Sunday, December 09, 2012
Saturday, December 08, 2012
Friday, December 07, 2012
Ah, It Was HIS Waterloo
Jim DeMint to resign to head Heritage Foundation
The most telling quote from the piece?
The mistake the GOP made over the past four years, DeMint told reporters, was focusing too much on what the party was against rather than putting forth “bold ideas to get people inspired and behind us.”
Right. I wonder if any of the commenters over at The Smallest Minority will take this quote to heart regarding yours truly:)
With this resignation, the age of the "Angry White Man" has now officially concluded.
The most telling quote from the piece?
The mistake the GOP made over the past four years, DeMint told reporters, was focusing too much on what the party was against rather than putting forth “bold ideas to get people inspired and behind us.”
Right. I wonder if any of the commenters over at The Smallest Minority will take this quote to heart regarding yours truly:)
With this resignation, the age of the "Angry White Man" has now officially concluded.
Thursday, December 06, 2012
Biggest Conservative Campaign Donor a Liberal
Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get Republicans elected, is a liberal. He said so himself in an interview published in The Wall Street Journal.
“Look, I’m basically a social liberal, I know nobody will believe that,” Mr. Adelson said, as Dr. Adelson nodded.He's also for the DREAM Act and socialized health care:
“Number one, I’m supporting stem-cell research,” he said, pointing to a chart of the new Adelson medical research foundation that is funding some stem-cell based science.
“I’m pro choice,” he said. Republicans are pro-life, but he and his wife are not pro-life in politics, he said.
“You can take your own religious beliefs …and live your life with your own beliefs. But to make it a portion of the government’s policies?” He shook his head.
“Abortion shouldn’t be brought up as a political issue,” he said.
Finally, he said casually: “And by the way I’m in favor of a socialized-like health care.”Then what the hell is he doing in the Republican Party?According to Politico he has six core issues:
Asked he was sure he was in the right party, he and his wife laughed.
“Look, nobody agrees with 100 % of their planks” in the GOP platform, he and Dr. Adelson both said. [They endorse the Israeli system of socialized medicine.]
1) Paranoia. He thinks Obama will retaliate against him for spending hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat him. He thinks the investigations into money laundering in his Vegas casino and violation of bribery laws at his Macau casino are evidence of this, and tried to buy a change to the federal corrupt practices act in this last election.
2) Union busting. He hates them. He runs the only non-union casino in Vegas. He appears to compensate employees well, but like any Big Man he doesn't like his authority to be challenged and wants his employees to be beholden to him and no one else.
3) Latkes. One of his major gripes is that Bush ran out of potato pancakes at the last Hanukah party he attended at the White House.
4) Czars. Adelson and the right has this fantasy that there's a shadow government accountable to no one because Obama has appointed "czars" to oversee particular aspects of the government. The Congress and Republican presidents have been appointing such czars for decades, especially "drug czars." Nixon and Reagan were famous for doing this. In management speak it's called "delegation of authority," and is no different that a company hiring another manager to run a new project. Of course, these czars answer to the president and the Congress and the courts, so they're hardly above the law.
5) Control. Adelson wants to control the message the right is putting out. By dangling money in front of these guys, he can control what they say. By threatening to cut them off he dictates what they do.
6) Israel. He wants to dictate American policy on Israel, and buying a Republican -- any Republican -- into the White House would give him what he wants.
There you have it. Adelson is a Republican not because he believes in any of the planks in the party's platform, or has an enduring belief in any of the party's ideology and philosophy, but because he feels persecuted by Democrats and Republicans will give him more stuff.
In other words, Adelson is just another one of those people who voted for Romney because he promised them "stuff."
Why aren't these Tea Party guys drumming Adelson out of the Republican Party?
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
A Nickel on the Dollar
The other day execs from defense contractors told Congress that they're fine with having their taxes raised back to what they were during the Clinton administration. They should be: their salaries are paid by our tax dollars. Other CEOs, such as Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs) and Randall Stephenson (AT&T) said that a budget deal will require raising the marginal rate.
