was quoted as saying by the Bee.
Well, yes, presumably, it is. But putting parents in jail for this? If it is hard for a parent to somehow get their kid to go to school from home, you can imagine how hard it would be from jail. What about single parents? Where would the kids go? Should I keep on asking ridiculous questions about a ridiculous bill?
No, I think not. You can come up with your own.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answe r-sheet/parents/california-considers-jailing-p.htm l
Okay so after some careful review of Imagine's blog I will say that yes he has some good ideas that will in fact trim spending and I am glad that he put it out there for debate and I see he has some supporters. But just a few quick points:
1,400,000,000,000 - 870,000,000,000 = 530,000,000,000 left in fiscal debt now lets say his tax loop closes which is a good thing people should not be using off shore acccounts to hide money they owe the government (we can debate the fairness of the current tax policy later) so:
530,000,000,000 -300,000,000,000 =230,000,00 0,000 left in fiscal debt. So in reality he has not balanced the budget at all. He just added to the national debt. This is to say nothing of his demand more money to be spent on immigration, education, entitlement spending such as his beloved UHC program. Now he claims he is working on another bill that would cut spending further and mind you raise taxes. But lets take a close look here at what his talking about.
So he gets ride of the Bush tax cuts after all those wealthy people making 250,000 and those small business owners don't need no stinkin tax cuts. They need to pay more! I can understand the fustration with the tax cuts not being paid for but what I propose is that we slash the federal work force and I in fact suggested as much in a blog last year during my candidancy for President. As for his slashing of the Homeland Security Department does he not understand that while I think that department is something of a joke they do handle the immigration issue? Further what part of DOD spending is he going to cut? I know he talks about ending the wars and oversea's bases fine and dandy but what about our nation's aging air force and navy assets?
Further let us examine the US National Debt Clock. What are some of the major spending areas that our government forks out the most for? Medicare/Medicade is first, Social Security, Federal Pensions, Defense/Wars, interest on the national debt, and lastly earmarks. They make up the biggest chunks of the Federal Budget. So when he talks about keeping Social Security understand more taxes and with UHC well look at Europe I guess if that is what they call a working UHC model go for it. But as precentage of the Debt to GDP Ratio: 1) Japan 2) Greece 3)Italy 4)Germany 5) Portugal 6)UK and 7) USA. All of those top 5 nations have UHC and last I checked meger defense spending programs with the exemption of the UK. So yes in fact we do need major reforms in our entitlement spending. Further as for eduaction according to the National Center for Education Statistics we spend roughly as of 2007 about 10,000 per child in the US. And in fact that number is up from 1962 when we lead the world in areas that we now well....... rank pretty poorly. Is it the money that we spend or what and how we are teaching? How has the Federal Education program improved anything?
Alright let me sum this up. Is simply raising taxes and throwing it our problems the solution? If it was we should have a great education system and an economy that is humming right along. We don't and that is an undispoutable fact. Now what is up for debate is what we do about it. Our National Debt rought 13.3 trillion and to say nothing of the unfunded mandates of our entitlement spending can not be dealt with by just more taxes. That will have a major impact on the economy. Yes Imagine is right tax cuts should be paid for. He is right that we do need massive new spending cuts and I think as I said before he has some very good ideas. He does care about this issue and should be praised for that in fact I am glad to see him put his neck out with ideas even if we don't agree all the time on here. But what is not praise worthy in his bill is that 1) it does not balance the budget and 2) he does not say how much new spending he is going to have and how he is going to pay for it. Keep in mind just because u balance the budget each year doesn't mean the National debt is shrinking u need to pay for it. I hope his bill and this blog will stir debate on u4prez and cause people to realize how complex this issue is and why we need people not just on u4prez but more importantly in Washington to care about this issue.
Liberal Health Care Activists Advised to Avoid Saying That ObamaCare Reduces Costs and Deficit Peter Suderman | August 19, 2010
Are liberals backing down from core arguments about cost and deficit reductions in the new health care law? A leaked Powerpoint presentation put together by an alliance of prominent liberal politicians indicate that prominent liberal health care activists are moving away from messaging that focuses on health care costs and deficit reduction.
Politico’s Ben Smith has posted a copy of the presentation, which starts by noting the “challenging” environment for reformer advocates. What’s the challenge? “Straightforward ‘policy’ defenses fail to be moving voters’ opinions of the law,” the presentation explains, and many people “don’t believe that health reform will help the economy.” Not only are voters worried about the rising cost of health care, they “believe costs will continue to rise.” It’s a frank admission that the economic argument in favor of the law has basically failed amongst voters.
So what are activists to do? The presentation suggests that when making the case for ObamaCare, advocates must reassure seniors that Medicare benefits won’t be cut (which isn’t strictly true). And it suggests they focus on the recent decision to force insurers to offer “free preventive care” (never mind they these benefits aren’t really free). But whatever they do, the final slide of the presentation warns, activists should not “say the law will reduce costs and deficit”—which is probably a smart idea given how unlikely the administration's claims about the deficit have always been.
Here’s Smith on the groups behind the message:
The messaging shift was circulated this afternoon on a conference call and PowerPoint presentation organized by FamiliesUSA—one of the central groups in the push for the initial legislation. The call was led by a staffer for the Herndon Alliance, which includes leading labor groups and other health care allies. It was based on polling from three top Democratic pollsters, John Anzalone, Celinda Lake, and Stan Greenberg....The Herndon Alliance, which presented the research, is a low-profile group which coordinated liberal messaging in favor of the public option in health care. Its "partners" include health care legislation's heavyweight supporters: The AARP, AFL-CIO, SEIU, Health Care for America Now, MoveOn, and La Raza, among many others.
Is the White House, which spent so much time and energy making the case for the fiscal responsibility of its health care law, going to push back at so many of its close allies for playing down its initial cost and deficit claims? Somehow I doubt it. Not when we’re already seeing evidence that the PPACA will push health insurance premiums higher starting as early as next year.
The best case that liberal health care advocates can make here is that they are simply backing off the cost and deficit claims because those arguments aren’t resonating with voters. No matter what, as Smith's piece notes, this signals a dramatic shift in messaging—one that basically concedes that, in the court of public opinion, critics have won the core economic argument about the law.
Alright so Target donated $150,000 some dollars in the MN election to a group called MN Forward which does support Tom Emmer. Why did Target donate the money? It had nothing to do with Emmer’s social policies far from it. They see Emmer as far more business friendly in the state of MN. But no matter this donation to this group makes them anti-gay never mind their past support for the gay community. I believe this fake outrage and I will not be boycotting Target and nor should Target have apologized.
Target made a donation they believed to be in the best interest of the company as whole. With Dayton walking around telling everyone he is going to raise taxes on just about anything that can walk in MN they saw Emmer’s low tax policies as something they supported. What is not to understand? So Emmer is a social conservative that must be the reason Target supported him right? Further you have Moveon.org suddenly claiming that this is Target’s way of “buying” the election. Now wait just a minute. The Dayton family has thus far spent some $901,000 dollars on DFL PACs here in MN. Now while Dayton suddenly for pure political reason’s called for an end to third party ads this seems to have more to do with the fact that conservative groups now know after a long DFL primary where to fire their ammunition at. Moveon.org had no issue with all the corporate money flowing into the coffers of the Dayton campaign or groups supporting him. But low and behold Target makes what in this expensive race is a drop in the bucket donation to a group supporting Emmer and we have fake outrage over it.
I can understand if you’re gay you might be disappointed with Target but before going off the deep end it might be wise to think about why they really made the donation or if in fact any of their policies or support for the gay community has really changed. But honestly I see this as nothing to do with gay marriage issue or even trying to “buy” an election. If Target had donated the money to Dayton or the DFL , Moveon.org could care less about “corporate money being spent. So the only question I am left with is can we please stop with this fake outrage?
Source for how much money is being spent by Dayton Family: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/speci al/columns/polinaut/archive/2010/07/will_it_be_day t.shtml
The government’s twin housing behemoths—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—cannot simply be cut lose from government support. Like animals kept too long in captivity, Fannie and Freddie will not be able to survive in the wild.
This is something that supporters of Fannie and Freddie have right: government support is absolutely necessary for their existence.
But that doesn’t mean we should continue the government life-support.
In fact, there is good reason to end government support for the agencies and let them wither away.
The truth is that there is nothing that Fannie and Freddie do that private companies couldn’t do better—except provide an illusory subsidy for homebuyers. And there are far better ways to subsidize housing than propping up Fannie and Freddie.
Fannie and Freddie are supposed to make housing more affordable by buying up mortgages and providing guarantees for mortgages that conform to the guidelines developed by bureaucrats. Both take the risks of making loans away from private lenders and put them on Fannie and Freddie. Mortgage lenders are willing to make loans at cheaper rates when part of the risk of default is absorbed by someone else.
That’s it. That’s really the only way that Fannie and Freddie save homebuyers money—by taking on the risks of making mortgages that would otherwise sit with the lenders. The lenders then pass on the savings to homebuyers by providing mortgages at slightly lower rates.
But if Fannie and Freddie are just big insurance companies for mortgage lenders, there’s no reason that this couldn’t be done by private markets. Insurance is a huge business in the United States.
And mortgage insurance is, in fact, available from private companies.
The main advantage Fannie and Freddie have is access to cheap capital.
Even before they were put into government conservatorship, Fannie and Freddie could borrow money from debt investors at rates far cheaper than private competitors because they enjoyed the implicit guarantee of the United States government. Debt investors assumed—correctly, it turns out—that if these companies got in trouble, the U.S. taxpayer would assure that they could pay off their debts.
Now that they have access to government bailout capital, the advantage is even larger. Where private financial companies must dilute current common shareholders and promise huge dividends to preferred equity buyers in order to raise equity capital, Fannie and Freddie simply present a bill to the U.S. Treasury. So far those bills have added up to over $145 billion.
There’s more than a bit of financial chicanery in the government’s arrangement with Fannie and Freddie. As part of their conservatorship, both companies are required to make dividend payments to the Treasury.
But this is a charade. Last quarter, Fannie owed $1.9 billion in dividends to the Treasury. It couldn’t make the payments, so it request $1.5 billion from the Treasury to pay back the Treasury. For real. That’s what happened.
Access to cheap, government guaranteed debt and equity means that Fannie and Freddie can provide guarantees to mortgage lenders far cheaper than any private company can. And that’s the source of the subsidy for homebuyers: Fannie and Freddie undercut competition by providing mortgage insurance far cheaper than the market allows for private companies.
Absent the government guarantee and attendant cheap funding, there would be no reason for Fannie and Freddie to exist. They’d no longer be able to undercut private competition. In all likelihood, the leaner, more efficient private competitors would clean their clocks.
Fannie and Freddie would die—or be transformed into ordinary companies with no special role to play in the housing market.
Unfortunately, we do not know how to cut Fannie and Freddie off from the government guarantee. Prior to the crisis, government officials often insisted there was no guarantee of Fannie and Freddie—but no one believed them and the officials turned out to be either mistaken or lying.
Now—after the bailout—the government lacks all credibility on Fannie and Freddie. As long as they exist, Fannie and Freddie will enjoy a competition killing advantage that will undermine any attempt to create a healthy mortgage market not dependent on government subsidies. They cannot be privatized—they need to be killed.
Defenders of Fannie and Freddie insist that their role in making mortgages cheaper is vital to the market and expanding home-ownership.
But this is nonsense. Fannie and Freddie never made mortgages cheaper—they merely hid the costs. The subsidy was illusory.
Economists estimate that over the course of their lifetimes, Fannie and Freddie probably saved homebuyers $100 billion in mortgage payments. That compares very badly to the $145 billion in bailout funds they’ve already received—and horribly with the $386 billion the Congressional Budget Office says the companies will cost taxpayers over the next decade. Homebuyers got cheaper mortgages but at a very stiff price for taxpayers.
Any sensible person can see that this is a bad deal.
If we really want to make home-mortgages cheaper, we would do far better admitting that we cannot do this for free. The money saved on the mortgage will end up on the tax bill.
Fortunately, there is a better way to shift the cost from mortgage payments to tax payments—simply increase the mortgage tax subsidy. We already allow for mortgage interest to be deducted from income taxes.
To make up for the loss of Fannie and Freddie, we could just have the government give a bigger tax break to anyone making a mortgage payment. We’d save money by avoiding the extra costs of running Fannie and Freddie—such as the costs of the mismanagement, the executive salary padding, the costs of oversight, the dividends to the shareholders, and the donations to paid off politicians.
A bigger mortgage tax break is not a free lunch. We’d have to pay for that too—either through spending cuts or higher taxes elsewhere. But at least we wouldn’t be funding Fannie and Freddie anymore.
I am only going to say a few words the below piece spells it out better then I can. But while people talk about caring about the national debt it remains to be seen what they really want to be done about. I would further add that despite some people living in fantasy land about this issue does not really matter I believe that next to job creation and taxes this issue is one of major concern to the public. The question is will real leadership stand up in DC make the cuts that are so desperatly needed and make the case to the public on why even if it may mean losing their seats?
E-Rock
POLITICSAUGUST 16, 2010.Voters Back Tough Steps to Reduce Budget Deficit By JONATHAN WEISMAN
RICHMOND, Va.—Frustrated voters, fixing on the $1.5 trillion federal deficit as a symbol of Washington's paralysis, appear increasingly willing to take drastic steps to address the red ink.
.Leonard Anderson, 56 years old, a Richmond, Va., drug-maker engineer and a Republican, said he would be willing to accept a national sales tax to raise revenues. Kimberly Moore, 46, a Richmond Democrat and bank information-technology analyst, said everyone will have to accept budget cuts. And at 67, Paul DesJardins, a Henrico, Va., Republican, said he would accept higher Medicare co-payments and deductibles.
"As Americans, we're all going to have to cut back and take less," said Lois Profitt, a 58-year-old small-business owner and political independent from Chesterfield, Va.
With the November midterm elections looming, voters appear ahead of Washington in grappling with the tough choices to come, according to national polling and a focus group commissioned by The Wall Street Journal in the bellwether city of Richmond.
That is a source of political peril for both Democratic and Republican parties, which are trying to talk about the deficit without addressing the specifics of how they would tackle it. Leaders on both sides of the aisle worry about being attacked if they produce a package of painful spending cuts or tax increases. And to reinforce lawmakers' anxiety, voters remain divided about what ought to be done.
"It's a brutal predicament for politicians because the rhetoric of deficit cutting is enormously popular, but the details are incredibly unpopular," said Matt Bennett, a vice president at the Democratic group Third Way, which has polled extensively on the issue.
For meaningful deficit reduction to happen, Republicans and Democrats likely would have to work together to slash spending or raise taxes. Instead, Republicans are attacking Democrats for planning to allow some Bush-era tax cuts to lapse. Democrats are accusing Republicans of plotting the privatization of Social Security. And neither party has convinced Americans it is serious about the problem.
