With the election of President Obama many observers say we live in a post racial society.
I am not sure yet about that assertion and do have my doubts, but I do hope it is true.
However, how do we explain then that 40 percent, yes, 40 percent of black kids under 5 live in poverty.
Hmmmm.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Michigan Legislature's Priorities
Well, they are back in full swing and introducing scores and scores of bills--some important publc policies, some politics as usual bills and some bills to take care of business back home. Some serious and some silly.
Everyone thinks they know what the legislature should do first in 2009 and the Republicans and the Democrats have a set of priorities that are very different.
So here are a few things that might be priorities for our state, for the Governor and for the state legislature--this is not to say that there are not other serious and silly bills that should get done, but this list is a start of what they might consider for the future of our state:
--Fix our tax system: ranging from going to a graduated income tax (from our current flat tax), sales tax reform (add taxable items, add services tax?) to business/corporate tax reform--incentives, loop holes, Michigan Business Tax Surcharge, etc.. The tax system is out of date and unable to support our state budget. Most agree that it needs review, amendment and reform. So start "it" now. If the legislaturae can't do it then put reforms on the ballot for the people to decide in 2009. At the same time we need a very close examination of our state budget and what we can afford to keep and what we cannot afford to give up--tied to what we must cut.
--Energy reforms: solar, wind, coal, wood--we are behind other states and we need to decide what we can and can't do as a state. If we are to eliminate coal or limit its use we have to make sure we can support what is left of our manufacturing sector and make sure that we do not do something that causes energy shortages for citizens. Provide for incentives for installation of wind and solar and to make the utilities offer citizens good rates for taking some of this power back onto their grid.
--Lobbying, special interest and campaign spending reforms: Michigan's laws in all these areas are outdated and need immediate attention. Transparency is important and we should hold elected officials responsible for their violations of these acts--not just lobbyists and special interest leaders.
--Major corrections reforms: in comparison to the other Great Lakes states we imprison a third more prisoners, our corrections costs are approximately one third higher and our costs are about one third or more higher. That is not good fiscal policy, it is not good corrections or civil liberties policy and it is just plain dumb. We are spending almost as much on corrections as we are on higher education. In fact we give universities between $4000 and 9,000 per full time equated student and we spend over $32,000 per prisoner for the priviledge of housing them in our state. Crime rates don't seem any lower in Michigan do they?
State pension reform: every review of our pension system gives the state the same warning--you are headed for trouble and you have a system that you cannot afford with the revenue you have coming in to your state coffers. Legislators need to look at moving teacher retirement pensions to a defined contributions system and also look at retirement and health benefits for public employees (not just teachers, but all state employees, including elected officials).
Term limits will make the above reforms more difficult but the legislature and the governor have a responsibility to move our state ahead and get our laws and the economy reformed to meet the new challenges our nation and state will face in the next few years. Stimulus bills not withstanding, they cannot ignore these big systemic issues.
What else should be on the "urgent" list?
While we are thinking of what the legislature should do this year, and the huge task ahead, consider the bill introduced by Rep. LaBlanc: a law to designate an official state tartan. Hmmmm. I knew there was something we needed and left off the list!!!
Everyone thinks they know what the legislature should do first in 2009 and the Republicans and the Democrats have a set of priorities that are very different.
So here are a few things that might be priorities for our state, for the Governor and for the state legislature--this is not to say that there are not other serious and silly bills that should get done, but this list is a start of what they might consider for the future of our state:
--Fix our tax system: ranging from going to a graduated income tax (from our current flat tax), sales tax reform (add taxable items, add services tax?) to business/corporate tax reform--incentives, loop holes, Michigan Business Tax Surcharge, etc.. The tax system is out of date and unable to support our state budget. Most agree that it needs review, amendment and reform. So start "it" now. If the legislaturae can't do it then put reforms on the ballot for the people to decide in 2009. At the same time we need a very close examination of our state budget and what we can afford to keep and what we cannot afford to give up--tied to what we must cut.
--Energy reforms: solar, wind, coal, wood--we are behind other states and we need to decide what we can and can't do as a state. If we are to eliminate coal or limit its use we have to make sure we can support what is left of our manufacturing sector and make sure that we do not do something that causes energy shortages for citizens. Provide for incentives for installation of wind and solar and to make the utilities offer citizens good rates for taking some of this power back onto their grid.
--Lobbying, special interest and campaign spending reforms: Michigan's laws in all these areas are outdated and need immediate attention. Transparency is important and we should hold elected officials responsible for their violations of these acts--not just lobbyists and special interest leaders.
--Major corrections reforms: in comparison to the other Great Lakes states we imprison a third more prisoners, our corrections costs are approximately one third higher and our costs are about one third or more higher. That is not good fiscal policy, it is not good corrections or civil liberties policy and it is just plain dumb. We are spending almost as much on corrections as we are on higher education. In fact we give universities between $4000 and 9,000 per full time equated student and we spend over $32,000 per prisoner for the priviledge of housing them in our state. Crime rates don't seem any lower in Michigan do they?
State pension reform: every review of our pension system gives the state the same warning--you are headed for trouble and you have a system that you cannot afford with the revenue you have coming in to your state coffers. Legislators need to look at moving teacher retirement pensions to a defined contributions system and also look at retirement and health benefits for public employees (not just teachers, but all state employees, including elected officials).
Term limits will make the above reforms more difficult but the legislature and the governor have a responsibility to move our state ahead and get our laws and the economy reformed to meet the new challenges our nation and state will face in the next few years. Stimulus bills not withstanding, they cannot ignore these big systemic issues.
What else should be on the "urgent" list?