Many Republicans still refuse to bend to that reality, saying that it will destroy job creation and stifle everyone's incentive to earn more money. At issue is Obama's proposal to allow the top two marginal rates for the wealthiest taxpayers (married couples making more than $250,000) from 33% and 35%, to 36% and 39.6%. What exactly would that mean?
First, to be clear: these are marginal increases, so someone making $250,000 does not simply pay 39.6% of their salary. First you get to make a bunch of deductions, including the standard deduction, child allowances, mortgage, charitable contributions, state taxes, etc. This generally decreases wealthy people's taxes by a bunch right off the bat. (We'll ignore capital gains taxes for now, which Obama is proposing to raise from 15% to 20%, which is still a fabulous deal for the wealthy.)
So, let's say your taxable income after all those deductions is $250,000 a year. If you make $251,000 your taxes will go up by all of $46. Yes, by the magic of marginal tax rates each dollar you earn over $250,000 will cost you less than a nickel.
The Republican disincentive argument is so much hot air. Who in their right mind would turn down a promotion and a raise because their taxes will go up a nickel for each dollar more they earn?
But because there are so many rich people who make so much money, this nickel on the dollar would raise $800 billion over the next 10 years. That alone won't solve the deficit: some loopholes must be closed and programs will have to be cut, including defense, other discretionary spending and entitlements.
Why tax the wealthy instead of regular Americans? Why is that fair?
The wealthy will take a penny of that nickel and stick it in some foreign bank account. Another penny will go to buy an interest in a casino in Macau or a factory in China. Two more cents will be used to flip stock in the Wall Street casino (the companies will never see a penny from that "investment" and cannot hire a single worker from the sale of that stock). The last cent might be invested in something that might create a job here at home, an IPO, corporate or municipal bonds, take a cruise to the Greek Islands like Newt Gingrich after announcing a run for the presidency, or buy a yacht or a third mansion.
On the other hand, middle-class Americans will immediately spend four cents of that nickel on things right now: clothes (from Walmart), food (from Walmart, Kraft and Nabisco), drink (from Coca Cola and Anheuser Busch), cell phones (Apple and AT&T), and housing (which benefits construction companies across the country). The remaining penny might be spent to buy down debt, put into savings for retirement, college or a vacation, and nearly all of it will ultimately be spent here in the United States.
In short, tax cuts for the middle class are immediately converted to profits for corporate behemoths like Walmart, AT&T and Apple, and therefore the wealthy who reap the profits.
By contrast, the Republican plan to eliminate loopholes would hit middle-class Americans just as hard as the wealthy, reducing their disposable income and therefore corporate profits.
The president and the Congress need to understand the larger-scale workings of the economy instead of getting bogged down in arguments over class warfare and government picking winners and losers. Almost every cent middle-income Americans get in tax relief is going to wind up as profit on a corporate balance sheet, which means higher salaries, big bonuses and increased dividends for the wealthy.
It's a great return for the country for only a nickel on the dollar.
Many Republicans still refuse to bend to that reality, saying that it will destroy job creation and stifle everyone's incentive to earn more money. At issue is Obama's proposal to allow the top two marginal rates for the wealthiest taxpayers (married couples making more than $250,000) from 33% and 35%, to 36% and 39.6%. What exactly would that mean?
First, to be clear: these are marginal increases, so someone making $250,000 does not simply pay 39.6% of their salary. First you get to make a bunch of deductions, including the standard deduction, child allowances, mortgage, charitable contributions, state taxes, etc. This generally decreases wealthy people's taxes by a bunch right off the bat. (We'll ignore capital gains taxes for now, which Obama is proposing to raise from 15% to 20%, which is still a fabulous deal for the wealthy.)