Republicans are seen as the party most trusted to reduce the deficit by 32%, compared to 24% for Democrats, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. But a plurality of 40% see no difference between the two parties on the issue.
The White House professes to be relatively sanguine about the short-term deficits, half of which stem from collapsing tax receipts and rising spending on programs associated with the recession. The president has largely kicked deficit reduction to a bipartisan commission that will report back in December.
"If Barack Obama wasn't serious about this, he wouldn't have set it up," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said of the commission. "We're not going to eliminate three gimmicks and a loophole and call it a day."
But the president may run into opposition in his own party. A group of liberal economists argue that deficit cutting now would kill off the struggling recovery and send the deficit soaring higher. And complicating matters for Democrats, some liberal interest groups argue that Social Security is sound and in no need of serious change.
Voters seem more impatient and say they want their political leaders to take a stand. "I wish the politicians would be hard-a—, and be like, 'You know what? It's going to be horrible for the next few years, but you've got to shut up," ' said Jennifer Ciminelli, a 35-year-old political independent in Richmond, Va., and one of 12 Virginians who participated in the Journal's focus group. It included four independents, four Republicans and four Democrats.
Virginia is a new swing state that voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 then elected a Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, the next year. Most of the focus group hailed from the congressional district of House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a rising force in Republican politics who has made fiscal rectitude as well as tax cutting a mantra. Some came from the district of Rep. Bobby Scott, a liberal Democrat. Just to the west and south is the district of freshman Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello, one of the most embattled incumbents in the country.
Even among such diverse voices, the nation's fiscal problems were a central concern. At $1.47 trillion, the federal deficit this fiscal year exceeds all defense and nondefense spending at Congress's discretion by $110 million. In other words, lawmakers could eliminate the entire military, all federal education, agricultural, housing programs, federal prisons, the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigations, Coast Guard and border patrol, and the nation would still be in the red.
Half of the current deficit stems from falling tax revenues and rising spending on programs associated with the recession, such as unemployment insurance and food stamps, along with temporary measures such as the stimulus and the Wall Street bailout. The administration projects the deficit—now at 10% of the economy—will fall to 3.4% of the gross domestic product by 2014 as these programs end and the economy recovers.
But then long-term demographic problems kick in, which in some ways dwarf the short-term deficit spike. With the baby boom generation retiring, the deficit will begin rising again because of rising Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending. The accumulated debt held by the public will exceed 77% of the economy within a decade, not including the debt the government owes itself for raiding Social Security taxes for decades.
"The country's going to deteriorate," said Mary Beth Davis, a 27-year-old professional photographer and Democratic-leaning independent from Midlothian, Va. "It already is."
.Washington is making a show of tackling the problem. Republicans have started resisting politically inviting bills—such as a recent bill to prevent layoffs of teachers and police officers—in an effort to regain the mantle of fiscal rectitude. And a group of House Democrats last month broke with their leaders to propose unpopular spending cuts that they say are necessary to win the public's trust on the issue, such as cutting agriculture subsidies.
"The deficit plays into people's anxieties," said Rep. Peter Welch (D., Vt.), a founding member of the House's new Spending Cuts and Deficit Reduction Working Group. "They believe all this government spending is making their positions more precarious without helping them personally."
But the leadership of both parties have steadfastly resisted offering solutions. Mr. Cantor, who would likely become House majority leader if his party wins back control, pointed to the experience of his colleague, Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.). Mr. Ryan's detailed "road map" to a balanced budget has been attacked by Democrats who have tried to tie his proposals, such as a voucher system for Medicare, to the GOP leadership.
Mr. Cantor acknowledged a hunger for straight talk on the deficit. But he added, "We have to embark on an incremental approach to rebuild confidence, so we can live up to what people want."
Mr. Ryan has drawn a different conclusion. On Tuesday, he said, he was putting air in his wife's tire in Janesville, Wis., when a constituent asked him about his deficit plan. The voter wasn't taken aback as Mr. Ryan spelled out big cuts in domestic spending. "These things are thought of as such third rails," said Mr. Ryan. "They become a political weapon to be used against you. But people are ready for this stuff. They're ready to hear the truth."
The focus group, however, also showed evidence of the perils most in Washington seek to avoid. Craig Christmas, 38, a Democrat and public-school guidance counselor, said he didn't want to cut education or see his taxes rise. Randy Rowekamp, 61, a retired information-services worker from Midlothian, Va., who describes himself as an independent who leans Republican, railed against Washington profligacy and was reluctant to embrace specific cuts.
"You hurt people. There are people living on Social Security. If you start taking that away or lowering it, you're impacting a person's life," he cautioned. Ms. Davis, the photographer, adamantly opposed raising the eligibility age for Medicare.
"This is a mirror of what Americans think," exclaimed Ms. Moore, the bank analyst, sounding exasperated. "You have an electorate that is impossibly fickle and difficult to please but who cannot articulate exactly what needs to be done."
Such frustrations emerge nationally in the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. In it, 74% said it would be acceptable to change Medicare to provide larger subsidies for low-income seniors, while cutting subsidies for the more affluent. Sixty-four percent would accept capping Medicare and Medicaid payments to health-care providers, while 58% backed subjecting incomes over $107,000 to Social Security taxes.
But 57% found cuts to national security and defense weapons systems unacceptable. Slowly raising the retirement age to 70 to reduce Social Security costs was acceptable to only 36% of those polled. Raising the eligibility age for Medicare was even less popular.
"Folks want to cut the deficit, but they say, 'Don't touch my Social Security. Don't touch my Medicare. Don't cut defense spending, and don't raise my taxes,"' said Rep. Gary C. Peters (D, Mich.), another member of the House budget-cutting task force. "This is going to take courage."
Still, veterans of the budget wars see one reason for optimism in the subtle shifts in public opinion. Unlike politicians, most Americans don't seem to place partisan blame on one party or another, so neither party can claim the high ground. "There's no end in sight, and it's both parties," said Dani Saunders, 31, a conservative independent who keeps the books for her husband's Richmond tattoo parlor.
From the u4prez.com White House Offical Press Release 8-13-2010
The President will by flying today from MSP Airport down to St. Louis MO where he will meet up with Vice President Smashey for high level talks over drinks. "This trip has been on the books for weeks and is about the President and the VP cutting loose for the wkend and having fun and not dealing with the issues " said an aid. " Well I can imagine that the talk will be mostly about sports and drinking" said a Senior VP advisor. "After all on a scale off issues that matter drinking and sports are a high 10 and taxes, two wars, and other issues are well not that important."
The White House announced that the trip will be paid for by cutting 2,300 Federal Jobs. "Hey we thought about adding to the national debt but that would be wrong so we made a tough choice" said President E-Rock.
It had been thought that the President was preparing to deal with Lawerance Kansas but the White House has been denying that story for sometime.
Hub is now saying the Democrats are the cleaning crew. Sure they did inherit a pretty big mess from the GOP make no mistake. But after running Congress for four years and the White House for almost two years. I think it is time to look at the so called cleaning crew:
1) The National Debt is $13.3 Trillion growing faster under Obama in his first two years then under Bush's first 4.
2) It is now fact that the stimulus did not work and that the economy is starting to go down yet again. Home foreclosures up 9% in July, new unemployment claims have jumped as well. Further unemployment stays at about 9.5% but only because millions have simply stopped looking for jobs.
3) After promising not to enact the mandate for healthcare Obama broke his promise and enacted it anyways. The Democratic party has seen no bump in the polls for passing it and in fact the more the public learns the less it likes.
4) As for oversea's policy well does the US have a policy?
5) Giving bailouts that help unions and big companies and banks but letting tax cuts that help investors, small companies, etc. expire is just wrong.
6) Defending the privacy of the Federal Reserve? Obama did not like Ron Pau's bill to bring transparency and openess to this powerful organization so that the American people can learn what happened to their money.
I could go on but alas I will stop there. As for what a real clean up crew would have looked like:
1) Cut spending, start paying off the national debt.
2) Perhapes it would have been better for the government to give small companies tax cuts and allow a 5 year tax free period for start up companies, increase the amount they can write off for equipment expenses, temporarily halt the pay roll tax.
3) Perhapes having a healthcare plan that works and reforming our run away entitlement spending would have been a good choice here and sticking with the promise not to make healthcare mandatory as well would have helped also.
4)At least under Bush we knew what the oversea's policy was going to be. Some may not have liked it but for Obama to anger our allies such as the UK, France, Israel, Germany, seems to me a step in wrong direction. A step in the right direction would have been to use our diplomatic core in a more positive way and improve relations with these nations and other nations without looking weak.
5) End the bailouts yes it is going to hurt in the short term but in the long term you keep the taxpayers liable for the failures of big companies that is not capitalism at all. Further giving unions bailouts with taxpayer money just because the union bosses tossed how many millions at the election for your party is wrong.
6) Start audting the Federal Reserve so that we know exactly what the money we give them is going to. Why is it such a secret?
Like I said this is such a short list off the top of my head. Further I might add real immigration reform might be a good thing as well and something that a true clean up crew would have taken care off by now. Yes The President has alot of legislative sucesses and that is nothing to snear at but the question is did those success help or hurt our nation? I believe that so far they have hurt and I believe in 2012 this nation may be ready to elect a real clean up crew to clean up after this even bigger mess.
Today is the MN primary and no I didn’t vote I am letting the field settle before I decide to vote for. I am not sold on any yet. But I am going to make a prediction that Mark Dayton will win. This is mostly because of his money which means a good GOTV effort state wide. Further his name id is rock solid in this state and I am sure that many seniors remember him taking them up to Canada however what do rank and file DFL members think of Dayton? After all he snubbed the convention in which they nominated Margaret Anderson Kelliher. Further given his family’s massive donation to such groups Win Minnesota and Alliance for a Better Minnesota the question is do they want to put some rich guy who out there who is clearly trying to buy the election? Kelliher the Speaker of House I believe would be a much better bet. She is well spoken and has been a solid Speaker of the House for the DFL. I am not saying I agree with her but for the DFL to put up Dayton which I believe they will do, unless like I said the rank and file decide to teach him a lesson about snubbing the convention, would make this leaning Dem Governor’s race into a much more open race yes money may help Dayton but it can also be a turn off many people no matter how much Dayton says he wants to raise taxes on himself.
It should be common sense to see that when one is doing something time and again and it is not working you should try something new. But alas that lesson seems to have been lost on our current President and even on the Paul " debt" Krugman. That is right Paul "debt" Krugman who can never seem to get around to telling the public how when the debt comes due we are going to pay for it or how it that might hurt the future economic growth. I mean if the debt keeps getting bigger at somepoint we might raise taxes right? What does that do for investment? For growth? The President should put down the NY Times and maybe think about curbing spending and giving tax cuts to middle class Americans, investors, and small companies. We can pay for those cuts with o I don't cutting some government agencies and the federal work force. But enough with this idea that some how Keyensian economics with it's massive debt spending is going to save us. The best it did was get unemployment during the Great Depression to about 14% maybe 9% at best. Who cares that even the Sec. of Treasury as I have pointed out in other blogs said that the spending and debt policy did not work. Let us just keep doing the same thing again, and again, and again................. damn the prosperity of future generations.
E-Rock
REVIEW & OUTLOOKAUGUST 7, 2010.It Isn't Working
Three years of spending and monetary stimulus haven't helped jobs. Another month, another mediocre jobs report from the Department of Labor. This is consistent with the rest of the economic evidence that this is a lackluster recovery that so far is not turning into a durable expansion.
The economy shed 131,000 jobs in July and the number of jobs created in May and June were revised downward to 221,000 lost jobs. The unemployment rate held steady at 9.5% but that does not reflect the fact that the number of discouraged workers is also up 389,000 from a year ago.
Private employment did inch up in July by 71,000 positions, with a nice 36,000 pick-up in manufacturing jobs, but even that number is deceptive. The vast majority of those jobs were in the auto industry. Alas, not every struggling manufacturing plant in America can have a lifeline to the federal Treasury.
The average work week lengthened by 0.1 hours and wages bumped up by 4 cents an hour in July to $22.59. This means things are getting better if you already have a job. The amazing thing is how weak the recovery remains after so much fiscal and monetary stimulus.
The problem is if you're still looking for work, because the private sector isn't feeling confident enough to create new jobs. The declines in the household survey tend to reflect small businesses better than does the payroll survey, and small businesses in particular aren't creating new jobs the way they have in other recoveries. The shrinking size of the labor force is helping to keep the official jobless rate below 10%, but that's mostly because some one million workers have dropped out of the labor force since April.
So far the Obama team has thrown the entire Keyensian playbook at the economy. We have paid people to buy cars, purchase homes, pay off their mortgages, weatherize their homes and put solar paneling on their roofs. And of course there was the original stimulus package of $862 billion, though some of that remains unspent. None of it has put America back to work.
.The policy lesson is that you can't have a jobs recovery without private confidence and investment. The Obama crowd bet that you could force-feed private investment with government spending and politically directed credit, but the result has been to traumatize business instead. Why would a small business owner hire anyone new if he knows that taxes are going up, health-care costs are sure to rise, and the cost of each new employee is uncertain? Nor can you inspire business confidence if you demonize bankers and business.
The economy is now 2.5 million jobs short of where it would need to be to get back under the 8% unemployment rate we were promised. With the federal government running a $1.4 trillion deficit, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling the House back into session to pass a $26 billion "stimulus" bill to give cash to states, cities and teachers unions.
As the evidence mounts that government spending doesn't create net new jobs, the White House insists we need to double down on spending and monetary stimulus. We've now had three years of this policy, and it isn't working. Time to try a different economic model, the one that worked in the 1980s after another severe recession.
MSNBC reported this morning that the economy shed some 131,000 jobs the bulk of which was the temporary census taker jobs which are ending as the summer drags on. Other bad news is that while the private sector did add some 71,000 this is well short of the 90,000 and vastly short of the 200,000 per month job growth that would mean a true end to this recession. In addition if we look at the underemployment rate those working part time but would like to have full time jobs and those who have stopped looking for work the number is 16.5%.
I suppose Obama will tout his stimulus plan again but I do believe that the verdict which was in many months ago is now official is that the stimulus package failed. While Democrats will agrue they inherited a tough economy which is true the larger question is what have they done to improve it? In reality the moves they have made have only increased the national debt, increased government control, and are letting tax cuts which help the business world expire. The fact is we are now well into the second year of the Obama Administration and it is time for him to take accountablility for the lack of job growth and to stop blaming the previous adminstration for the failure of his plans and for the record that his party will now run on come this november.
August 4, 2010 4:00 AM PDT Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images by Declan McCullagh
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” Benjamin Franklin
For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they're viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."
Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.
This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for "testing, training, and evaluation purposes." The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.
Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that critics have likened it to a virtual strip search. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images, and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail. The U.S. government likes the idea because body scanners can detect concealed weapons better than traditional magnetometers.
This privacy debate, which has been simmering since the days of the Bush administration, came to a boil two weeks ago when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that scanners would soon appear at virtually every major airport. The updated list includes airports in New York City, Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction pulling the plug on TSA's body scanning program. In a separate lawsuit, EPIC obtained a letter (PDF) from the Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department, and released it on Tuesday afternoon.
These "devices are designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded, which is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing," EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET. "We think it's significant."
William Bordley, an associate general counsel with the Marshals Service, acknowledged in the letter that "approximately 35,314 images...have been stored on the Brijot Gen2 machine" used in the Orlando, Fla. federal courthouse. In addition, Bordley wrote, a Millivision machine was tested in the Washington, D.C. federal courthouse but it was sent back to the manufacturer, which now apparently possesses the image database.
The Gen 2 machine, manufactured by Brijot of Lake Mary, Fla., uses a millimeter wave radiometer and accompanying video camera to store up to 40,000 images and records. Brijot boasts that it can even be operated remotely: "The Gen 2 detection engine capability eliminates the need for constant user observation and local operation for effective monitoring. Using our APIs, instantly connect to your units from a remote location via the Brijot Client interface."
This trickle of disclosures about the true capabilities of body scanners--and how they're being used in practice--is probably what alarms privacy advocates more than anything else.
A 70-page document (PDF) showing the TSA's procurement specifications, classified as "sensitive security information," says that in some modes the scanner must "allow exporting of image data in real time" and provide a mechanism for "high-speed transfer of image data" over the network. (It also says that image filters will "protect the identity, modesty, and privacy of the passenger.")
"TSA is not being straightforward with the public about the capabilities of these devices," Rotenberg said. "This is the Department of Homeland Security subjecting every U.S. traveler to an intrusive search that can be recorded without any suspicion--I think it's outrageous." EPIC's lawsuit says that the TSA should have announced formal regulations, and argues that the body scanners violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches.
TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz told CNET on Wednesday that the agency's scanners are delivered to airports with the image recording functions turned off. "We're not recording them," she said. "I'm reiterating that to the public. We are not ever activating those capabilities at the airport."
The TSA maintains that body scanning is perfectly constitutional: "The program is designed to respect individual sensibilities regarding privacy, modesty and personal autonomy to the maximum extent possible, while still performing its crucial function of protecting all members of the public from potentially catastrophic events."
This post was updated at 2:25 p.m. PDT with a comment from a TSA spokeswoman.
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20012583-281.htm l
Results coming in: Missouri voters tackle ObamaCare mandate in referendum; Update: 76% voting yes earlyShare118posted at 9:24 pm on August 3, 2010 by Allahpundit
If you want to know which news item will be making Gibbs look constipated at tomorrow’s briefing, look no further. It’s the first time voters from any state have addressed the mandate at the polls.
And things are looking good.
Opponents of Prop C — those who support the insurance mandate — have been frustrated by the lack of a vigorous campaign to defeat it. Apart from a mass mailing by the Missouri Hospital Association, no organized effort existed until a few weeks ago when three 19-year-olds started a Facebook campaign. “I’ve had to spend about $500 out of my own pocket making signs,” lamented Caleb-Michael Files, the Subway sandwich-shop manager and full-time college student who launched the Facebook effort. He wonders why Missouri is spending money on a referendum likely to stir up an expensive court case. “The law is the law,” he says. Missouri lieutenant governor Peter Kinder is one of several state officials across the country who have already filed suit challenging the federal law. (Another of those, Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, gained a small victory in his fight against the law on Monday, when a federal judge ruled that the state does indeed have standing to bring the suit.)
Prop C is a gimme for the GOP base. In polls, Republicans strongly oppose Obamacare — and Tuesday’s primaries are far more interesting on the GOP side, practically guaranteeing a turnout heavily skewed against health care reform. Republicans barely need to raise more money to get out the vote.
Democrats in the state legislature actually colluded to make sure it was on the ballot today so that they wouldn’t have to risk an even more embarrassing result in November. Here’s the actual text of the proposition together with real-time polling results. It’s symbolic, of course: Strictly speaking, it would deny the government of Missouri the power to penalize citizens for failing to buy health insurance, but that’ll be irrelevant if/when a federal court decides that the mandate in ObamaCare is constitutional. This is pure politics, aimed at reminding Democrats that even in a perennial swing state, opposition to compulsory insurance isn’t a close call. Too bad the vote didn’t happen a few weeks earlier, as a lopsided win might have scared a few centrist Dems away from other hot-button legislation like financial reform.
As I write this, with 282 precincts reporting, the anti-mandate vote leads … by 47 points. Scroll all the way down to the bottom here and follow along. Update: With roughly a third of all precincts reporting, the anti-mandate vote is at … 75.8 percent. Good lord.
Not long ago, I went to a local school board meeting in the town where I live north of New York City. The meeting was about the proposed school budget, which voters in our town get to vote on. Our district was spending $28,000 per student, and I got up to the microphone and suggested this was too high, and that high property taxes were starting to have a pernicious effect on the town. Cue the disapproving shaking of heads. He wants to take money from our children!
The next woman got up to the mic and said that we needed large school budgets to protect our home values. Then she declared those of us in opposition as "greedy." What I wish I had then said was this:
This town has been unfailingly generous to the school system for decades. In fact, the growth in the school budget has been close to 8%, far outpacing inflation. And yes, while good schools help home values, there reaches a tipping point where high taxes hurt more than good schools help. We passed that tipping point long ago. Now, property taxes are crushing our home values. Just as importantly, they are changing the culture of our town. We are becoming a temporary residence for people with school age children. They stay as long as they have kids in school, then leave. Retirees, who had paid off their mortgages years ago, can no longer remain because of property taxes. The voraciousness of the school system is slowly destroying our town from the inside, and yet you call me greedy?
The point here is that there is a moral and social component to keeping taxes low - it's not simply about individuals wanting to keep more money in their pockets. This is an argument that, in particular, Republicans need to hear, because while they profess to like low taxes, they retreat into their turtle shells every time a Democrat yells, "Tax cuts are for the rich!"
Republicans understand that tax moderation spurs economic activity. But not all possess the philosophical underpinning that gives one the confidence to fend off specious attacks. Many don't, in a nutshell, understand the morality of their own position. This makes them weak advocates.
My town is a great example. Taxes are driving away the elderly and actually breaking up multi generational families. The town is slowly losing its unique culture and institutional memory. Oh, and yes, our home values are getting crushed, but that's not an argument that the left is particularly concerned with. Playing on their pitch, though, they are supposed to be concerned with things like culture and population diversity. So they tell us, almost constantly. And yet their position on matters of tax runs counter to their own goals.
I remember Reagan's trickle down thesis being mocked, but history shows us over and over again that it is precisely how the world works, and thank goodness for that. Job creation - from CEO down to night janitor - doesn't happen without business creation. Business creation doesn't happen unless those that have capital (the rich!) can be enticed to remove it from the comfort of a bank account and risk it on some new enterprise. There has to be a reward in it, in other words.
That taxes affect economic behavior would seem to be straightforward enough, but policy makers rarely stop to consider it. Remember the Clinton era luxury tax? It was applied to expensive cars and boats, and the intent was to get more money out of rich people. Do you remember what happened? Rich people stopped buying. In particular, they stopped buying boats. The immediate and unintended consequence of this was that shipyards in Maine went out of business and lots of workers were thrown out of work. Rich people can do just fine without a boat, middle class workers cannot do fine without employment. Where's the morality in that? There exists, I would suggest, a "taxation morality curve" that may look like this:
link for curve: http://thenakeddollar.blogspot.com/2010/07/taxatio n-and-morality.html
Sometimes concepts are understood most easily if one looks at the most extreme examples first. Zero taxation anywhere in society - the left edge of my graph - gets a score of "zero" morality. Government couldn't exist, and therefore there would be no property rights or assurance of liberty. Society would be dominated by well armed thieves. This is not conjecture, we can see it today in places like Mogadishu that have no functioning government.
The other end of the spectrum - full confiscatory taxation - produces the same result. At a 100% marginal tax rate, the entire economy would operate on the black market. Government couldn't exist since it couldn't collect anything. Thus, again, we would have a society dominated by thieves and violent anarchy. Justice would be a distant notion. I will also give this society a morality score of zero.
Since we know it is possible to construct a moral society somewhere in between, it therefore has to be that there exists a morality curve. This is interesting, because it is then a given that some taxation is highly moral. It pays for the things we need to preserve our rights and liberty. Rights are preserved, for instance, by the existence of our legal system, which must be supported by courts, public prosecutors, etc. Our liberty is preserved by a system of national defense as well as domestic law enforcement. These are not the only examples, but they are certainly the most important.
What's more interesting, though, is that after a certain point, marginal taxation necessarily decreases societal morality. If the curve ends up at zero, it has to go into decline at some point. As with property taxes in my town, taxation manufactures immoral outcomes. Those immoral outcomes fall hardest on the working classes, not the rich.
It is no coincidence that my graph looks a whole lot like the Laffer Curve, which postulates that after a certain level of taxation, revenues decline. The existence of the Laffer Curve - as well as the Morality Curve - cannot be in doubt. The open issue is the shape of these curves, i.e. at what point of taxation does revenue or morality decline? I believe the "real" morality curve (and Laffer Curve) looks something like this:
But back to the process. How, exactly, does taxation create immorality. If you have been following these letters, you know I have looked extensively at state-by-state fiscal and taxation comparisons. Many states like New York, California, and Illinois are in dire straits and need to close enormous budget gaps. Many want to raise marginal rates, particularly on top earners. This is a bad idea with a highly immoral outcome.
Witness the recent experience of Maryland, where the state legislature raised the top rate on millionaire households to 6.25% from 4.75%. Using static analysis - which postulates that behavior is never affected by rate changes - they estimated that they would collect an extra $106 million in revenue. Instead tax receipts from rich filers - wait for it - fell by $257 million.
The number of millionaires filing fell by a whopping 30%. Certainly, some had income declines, but fully 12% didn't file, suggesting that most had just up and left. I'm guessing Florida is the beneficiary. (See: http://thenakeddollar.blogspot.com/2010/03/buy-flo rida-real-estate-plus-what-not.html.) You see, the people who have the most resources - and pay the lion's share of the taxes - are precisely the ones that can leave the easiest. In all likelihood, they already have homes in other states. Rush Limbaugh moving to Florida is costing New York close to $50 million over the life of his contract. How many dock workers or bus drivers do you need to cover that loss? LeBron James not coming to New York cost the state $12 million.
I'm not asking you to feel sorry for LeBron, Rush, or any of the other rich folks. Yes, it's immoral that they have to base where they live based on something as ridiculous as tax rates, but they'll get along somehow. What's really immoral is what happens to the people who don't have the same ability to live where they want. If you run a hedge fund, you can do it from anywhere. If you depend on others for your employment, you can try to move, but you'd have to find someone else willing to hire you. Good luck with that right now.
Businesses are also much more mobile than in the past. Once upon a time, if the state of Michigan raised taxes on the auto industry, they could count on GM (et al) to swallow hard and pony up. Now, they can outsource. Take a look at Detroit and tell me that's not exactly what happened:
But more to the point, today's businesses are more information based. Why does an internet company need to be based in New York? It can move tomorrow.
So what happens is that the lower rungs of the economic ladder are left holding the bag. Taxes spiral upward and services are systematically cut. Poverty and crime escalate, people suffer. If we accept that human misery is a form of immorality - at least, when we know we could have prevented it - then you understand how high levels of taxation are immoral.
This is a message that all Republicans need to internalize. Only then will they become effective advocates. (Incidentally, I'm not being partisan here. I welcome Democrats to internalize it, too. I'm just not holding my breath.)
It may seem like a lonely battle for the young Congressman who many consider one of the brightest raising stars in the Republican Party. His road map the only one scored by the Congressional Budget Office that works to start paying down the national debt only has a few Republicans supporting it. It takes care of those on social security and Medicare and it also will help the younger generation by allowing them to keep their money. The fact that Democrats are trying to use his road map against other Republicans for pure politics is sickening. As it is we use fear enough in our politics to stop x or to do y why is it when it comes to something tough and let’s face facts reforming entitlement spending which is unfunded to the ton of almost 50 trillion dollars is going to be a tough battle. But it seems clear that both sides would rather talk in a broad sense rather than try and come up with a concert plan to solve these issues. Now some even on this site say that the GOP should openly say it is for ending social security and up are set that the road map says phase out. But that is because it is a responsible plan and the left knows it. Even Alice M. Rivlin, an economic policy adviser in the Clinton administration, said to Ryan at the Brookings event, "I think absolutely you've done a huge service in getting [the plan] out there." Why? Because it is supposed to help jump start a badly needed debate in this country on how we pay down the debt and at the same time take care of those on the massive entitlement programs we have today.
The Democrats had a decent idea with PAY GO but it has sense been exposed a fraud. I am not saying the Ryan Road Map is perfect either but is a set of concert ideas which is why I am taking time to talk about it. I also believe that if the GOP wants to show the public they are serious about debt reform and have learned their lesson they need to start advancing concert ideas on this will happen. If they miss this opportunity they may have a hard time in 2012. But luckily for the GOP if they get the House back Ryan is going to be the Chairman of the Budget Committee and will work hard to ensure that doesn't happen. Here’s hoping that they listen to him.
E-Rock
Rep. Ryan pushes budget reform, and his party winces
By Perry Bacon Jr. Monday, August 2, 2010; A01
Viewing him as a rising star in the party, Republicans in Congress often talk up Rep. Paul Ryan as a potential governor, senator or House leader. The lanky, youthful-looking congressman from Wisconsin has begged off, citing his young children and limited desire to spend all his time raising campaign money.
Instead, Ryan is running a campaign of a different sort, one his party has so far refused to adopt: He is determined to persuade colleagues to get serious about eliminating the national debt, even if it means openly broaching overhauls of Medicare and Social Security.
He speaks in apocalyptic terms, saying the debt is "completely unsustainable" and warning that "it will crash our economy." He urges fellow politicians, and voters, to stop pretending that this problem will go away on its own.
He administers his sermons with evangelical zeal. He will go anywhere and talk to anyone who will listen. When he is not writing op-eds and appearing on television, he can often be found speaking to liberal and conservative audiences alike about his "Roadmap for America's Future," a plan he says would fix the problem.