While we are thinking of what the legislature should do this year, and the huge task ahead, consider the bill introduced by Rep. LaBlanc: a law to designate an official state tartan. Hmmmm. I knew there was something we needed and left off the list!!!
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Quote for Today
14 Feb 2009 04:05 pm
Quote For Today
"When it comes to the culture, conservatives should promote an awareness of the costs of unchecked individual autonomy, while challenging conceptions of freedom that deny the need for self-restraint and self-denial. When it comes to economics, they should emphasize the virtue and necessity of Americans, collectively as well as individually, learning to live within their means. When it comes to foreign policy, they should advocate a restoration of realism, which will necessarily entail abandoning expectations of remaking the world in America's own image," - Andrew Bacevich, TNR.
Do we think American conservatives believe this statement? Especially since it was written published in The New Republic, a liberal leaning publication. It is however a very interesting statement or mission statement.
Quote For Today
"When it comes to the culture, conservatives should promote an awareness of the costs of unchecked individual autonomy, while challenging conceptions of freedom that deny the need for self-restraint and self-denial. When it comes to economics, they should emphasize the virtue and necessity of Americans, collectively as well as individually, learning to live within their means. When it comes to foreign policy, they should advocate a restoration of realism, which will necessarily entail abandoning expectations of remaking the world in America's own image," - Andrew Bacevich, TNR.
Do we think American conservatives believe this statement? Especially since it was written published in The New Republic, a liberal leaning publication. It is however a very interesting statement or mission statement.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Updating the Michigan Constitution
Michigan's constitution has a provision that calls for a vote by the people every 16 years as to whether they want to call a Constitutional Convention to review and re write the constitution.
Each time it has been before the electorate (1974 and 1994) it has been overwhelmingly defeated.
In November 2010 the people will get another chance to vote if they want to amend their constitution via a Constitutional Convention.
If the people approve the ballot proposal (Proposal 10-1) then there will be an election in 2011 to elect delegates to the convention (February primary and May general election). Each current House district will elect one delegate and each Senate District will elect one delegate. it is a partisan election. If a district does not have a delegate elected (none runs) then the Governor gets to fill that slot or if a vacancy occurs the Governor appoints the replacement (must be of same political party as vacating delegate).
The Convention will be reaquired to meet in the Fall of 2011 and continue meeting until they adjourn permanently the Convention.
The Convention delegates will organize themselves similar to the legislature: officers, Convention rules, etc..
Some observers say that the election of delegates (primary and general) could cost more than $50 million and that the cost of operating the Convention, paying the delegates, expenses, etc., could exceed $30 million.
One of the great fears in having a Constitutional Convention is that one ideological group or sector will control the election process and thereby control the output of the convention (conservatives versus liberal and/or Republican Party versus the Democratic Party). Others fear that the convention will be overrun by pro gun, anti abortion, pro choice or some other pro/con group--single issue politics will control and not what is best overall for Michigan.
What issues might come before this 2011 Michigan Constitutional Convention? Hmmmm.
Each time it has been before the electorate (1974 and 1994) it has been overwhelmingly defeated.
In November 2010 the people will get another chance to vote if they want to amend their constitution via a Constitutional Convention.
If the people approve the ballot proposal (Proposal 10-1) then there will be an election in 2011 to elect delegates to the convention (February primary and May general election). Each current House district will elect one delegate and each Senate District will elect one delegate. it is a partisan election. If a district does not have a delegate elected (none runs) then the Governor gets to fill that slot or if a vacancy occurs the Governor appoints the replacement (must be of same political party as vacating delegate).
The Convention will be reaquired to meet in the Fall of 2011 and continue meeting until they adjourn permanently the Convention.
The Convention delegates will organize themselves similar to the legislature: officers, Convention rules, etc..
Some observers say that the election of delegates (primary and general) could cost more than $50 million and that the cost of operating the Convention, paying the delegates, expenses, etc., could exceed $30 million.
One of the great fears in having a Constitutional Convention is that one ideological group or sector will control the election process and thereby control the output of the convention (conservatives versus liberal and/or Republican Party versus the Democratic Party). Others fear that the convention will be overrun by pro gun, anti abortion, pro choice or some other pro/con group--single issue politics will control and not what is best overall for Michigan.
What issues might come before this 2011 Michigan Constitutional Convention? Hmmmm.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Congress and the Stimulus Package
The NY Times article below is a good analysis of the differences between the House and Senate bills. The House bill is directing money to the states and local governments to help stimulate the state and local economies. The Senate version strikes much of this funding. Many members of Congress, in both parties, believe that states have been for a decade building big government programs and refusing to raise taxes to pay for these new programs. Also many believe that states have to do a better job of cutting budgets now and cannot be turning to the federal government for aid. California's Governor is not able or willing to raise taxes in his state and he wants the most funding for his state. A similar story from many Governors. When we look at the devastation that the banking/crdit crisis and the economic failures all across America there does not seem to be much that Governor's and state legislature's can do about a solution--it has to come from the federal Government, in the opinion of many. Loss of state aid in the stimulus bill will cause hundreds of thousands of jobs to be lost in the states.
NY Times
February 8, 2009
Divisions Over the Competing Stimulus Bills
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON — The Senate agreement on a roughly $827 billion economic stimulus bill sets up tough negotiations with the House, primarily over tens of billions of dollars in aid to states and local governments, tax provisions, and education, health and renewable energy programs.
Congress is racing to try to finalize the legislation this week.
The price tag for the Senate plan is now only slightly more than the $820 billion cost of the measure adopted by the House. Both plans are intended to blunt the recession with a combination of tax cuts and government spending on public works and other programs to create more than three million jobs.