So, let's say your taxable income after all those deductions is $250,000 a year. If you make $251,000 your taxes will go up by all of $46. Yes, by the magic of marginal tax rates each dollar you earn over $250,000 will cost you less than a nickel.
The Republican disincentive argument is so much hot air. Who in their right mind would turn down a promotion and a raise because their taxes will go up a nickel for each dollar more they earn?
But because there are so many rich people who make so much money, this nickel on the dollar would raise $800 billion over the next 10 years. That alone won't solve the deficit: some loopholes must be closed and programs will have to be cut, including defense, other discretionary spending and entitlements.
Why tax the wealthy instead of regular Americans? Why is that fair?
The wealthy will take a penny of that nickel and stick it in some foreign bank account. Another penny will go to buy an interest in a casino in Macau or a factory in China. Two more cents will be used to flip stock in the Wall Street casino (the companies will never see a penny from that "investment" and cannot hire a single worker from the sale of that stock). The last cent might be invested in something that might create a job here at home, an IPO, corporate or municipal bonds, take a cruise to the Greek Islands like Newt Gingrich after announcing a run for the presidency, or buy a yacht or a third mansion.
On the other hand, middle-class Americans will immediately spend four cents of that nickel on things right now: clothes (from Walmart), food (from Walmart, Kraft and Nabisco), drink (from Coca Cola and Anheuser Busch), cell phones (Apple and AT&T), and housing (which benefits construction companies across the country). The remaining penny might be spent to buy down debt, put into savings for retirement, college or a vacation, and nearly all of it will ultimately be spent here in the United States.
In short, tax cuts for the middle class are immediately converted to profits for corporate behemoths like Walmart, AT&T and Apple, and therefore the wealthy who reap the profits.
By contrast, the Republican plan to eliminate loopholes would hit middle-class Americans just as hard as the wealthy, reducing their disposable income and therefore corporate profits.
The president and the Congress need to understand the larger-scale workings of the economy instead of getting bogged down in arguments over class warfare and government picking winners and losers. Almost every cent middle-income Americans get in tax relief is going to wind up as profit on a corporate balance sheet, which means higher salaries, big bonuses and increased dividends for the wealthy.
It's a great return for the country for only a nickel on the dollar.
Ballistic, Benched, and Befuddled!
I guess the Civil War in the GOP has officially begun.
“You saw just a conservative purge in the House, you’ve seen the Washington insiders all saying, ‘Well we have to back off of our principles, and get away from certain issues and compromise on others,’” former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum told POLITICO. “Tomorrow we should all call John Boehner’s office to remind him to call Congressman Amash,” tweeted RedState.com’s Erick Erickson.
We knew it was only a matter of time before they started to turn on each other and I predict it's going to get worse as Speaker Boehner is going to have to cave. If he doesn't, the public will blame the House Republicans in the next election.
Speaking of blame, Roger Ailes is tired of Dick Morris and Karl Rove being wrong all the time so they have been told to grab some wood at Fox News. Life in the bubble is shrinking and it's largely due to a complete ignorance of facts. The American people know this and that's why the Right lost the election.
Of course, the bubble isn't fully shrunk yet as someone needs to explain to me why 38 Senators are convinced that the UN is going to use disabled people around the world to create a New World Order. Any takers?
“You saw just a conservative purge in the House, you’ve seen the Washington insiders all saying, ‘Well we have to back off of our principles, and get away from certain issues and compromise on others,’” former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum told POLITICO. “Tomorrow we should all call John Boehner’s office to remind him to call Congressman Amash,” tweeted RedState.com’s Erick Erickson.
We knew it was only a matter of time before they started to turn on each other and I predict it's going to get worse as Speaker Boehner is going to have to cave. If he doesn't, the public will blame the House Republicans in the next election.
Speaking of blame, Roger Ailes is tired of Dick Morris and Karl Rove being wrong all the time so they have been told to grab some wood at Fox News. Life in the bubble is shrinking and it's largely due to a complete ignorance of facts. The American people know this and that's why the Right lost the election.