"Political people always tell their candidates to stay away from controversy," said Ryan, 40. "They say, 'Don't propose anything new or bold because the other side will use it against you.' "
While he does not name the "political people," they no doubt include many Republican colleagues, who, even as they praise Ryan for his doggedness, privately consider the Roadmap a path to electoral disaster. Unlike most politicians of either party, he doesn't speak generically about reducing spending, but he does acknowledge the very real cuts in popular programs that will be required to bring down the debt.
His ideas are provocative, to say the least. They include putting Medicare and Medicaid recipients in private insurance plans that could cost the government less but potentially offer fewer benefits; gradually raising the retirement age to 70; and reducing future Social Security benefits for wealthy retirees.
Of the 178 Republicans in the House, 13 have signed on with Ryan as co-sponsors.
Ryan's proposals have created a bind for GOP leaders, who spent much of last year attacking the Democrats' health-care legislation for its measures to trim Medicare costs. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has alternately praised Ryan and emphasized that his ideas are not those of the party.
Ryan has not helped to make it easy for his leaders. He is a loyal Republican, but he is also perhaps the GOP's leading intellectual in Congress and occasionally seems to forget that he is a politician himself.
At a recent appearance touting the Roadmap at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, someone asked Ryan why more conservatives weren't behind his budget plan. "They're talking to their pollsters," Ryan answered, "and their pollsters are saying, 'Stay away from this. We're going to win an election.' "
His remarks illustrate the tension among Republicans over their fall agenda. Some strategists say the GOP should focus on attacking the Democrats; others want the party to offer a detailed governing plan.
The discomfort some Republicans feel for Ryan's proposals goes beyond November. If Republicans were to take control of Congress next year, Ryan will rise to chairman of the Budget Committee. He could use the position to hold colleagues accountable for runaway budget deficits and make it more difficult for fellow Republicans -- and Democrats -- to stuff bills with expensive projects that add to the problem.
In an interview, Ryan played down any tensions between himself and GOP leaders, saying both parties are to blame for the lack of action on controversial issues, such as Social Security.
He is one of six congressional Republicans on a commission that President Obama created to propose solutions to the debt; but he is worried that neither party will be eager to adopt the commission's ideas because of politics. He acknowledged causing his party some discomfort. Democrats, he said, are "going to try and wrap my Roadmap around people's necks."
At the same time, some Republicans, few of them politicians, praise the bold proposals. Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, an influential conservative magazine, recently wrote a piece titled, "Think Big: Republicans should embrace Paul Ryan's Road Map."
Ryan, who represents his home town of Janesville, a small city in southern Wisconsin, does not fit the picture of a typical congressman. He is cerebral and slips easily into academic jargon; he grew up with plans to be an economist. But Ryan worried that his ideas would stay buried in unread journals and decided to run for office, so he would have a larger stage and a chance to make policy instead of writing about it.
He was elected to the House in 1998, at the age of 28. He gained attention for his expertise in fiscal and budget matters. Four years ago, Republicans passed over several more senior lawmakers to make Ryan the top member of the GOP on the Budget Committee.
In 2008, he put out the first version of his budget-balancing plan. It has grown into a voluminous document that includes page after page of minutely detailed charts and tables, and includes a 75-year analysis of how the changes he proposes would affect the federal debt.
Ryan is no moderate, and his proposal reflects that. It would slow the expected growth in benefits for many Social Security recipients and would effectively give people on Medicare and Medicaid income-based vouchers to buy private insurance, bringing down the costs of those programs. Democrats say the vouchers would leave many seniors unable to afford coverage.
At the same time, Ryan's plan includes ideas that are attractive to conservatives but do little to reduce the deficit initially, such as allowing people under 55 to put their Social Security tax payments into personal accounts (similar to what President George W. Bush proposed in 2005). The ideas have sparked much interest on op-ed pages and in think tanks. Liberals oppose the private accounts and other parts of the plan, but Democrats and Republicans alike praise Ryan as one of the few members of either party to offer a fix for costly entitlements.
Alice M. Rivlin, an economic policy adviser in the Clinton administration, said to Ryan at the Brookings event, "I think absolutely you've done a huge service in getting [the plan] out there."
Last year, during the health-care debate, Ryan and a few colleagues tried to push a comprehensive health-care bill, modeled on the Roadmap proposal, that would remake Medicaid. But other Republicans viewed Ryan's plan as too radical, and they worried that conservative and independent voters would turn against it as they had against the Democrats' proposals. The GOP offered a bare-bones plan that would not have radically altered the health-insurance system or dramatically expanded coverage.
As the November midterm elections approach, GOP leaders have pledged to put out a "Commitment to America" plan outlining what they would do if Republicans regain control of the House. They say it will include specific details on policy issues. A few Republicans have already voiced concerns that the document will be more about political positioning than policy.
"Any plan that does not include a recognition of the entitlement problem is not credible," said Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), a Ryan ally.
Ryan said he does not think that voters would punish the GOP for shunning attack politics and for speaking plainly about the country's problems. He notes his own political success: He won reelection in 2008 with 62 percent of the vote despite coming from a district and a state that voted for Obama.
"It's really important, I think, not to run campaigns on some vague platitudes and rip down the other party, to hopefully win an election by default," he said. "You have to win an election by acclamation, by aspiration, by telling people who you are and what you are going to do, and then go do it once you get there."
Opinion: New Jobs at $100,000 a Pop? by Mark Budman
(July 30) -- The Local Jobs for America Act proposes to spend up to $100 billion to create and save a million public and private jobs in communities this year. While a million jobs sounds like a huge number, let's look at the money spent on that task and analyze the premise.
What does it mean to "create and save"? If a person is laid off after, say, six months on the job, does this job still count as created or saved? Moreover, if you divide $100 billion by a million, you get $100,000. That's a lot of money to spend to "create or save" a single job that may or may not last.
If it goes the least efficient way, the federal government could just pay a local governmental employer the full salary of an employee to guarantee that person a job. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, men's median earnings in 2008 were $46,367 and women's $35,745. So $100,000 will last to pay the full salary and benefits of a median worker for a little over two years. That will guarantee that the job will not disappear at least for this length of time.
The government could do better than that by doing just about anything. For example, it could stop collecting the federal tax on employers who hire new workers for as long as those new workers are employed.
But the act gives neither definitions nor guarantees. Washington's previous efforts didn't accomplish much. Just look at the state of the economy in spite of a budget deficit topping $1.4 trillion this year.
The feds would probably say: have the cash, dear locals, and spend it the way you see fit. But that is the equivalent of American provisional authorities traveling to Iraq with a suitcase of cash at the end of the Second Gulf War. No accountability. All the locals would need to do is to create a job that lasts a few months, or even to say that they saved a job (how do you check that fact?) and they are bleeping golden. They will be able to use the rest of the money for their pet projects or to enhance their own benefits, like the Bell, Calif., city manager did. How does an official jet or a mayor's limo instead of a nurse sound? How about a limo driver instead of a cop?
The money will go someplace, obviously, and therefore stimulate the economy. They might even create and save some jobs. But the number will be much lower than a million. And if it is, the arithmetic changes. If you think that $100,000 per job created is high, how about $500,000 or a cool million bucks?
Which raises the question: Could $100 billion best be spent to buy a smarter and more accountable Congress?
With his gravelly voice, cheery bonhomie and 40 years in the House, New York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel is one of the best known and best liked members of Congress. But after the House ethics committee finally brought charges against him Thursday, Rangel risks being remembered in the twilight of his career as just another crooked pol who thought the rules didn't apply to him. Though the official accusations contained little new, the details were damning nevertheless.
Rangel, 80, is accused of seeking big contributions from people and companies with business before the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, which he chaired until stepping aside in March. The money was for a $30 million monument to his career, to be built at the City College of New York. In one case, he got $1 million from a donor and his company, and then met with the man at least twice to discuss a tax loophole for his company. In another case, even soon-to-be disgraced insurer AIG had a keener sense of impropriety than Rangel, protesting that a donation might create a "potential headline risk."
The veteran congressman also is accused of failing to declare rental income from a New York building and a Dominican Republiccondo on his official financial disclosure form and on his federal income taxes.
At best, Rangel's actions look like self-serving arrogance and extreme sloppiness. At worst, Rangel knew exactly what he was doing and saw nothing wrong with shaking down people for contributions and rewarding them with tax breaks. Failure to properly file taxes is particularly egregious; it's simply untenable to have a man in charge of tax law fail to follow it himself.
This is a sad culmination to a career that began when Rangel, who fought in the Korean War (he titled his autobiography And I Haven't Had a Bad Day Since), defeated a corrupt House member and entered Congress in 1971 as a reformer. Disgrace seems to be the fate, however, of too many Ways and Means chairmen who sit at the nexus of money and political power.
As for the much-maligned House ethics process, the two-year Rangel investigation dragged on too long, but in the end members didn't flinch from accusing one of their own. Nancy Pelosi, on becoming speaker in 2007, vowed to "drain the swamp" of ethical violators. Whether Rangel cuts a deal, resigns or faces a trial, he looks destined to be among the beached alligators.
Many on the left even here on u4prez are talking about the need to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the good of the debt. But will it really help? No. In fact when Congress and the President are spending at record levels it will be a drop in the bucket. Meanwhile the dirty little secret is that many of those who make in the range of between 200,000 -1,000,000 a year are those most likely to try and start a small business. Why are they going to hire anyone or even invest their money in other companies when they will see their taxes go up? Further the notion that DC knows better than John Q Public on how to spend money is a sick joke. I believe that the government should cut its spending as the UK and other nations are starting to do and keep taxes low. DC doesn't need more money what they need is to learn to budget with the money they do get each year. Of course for those demanding that government “solves" all the problems in the world let alone our nation that would be problematic but that is what this battle is really about as the op-ed piece below lays out.
We must not let the Bush tax cuts expire as it would hurt economy at many levels. Further this idea that the left wants them paid for is hubris just look at the past several years they have not cared about paying for anything! Keep the tax cuts and if we need to pay for them fine cut some other spending maybe the Dems can figure out how to properly use their vaunted PAY GO. But like I said Dems up to this point have not cared about balancing the budget or the national debt they just hate giving people their money back.
E-Rock
JULY 29, 2010.Taxes: A Defining Issue
Barack Obama knows taxes define worldview. The GOP should offer voters an alternative. By DANIEL HENNINGER
If the Obama presidency didn't exist, we would have to invent it.
At a time when the American people need to make some decisions about the nation's purpose, along comes Barack Obama to make the choices crystal clear.
In one corner of the world you have Europe, beset by a sovereign debt crisis that's been building for 50 years. The U.K.'s new prime minister, David Cameron, promises his people years of austerity to dig out from beneath their debt. Americans, staring at fiscal crevasses opening across Europe, have to decide if they also wish to spend the next 50 years laboring mainly to produce tax revenue to pay for public workers' pensions and other public promises. The private sector would exist for the public sector.
In another corner of the world, wealth is rising from the emerging economies of the east—China, India, Korea and the rest—posing America's greatest economic challenge in anyone's lifetime. Do the American people want to throw in the towel, or do they want to compete? If the latter, the public sector has to give way to the private sector.
One or the other. It's time to choose.
Daniel Henninger says that Barack Obama knows taxes define worldview. The GOP should offer voters an alternative. .Barack Obama's first and biggest clarifier was his health-care plan. With Democratic majorities, it passed. Fair enough; they won the last election. But after a year spent watching the legislation, the American people said they didn't want a quasi-national health-care system. Support for the plan in the RealClearPolitics average is now 38.3%.
Now the clarifying gods have delivered a gift for the November election, the fight over taxes. Somewhere, George W. Bush must be laughing. Amid 9.5% unemployment, Democrats must deal with the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. They are trying to thread this needle by pushing a "middle class" extension through the hole, while impaling "the rich" on a tax spike.
In normal times, this tactic might work. But normal times are long past for America, and the voters know it. Mr. Obama himself talks all the time about the end of "business as usual." In the interests of the nation's future, Mr. Obama argues, the public economy needs to get bigger and stay bigger—currently 25% of GDP.
A big change indeed—unless the electorate decides this isn't what it wants for the next 50 years. That's another choice.
After the Democratic losses in November, the Republican winners will need more than their default status to replace Barack Obama's grand vision. The tax fight on offer is a chance to articulate a broader political vision that fits current anxieties about the national direction.
.This is about something bigger than deficit reduction. The deficit is dangerous. But raising taxes to cut the deficit is a bailout for the spenders—until proven otherwise.
Barack Obama knows that the fight over the Bush tax cuts isn't about anything as arcane as a cyclical correction or "the deficit." He understands that taxes define a worldview. Mr. Obama could not have been clearer about this in his early 2009 budget preview, "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise."
Mr. Obama said the middle class had been "playing by the rules," while those "at the commanding heights" had not, benefiting from "huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected." "It's a legacy of irresponsibility," he said, "and it is our duty to change it." He proposed "prudent investments" in health, education, infrastructure and clean energy. ObamaCare became one such "prudent investments."
This is tax policy by the sorcerer's apprentice. There is an alternative view.
The U.S. has never subscribed to the idea of a nation run by philosopher-kings. Even the Founders disassembled. The Obama White House, as with its new director of Medicare and Medicaid, Donald Berwick, is explicit in its belief that the smartest can design a nationwide health-care system for the rest—if the people will give them enough money to do so. And they could have designed a successful stimulus program—if the people had given them more than the piddling $862 billion they got.
This election and these times are a chance to put to the voters opposed visions of why we work and what we do with the money we earn.
If voters ultimately feel more secure with a Barack Obama and the like designing a national itinerary for some 300 million people in 50 states, then certainly one should vote for letting taxes rise now on one class of Americans and imposing a VAT next year on everyone. They need a whole lot of money, so give it to them to the horizon. We work, they decide.
The alternative vision is that to compete for the next 50 years, the U.S. is going to need a tax structure that keeps more of the nation's decisions about using its wealth in the hands—and minds—of millions of intelligent citizens, from any economic class. They work, they decide.
So: Extend the current tax rates for all and free everyone in an economy begging for the chance to be strong again. Yes, the U.S. economy will always be "strong," but it needs to be strong enough to take on all comers and win, which last time I looked was the real American way.
“This is the path we are on, and it is completely unsustainable,” said Ryan. “It will crash our economy, and this is really an irrefutable point.”
In response to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that predict the government’s public debt as a share of the gross domestic product will rise from 37 percent in 2005 to 87 percent in 2020.
Congressman Paul Ryan may have hit on the nail on the head last when he suggested that far too many GOP members will not comment on his road map plan because of the election. Ryan is not saying his is the best plan but it should at least have spurred some serious discussion about what exactly the GOP will do when and if they get Congress back. I would add given that we now face massive debt spending to say nothing of the coming unfunded mandates for social security, Medicare, and Medicaid perhaps it is time the someone stand up and lay out a path. That is I believe what they call leadership and Ryan has provided it so far. Further even the CBO has scored his plan and they say it can work. Perhaps far too slowly or imperfectly but is the Democrats solution or even the GOPs? The Dems don't have a clue and in fact in some corners still call for more spending and the GOP seems content to just drive the horse of big spending into November and await the Debt Commission's report out in December I believe.