But the competing bills now reflect substantially different approaches. The House puts greater emphasis on helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts in services and layoffs of public employees. The Senate cut $40 billion of that aid from its bill, which is expected to be approved Tuesday.
The Senate plan, reached in an agreement late Friday between Democrats and three moderate Republicans, focuses somewhat more heavily on tax cuts, provides far less generous health care subsidies for the unemployed and lowers a proposed increase in food stamps.
To help allay Republican concerns about the cost, the Senate proposal even scales back President Obama’s signature middle-class tax cut. The Senate plan also creates new tax incentives to encourage Americans to buy homes and cars within the next year.
Republican opponents continued to rail against the stimulus plan on the Senate floor on Saturday, though it appeared they would not have the votes to stop it.
The negotiations in Congress will test whether Democrats, who say they won a mandate in November to pursue their goals, are willing to give up some favored long-term policy initiatives to win over more Republican votes.
The talks will also test whether any but the most moderate Republicans will be willing to support the Obama administration, or whether they will simply recoil in an opposition stance.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was in Williamsburg, Va., on a retreat with her fellow House Democrats on Friday, called the emerging Senate cuts to the stimulus program “very damaging” and said she was “very much opposed to them.” But after the Senate reached a deal, Ms. Pelosi expressed resolve to complete the legislation in the days ahead.
Mr. Obama, who has made the economic recovery effort the centerpiece of his agenda, is expected to take a stronger hand in the negotiations and will embark on an aggressive public lobbying campaign.
He will hold a meeting in Indiana on Monday, followed by a formal White House news conference, the first of his term, in prime time on Monday night. He will pitch the plan again on Tuesday in Florida and on Wednesday in Virginia.
In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, the president praised the Senate deal and urged quick passage of a final bill.
“The time for action is now,” Mr. Obama said. “If we don’t move swiftly to put this plan in motion, our economic crisis could become a national catastrophe.”
Also on Monday, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is expected to announce the broad outlines of a rescue plan for the financial industry. The administration hopes that the announcement will quiet some critics in Congress who say not enough is being done for the housing sector.
After Senate Democrats reached their deal with moderate Republicans on Friday, Republicans who are more conservative refused to put the legislative process on a fast track.
Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, insisted that the deal required careful deliberation and said he would spend the weekend reviewing it, even though it was all but certain that he would not support the measure.
As a result, the Senate met for a rare Saturday session, and Republicans delivered some of their harshest criticism of Mr. Obama since he took office, suggesting that he was pressing Congress to act irresponsibly by warning of imminent catastrophe.
“In discussing with the American people his approach to the stimulus of our economy, he has first really used some dangerous words,” said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican. Mr. Kyl added, “It seems to me that the president is rather casually throwing out some careless language.”
The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said Congress would move quickly to get the bill into conference, in hopes of sending the bill to the White House by the week’s end.
As it stands, three Republicans are expected to join the 58 Democrats in favor of the bill, and the negotiations may tilt slightly in the Senate’s favor as officials try to keep that coalition in place.
Both the House and the Senate must vote again to approve the final legislation, leaving a chance of unexpected pitfalls.
The main fight is likely to be over the Senate’s proposal to cut $40 billion from proposed aid to states. Such aid does not necessarily lift the economy, but it prevents states from carrying out cuts that could make the recession worse, and the money can be deployed quickly, a challenge in any stimulus.
The $40 billion was the largest cut in a paring back of the Senate proposal that helped seal a deal between Democrats and the moderate Republicans, thanks to the efforts of a bipartisan group led by Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska.
Another big difference is the Senate’s inclusion of nearly $70 billion to protect thousands of middle-class Americans from paying the alternative minimum tax in 2009, sparing them from a system originally intended to prevent the wealthy from claiming too many tax deductions.
House Democratic leaders have indicated a willingness to retain that provision even though it could require them to give up tens of billions of dollars in favored spending programs and force them to make wrenching choices.
Adjusting the alternative minimum tax is also unlikely to give much extra lift to the economy, because Congress has adopted similar fixes for years and would probably have done so again regardless of the stimulus.
Other trims the Senate settled on eliminated $19.5 billion in construction aid for schools and colleges and sliced proposed new aid for the Head Start early childhood program by $1 billion.
In some cases, the cuts to the Senate bill brought it closer to the House proposal. For instance, the senators reduced financing to expand broadband data networks in rural and underserved areas to $7 billion from $9 billion. The House has proposed $6 billion.
Some of the Senate’s changes clearly reflected the personal priorities of lawmakers, especially the moderate Republicans who were instrumental in reaching an accord.
The Senate deal, for example, reduced proposed aid to NASA and the National Science Foundation by $200 million each.
But it added $6.5 billion for medical research at the National Institutes of Health, favored by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, one of the three Republicans supporting the plan
Even with Democrats controlling both chambers, the negotiations are likely to be difficult. House Democrats have shown little inclination to cater to Republican wishes, especially given the unwillingness of Republicans to vote for the bill.
So far, Mr. Obama and his aides have strongly resisted any change to his proposal for a middle-class tax cut, which was one of his main campaign promises.
It would provide a tax credit of up to $500 for individuals and up to $1,000 for couples, with the credit phasing out for individuals earning more than $75,000 a year and couples more than $150,000.
The Senate bill would lower that income cap to $70,000 for individuals and $140,000 for couples, saving the government $2 billion but potentially reducing the effectiveness of a tax break that is intended to lift consumer spending.
It is unclear how Congress will deal with two provisions aimed directly at general consumers, including an $11 billion tax break in the Senate bill to spur car sales by allowing buyers to deduct any sales tax and one year of loan interest.
The chambers must reconcile competing homebuyer tax credits.