Of course, the bubble isn't fully shrunk yet as someone needs to explain to me why 38 Senators are convinced that the UN is going to use disabled people around the world to create a New World Order. Any takers?
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Boehner's Cynical Offer
Yesterday John Boehner made a cynical counterproposal to the president's proposal to keep the Bush tax cuts for everyone but the wealthiest taxpayers.
Boehner's plan includes $800 billion in revenues gained by eliminating unspecified loopholes in the tax code. This is essentially a retread of the Romney/Ryan plan, which also refused to specify anything concrete.
The problem with closing loopholes is that there are thousands of them in the tax code. Half the legislation Congress passes provides tax relief to encourage one sort of economic behavior or other. Those are the very loopholes Boehner wants to eliminate.
Reagan's tax reform in the 1980s was this exact kind of rate deduction and loophole closure. Lo and behold, 30 years later we have a tax code encrusted with thousands upon thousands of tax deductions, incentives and loopholes.
That's why Boehner's proposal is the height of cynicism. Boehner knows quite well that any loopholes Congress closes in a budget deal will be as fleeting as the morning dew: they'll all be immediately replaced by new deductions and incentives to "help the job creators create more jobs."
Tax rate increases are the only durable method to raise revenues, and that's why the Republicans are so adamantly against them. They know closing loopholes is just a temporary cosmetic fix. And that's why conservative Republicans are pushing back against the very plan they supported just a few weeks ago when it was the centerpiece of the Romney campaign. They have to provide the public the illusion that they will somehow be making a compromise by accepting the elimination of loopholes. The whole loophole thing is just another Republican scam.
The only people who've gotten bonuses and salary increases over the last four years have been the 1%. Middle- and low-income workers' wages have declined in real terms. For that reason, raising tax rates on the 1% is is the only way to make the wealthy pay their fair share.
So, yes, the president should accept Boehner's offer to close loopholes. The tax code is larded with crap that benefits the few at the expense of the many. But the wealthy still need to pay taxes at a higher rate, because they've increased corporate profits by laying off some workers and milking the remaining workers for increased productivity while holding their wages down.
And the biggest loophole of all, the 15% rich man's special tax rate on dividends and capital gains, should be at the top of the president's list of rates to increase.
Boehner's plan includes $800 billion in revenues gained by eliminating unspecified loopholes in the tax code. This is essentially a retread of the Romney/Ryan plan, which also refused to specify anything concrete.
The problem with closing loopholes is that there are thousands of them in the tax code. Half the legislation Congress passes provides tax relief to encourage one sort of economic behavior or other. Those are the very loopholes Boehner wants to eliminate.
Reagan's tax reform in the 1980s was this exact kind of rate deduction and loophole closure. Lo and behold, 30 years later we have a tax code encrusted with thousands upon thousands of tax deductions, incentives and loopholes.
That's why Boehner's proposal is the height of cynicism. Boehner knows quite well that any loopholes Congress closes in a budget deal will be as fleeting as the morning dew: they'll all be immediately replaced by new deductions and incentives to "help the job creators create more jobs."
Tax rate increases are the only durable method to raise revenues, and that's why the Republicans are so adamantly against them. They know closing loopholes is just a temporary cosmetic fix. And that's why conservative Republicans are pushing back against the very plan they supported just a few weeks ago when it was the centerpiece of the Romney campaign. They have to provide the public the illusion that they will somehow be making a compromise by accepting the elimination of loopholes. The whole loophole thing is just another Republican scam.
The only people who've gotten bonuses and salary increases over the last four years have been the 1%. Middle- and low-income workers' wages have declined in real terms. For that reason, raising tax rates on the 1% is is the only way to make the wealthy pay their fair share.