Okay first off should we really need a blue ribbon commission on this? It should be easy coming up with some ideas on how to reduce the national debt and balance the budget. After in the 90s the GOP Congress and Clinton did it with no such commission. And here is where perhaps the GOP have fallen into a conundrum. If they oppose the commission it can be uses against them in the 2012 elections if they support the commission it can be used against them after all the commission is expected to suggest more tax increases. Of course the GOP would be right to oppose tax increases but we also know how easy it is to use the rich vs. poor and who typically wins that war. This is why though the GOP should be rallying around Ryan's road map. We are in a situation where debt worries are at an all time high for any number of reasons. The public is looking for leadership not just 30 second sound bites on this. The party that can claim that mantel the mantel of having a plan and explaining how it works can win this battle. I hope not just for the good of the party but for the good of the nation the GOP leadership decides to put the Ryan plan up for debate and dare the Democrats who broke their word on PAY Go a long time ago to respond with an actual plan it would be a miracle of the first order if we actually debated the mere merits of the plan rather then delve into scare tactics. But sometimes those miracles do and can happen and our nation needs it to happen.
Senator Barbara Boxer: serving in the military is like being a member of Congress
At a campaign event over the weekend in Inglewood, California, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer seemingly equated being a politician to serving in the military –- and an Iraq War veteran supporting Boxer’s November opponent is calling on her to apologize.
“We know that if you have veterans in one place where they can befriend each other and talk to each other. You know when you’ve gone through similar things you need to share it. I don’t care whether you are a policeman or a fireman or a veteran or by chance a member of Congress,” the California senator said. “[Democratic Rep.] Maxine [Waters] and I could look at each other and roll our eyes. We know what we are up against. And it is hard for people who are not there to understand the pressure and the great things that go along with it and the tough things that go along with it.”
“Barbara Boxer’s disrespectful comments underscore just how out of touch she has become after her 28 years in Washington,“ Veterans for Carly Coalition Co-Chairman Lt. Commander Paul Chabot said in a press release, in response to Boxer’s comments. “Equating the experiences of members of Congress with those of brave soldiers who have fought to defend our country is just the latest example in a failed career marked by disrespect for our men and women in uniform.”
Chabot added, “Barbara Boxer owes an immediate apology to all members of America’s armed forces.”
Boxer is up for re-election in November, and is facing a tough challenge from Republican Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
When asked for comment, Boxer’s campaign manager, Rose Kapolczynski, responded, “Regardless of what she says now, Fiorina has to face the fact that when she was CEO of [Hewlett-Packard], HP equipment was sold to Iran, a state sponsor of terror, contrary to U.S. law.”
She continued, “If Carly Fiorina had been in the Senate, she would have turned her back on our veterans and our military by voting against legislation to fund numerous priorities for them, including the Westside Residence Hall II and numerous other critical military and veterans facilities in California.”
This is not the first time, however, that Boxer has made comments or taken actions that were considered offensive to those serving in the military. Remember, for instance, Sen. Boxer’s over-the-top rebuke of an Army brigadier general last year when he referred to her as “ma’am” during a committee hearing?
“You know, do me a favor,” a visibly annoyed Boxer told the general testifying before her committee. “Could you say ‘senator’ instead of ‘ma’am’? It’s just a thing. I worked hard to get that title, so I’d appreciate it.”
Or remember when she was one of only 25 senators to vote against condemning Moveon.org’s 2007 borderline slanderous ad attacking Gen. David Petraeus? Under a headline that read “General Betray Us,” the full-page ad appeared in the New York Times and claimed that Petraeus was “cooking the books” on the Iraq surge.
So today on u4prez.com a person claiming to be a republican stated that 39 out of 50 states saw a decrease in unemployment. He was praising that fact but what is to praise? The facts are against him though. The reason unemployment dropped? People dropped out of the job market thus they stopped being counted. So really the facts are against his claim. This is not good news at all. Further the report goes on to show that several states are hurting. Yes a few bright spots are out there but those are few and far between. Fact is the stimulus did not work anyone who claims it did is just living in fantasy land. Further the side that keeps saying things are getting better needs to start dealing with facts and they need to wake up to the fact that things are not getting better until then those who understand the facts need to keep using the facts and not allowing them to get away with dishonest facts.
E-Rock
Unemployment rate falls in 39 states in June Published: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 11:21 AM Updated: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 6:07 PM Associated Press business staff
WASHINGTON -- The unemployment rate fell in most states in June, mainly because more people gave up searching for work and were no longer counted.
Fewer states saw job increases, the latest evidence that the economic recovery is slowing.
The jobless rate declined in 39 states and Washington, D.C. last month, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That's a slight improvement from May, when 37 states saw their rates decline.
But only 21 states saw net job gains in June, the government said. That compared to 41 the previous month and is the fewest this year.
The decline in job creation reflects the layoff of thousands of temporary census workers. Those jobs inflated total payrolls in May and then reduced them in June.
Still, the report also indicated that businesses aren't hiring many new workers. Nationwide, private employers added a net gain of only 83,000 jobs last month. The national unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent in June from 9.7 percent the previous month, as about 650,000 people stopped looking for work.
New York's unemployment rate fell to 8.2 percent from 8.3 percent the previous month. But the state lost 8,500 private-sector jobs, the second-straight decline in private employment. California's unemployment rate also declined, but the state gained just 1,300 private-sector jobs.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, saw its jobless rate fall to 7.9 percent from 8.2 percent the previous month. But the state's work force fell by 13,600, suggesting the decline was the result of people giving up job hunts. Furthermore, the state lost 1,000 private-sector jobs last month.
Nevada, battered by a housing slump and a drop in tourism, posted the nation's highest unemployment rate of 14.2 percent. That's the state's highest since records began in 1976.
In May, Nevada displaced Michigan from the top spot for the first time in more than four years. Michigan's unemployment rate fell to 13.2 percent in June, the nation's second-highest. It was followed by California with 12.3 percent and Rhode Island with 12 percent.
The report did include some bright spots. New Hampshire reported the largest drop in unemployment, to 5.9 percent from 6.4 percent. That was due in part to a net gain of 1,900 jobs.
The state added jobs in manufacturing, education and health services, and professional and business services, which includes temporary jobs.
Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina reported the largest job gains last month.
Texas added 14,000 jobs, with big gains in manufacturing, construction and professional and business services. Kentucky gained 6,200 jobs, mostly in manufacturing, construction and education and health services.
North Dakota continued to post the lowest unemployment rate, with 3.6 percent. It was followed by South Dakota at 4.5 percent and Nebraska at 4.8 percent.
The E-Rock WH today is proud to announce that a socialist on u4prez is not supporting my non-existent attempt to run for re-election.......... seriously...... "The President was proud that someone who hates private wealth, private business, and private property, and demands more government into our lives no longer supports him, said a press sec." " we may need to go out and celebrate with across the board for all Americans paid for by ending 55% of the federal jobs"
The E-Rock WH official went on to say that E-Rock has not made up his mind as to who he will vote for in the upcoming election as it appears some excellent choices are coming up but that he would not do what that last President did and demand to be courted despite having already voted.
I seem to remember the Speaker of the House Stated very clearly that they had to pass this bill so we could learn what is it. Well the more we read about the less it seems the American people like it. Further given the government's new legal arguement it seems the President did a flip flop on his idea about mandatory heatlhcare coverage. Just notice the attack on Hillary during the election as illustrated above. It is now offical US policy despite promises from Obama to the contrary. Further after saying it was not a tax increase well it turns out it is. So even if Obama wins the legal arguement which is not sure bet at all the fact is he backed off several key promises to the American people And believe it or not the American people do have long memories. Just ask Bush Sr.........
E-Rock
Mandate mendacity: The Obamacare tax
22 hours, 37 minutes ago
After successfully perpetrating his health care "reform" bait and switch on the American people, President Obama is trying to pull another one on the federal courts.
In 2008, Obama opposed requiring that Americans buy health insurance. He repeatedly attacked Hillary Clinton for advocating such a mandate. Then, a few months after taking office, he came out for a mandate and made sure his health care plan had one.
After embracing an individual mandate, the President rejected all assertions that it was a tax increase. "For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," he told George Stephanopoulous last September. Now the administration is arguing in federal court that the mandate is a tax increase, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
"Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations," The Times reported. So much for Obama's promise that no one making less than $250,000 a year would see any kind of tax increase.
Why the switch? States are suing the administration, saying the federal government has no authority to make people buy a particular product or service. Though the administration and Congress had argued exclusively that the power to impose the individual mandate derived from the federal government's authority to regulate interstate commerce, the administration realizes that might be a losing argument. So in court it claims the mandate is a tax because the federal government has broader powers to levy and collect taxes than to regulate commerce.
If a President has to rely on one bait-and-switch to pass a law and another to defend it in court, isn't it safe to say that the law's justifications are fundamentally dishonest?
The facts speak for themselves this is not an economic recovery. E-Rock
U.S. housing starts drop 5% to 8-month low Number of homes under construction falls to record low in June
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Ground-breaking on new housing units fell sharply after a federal tax credit for buyers expired, putting the housing sector back in the dumps where it was a year ago, according to Commerce Department data released Tuesday.
After a 15% drop in May, housing starts fell another 5% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 549,000, the lowest level in eight months, the Commerce Department estimated.
"Despite record-low mortgage rates, housing is at risk of a double dip [recession] unless job growth strengthens soon," wrote Sal Guatieri, a senior economist for BMO Capital Markets.
From American Express to Tribeca ApartmentsA former horse stable once owned by American Express was recently renovated into a series of duplex luxury apartments. The TriBeCa north property was an especially difficult renovation because of the building's age. Lee Hawkins reports.
The decline was larger than the 3% decline to 575,000 starts that economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected. The government's estimate of starts for May was revised to 578,000, down from the 593,000 originally reported. See our complete economic calendar.
Starts were down 5.8% compared with June 2009, and were down about 76% from the peak in 2006.
The number of homes under construction also fell, dropping to a record-low 450,000 at the end of June, after builders rushed to complete homes in time for the June 30 deadline for the tax credit. Completions surged a record 26% last month to an annualized rate of 886,000. Read the full release on the Census Bureau's Web site.
Inventories of unsold new homes stand at 40-year lows.
"The focus should thus revert back to the main event -- working the foreclosure pig through the python, "shadow" existing home inventories, and home prices," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist for Pierpont Securities.
Building permits, which are considered a forward indicator of housing construction, rose 2.1% on the month, due to a 20% gain in permits for multi-family units.
Permits for single-family homes -- considered by many to be the most vital number in Tuesday's release -- fell 3.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 421,000, the lowest level since April 2009.
Permits and starts had risen smartly earlier in the year, as builders stepped up their pace to meet the deadline for the federal home buyers' subsidy. Economists say the tax credit served to pull demand forward into the spring that might have been spread out through the year.
To qualify for the credit, buyers had to sign a sales contract by April 30 and close the sale by June 30. Congress has now extended the deadline for closings to Sept. 30, but that extension had no impact on builders' plans.
The tax credit helped revive sales and construction from the worst downturn since World War II. Housing starts over the first six months of 2010 were up 14% compared with the first half of 2009.
But with the credit expiring, builders face tough competition from foreclosures of existing homes, and buyers remain cautious about the job market. In some areas, prices are still falling, which could put further pressure on home owners' finances and on the banks and other lenders that hold their mortgages.
For their part, home builders remain very discouraged. The builder sentiment index fell back to a 15-month low in July on the heels of a large drop in June, according to a survey released on Monday. See our full story on the builders' index.
More details The June data also showed that starts of single-family homes fell 0.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 454,000, the lowest in 13 months. Starts of multi-family units dropped 22% to a 95,000 annual rate.
Housing starts fell in all four regions, dropping by 11% in the Northeast, 7% in the Midwest, 6% in the West and 2.4% in the South.
The government cautions that its monthly housing data are volatile and subject to large sampling and other statistical errors. In most months, the government can't be sure whether starts increased or decreased. In June, for instance, the standard error for starts was plus or minus 13.2%. Large revisions are common.
The standard error for monthly building permits data is much lower at plus or minus 2.1%.
It can take three months for a new trend in housing starts or permits to emerge from the data.
In the past three months, housing starts have averaged 602,000 on an annualized basis, down from 630,000 in the three-month period through May.
Similarly, building permits have averaged 590,000 over the past three months, down from 623,000
WASHINGTON — The financial health of Social Security and Medicare, the government's two biggest benefit programs, have worsened because of the severe recession, and Medicare is now paying out more than it receives. Trustees of the programs said Tuesday that Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, one year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner.
Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year and will be insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the trustees group, said the reports are a reminder that "the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be."
Geithner said that President Obama is committed to working with Congress to find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures, noting the promise Monday by major health care providers to trim costs by $2 trillion over the next decade.
The findings in the trustees report, the annual checkup given the two benefit programs, did not come as a surprise. Private economists had been predicting that the dates the programs would begin to pay out more than they take in and the dates the trust funds would be insolvent would occur sooner given the economic recession.
The deep recession, the worst the country has endured in decades, has resulted in a loss of 5.7 million jobs since it began in December 2007. The unemployment rate hit a 25-year high of 8.9% in April.
Fewer people working means less being paid into the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare.
The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that Social Security will collect just $3 billion more in 2010 than it will pay out in benefits. A year ago, the CBO had projected that Social Security would have a much higher $86 billion cash surplus for the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.
The trustees report projected that Social Security's annual surpluses would "fall sharply this year," then remain at a reduced level in 2010 and be lower in the following years than last year's projections. The report said that the Social Security annual surplus would be eliminated entirely in 2016, reflecting increased demands from the wave of 78 million baby boomers retiring.
That means Social Security will have to turn to its trust fund to make up the difference between Social Security taxes and the benefits being paid out beginning in 2016. The trustees projected the trust fund would be depleted in 2037, four years earlier than the 2041 date in last year's report.
At that point, the annual Social Security taxes collected would be enough to pay for three-fourths of current benefits through 2083. To tap the trust fund, the government would have to increase borrowing or raise taxes because Social Security bonds exist only as bookkeeping entries.
While the government is obligated to redeem those bonds, it has already spent the excess Social Security collections over the years to fund general government operations, providing the trust funds with IOUs.
While the smaller surpluses that will begin this year will not have any impact on Social Security benefit payments, the government will need to borrow more at a time when the federal deficit is already exploding because of the recession and the billions of dollars being spent to prop up a shaky banking system.