To stabilize real estate prices, the House would give first-time homebuyers a tax credit of 10 percent of a home’s cost, up to $7,500, with income caps reducing the credit for individuals earning at least $75,000 and couples earning $150,000.
The Senate plan includes a more generous credit of 10 percent, up to $15,000, that would be available to all homebuyers, with no income limits.
A formal conference to resolve the differences between the two bills is expected to begin by midweek.
In the Senate debate, critics of the plan said their main objective was to support proposals that would quickly create jobs or spur consumer spending.
But there were Republicans who vehemently opposed some spending programs in the bill, saying the federal government was overstepping its bounds and should not be getting involved in taking up local responsibilities like school construction.
Many of the education programs in the bill are top priorities of the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin.
In debate on the Senate floor, many Republicans, including the party’s defeated presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, offered amendments to reduce spending and broaden the tax cuts in the plan. The Democrats easily swatted those down.
Critics of the stimulus plan say Democrats have packed it not with the most effective short-term proposals to lift the economy, but with favored, liberal spending programs that will drastically increase the national debt and cause long-term fiscal harm.
“A bill that was meant to be timely, targeted and temporary has instead become a Trojan horse for pet projects and expanded government,” the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, said in a floor speech on Friday.
Although Mr. Obama made substantial efforts to reach across party lines, not one of the House Republicans voted for the stimulus measure. They complained that House Democrats shut them out of the process.
In the Senate, too, talks proved excruciatingly difficult. In the end, the only Republicans whose support the Democrats won were Mr. Specter, Ms. Collins and Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.
NY Times
February 8, 2009
Divisions Over the Competing Stimulus Bills
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON — The Senate agreement on a roughly $827 billion economic stimulus bill sets up tough negotiations with the House, primarily over tens of billions of dollars in aid to states and local governments, tax provisions, and education, health and renewable energy programs.
Congress is racing to try to finalize the legislation this week.
The price tag for the Senate plan is now only slightly more than the $820 billion cost of the measure adopted by the House. Both plans are intended to blunt the recession with a combination of tax cuts and government spending on public works and other programs to create more than three million jobs.
But the competing bills now reflect substantially different approaches. The House puts greater emphasis on helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts in services and layoffs of public employees. The Senate cut $40 billion of that aid from its bill, which is expected to be approved Tuesday.
The Senate plan, reached in an agreement late Friday between Democrats and three moderate Republicans, focuses somewhat more heavily on tax cuts, provides far less generous health care subsidies for the unemployed and lowers a proposed increase in food stamps.
To help allay Republican concerns about the cost, the Senate proposal even scales back President Obama’s signature middle-class tax cut. The Senate plan also creates new tax incentives to encourage Americans to buy homes and cars within the next year.
Republican opponents continued to rail against the stimulus plan on the Senate floor on Saturday, though it appeared they would not have the votes to stop it.
The negotiations in Congress will test whether Democrats, who say they won a mandate in November to pursue their goals, are willing to give up some favored long-term policy initiatives to win over more Republican votes.
The talks will also test whether any but the most moderate Republicans will be willing to support the Obama administration, or whether they will simply recoil in an opposition stance.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was in Williamsburg, Va., on a retreat with her fellow House Democrats on Friday, called the emerging Senate cuts to the stimulus program “very damaging” and said she was “very much opposed to them.” But after the Senate reached a deal, Ms. Pelosi expressed resolve to complete the legislation in the days ahead.
Mr. Obama, who has made the economic recovery effort the centerpiece of his agenda, is expected to take a stronger hand in the negotiations and will embark on an aggressive public lobbying campaign.
He will hold a meeting in Indiana on Monday, followed by a formal White House news conference, the first of his term, in prime time on Monday night. He will pitch the plan again on Tuesday in Florida and on Wednesday in Virginia.
In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, the president praised the Senate deal and urged quick passage of a final bill.
“The time for action is now,” Mr. Obama said. “If we don’t move swiftly to put this plan in motion, our economic crisis could become a national catastrophe.”
Also on Monday, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is expected to announce the broad outlines of a rescue plan for the financial industry. The administration hopes that the announcement will quiet some critics in Congress who say not enough is being done for the housing sector.
After Senate Democrats reached their deal with moderate Republicans on Friday, Republicans who are more conservative refused to put the legislative process on a fast track.
Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, insisted that the deal required careful deliberation and said he would spend the weekend reviewing it, even though it was all but certain that he would not support the measure.
As a result, the Senate met for a rare Saturday session, and Republicans delivered some of their harshest criticism of Mr. Obama since he took office, suggesting that he was pressing Congress to act irresponsibly by warning of imminent catastrophe.
“In discussing with the American people his approach to the stimulus of our economy, he has first really used some dangerous words,” said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican. Mr. Kyl added, “It seems to me that the president is rather casually throwing out some careless language.”
The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said Congress would move quickly to get the bill into conference, in hopes of sending the bill to the White House by the week’s end.
As it stands, three Republicans are expected to join the 58 Democrats in favor of the bill, and the negotiations may tilt slightly in the Senate’s favor as officials try to keep that coalition in place.
Both the House and the Senate must vote again to approve the final legislation, leaving a chance of unexpected pitfalls.
The main fight is likely to be over the Senate’s proposal to cut $40 billion from proposed aid to states. Such aid does not necessarily lift the economy, but it prevents states from carrying out cuts that could make the recession worse, and the money can be deployed quickly, a challenge in any stimulus.
The $40 billion was the largest cut in a paring back of the Senate proposal that helped seal a deal between Democrats and the moderate Republicans, thanks to the efforts of a bipartisan group led by Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska.