So, yes, the president should accept Boehner's offer to close loopholes. The tax code is larded with crap that benefits the few at the expense of the many. But the wealthy still need to pay taxes at a higher rate, because they've increased corporate profits by laying off some workers and milking the remaining workers for increased productivity while holding their wages down.
And the biggest loophole of all, the 15% rich man's special tax rate on dividends and capital gains, should be at the top of the president's list of rates to increase.
Monday, December 03, 2012
The Role Reversal
As I write this on Dec. 3, sitting in my office in Minnesota, it is 52 degrees outside. It's raining. On Nov. 10 four tornadoes hit Minnesota. There was a little snow just before Thanksgiving, but highs in the 40s and 50s have melted it all.
For 25 years we've been going to volleyball matches at the University of Minnesota. For years November and December were bearish months: it snowed half the time and traffic was always snarled. Traffic is still snarled these days, but for the last 10 years our drive has been marred by snow less than a handful of times.
Twenty-five years ago we had to wait till May for the snow to melt to play volleyball outdoors in the sand. We've been able to play in early March and April for several years now.
When I was a kid I had to walk a mile to school in hip-deep snow. Unlike my father, only one way was uphill.
I'm engaging in that age-old pastime of geezerhood: talking about how it used to be in the old days, complaining about how much it's changed, and how everything is going down the drain and kids these days don't know how easy they have it.
It's not just me. Scientists have documented global temperature increases, increased frequency of tornadoes, increased intensity and size of hurricanes like Sandy and Irene, which are fueled by higher ocean temperatures. They've documented the earlier springs and later falls and their effects on wildlife migration and reproduction. They've documented the opening of the Northwest Passage and the drastically smaller ice cap.
But, incredibly, millions of Republicans my age have completely forgotten what life was like 20 or 30 years ago. They insist that global warming is a hoax and that everything is completely normal and just like it always was.
In Doha, Qatar, the UN climate conference is in full swing. They've just released a report saying that rising CO2 levels will cause a global temperature increase of 4 to 6 degrees C by 2100. That will cause sea levels to rise more than three feet, 60% faster than was previously projected (actual measurements are in line with that faster pace).
Our local public radio station ran a segment this morning about young voters, how they propelled President Obama to re-election, and what they want the president to do. One of their top concerns was global warming.
Why are these kids willing to acknowledge the reality of global warming, while people who actually lived through those colder, snowier times refuse to acknowledge scientific evidence, as well as the evidence of their own senses?
Why have the roles of the young and the old reversed in this country? Why are supposedly responsible adults acting like spoiled children, putting their fingers in their ears and babbling to keep from hearing the truth?
I'm probably the first geezer to say this, but it seems our kids have more sense than their parents.
For 25 years we've been going to volleyball matches at the University of Minnesota. For years November and December were bearish months: it snowed half the time and traffic was always snarled. Traffic is still snarled these days, but for the last 10 years our drive has been marred by snow less than a handful of times.
Twenty-five years ago we had to wait till May for the snow to melt to play volleyball outdoors in the sand. We've been able to play in early March and April for several years now.
When I was a kid I had to walk a mile to school in hip-deep snow. Unlike my father, only one way was uphill.
I'm engaging in that age-old pastime of geezerhood: talking about how it used to be in the old days, complaining about how much it's changed, and how everything is going down the drain and kids these days don't know how easy they have it.
It's not just me. Scientists have documented global temperature increases, increased frequency of tornadoes, increased intensity and size of hurricanes like Sandy and Irene, which are fueled by higher ocean temperatures. They've documented the earlier springs and later falls and their effects on wildlife migration and reproduction. They've documented the opening of the Northwest Passage and the drastically smaller ice cap.
But, incredibly, millions of Republicans my age have completely forgotten what life was like 20 or 30 years ago. They insist that global warming is a hoax and that everything is completely normal and just like it always was.