Medicare's condition is more precarious, reflecting the pressures from soaring health care costs as well as the drop in tax collections.
Obama on Monday praised the pledge by the health care industry to achieve $2 trillion in savings on health care costs over the next decade, but it was unclear how much help those pledges would be in achieving Obama's goal of extending coverage to some 50 million uninsured Americans. The administration is pushing Congress to pass legislation in this area this year, preferring to tackle health care before Social Security.
The trustees report is likely to set off renewed debate over Social Security and Medicare. Critics have charged that the Obama administration has failed to tackle the most serious problems in the budget — soaring entitlement spending.
The administration on Monday revised its federal deficit forecasts upward to project an imbalance this year of $1.84 trillion, four times last year's record, and said the deficits will remain above $500 billion every year over the next decade.
Changing Stance, Administration Now Defends Insurance Mandate as a Tax
By ROBERT PEAR Published: July 16, 2010
WASHINGTON — When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”
And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.
Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.
Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.
In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.
Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.
While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax.
“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”
When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.”
Congress anticipated a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate. Accordingly, the law includes 10 detailed findings meant to show that the mandate regulates commercial activity important to the nation’s economy. Nowhere does Congress cite its taxing power as a source of authority.
Under the Constitution, Congress can exercise its taxing power to provide for the “general welfare.” It is for Congress, not courts, to decide which taxes are “conducive to the general welfare,” the Supreme Court said 73 years ago in upholding the Social Security Act.
Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, described the tax power as an alternative source of authority.
“The Commerce Clause supplies sufficient authority for the shared-responsibility requirements in the new health reform law,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “To the extent that there is any question of additional authority — and we don’t believe there is — it would be available through the General Welfare Clause.”
The law describes the levy on the uninsured as a “penalty” rather than a tax. The Justice Department brushes aside the distinction, saying “the statutory label” does not matter. The constitutionality of a tax law depends on “its practical operation,” not the precise form of words used to describe it, the department says, citing a long line of Supreme Court cases.
Moreover, the department says the penalty is a tax because it will raise substantial revenue: $4 billion a year by 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
In addition, the department notes, the penalty is imposed and collected under the Internal Revenue Code, and people must report it on their tax returns “as an addition to income tax liability.”
Because the penalty is a tax, the department says, no one can challenge it in court before paying it and seeking a refund.
Jack M. Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School who supports the new law, said, “The tax argument is the strongest argument for upholding” the individual-coverage requirement.
Mr. Obama “has not been honest with the American people about the nature of this bill,” Mr. Balkin said last month at a meeting of the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal organization. “This bill is a tax. Because it’s a tax, it’s completely constitutional.”
Mr. Balkin and other law professors pressed that argument in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in one of the pending cases.
Opponents contend that the “minimum coverage provision” is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congress’s power to regulate commerce.
“This is the first time that Congress has ever ordered Americans to use their own money to purchase a particular good or service,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.
In their lawsuit, Florida and other states say: “Congress is attempting to regulate and penalize Americans for choosing not to engage in economic activity. If Congress can do this much, there will be virtually no sphere of private decision-making beyond the reach of federal power.”
In reply, the administration and its allies say that a person who goes without insurance is simply choosing to pay for health care out of pocket at a later date. In the aggregate, they say, these decisions have a substantial effect on the interstate market for health care and health insurance.
In its legal briefs, the Obama administration points to a famous New Deal case, Wickard v. Filburn, in which the Supreme Court upheld a penalty imposed on an Ohio farmer who had grown a small amount of wheat, in excess of his production quota, purely for his own use.
The wheat grown by Roscoe Filburn “may be trivial by itself,” the court said, but when combined with the output of other small farmers, it significantly affected interstate commerce and could therefore be regulated by the government as part of a broad scheme regulating interstate commerce.
Well our wonderful White House administration is really going all out on this defense of the stimulus now in addition to millions spent on road signs we have a new report out saying that the stimulus did work exactly as intended. Though here is the crux of the problem they used the exact same economic model that they used before the stimulus package was passed to say it would create and save millions of jobs. So there you have it never mind that this was the formula used to say that with the stimulus we could keep unemployment at about 8% or 8.5% today it is at 9.5% and only because people dropped out of the workforce!!! They don’t count thus the wonderful drop in unemployment. The White House does not seem to be living in the real world if they did they would see that people are not being put to work and that their model just doesn’t add up. Or maybe they really are in the real world and just have fallen for their own propaganda or they just read too much Paul Krugman who really should at this point be stripped of his Nobel prize after he is claim that deficits do not matter just keep spending never mind Greece, Spain, UK, California, and Illinois those are just useless facts. Mean while the public is left searching in vain in many cases for the so called created jobs of the stimulus package.
E-Rock
Economic Model That Estimated That the Stimulus Would Create Jobs Now Says It Did Posted on July 16, 2010, 12:38PM | Peter Suderman
Before the stimulus was passed, White House officials touted estimates that said that blasting cash into the economy would give the economy a boost and help create jobs. Now, lo and behold, a report from the administration’s Council of Economic Advisers says that, yes, in fact, the stimulus has worked largely as expected. How did the CEA come to this conclusion? By plugging numbers into an economic model very similar to the one they used to predict that the stimulus would create jobs. Thanks to the model’s reliance on multipliers—which predict that each dollar of government spending will produce more than a dollar of economic activity—the result is that money spent is assumed to have generated beneficial effects.
As economic prophesying goes, this is a rather clever trick; the initial prediction is basically guaranteed to on target, or pretty close. But as reliable information about the effect of the stimulus, it’s about as useful as a psychic hotline. As Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw explains:
The CEA took a conventional Keynesian-style macroeconomic model and used those set of equations to estimate the effect the stimulus should have had. Essentially, the model offers an estimate of the policy's effect, conditional on the model being a correct description of the world. But notice that this exercise is not really a measurement based on what actually occurred. Rather, the exercise is premised on the belief that the model is true, so no matter how bad the economy got, the inference is that it would have been even worse without the stimulus. Why? Because that is what the model says. The validity of the model itself is never questioned.
As the CEA report notes on page nine, it’s actually rather similar to the Congressional Budget Office’s reporting on the stimulus, although CBO director has been up front enough about his organization’s methodology to caution that his office’s reports do not constitute an independent check on the initial predictions. In the end, the best we can say about the stimulus is that no one really knows if it’s working, or how well. So every time a government official touts the economic benefits of the stimulus, it’s worth remembering that a prediction that a program would work is not the same as proof that it does.
Obama is all about creating jobs by spending well not even tax dollars at this point but by driving up the National Debt. And he wants you to know about. At the cost of about $20 million we know that there are 11,000 some road projects across America going on. But what is the cost of the signs? Well take the one at Dulles Airport it cost $10,000 to put up. The state of Ill spent $650,000 on the signs PA $150,000 just a few examples. But here is the catch the unemployment rate did not stay at 8% as the WH claimed it would. But instead it has gone up and despite the 9.5% unemployment the only reason that number is not higher is that millions have stopped looking for jobs altogether. So here have a prime example of the WH spending money on signs for propaganda to show us what our money is being spent on. Sure it might be nice to see what our money is being spent on but to me it just shows the failure of the Krugman supported stimulus program. Sure people are working and yes that is a good thing but what is clear is that this is not at all a step in the right direction and honestly I think we could come up with better ideas on how to spend our money like on tax credits for small business or even not spending the money. But I suppose that would require some new thinking in DC that just maybe throwing money at everything will not solve all the problems in the world and one thing is for sure if the trends in public opinion keep going the way they are and the private sector does not start hiring more people Democrats are going to learn that all the signs in the world not matter how good looking are not going to save them this November.
E-Rock
Signs of the Stimulus Some Call it Transparency, Others Another Example of Government Waste By JONATHAN KARL and GREGORY SIMMONS July 14, 2010
As the midterm election season approaches, new road signs are popping up everywhere millions of dollars worth of signs touting "The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act" and reminding passers-by that the program is "Putting America Back to Work."
On the road leading to Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC there's a 10' x 11' road sign touting a runway improvement project funded by the federal stimulus. The project cost nearly $15 million and has created 17 jobs, according to recovery.gov.
However, there's another number that caught the eye of ABC News: $10,000. That's how much money the Washington Airports Authority tells ABC News it spent to make and install the sign a single sign announcing that the project is "Funded by The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act" and is "Putting America Back to Work." The money for the sign was taken out of the budget for the runway improvement project.
ABC News has reached out to a number of states about spending on stimulus signs and learned the state of Illinois has spent $650,000 on about 950 signs and Pennsylvania has spent $157,000 on 70 signs. Other states, like Virginia, Vermont, and Arizona do not sanction any signs.
One state brags it posts signs but manages to keep the process cost-effective. The Tennessee Department of Transportation boasts, "There are a total of 324 signs statewide for a total cost of $12,931 and an average of $37.67 each." The reason for the small cost, they say, is that their signs are small-- about equal to a speed limit sign.
In response to questions by ABC News, Jill Zuckman of the Department of Transportation said, "The best estimate is that states have spent about $5 million of the $28 billion spent on road projects on signs or less than .02 percent of overall project spending."
Still, some Republicans are crying foul. Congressman Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Earl Devaney, Chairman of the Recovery Act and Transparency and Accountability Board, requesting an investigation to "determine the scope and impact of the Obama administration's guidance" regarding signs to stimulus recipients.
Rep. Issa writes that the passage of the Stimulus Bill, "has provided an opportunity for the Obama administration to claim political credit for the various projects around the country that have been funded by this redistribution of taxpayer dollars."
At the center of the controversy are a series of guidelines provided to stimulus recipients. In the letter, Rep. Issa cites what he calls "perhaps the most overly political guidance on stimulus advertising" involving the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a stimulus recipient. According to investigators from the oversight committee, HUD provided the Office of Native American Programs with information on "signage requirements." The document suggested a sign template informing the public the projects had been, "Funded By: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Barack Obama, President."
Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) has joined the chorus of Republican outrage over stimulus signs and claims at least $20 million has been spent on them. He told ABC News, "I think it's a bit of an oxymoron to spend tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, borrowed money, on a bunch of signs to tell them how we are spending their taxpayer money."
Schock's office provided ABC News with administration guidance on stimulus signs sent to him from a constituent. The document, dated March of 2009, outlines the "General Guidelines for Emblem and Logo Applications." The Recovery Act logo which was provided not only looks oddly similar to the Obama logo from the 2008 campaign but its stated purpose, according to the document, is to act as "a symbol of President Obama's commitment to the American people to invest their tax dollars wisely and put Americans back to work."
Rep. Schock argues that the signs are not a wise investment at all, but rather, a waste of money. He took to the House floor today to offer a bill, "to prevent funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 from being used for physical signage indicating that a project is funded by such Act, and for other purposes."
Massachusetts Democrat James McGovern fired back, "This is the best we can get? Not putting up signs?" He continued, "How about paying for the tax cuts for the rich that my friends on the other side of the aisle passed? Hundreds of billions of dollars in debt that you put on the backs of my kids and my grandkids so that the wealthiest of the wealthy in this country can get a tax break."
When asked about Republican outcry over spending on stimulus signs, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs quipped, " I'm glad the Republicans have noticed the several nearly 11,000 road projects that are underway this summer."
-Robin Gradison and Avery Miller contributed to this report
This is an outrage! The Media as reported by CNN is being blocked from reporting on the oil spill. They can not go within 65 ft of any booms or boats. Can you imagine if Bush had tried to block reporters from Katrina? And in fact CNN goes on to report that local government officials can not a straight answer from the government on the clean up and other efforts. The Coast Guard promised transparency and now is walking away from that promise. This is wrong the media should be let in so we can see what is going on down their in Gulf and shame on the government for this new rule. I think the Media should take the Coast Guard into court and argue that this rule violates the First Amendment.
For a state that prides it's self on voting and having safe guards in place this is shocking. I know nothing can be done to overturn the election but I do hope that this report which is being taken seriously by at least on DA's office will fix this situation. And as for Franken so far I would give him an F he hid last year during the healthcare debate, he fell asleep at the latest hearings for the Supreme Court he needs to realize it is only because of a court ruling and that Coleman decided not to press on that he is in office he needs to start taking that office seriously but given that all he does is clown around I won't hold my breath.
E-Rock
The six-month election recount that turned former Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken into a U.S. senator may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in Minnesota's Twin Cities, according to an 18-month study conducted by a conservative watchdog group.
The six-month election recount that turned former "Saturday Night Live" comedian Al Franken into a U.S. senator may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in Minnesota's Twin Cities.
That's the finding of an 18-month study conducted by Minnesota Majority, a conservative watchdog group, which found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman.
The final recount vote in the race, determined six months after Election Day, showed Franken beat Coleman by 312 votes -- fewer votes than the number of felons whose illegal ballots were counted, according to Minnesota Majority's newly released study, which matched publicly available conviction lists with voting records.
Furthermore, the report charges that efforts to get state and federal authorities to act on its findings have been "stonewalled."
"We aren't trying to change the result of the last election. That legally can't be done," said Dan McGrath, Minnesota Majority's executive director. "We are just trying to make sure the integrity of the next election isn't compromised."
He said his group was largely ignored when it turned over a list of hundreds of names to prosecutors in two of the state's largest counties, Ramsey and Hennepin, where fraud seemed to be the greatest.
A spokesman for both county attorneys' offices belittled the information, saying it was "just plain wrong" and full of errors, which prompted the group to go back and start an in-depth look at the records.
"What we did this time is irrefutable," McGrath said. "We took the voting lists and matched them with conviction lists and then went back to the records and found the roster lists, where voters sign in before walking to the voting booth, and matched them by hand.
"The only way we can be wrong is if someone with the same first, middle and last names, same year of birth as the felon, and living in the same community, has voted. And that isn't very likely."
The report said that in Hennepin County, which in includes Minneapolis, 899 suspected felons had been matched on the county's voting records, and the review showed 289 voters were conclusively matched to felon records. The report says only three people in the county have been charged with voter fraud so far.
A representative of the Hennepin County attorney's office, who declined to give her name, said "there was no one in the office today to talk about the charges."
But the report got a far different review in Ramsey County, which contains St. Paul. Phil Carruthers of the Ramsey County attorney's office said his agency had taken the charges "very seriously" and found that the Minnesota Majority "had done a good job in their review."
The report says that in Ramsey, 460 names on voting records were matched with felon lists, and a further review found 52 were conclusive matches.
Carruthers attributed differences in the numbers to Minnesota Majority's lack of access to nonpublic information, such as exact birth dates and other court records. For example, he said, "public records might show a felon was given 10 years probation, but internal records the county attorney has might show that the probation period was cut to five and the felon was eligible to vote."
Carruthers said Ramsey County is still investigating all the names and has asked that 15 investigators be hired to complete the process. "So far we have charged 28 people with felonies, have 17 more under review and have 182 cases still open," he said. "And there is a good chance we may match or even exceed their numbers."