Another big difference is the Senate’s inclusion of nearly $70 billion to protect thousands of middle-class Americans from paying the alternative minimum tax in 2009, sparing them from a system originally intended to prevent the wealthy from claiming too many tax deductions.
House Democratic leaders have indicated a willingness to retain that provision even though it could require them to give up tens of billions of dollars in favored spending programs and force them to make wrenching choices.
Adjusting the alternative minimum tax is also unlikely to give much extra lift to the economy, because Congress has adopted similar fixes for years and would probably have done so again regardless of the stimulus.
Other trims the Senate settled on eliminated $19.5 billion in construction aid for schools and colleges and sliced proposed new aid for the Head Start early childhood program by $1 billion.
In some cases, the cuts to the Senate bill brought it closer to the House proposal. For instance, the senators reduced financing to expand broadband data networks in rural and underserved areas to $7 billion from $9 billion. The House has proposed $6 billion.
Some of the Senate’s changes clearly reflected the personal priorities of lawmakers, especially the moderate Republicans who were instrumental in reaching an accord.
The Senate deal, for example, reduced proposed aid to NASA and the National Science Foundation by $200 million each.
But it added $6.5 billion for medical research at the National Institutes of Health, favored by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, one of the three Republicans supporting the plan
Even with Democrats controlling both chambers, the negotiations are likely to be difficult. House Democrats have shown little inclination to cater to Republican wishes, especially given the unwillingness of Republicans to vote for the bill.
So far, Mr. Obama and his aides have strongly resisted any change to his proposal for a middle-class tax cut, which was one of his main campaign promises.
It would provide a tax credit of up to $500 for individuals and up to $1,000 for couples, with the credit phasing out for individuals earning more than $75,000 a year and couples more than $150,000.
The Senate bill would lower that income cap to $70,000 for individuals and $140,000 for couples, saving the government $2 billion but potentially reducing the effectiveness of a tax break that is intended to lift consumer spending.
It is unclear how Congress will deal with two provisions aimed directly at general consumers, including an $11 billion tax break in the Senate bill to spur car sales by allowing buyers to deduct any sales tax and one year of loan interest.
The chambers must reconcile competing homebuyer tax credits.
To stabilize real estate prices, the House would give first-time homebuyers a tax credit of 10 percent of a home’s cost, up to $7,500, with income caps reducing the credit for individuals earning at least $75,000 and couples earning $150,000.
The Senate plan includes a more generous credit of 10 percent, up to $15,000, that would be available to all homebuyers, with no income limits.
A formal conference to resolve the differences between the two bills is expected to begin by midweek.
In the Senate debate, critics of the plan said their main objective was to support proposals that would quickly create jobs or spur consumer spending.
But there were Republicans who vehemently opposed some spending programs in the bill, saying the federal government was overstepping its bounds and should not be getting involved in taking up local responsibilities like school construction.
Many of the education programs in the bill are top priorities of the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin.
In debate on the Senate floor, many Republicans, including the party’s defeated presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, offered amendments to reduce spending and broaden the tax cuts in the plan. The Democrats easily swatted those down.
Critics of the stimulus plan say Democrats have packed it not with the most effective short-term proposals to lift the economy, but with favored, liberal spending programs that will drastically increase the national debt and cause long-term fiscal harm.
“A bill that was meant to be timely, targeted and temporary has instead become a Trojan horse for pet projects and expanded government,” the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, said in a floor speech on Friday.
Although Mr. Obama made substantial efforts to reach across party lines, not one of the House Republicans voted for the stimulus measure. They complained that House Democrats shut them out of the process.
In the Senate, too, talks proved excruciatingly difficult. In the end, the only Republicans whose support the Democrats won were Mr. Specter, Ms. Collins and Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.
Taxing CEO Salaries versus Limiting Salaries
The CEO of NetFlix had an interesting alternative to capping CEO salaries (those of companies that took federal aid). He suggests that we raise the income tax rate from 38% to 50% for any salaries that are over $1 million.
Federal and State Government would get the additional tax revenue.
Government would not get itself in the private sector and dictating salaries or other compensation matters that are maybe best left to shareholders.
Federal and State Government would get the additional tax revenue.
Government would not get itself in the private sector and dictating salaries or other compensation matters that are maybe best left to shareholders.
An Outside the Beltway View on Daschle, CEOs Issue and Washington DC behavior
This is an interesting Op Ed piece from the NY Times. Many in Washinton, inside the beltway, have been defending former Senator Daschle and justifyng his "problem". They talked of his dedication to the nation and to public policy. We have heard many opinions defending excessive bonuses and salaries of Wall Street, bankers and some CEOs. This Op Ed piece gives us a peek into to how those outside the beltway might be thinking about this issue and how Americans view the opinion that those of power, Republicans and Democrats, who think the rules do not apply to them--they seem to think of themselves as a priviledged class.
Op-Ed Contributor
My Children Made Me Do It
New York Times, February 9, 2009
By STEPHEN AMIDON
Published: February 7, 2009
Greenfield, Mass.
MY father didn’t leave me much when he died.
Although he was at one time a fast-rising executive in a multinational company, a combination of corporate skullduggery and his own personal demons meant he had little in the bank when he died in 2001, a few days before his 70th birthday.
There was nothing for his four children except a small array of personal items, including a particularly sturdy hairbrush I was astute enough to claim. I still own it, in fact, and use it daily to tame my rapidly thinning hair, which is probably coming unglued due to worry about what sort of inheritance I will be able to provide my own four children.
I got to thinking about that brush when I read that a colleague of Tom Daschle had said that his tax woes — not to mention the lucrative private-sector temptations he gave into — may have stemmed from his desire to make enough money to lay a fat nest egg for his children.