In Doha, Qatar, the UN climate conference is in full swing. They've just released a report saying that rising CO2 levels will cause a global temperature increase of 4 to 6 degrees C by 2100. That will cause sea levels to rise more than three feet, 60% faster than was previously projected (actual measurements are in line with that faster pace).
Our local public radio station ran a segment this morning about young voters, how they propelled President Obama to re-election, and what they want the president to do. One of their top concerns was global warming.
Why are these kids willing to acknowledge the reality of global warming, while people who actually lived through those colder, snowier times refuse to acknowledge scientific evidence, as well as the evidence of their own senses?
Why have the roles of the young and the old reversed in this country? Why are supposedly responsible adults acting like spoiled children, putting their fingers in their ears and babbling to keep from hearing the truth?
I'm probably the first geezer to say this, but it seems our kids have more sense than their parents.
Heed His Warning
It's easy after the last election for Democrats to feel confident. The president only dropped two states from 2008. Gains were seen in both the House and Senate (netting 8 seats in the former and 2 in the latter). The GOP hasn't gotten above 300 electoral votes since 1988 with the Democrats winning 4 of the last 6 presidential elections.
And, as the absentee ballots are counted, we see that the president got 65.3 million votes so his lower totals than 2008 weren't as low as originally thought (Mitt Romney is now at 60.7 so he did get 1 million more votes than McCain in 2008).
But, as Rahm Emanuel notes in this piece, we can't rest on our laurels.
We cannot expect Republicans to cede the economic argument so readily, or to fall so far short on campaign mechanics, the next time around. So, instead of resting on false assurances of underlying demographic advantages, the Democratic Party must follow through on our No. 1 priority, which the president set when he took office and reemphasized throughout this campaign: It is time to come home and rebuild America.
Right. This is no time for end zone dances. We have to deliver. What's a key way we do that?
Honestly, it starts with education and that means high stakes testing for every subject across the board, especially social studies. Many on the Right take the view that Democrats coddle those in the education system. Clearly, they have not read the fact sheet on Race to the Top. If they did, they would see that the president and many of his supporters (including me) wholeheartedly support this endeavor.
If the students that are in school now receive a higher quality education, they are going to be a very strong backbone of this country in the next decade. Take some time to look through the fact sheet listed above and see how these changes have to made to our education system in order for our economy to improve.
For the Democrats, this should be one of the main policies to vigorously pursue in the president's second term. This is one of a few key policies that is going to help win election after election.
And, as the absentee ballots are counted, we see that the president got 65.3 million votes so his lower totals than 2008 weren't as low as originally thought (Mitt Romney is now at 60.7 so he did get 1 million more votes than McCain in 2008).
But, as Rahm Emanuel notes in this piece, we can't rest on our laurels.
We cannot expect Republicans to cede the economic argument so readily, or to fall so far short on campaign mechanics, the next time around. So, instead of resting on false assurances of underlying demographic advantages, the Democratic Party must follow through on our No. 1 priority, which the president set when he took office and reemphasized throughout this campaign: It is time to come home and rebuild America.
Right. This is no time for end zone dances. We have to deliver. What's a key way we do that?
If we want to build a future in which the middle class can succeed, we must continue the push for reform that the president began with Race to the Top, bringing responsibility and accountability to our teachers and principals.
Honestly, it starts with education and that means high stakes testing for every subject across the board, especially social studies. Many on the Right take the view that Democrats coddle those in the education system. Clearly, they have not read the fact sheet on Race to the Top. If they did, they would see that the president and many of his supporters (including me) wholeheartedly support this endeavor.
If the students that are in school now receive a higher quality education, they are going to be a very strong backbone of this country in the next decade. Take some time to look through the fact sheet listed above and see how these changes have to made to our education system in order for our economy to improve.
For the Democrats, this should be one of the main policies to vigorously pursue in the president's second term. This is one of a few key policies that is going to help win election after election.