McGrath says the report shows that more still has to be done.
"Prosecutors have to act more swiftly in prosecuting cases from the 2008 election to deter fraud in the future," he said, "and the state has to make sure that existing system, that flags convicted felons so voting officials can challenge them at the ballot, is effective. In 90 percent of the cases we looked at, the felons weren't flagged."
"If the state had done that," he said, "things might be very different today."
www.foxnews.com For the record I rarely go to foxnews but merely followed the link via drudgereport.com
So didn't you know unemployment dropped? O wait not because of job growth. It dropped because hundereds of thousands of people have left the job market. Not to mention the temp jobs with the federal government are ending. The above grapth shows when the stimulus package was passed and where we stand with people leaving the workforce. It is very clear and factual to say that the stimulus did not work. The source for the picture is below this blog with a link to hotair.com. And the fact is that only the staunchest defends of the stimulus are still defending it. Yes things might have been worse but it is hard to see how. People are not joining the work force. And these people are suffering. Yes they need unemployment checks but can we at least not find some way to pay for it? Is that simple request to much to ask? I think it would be easy for someone on Capital Hill to find away to pay for it. But even more then more handouts what they need is as pro-job growth agenda and so far it is MIA.
If the stimulus didn't work why should we try it again? More debt as the NY Times and Paul Krugman scream for on a wkly if not daily bases seems to be the only answer the left has. But even the IMF and most of the G20 group says we are heading in the wrong direction. Further I would ask simply if we do increase the debt what happens when we must pay for it? Surely even with cutting of government spending we might end up with some tax increases and if so would those not in fact hurt the economy and end up killing jobs? Of all the issues facing this nation the one most on the minds of the voters is where are the jobs? Yes of course the President is trying to be positive we don't want him to go on negativity sprew but at least stop blaming Bush we know this started on his watch but it is now your watch and your plan is not working and it is not because of anything Bush is doing. Instead of trying the big government and more government spending perhapes it is time to try the other path and see if we can not change the arrow on the above graph.
You know I am glad McDonald's finally grew some balls and said enough is enough. They are not going to be bullied by Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) who is threatening to sue if McDonald's over the happy meal toys. I personally think that people at the CSPI are progressive busy bodies who think that instead of ensuring that people take individual responsability they need to step in and dictate to companies what they can or can not market to people. This war on fast food joints disgusts me. Sure we have way to many people eating fast food but whos fault is that? Seriously you can say no and eat at home. Get a toaster oven lots of easy affordable foods you can cook up at home. People make choices everyday some good some bad but blaming a store for you eating their and getting fat is just silly to me. And I am glad that McDonald's is saying that they won't be the fall guy for people who cann't learn the word no.
E-Rock
McDonald's to Happy Meal Haters: Drop Dead! Posted on July 9, 2010, 1:09PM | Katherine Mangu-Ward
The official response from the CEO of the nation's purveyors of burgers and fries is in, and it's kind of badass:
CSPI's twisted characterization of McDonald's as "the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children" is an insult to every one of our franchisees and employees around the world. When CSPI refers to America's children as "an unpaid drone army," you similarly denigrate parents and families, because they are fully capable of making their own decisions. You should apologize....
The public does not support your lawsuit. Internet sites, blogs and network surveys suggest that public opinion is running overwhelmingly against your premise. Our customer websites and phone lines at McDonald's are also busy, with more than nine out of 10 customers disagreeing with your agenda. Parents, in particular, strongly believe they have the right and responsibility to decide what's best for their children, not CSPI. It really is that simple.
Next step: McDonald's CEO vows to include tiny airline-sized bottle of vodka in special edition adults-only Happy Meals. Sigh. If only...
I am going to keep this simple the Save program by Obama is PR nothing more. June 30th say the 3rd largest single day increase in the National Debt. This so called save program while a good idea but in reality Congress should be using the Appropriations Committee to cut spending. But alas for all the talk their is no one that seems to really want to pull out the big ax and start chopping. Krugman and others want more stimulus and Paul Ryan's Congressional Budget Office approved bill that would start to balance the budget and pay down the debt is going no where. The debt commission? What a farce they seem more interested in raising taxes then really gutting the government work force. And personally I can see Obama saying "okay we need some cuts but hey lets raise taxes" just what a weak economy needs right? And now another bad idea being talked about is to let states borrow money from the US Treasury!!!http://reason.com/blog#article_142410 another bad idea brought to you by the New York Times. Further Pay Go has been exposed for a fraud if it was not a fraud the Democrats would have cut some spending and paid for the unemployment money and other programs. The Blue Dogs are all bit and no bark and if they talk about Pay Go I think it would be okay for a taxpayer to get up and yell "liar" seriously. But hey it is just money right? Never mind the 13.1 trillion plus in debt let us just keep up the PR gambits so it looks like we are doing some good meanwhile we spend like drunken sailors. Wait as my friend Smashey says that would be an insult to drunken sailors my apologies. Keep on drinking it helps deal with the insanity of it all.(1)
(1) not advocating drinking past safe levels or underage drinking.
This past year many have argued that the lobbiests on K Street hated Obamacare. But was that really the case? Well now we have some proof the Drug lobby is showering Reid with money. I freely admit that Burr from NC is getting their money as well. But I wonder if Burr is running like Reid is? Reid says he is standing up to special interests. Really? When did this start? The fact is that despite all these attacks the race remains close and the fact is Reid who has and still is claiming the stimulus bill worked is not going to be able to overcome the economic crisis our nation faces. Nevada is hard hit right now and more taxes coupled with government is not what the state needs. Once Angle starts to push back with her own tv time this is become clear. And I would point out while her lead over Reid is not large it still remains and this is despite Reid burning fist fulls of cash from his special interest buddies attacking her.
By the way notice the pattern here? Obama ran against special interests in DC but takes their money and uses them to help pass bills as well.
E-Rock
Drug lobby showers money on its hero Harry Reid
By: Timothy P. Carney Examiner Columnist July 7, 2010
No scalp would be as treasured by Republicans this fall as that of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. And no incumbent is receiving as much air support from the drug industry as is Reid, who championed a health care bill that pads drug company profits.
The drug lobby has begun a pro-Reid TV blitz in his home state of Nevada. One ad praises Reid for saving jobs and for understanding that "good jobs with good benefits [mean] a better future." The narrator then instructs viewers to "call Harry Reid today; tell him to keep fighting for Nevada families."
But "Nevada families" didn't pay for the ad. The drug lobby did. And while the TV spot makes only passing reference to the health care bill passed in March, there's no doubt this ad buy -- and the rest of the drug industry's generosity toward Harry Reid -- is a big thank you for the corporate-welfare "reform" bill that Reid shepherded through the Senate.
Flash back one year to last July, when Democratic congressmen going home for the Independence Day recess began to hear from their constituents about Obamacare, with the result that "reform" was threatened. That's when top drug lobbyist Billy Tauzin came to the rescue.
Tauzin was president of the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the largest single-industry lobbying organization in the country. He was also formerly public enemy No. 1 for the Obama campaign, which had held him up as the poster boy for Washington's revolving door and "game playing."
Last July, Tauzin visited the White House twice (and who knows how many meetings he had at nearby coffee shops?) and hashed out a deal on health care. As the Los Angeles Times first reported, Tauzin pledged to support Obamacare if the White House would keep its hands off the government favors the drug industry was already receiving. In addition, Democrats loaded up the bill with plenty more drug company goodies including subsidies, mandates and unprecedented 12-year, government-enforced monopolies on complex drugs.
In the end, PhRMA shaped "reform" as it wanted, and the group ran millions of dollars of ads supporting the bill. Reid passed it. Now PhRMA is doing heavy lifting for Reid, whose approval ratings are in the 30s.
Beyond the PhRMA-funded sappy TV spots, there are plenty more signs of the industry's affection for Reid.
Right after Tauzin's July 22, 2009, West Wing visit, for instance, drug industry political action committees began pumping cash into Reid's endangered campaign.
Tauzin visited the West Wing on a Wednesday, and Eli Lilly's $5,000 PAC check reached Reid on Friday. The following Monday, Reid got two $5,000 PAC checks: one from PhRMA and another from the nation's largest drug maker, Pfizer. Within a week, drug giants Merck and Astra-Zeneca had ponied up, too. That's at least $23,000 in pharmaceutical PAC money in 10 days.
When the bill became law in March, PhRMA, Pfizer, Lilly, the Biotechnology Industry Organization and other drug PACs all ponied up again.
Reid has received $154,000 from Pharma PACs as of May 30, making him the No. 2 recipient behind Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., whose base is in the Research Triangle. Reid is the only politician to get the maximum $10,000 contribution from PhRMA as of the end of May. He's also the only senator to get the max from Eli Lilly's PAC. The health sector is Reid's prime source of PAC funds: half a million dollars already -- and that doesn't count the TV buys.
Reid's lobbyist-bundlers (his volunteer fundraisers from K Street) also come from Big Pharma. Paul DiNino is a lobbyist at Cornerstone Government Affairs, which represents PhRMA, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer and Sanofi-Aventis. DiNino also raised $23,950 for Reid last year alone.
Tony Podesta represents Amgen and Genzyme, and he has bundled at least $78,400 for Reid. William Singer, a Pfizer lobbyist, clocked $39,750 for Reid last year. DLA Piper -- the K Street firm that cut ties with Republican former House Majority Leader Dick Armey because of his opposition to Obamacare -- has a PAC that has raised at least $26,400 for Reid.
Reid this fall will likely follow Obama's lead, and falsely paint himself as the scourge of the special interests -- all on the drug lobby's dime.
Timothy P. Carney, The Examiner's lobbying editor
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Drug-lo bby-showers-money-on-its-hero-Harry-Reid-97882064. html#ixzz0t0YvfhAr
As we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776 I am reminded of another day that if it had been different would have ended our republic before it even got off the ground and negated the 4th of July. That day was December 23, 1783. On this day George Washington despite calls for him to assume the mantle of total power resigned his command of the Continental Army over to the Continental Congress and retired into private life. It was this simple yet often overlooked act that submitted the army to our elected civilian government and allowed for our country to prosper into the land of the free instead of a military dictatorship. This action exemplifies the freedom that rings out in the words of the Declaration of Independence and why they are hallow today and why George Washington is to this day “first in the hearts of his countrymen."
And so it starts. The economy lost 125,000 jobs yes it added 83,000 jobs but the government cut 225,000 temp census jobs. The only reason the economy even went lower is because people dropped out of the labor force not because they found jobs. For those saying I am hoping for economic failure that is laugable at best but these are the facts. And the facts lead to the conclusion that the Obama economic recovery plan has not worked. It is time for the President to stop blaming the previous President because while yes the previous President started this the fact is Bush has no bearing on Obama's programs today. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi support these plans that clearly have not worked. It is time for a change of direction and the facts support this.
E-Rock
June Job Losses at 125,000, But Jobless Rate Falls to 9.5% UNEMPLOYMENT, ECONOMY, UNEMPLOYMENT RATE, EMPLOYMENT, LABOR DEPARTMENT, RECESSION CNBC staff and wire reports | 02 Jul 2010 | 09:57 AM ET
The US economy lost 125,000 jobs in June, more than economists had forecast, as thousands of temporary census jobs ended and private hiring grew less than expected.
And though the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 9.5% from 9.7%, the lowest in a year, it was largely due to more people dropping out of the labor force.
The report was the latest sign that the economic recovery may be faltering.
"Overall what this does is it reinforces the market's view that the U.S. recovery is losing steam,'' said Greg Salvaggio, vice president of trading at Tempus Consulting in Washington.
Stocks opened modestly higher amid relief the report was not as bad as some had expected, while Treasury debt prices slipped.
Private hiring rose 83,000 after increasing only 33,000 the prior month, the Labor Department said. But nonfarm payrolls, dropped 125,000—the largest decline since October—as census jobs fell 225,000.
Financial markets had expected employment to fall 110,000 last month, with the jobless rate edging up to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent in May.
The government revised data for April and May to show 25,000 more jobs created than earlier reported.
Public unhappiness with the economy, especially after a record $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts, is eroding President Barack Obama's popularity. Obama, who has has called job creation his No. 1 priority, has tried to put the blame on policies of the previous administration.
With voters in an anti-Washington, anti-incumbent mood, failure to make headway in putting back to work the more than 8 million Americans who lost jobs during the recession could cost the Democratic Party dearly in the November mid-term elections.
The 10 Best Jobs in America The World's Coolest Jobs Payrolls in the dominant services sector rose 91,000 last month after increasing 20,000 in May. Temporary help employment rose 20,500, while retail hiring fell 6,600.
In the goods-producing sector, payrolls fell 8,000 in June, pulled down by declines in construction as home building dropped sharply following the end of a government tax credit.
Manufacturing employment rose 9,000 after a 32,000 gain in May.
With unemployment stubbornly high, household spending has turned sluggish in recent months, threatening to create a vicious cycle that stock market investors and some analysts worry could tip the economy back into recession.
"We are in a difficult situation. I don't think there is political will to have another stimulus program and even if we did I am not sure people feel it would be that effective,'' said Stephen Bronars, a senior economist at Welch Consulting in Washington.
The Federal Reserve is also in a bind. It has held benchmark overnight interest rates close to zero since December 2008 and has pumped more than $1 trillion into the economy.
Fed officials believe a sustainable recovery has taken hold, but are watching cautiously.
The average workweek edged down to 34.1 hours from 34.2 hours in May.
As many of you know last night the Audit the Fed bill HR 1207 and to send the Dodd Frank bill back to the committee. However it seems in the end that many who did sponsor the bill where happy enough with a one time audit of the Federal Reserve and than moving on. The Fed has far to much power over our economy I for one would love to see the end of the Fed but if that is not possiable why shouldn't we know more about what it is doing and why? Why should we not get to see it's books and a regulare bases?
What is tragic is that so many of the no votes last night where people who said they supported the bill. This is why we need a major overhaul in Congress and to elect people who will stand up for what is right. While the Audit the Fed bill would have been a step in the right direction it seems it will have to wait for another day let us hope that day comes sooner rather then later. The bright spot about all this is that the public is now much more aware of the Federal Reserve and the role that it plays in our lives and I believe in the long run this will mean the public demanding more over sight not less.