It is hard to see how riding in a free limo benefits future generations, but even if I give Mr. Daschle the benefit of the doubt, I cannot help but note the paradox here. A man’s desire to provide his progeny with a big score has resulted in him saddling them with a very different sort of inheritance — a legacy of embarrassment.
Instead of being remembered as the savior of the nation’s health care system or even as just a middling health secretary, their father will now forever be known as the guy who hitched a ride with some private-equity hot rodders and then neglected to chip in for the gas. Most sons and daughters I know would gladly forgo a portion of their birthright in order to be invited to pool parties at the Obama White House and not to have a dad serving as fodder for late-night television wisecracks.
Inheritances can be tricky things. Even those given with the best of intentions can often go awry. Just ask King Lear. He simply wanted to turn Britain over to his daughters so he could enjoy the medieval equivalent of retirement in Boca Raton, but wound up starting a bloody civil war that brought ruin on his family.
On the other end of the ancestral give-and-take, there’s Richard Carstone, who appears in Dickens’s “Bleak House.” Richard was a nice enough boy who caused his own destruction by obsessively pursuing a share of a disputed legacy.
At the bottom of the barrel, there’s Bernard Madoff, who is reported to have planned to dispense a desk full of booty to his relatives to keep the family fortune one step ahead of the law. Sure, everybody wants to get a surprise bequest from their Uncle Bernie, but probably not if it comes with a co-conspirator rap attached.
Granted, it’s hard to spend much time worrying about setting something aside after a month in which the economy shed nearly 600,000 jobs. Most parents these days are too wrapped up in staying afloat to be able to capitalize their children’s futures.
Still, those moments when I contemplate how little I’ve socked away for my offspring cause me no small amount of anxiety. In fact, the one thing that is sure to get me thinking I should do something I really do not want to do — or perhaps even something I should not do — is the desire to endow my brood. All manner of behavior that would otherwise be considered contemptible seems to be justified in the name of inheritance. Saving for your loved ones, not patriotism, is apparently the last refuge of a scoundrel.
One way I manage this anxiety is to ponder those friends and colleagues who have been well provided for, and to wonder if I really want to leave that sort of feathered nest for my children. Because there is often something not quite right about these fortunate sons of the baby boom.
I am not talking about trust-fund brats who get arrested for throwing hissy fits on Sunset Boulevard. I’m speaking of those perfectly well-mannered folks whose parents left them enough to ensure they never have to lie awake at night worrying about college tuition or second mortgages.
The young family who can afford the brownstone without ever enduring cramped life in an apartment, the couple who are able to jet away on holiday while the rest of us sit in traffic on the way to the local beach, the household whose teenage children are never asked to help out — there is something missing here, the sense of accomplishment derived from patient effort. It is hard not to think that their parents have done them as much harm as good by installing an express escalator on the uphill sections of their lives.
Perhaps this skepticism is just my way of rationalizing an inability to provide my own children with an anxiety-free future. No one wants to struggle and worry; a little help is always appreciated. And in the end, it is up to each of us to figure out how much is enough to leave behind, and how much is too much.
For me, the answer lies with my father, who wound up dragging his weary bones around the country in a series of lousy jobs at a time in life when many of the men who had once worked under him were perfecting their golf swings.
One of the main reasons he continued to work so hard, I believe, is that he was mortified at the thought of being a burden to his grown children. Leaving behind an inheritance of debt would have been a disgrace, his own version of not paying taxes on a freebie.
He was, for all his faults, an honorable man. It was a quality that sometimes held him back, especially during the 1980s, when many of his colleagues were eviscerating their corporation to create the private fortunes that they would one day leave to their own children. My father refused all that because he was more concerned with maintaining his good name.
That sense of decency, his good name, is what he passed on to us. Looking at some of the shamelessly greedy men he worked with, it is an inheritance I am happy to have.
Though I’m also glad I got the brush.
Stephen Amidon is the author, most recently, of the novel “Security.”
Op-Ed Contributor
My Children Made Me Do It
New York Times, February 9, 2009
By STEPHEN AMIDON
Published: February 7, 2009
Greenfield, Mass.
MY father didn’t leave me much when he died.
Although he was at one time a fast-rising executive in a multinational company, a combination of corporate skullduggery and his own personal demons meant he had little in the bank when he died in 2001, a few days before his 70th birthday.
There was nothing for his four children except a small array of personal items, including a particularly sturdy hairbrush I was astute enough to claim. I still own it, in fact, and use it daily to tame my rapidly thinning hair, which is probably coming unglued due to worry about what sort of inheritance I will be able to provide my own four children.
I got to thinking about that brush when I read that a colleague of Tom Daschle had said that his tax woes — not to mention the lucrative private-sector temptations he gave into — may have stemmed from his desire to make enough money to lay a fat nest egg for his children.
It is hard to see how riding in a free limo benefits future generations, but even if I give Mr. Daschle the benefit of the doubt, I cannot help but note the paradox here. A man’s desire to provide his progeny with a big score has resulted in him saddling them with a very different sort of inheritance — a legacy of embarrassment.
Instead of being remembered as the savior of the nation’s health care system or even as just a middling health secretary, their father will now forever be known as the guy who hitched a ride with some private-equity hot rodders and then neglected to chip in for the gas. Most sons and daughters I know would gladly forgo a portion of their birthright in order to be invited to pool parties at the Obama White House and not to have a dad serving as fodder for late-night television wisecracks.
Inheritances can be tricky things. Even those given with the best of intentions can often go awry. Just ask King Lear. He simply wanted to turn Britain over to his daughters so he could enjoy the medieval equivalent of retirement in Boca Raton, but wound up starting a bloody civil war that brought ruin on his family.