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Texas: King of Corporate Welfare
The New York Times is running a series of articles about how much money states and localities are spending to induce corporations to locate in their area. Corporations receive more than $80 billion of taxpayer money every year, in the form of cash grants, income tax credits and exemptions, property tax abatements, sales tax breaks and free services.
This is redistribution of wealth on a massive scale, welfare for the wealthy. We spend more on this corporate welfare than we do on food stamps (which was $78 billion last year).
The state with the biggest giveaways is Texas: Texas taxpayers foot $19 billion in annual giveaways to corporations. That's $759 per capita and 51 cents for every dollar of the state budget. By comparison Minnesota is a piker: only $239 million, or $45 per capita and a penny per dollar of the state budget.
Companies like GM, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Twitter, Walmart, Shell Oil and major league sports franchises are the usual recipients of this largesse. But the Times finds that the local governments giving all that money away have no idea how many jobs are actually created and how much they actually benefit.
When Minnesota has done this it hasn't turned out so well. The state gave Northwest Airlines sweetheart deals to relocate call centers and maintenance facilities in the state, only to get screwed after Delta bought them out and moved those jobs out of state. Promises corporations make are rarely kept and consequences for breaking them are even rarer.
Companies that play by the rules, pay their taxes and remain loyal to their home states get the shaft, and wind up paying for state officials to lure competitors into the area. To get the same deals those local companies have to threaten to leave, soliciting other states and localities to bribe them away. It's a cynical game that states can never win as they impoverish themselves.
At the end of the day corporations won't make moves that make no business sense. Companies have to locate where resources, transportation and customers dictate. That means most of the states competing for these companies don't have a chance to win, and they're foolishly wasting their time and money even trying. They're just being used as leverage to squeeze the sweetest deal out of the places where the companies actually need to locate.
This is crony capitalism at its worst. It's government picking winners and losers. It's legal, out-in-the-open bribery and extortion. But worst of all, it's a massive transfer of billions of dollars from middle-income and small-business taxpayers to giant multinational corporations.
This is redistribution of wealth on a massive scale, welfare for the wealthy. We spend more on this corporate welfare than we do on food stamps (which was $78 billion last year).
The state with the biggest giveaways is Texas: Texas taxpayers foot $19 billion in annual giveaways to corporations. That's $759 per capita and 51 cents for every dollar of the state budget. By comparison Minnesota is a piker: only $239 million, or $45 per capita and a penny per dollar of the state budget.
Companies like GM, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Twitter, Walmart, Shell Oil and major league sports franchises are the usual recipients of this largesse. But the Times finds that the local governments giving all that money away have no idea how many jobs are actually created and how much they actually benefit.
When Minnesota has done this it hasn't turned out so well. The state gave Northwest Airlines sweetheart deals to relocate call centers and maintenance facilities in the state, only to get screwed after Delta bought them out and moved those jobs out of state. Promises corporations make are rarely kept and consequences for breaking them are even rarer.
Companies that play by the rules, pay their taxes and remain loyal to their home states get the shaft, and wind up paying for state officials to lure competitors into the area. To get the same deals those local companies have to threaten to leave, soliciting other states and localities to bribe them away. It's a cynical game that states can never win as they impoverish themselves.
At the end of the day corporations won't make moves that make no business sense. Companies have to locate where resources, transportation and customers dictate. That means most of the states competing for these companies don't have a chance to win, and they're foolishly wasting their time and money even trying. They're just being used as leverage to squeeze the sweetest deal out of the places where the companies actually need to locate.
This is crony capitalism at its worst. It's government picking winners and losers. It's legal, out-in-the-open bribery and extortion. But worst of all, it's a massive transfer of billions of dollars from middle-income and small-business taxpayers to giant multinational corporations.
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
Obama Stops Doing the Republicans' Job
Timothy Geithner delivered Obama's plan for the fiscal cliff to congressional Republicans yesterday, and they don't like it:
In the past Obama has tried take Republicans requirements under consideration and work them into his legislation. That's why he abandoned single-payer health care and adopted Romneycare as the basis for health care reform. He naively hoped that would coax some Republicans to vote for it. But they rejected the plan anyway as a basic tactic to deny him any victories whatsoever, and continue to whine about it to this day.