E-Rock
This is list came from the Campaign for Liberty website. Alabama Bobby Bright – AL-2 Arizona Ed Pastor – AZ-4 Raul Grijalva – AZ-7
Arkansas Marion Berry – AR-1 Vic Snyder – AR-2 California
Jackie Speier – CA-12 Pete Stark – CA-13 Zoe Lofgren – CA-16 Sam Farr – CA-17 Brad Sherman – CA-27 Adam Schiff – CA-29 Judy Chu – CA-32 Jane Harman – CA-36 Laura Richardson – CA-37 Bob Filner – CA-51
Colorado Jared Polis – CO-2 John Salazar – CO-3 Ed Perlmutter – CO-7 Connecticut Joe Courtney – CT-2 Christopher Murphy – CT-5
Florida Allen Boyd – FL-2 Corrine Brown – FL-3 Suzanne Kosmas – FL-24
Georgia Sanford Bishop – GA-2 Hank Johnson – GA-4 John Lewis – GA-5 John Barrow – GA-12 David Scott – GA-13 Hawaii Mazie Hirono – HI-2
Illinois Jesse Jackson, Jr. – IL-2 Mike Quigley – IL-5 Danny Davis – IL-7 Janice Schakowsky – IL-9 Deborah Halvorson – IL-11 Phil Hare – IL-17 Indiana Peter Visclosky – IN-1 Baron Hill – IN-9 Iowa Bruce Braley – IA-1 David Loebsack – IA-2 Leonard Boswell – IA-3 Kentucky John Yarmuth – KY-3 Ben Chandler – KY-6 Louisiana Charlie Melancon – LA-3
Maine Chellie Pingree – ME-1 Michael Michaud – ME-2 Maryland C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger – MD-2 John Sarbanes – MD-3 Donna Edwards – MD-4
Massachusetts James McGovern – MA-3 John Tierney – MA-6 Bill Delahunt – MA-10
Michigan Dale Kildee – MI-5 Mark Schauer – MI-7 Carolyn Kilpatrick – MI-13 John Conyers – MI-14
Nevada Shelley Berkley – NV-1 New Hampshire Carol Shea-Porter – NH-1
New Jersey John Adler – NJ-3 Bill Pascrell – NJ-8 Steven Rothman – NJ-9 Donald Payne – NJ-10
New Mexico Martin Heinrich – NM-1 Ben Ray Lujan – NM-3
New York Timothy Bishop – NY-1 Jerrold Nadler – NY-8 Anthony Weiner – NY-9 Scott Murphy – NY-20 Paul Tonko – NY-21 Maurice Hinchey – NY-22 Michael Arcuri – NY-24 Daniel Maffei – NY-25 Brian Higgins – NY-27 Louise Slaughter – NY-28 North Carolina Larry Kissell – NC-8 Heath Shuler – NC-11 Brad Miller – NC-13
Ohio Steve Driehaus – OH-1 Marcy Kaptur – OH-8 Dennis Kucinich – OH-10 Marcia Fudge – OH-11 Betty Sutton – OH-13 John Boccieri – OH-16 Tim Ryan – OH-17
Oklahoma Dan Boren – OK-2 Oregon David Wu – OR-1 Peter DeFazio – OR-4 Kurt Schrader – OR-5
Pennsylvania Kathleen Dahlkemper – PA-3 Jason Altmire – PA-4 Patrick Murphy – PA-8 Michael Doyle – PA-14 Tim Holden – PA-17
Rhode Island James Langevin – RI-2
South Carolina John Spratt – SC-5 South Dakota Stephanie Herseth Sandlin – SD
Tennessee Lincoln Davis – TN-4 Bart Gordon – TN-6 Steve Cohen – TN-9
Texas Ruben Hinojosa – TX-15 Silvestre Reyes – TX-16 Ciro Rodriguez – TX-23 Lloyd Doggett – TX-25 Solomon Ortiz – TX-27 Henry Cuellar – TX-28 Eddie Bernice Johnson – TX-30
Vermont Peter Welch – VT Washington Jay Inslee – WA-1 Brian Baird – WA-3 Jim McDermott – WA-7 Adam Smith – WA-9
For those that suggest we let government run our entire healthcare system just look at the job it is doing with Veterans Care. This is shocking that this is happening to the men and woman of our armed forces. The VA system has a long history of having either to much red tape or of having issues such as this pop up. This is why I reject the idea that the government should run healthcare at all. While there are problems in the private sector at least you can turn around and usually win settlements as for the government well it is alot harder to do so. Plus given the fact that people are not going to go to a hospital if the care is bad hospitals have a vested interest in maintaining good health standards. The VA system? It seems incompatence is the only thing going on with it.
E-Rock
VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV By the CNN Wire Staff STORY HIGHLIGHTS Missouri VA hospital sends letters to more than 1,800 patients at risk Patients may be at risk to contract hepatitis and HIV Congressman from Missouri angry and calling for investigation Hospital says problem stems from handwashing dental instruments RELATED TOPICS Missouri Veterans' Affairs HIV and AIDS (CNN) -- A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.
John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis has recently mailed letters to 1,812 veterans telling them they could contract hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after visiting the medical center for dental work, said Rep. Russ Carnahan.
Carnahan said Tuesday he is calling for a investigation into the issue and has sent a letter to President Obama about it.
"This is absolutely unacceptable," said Carnahan, a Democrat from Missouri. "No veteran who has served and risked their life for this great nation should have to worry about their personal safety when receiving much needed healthcare services from a Veterans Administration hospital."
The issue stems from a failure to clean dental instruments properly, the hospital told CNN affiliate KSDK.
KSDK: VA dental patients at risk of infection
Dr. Gina Michael, the association chief of staff at the hospital, told the affiliate that some dental technicians broke protocol by handwashing tools before putting them in cleaning machines.
The instruments were supposed to only be put in the cleaning machines, Michael said.
The handwashing started in February 2009 and went on until March of this year, the hospital told KSDK.
The hospital has set up a special clinic and education centers to help patients who may have been infected. However, Carnahan said he feels more should be done and those responsible should be disciplined.
"I can only imagine the horror and anger our veterans must be feeling after receiving this letter," Carnahan said. "They have every right to be angry. So am I."
This is not the first time this year a hospital has been in hot water for not following proper procedures.
In June, Palomar Hospital in San Diego, California, has sent certified letters to 3,400 patients who underwent colonoscopy and other similar procedures, informing the patients that there may be a potential of infection from items used and reused in the procedures.
She has a thin record add to it why are we not hearing about her views on property rights, telecommunications law, her time as a legal advisor to the Clinton White House, as Solicitor General, questions about her arguments during those period's of time should be open to question, survillance laws, immigration laws, and drug laws. Those are just a few of the questions that should be asked. I am sure their are more though that could be added. But I think as the op-ed piece below lays out her thin record is really the issue here. Is she really that qualified to decide the cases that will have massive ramifications for all Americans? Personally I feel that just three days of questions is not enough at all. This feels like a rushed confirmation when that is exactly the wrong process in my mind no matter if it is a GOP nominated appointee or Democrat appointee. But I suppose the show must go on and that is really as Kagan once put it in her own writtings these hearings are all about. But as Senator Fraken (D) MN has shown us when he dozed off it was a pretty boring show this go around.
E-Rock
Attack Kagan Already! by Paul Campos Info
Republican senators are sticking to their tired tactic of painting Elena Kagan as an “activist” instead of hitting her where she’s vulnerable—her appallingly thin record, says Paul Campos.
After less than two days of Senate hearings, the essential absurdity of Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination has already been laid bare. Tuesday morning, Kagan was asked about a rare moment of indiscretion in a 25-year career that she has seemingly dedicated to never expressing a legal or political opinion that could be held against her in a Supreme Court confirmation process.
Fifteen years ago, Kagan pointed out in a book review that Supreme Court hearings had “taken on an air of vacuity and farce” because senators were failing to insist that nominees answer hard questions about their legal and political views. This had, she noted correctly, transformed those hearings into “a vapid and hollow charade.” Now Kagan, whose views on almost every relevant issue from executive power to campaign finance remain completely unknown, has decided that these observations were “a little bit off.”
Kagan is taking the view that these hearings should be the most extreme possible version of the “vapid and hollow charade” she once condemned when she committed her youthful gaffe.
Kagan informed the committee that, on further reflection, “it wouldn’t be appropriate” for her to discuss whether Supreme Court cases had been rightly or wrongly decided. Not, mind you, cases before the court now, or somewhere else in the legal system, or even potential future litigation—but any cases, including all of the court’s existing precedents. Kagan did make the spectacularly banal observation that Supreme Court precedents are “settled law,” which, as she explained, means the court should follow them until a good enough reason not to arises. Of course the best possible reason to overturn a precedent is that a justice believes the issue was wrongly decided in the first place. But Kagan flatly refused to discuss the merits of any existing precedents.
Instead, Kagan promised to take cases one at a time, and decide them “as fairly and objectively as I can.” In other words, Kagan is taking the view that these hearings should be the most extreme version possible of the “vapid and hollow charade” she once condemned when she committed her youthful gaffe. (A gaffe, as Michael Kinsley once observed, is when a public figure inadvertently tells the truth.)
Nothing could be more meaningless than a nominee’s promise to be fair and objective, except possibly a pledge to avoid that eternal bugaboo of right-wing legal propaganda, so-called activist judging. The first two days of the Kagan hearings featured an endless parade of Republican senators condemning activist judges. Activist judges, you see, put their policy preferences before the requirements of the law.
To grasp how idiotic this framing of the issue is, one need go no further than Monday’s Supreme Court decision, which held that the Second Amendment’s provisions regarding the regulation of arms applies not only to the federal government, but to state and city governments as well. In theory, this conclusion should have presented quite a problem to Justice Scalia, who is famous for championing an “originalist” reading of the Constitution. (There is no dispute that when it was originally enacted, the Second Amendment was not intended to apply to state and local governments: The original Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government.)
Scalia found a way around this difficulty by declaring that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment now requires applying the limitations of the Second Amendment against local governments. (In legal jargon, this is known as “incorporating” a right via “substantive due process.”) The problem with this conclusion is that Scalia has spent his whole legal career railing against the whole idea of substantive due process, which he has condemned as “a judicial usurpation” and an “oxymoron,” by which liberal judges have smuggled their policy preferences on issues such as abortion into the Constitution.
Scalia’s constitutional gymnastics show how the formal legal materials—“the law,” if you prefer—lend themselves perfectly well to a variety of outcomes. It should therefore be unnecessary to point out how meaningless it is to attach labels such as “fair,” or “objective,” or “activist” to the opinions of our judges.
And yet these are the words Republicans are likely to use in challenging Kagan as they attempt to paint her as a liberal. They might save themselves some work by attacking her where she’s much more vulnerable: her record, or rather her almost complete lack of one. Her thin sheaf of academic writings addresses only a handful of very narrow technical legal issues in an especially cautious and non-revelatory fashion. She has never published a word not intended for an academic audience. Her work as a lawyer—that is, as someone who is professionally obligated to advocate the positions of her employer, whether she agrees with them or not—tells us nothing about her own views.
Over the past two months, I’ve spoken to nine of Kagan’s former colleagues at the two law schools where she has taught. All of these people, some of whom support Kagan’s nomination and some who oppose it, insist they know nothing about Kagan’s views on any significant legal or political issue—and I believe them.
A generation of incoherent and hypocritical right-wing complaints about judicial activism has helped obscure the fact that Supreme Court justices must make extremely difficult and extraordinarily important political decisions, which are to a significant extent not constrained by what is called “the law.” The logical end point of those complaints is the nomination of someone to the Supreme Court whose political views aren’t in the public record and whose public legal views are limited to spouting empty nonsense about “fairness” and “objectivity.”
The sorry spectacle of these hearings promises to be nothing but an insult to the intelligence of, in ascending order of importance, the legal community, the Senate, and the American people.
Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
We hear alot about how the government is bigger and in bed with the corporations. Alot of doom and gloom stories but today I read about a victory of sorts by libertarians and conservatives in Court against major companies in an attempt to stop the state giving them massive cash grants. I post the story below and along with a link so that u can read some of that pdf attachements from appeals court that ruled in their favor. While they have not won their case out right they still have gained a large victory and given that the Appeals Court wrote a favorable piece they may end up winning the whole thing I wish them all the best.
E-Rock
Every Once in a While, You Win One Posted by James Ostrowski on June 27, 2010 08:18 PM I have kept you posted here on what I call the Pork Lawsuit filed in Albany, NY in 2008. We are seeking to breathe life into the Jeffersonian NY Constitution of 1846 (PDF) by asking the courts to end billions of dollars of cash grants to corporations for “economic development.” It’s a classic David and Goliath story. Fifty libertarian and conservative activists throughout the state chipped in a few bucks to allow me to sit in the law library for two months and decipher dusty old law books.
We are up against five large law firms including Andrew Cuomo’s office and Cravath, Swaine and Moore, the second largest law firm in the US. Early in the case, their lawyer told me they would bury me with paperwork. My reply was, in effect, make my day.
The trial judge threw us out of court and we appealed (PDF) to the Appellate Division in Albany. On Thursday, the five-judge court unanimously reversed in a highly favorable opinion (PDF).
That night, after a well-attended press conference in Buffalo, we celebrated at a local pub. After all, it isn’t every day you hand the corporate state a defeat in their own backyard
WASHINGTON -- The Internal Revenue Service says oil spill victims who receive BP payments for lost wages will have to pay up come tax time.
Under current law, BP payments for lost wages are taxable -- just like the wages would have been, the IRS said in tax guidance issued Friday. Payments for physical injuries or property loss, however, are generally tax free. Payments for emotional distress? Taxable, though medical expenses related to the emotional distress are deductible.
BP officials have agreed to create a $20 billion fund for spill victims, as well as a $100 million fund to support displaced oil rig workers.
The IRS issued the guidance today to help spill victims sort through the law's complexities. The agency has posted tax information for oil spill victims on its website and plans to hold forums in seven Gulf Coast cities on July 17 to help victims with tax troubles or questions.
"As residents of the region cope with the evolving situation, I want to assure them that the IRS will be doing everything it can to provide tax help to those who need it," IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said. "We encourage anyone who has an issue with the IRS to contact us and explain their hardship, and we will work with them to find a solution."
"We'll do everything we can under current law to help taxpayers," Shulman added.
Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., introduced a bill this week to exempt from taxes all BP payments to spill victims, though its prospects for becoming law were uncertain.
"Compensation from BP will help, but during this uncertain time Louisianians will need to stretch every dollar and should not have to worry about setting aside a portion of the payments for taxes," Melancon said in a statement.
Ken Hoagland, chairman of the National FairTax campaign, an anti-tax group, said, "These modest payments are just putting food on the table and should not be taxed."
The IRS has a number of programs to help people who make a good-faith effort but cannot afford to pay their tax bills. Agents can postpone collections in certain hardship cases or allow delinquent taxpayers to skip installment payments if they have made timely payments in the past.
The IRS will hold its July 17 forums for oil victims in these cities: Mobile, Ala.; Panama City, Fla.; Pensacola, Fla.; New Orleans; Houma, La.; Baton Rouge, La.; and Gulfport, Miss.
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