On the other end of the ancestral give-and-take, there’s Richard Carstone, who appears in Dickens’s “Bleak House.” Richard was a nice enough boy who caused his own destruction by obsessively pursuing a share of a disputed legacy.
At the bottom of the barrel, there’s Bernard Madoff, who is reported to have planned to dispense a desk full of booty to his relatives to keep the family fortune one step ahead of the law. Sure, everybody wants to get a surprise bequest from their Uncle Bernie, but probably not if it comes with a co-conspirator rap attached.
Granted, it’s hard to spend much time worrying about setting something aside after a month in which the economy shed nearly 600,000 jobs. Most parents these days are too wrapped up in staying afloat to be able to capitalize their children’s futures.
Still, those moments when I contemplate how little I’ve socked away for my offspring cause me no small amount of anxiety. In fact, the one thing that is sure to get me thinking I should do something I really do not want to do — or perhaps even something I should not do — is the desire to endow my brood. All manner of behavior that would otherwise be considered contemptible seems to be justified in the name of inheritance. Saving for your loved ones, not patriotism, is apparently the last refuge of a scoundrel.
One way I manage this anxiety is to ponder those friends and colleagues who have been well provided for, and to wonder if I really want to leave that sort of feathered nest for my children. Because there is often something not quite right about these fortunate sons of the baby boom.
I am not talking about trust-fund brats who get arrested for throwing hissy fits on Sunset Boulevard. I’m speaking of those perfectly well-mannered folks whose parents left them enough to ensure they never have to lie awake at night worrying about college tuition or second mortgages.
The young family who can afford the brownstone without ever enduring cramped life in an apartment, the couple who are able to jet away on holiday while the rest of us sit in traffic on the way to the local beach, the household whose teenage children are never asked to help out — there is something missing here, the sense of accomplishment derived from patient effort. It is hard not to think that their parents have done them as much harm as good by installing an express escalator on the uphill sections of their lives.
Perhaps this skepticism is just my way of rationalizing an inability to provide my own children with an anxiety-free future. No one wants to struggle and worry; a little help is always appreciated. And in the end, it is up to each of us to figure out how much is enough to leave behind, and how much is too much.
For me, the answer lies with my father, who wound up dragging his weary bones around the country in a series of lousy jobs at a time in life when many of the men who had once worked under him were perfecting their golf swings.
One of the main reasons he continued to work so hard, I believe, is that he was mortified at the thought of being a burden to his grown children. Leaving behind an inheritance of debt would have been a disgrace, his own version of not paying taxes on a freebie.
He was, for all his faults, an honorable man. It was a quality that sometimes held him back, especially during the 1980s, when many of his colleagues were eviscerating their corporation to create the private fortunes that they would one day leave to their own children. My father refused all that because he was more concerned with maintaining his good name.
That sense of decency, his good name, is what he passed on to us. Looking at some of the shamelessly greedy men he worked with, it is an inheritance I am happy to have.
Though I’m also glad I got the brush.
Stephen Amidon is the author, most recently, of the novel “Security.”
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Stop the Whine Senator Daschle
He evidently doesn't pay his taxes that are due, makes one million dollars a year, and gets a free limo and driver from a client and hedge fund operator (for several years and worth over $200,000) and he thinks we all ought to feel sorry for him. Pleeeease.
We then read further into today's NY Times story that when he joined hiw lobbying/law firm after being defeated for his Senate reelection, he insisted that he was not a lobbyist, but rather was just a "rainmaker". Like there is a difference. His firm was trying to influence public officials on behalf of their clients--nothing wrong or illegal about that. That is in the great American tradition dating back to our first President and Congress. But not good enough for the Senator. I guess he thought he was above it all. He wanted to engage in "good works" (helping students learn and understand government--a good thing to do but not necessarily unique) and also continue to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for speeches on government. He then wants us to believe that in additon he was going to give his services to a lobbying firm (and get paid handsomely for his services) but he was not a lobbyist, but rather a rainmaker and a policy wonk. I guess he thinks his other colleagues in this lobbying firm are not as good as him and/or are not as "ethical" as him.
What rubbish.
His former Senate colleague, Trent Lott, has this to say in the NY Time story:
“Once you come out and you get into whatever you’re going to do, whether it’s a lawyer or a consultant or a lobbyist, you are representing clients who can then be used against you,” said Mr. Lott, who has more openly embraced the lobbying life since retiring from the Senate. “In the minds of the people, it’s a distinction without a difference. You can’t be advising people on how to deal with Congress without, in effect, at least indirectly influencing Congress.”
Trent Lott is correct--it is a distinction without a difference. The American people know better. Not paying your taxes like every other American is wrong. Making believe you are something you are not and thinking you are better than other American citizens is not the American tradition and is just plain arrogant.
America will be served well by not having someone like this in the President's Cabinet. Back to LOBBYING Senator Daschle!
We then read further into today's NY Times story that when he joined hiw lobbying/law firm after being defeated for his Senate reelection, he insisted that he was not a lobbyist, but rather was just a "rainmaker". Like there is a difference. His firm was trying to influence public officials on behalf of their clients--nothing wrong or illegal about that. That is in the great American tradition dating back to our first President and Congress. But not good enough for the Senator. I guess he thought he was above it all. He wanted to engage in "good works" (helping students learn and understand government--a good thing to do but not necessarily unique) and also continue to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for speeches on government. He then wants us to believe that in additon he was going to give his services to a lobbying firm (and get paid handsomely for his services) but he was not a lobbyist, but rather a rainmaker and a policy wonk. I guess he thinks his other colleagues in this lobbying firm are not as good as him and/or are not as "ethical" as him.
What rubbish.
His former Senate colleague, Trent Lott, has this to say in the NY Time story:
“Once you come out and you get into whatever you’re going to do, whether it’s a lawyer or a consultant or a lobbyist, you are representing clients who can then be used against you,” said Mr. Lott, who has more openly embraced the lobbying life since retiring from the Senate. “In the minds of the people, it’s a distinction without a difference. You can’t be advising people on how to deal with Congress without, in effect, at least indirectly influencing Congress.”
Trent Lott is correct--it is a distinction without a difference. The American people know better. Not paying your taxes like every other American is wrong. Making believe you are something you are not and thinking you are better than other American citizens is not the American tradition and is just plain arrogant.
America will be served well by not having someone like this in the President's Cabinet. Back to LOBBYING Senator Daschle!
Supreme Court Justice Wants Special Treatment and Verbally Attacks Student To Get It
Justice Scalia decided that he could call a university student a few names and dodge a question about why he is on book tour promoting his book (and making money from the sales) and yet he thinks that cameras should not be allowed in the Court. The student tied these two facts together with some other thoughts and asked a terrific and a very pointed but polite question. Justice Scalia's eqo never seems to stop growing. Read the story below from the Legal Times.
February 04, 2009
Florida Student Asks Scalia a Question -- and Gets Scolded
Where others fear to tread, a 20-year-old college student from Tequesta, Fla.,boldly stepped forward Tuesday to ask Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a question he did not like during a public appearance in West Palm Beach. "That's a nasty, impolite question," said Scalia, himself an expert on tough questioning, and he at first refused to answer it.
This morning we tracked down student Sarah Jeck, the Florida Atlantic University honors college junior who incurred Scalia's wrath, and she seemed a little stunned, but not cowed, by his reaction. "He can dish it out, but he can't take it, I guess," she says. "I'm generally a very polite person. I'm really surprised the way it turned out. It was not a preposterous question."
So what did Sarah Jeck ask that caused the volatile justice to erupt? According to her own notes and this account in today's Sun-Sentinel, Jeck asked whether the rationale for Scalia's well-known opposition to cameras in the Supreme Court was "vitiated" by the facts that the Court allows public visitors to view arguments and releases full argument transcripts to the public, and that justices go out on book tours.
It's that last part that probably grated, because Scalia could, at that precise moment, have been said to be on a book tour. He was speaking before the Palm Beach County Forum Club and Bar Association, while his book -- Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, co-authored by Bryan Garner -- was for sale at a table outside the hall.
Jeck, a political science major, is taking a judicial process class and is looking at the issue of cameras in the courts as her thesis topic. So when she learned Scalia was coming to town, it seemed like a reasonable question to her and her prof Martin Sweet. By tradition, the club invites local university students to forum events and lets them ask questions. "We knew it was a little jab, but his response was unanticipated," she says.
After Scalia made his comment to Jeck, he took several written questions and then circled back to Jeck's query, according to this story in the Palm Beach Post. Scalia said he originally supported the idea of camera access in the courts, but came to oppose it because the inevitable "30-second takeouts" would not give a true picture of what is going on. "Why should I be a party to the miseducation of the American people?" According to Jeck, Scalia made no reference to his book tour as a possible contradiction to his views on public access to the Court.
We asked Jeck two more questions in our brief phone interview this morning. First, is she planning to go to law school? "Yes," she said without hesitation. And second, did she buy Scalia's book? Just as definitively, she said, "I'm a college student. I don't have $30."
February 04, 2009
Florida Student Asks Scalia a Question -- and Gets Scolded
Where others fear to tread, a 20-year-old college student from Tequesta, Fla.,boldly stepped forward Tuesday to ask Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a question he did not like during a public appearance in West Palm Beach. "That's a nasty, impolite question," said Scalia, himself an expert on tough questioning, and he at first refused to answer it.
This morning we tracked down student Sarah Jeck, the Florida Atlantic University honors college junior who incurred Scalia's wrath, and she seemed a little stunned, but not cowed, by his reaction. "He can dish it out, but he can't take it, I guess," she says. "I'm generally a very polite person. I'm really surprised the way it turned out. It was not a preposterous question."
So what did Sarah Jeck ask that caused the volatile justice to erupt? According to her own notes and this account in today's Sun-Sentinel, Jeck asked whether the rationale for Scalia's well-known opposition to cameras in the Supreme Court was "vitiated" by the facts that the Court allows public visitors to view arguments and releases full argument transcripts to the public, and that justices go out on book tours.
It's that last part that probably grated, because Scalia could, at that precise moment, have been said to be on a book tour. He was speaking before the Palm Beach County Forum Club and Bar Association, while his book -- Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, co-authored by Bryan Garner -- was for sale at a table outside the hall.
Jeck, a political science major, is taking a judicial process class and is looking at the issue of cameras in the courts as her thesis topic. So when she learned Scalia was coming to town, it seemed like a reasonable question to her and her prof Martin Sweet. By tradition, the club invites local university students to forum events and lets them ask questions. "We knew it was a little jab, but his response was unanticipated," she says.
After Scalia made his comment to Jeck, he took several written questions and then circled back to Jeck's query, according to this story in the Palm Beach Post. Scalia said he originally supported the idea of camera access in the courts, but came to oppose it because the inevitable "30-second takeouts" would not give a true picture of what is going on. "Why should I be a party to the miseducation of the American people?" According to Jeck, Scalia made no reference to his book tour as a possible contradiction to his views on public access to the Court.
We asked Jeck two more questions in our brief phone interview this morning. First, is she planning to go to law school? "Yes," she said without hesitation. And second, did she buy Scalia's book? Just as definitively, she said, "I'm a college student. I don't have $30."
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