Again and again Obama has crafted proposals to meet Republicans half way even before he started talking to them. Naturally, Republicans turn Obama's already-compromised proposals into starting points, and demand even more concessions.
Obama has finally learned his lesson. He has proposed only those things that he thinks are important: extending tax cuts for everyone but the top 2% and eliminating the idiotic debt limit authorization process. The latter will prevent Congress from blackmailing the president (be he Democrat or Republican) every time it becomes necessary to increase the debt limit.
So instead of negotiating with himself trying to figure out what Republicans want, Obama is laying his requirements on the table. Now it's up to Republicans to propose the budget cuts and entitlement "reforms" they want to make up the rest of the budget balancing act.
Yes, Obama is going to let Republicans take all the heat from Social Security and Medicare recipients by forcing John Boehner to propose the cuts he wants. If Republicans want to keep taxing Mitt Romney at at one-half to one-third the rate middle-income Americans pay, Obama is going to make them propose that. If Republicans want to keep bloated weapons procurement programs afloat, Obama is going to make them propose cuts to veterans' programs, NASA, highway construction, farm subsidies, education, and programs that people need to feed their children.
Instead of constantly negotiating with himself beforehand, Obama is finally making Republicans do their job. It's up to Republicans to stop stalling and calling for Obama to "lead." He's done so. Now it's the Republicans' turn.
“If the president is going to lead on this critical issue, he has to propose a plan that can actually pass,” said Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri. “This is simply not a serious proposal.”The real problem the Republicans have is that Obama is now negotiating exactly the same way they do: he's only proposing tax cuts and stimulus, and is totally ignoring Republican demands. Since Republicans seem to think cutting the budget is so easy, he's going to let them propose those cuts.
In the past Obama has tried take Republicans requirements under consideration and work them into his legislation. That's why he abandoned single-payer health care and adopted Romneycare as the basis for health care reform. He naively hoped that would coax some Republicans to vote for it. But they rejected the plan anyway as a basic tactic to deny him any victories whatsoever, and continue to whine about it to this day.
Again and again Obama has crafted proposals to meet Republicans half way even before he started talking to them. Naturally, Republicans turn Obama's already-compromised proposals into starting points, and demand even more concessions.
Obama has finally learned his lesson. He has proposed only those things that he thinks are important: extending tax cuts for everyone but the top 2% and eliminating the idiotic debt limit authorization process. The latter will prevent Congress from blackmailing the president (be he Democrat or Republican) every time it becomes necessary to increase the debt limit.
So instead of negotiating with himself trying to figure out what Republicans want, Obama is laying his requirements on the table. Now it's up to Republicans to propose the budget cuts and entitlement "reforms" they want to make up the rest of the budget balancing act.
Yes, Obama is going to let Republicans take all the heat from Social Security and Medicare recipients by forcing John Boehner to propose the cuts he wants. If Republicans want to keep taxing Mitt Romney at at one-half to one-third the rate middle-income Americans pay, Obama is going to make them propose that. If Republicans want to keep bloated weapons procurement programs afloat, Obama is going to make them propose cuts to veterans' programs, NASA, highway construction, farm subsidies, education, and programs that people need to feed their children.
Instead of constantly negotiating with himself beforehand, Obama is finally making Republicans do their job. It's up to Republicans to stop stalling and calling for Obama to "lead." He's done so. Now it's the Republicans' turn.
The Factory is Closing
The overall birthrate decreased by 8 percent between 2007 and 2010, with a much bigger drop of 14 percent among foreign-born women. The overall birthrate is at its lowest since 1920, the earliest year with reliable records. The 2011 figures don’t have breakdowns for immigrants yet, but the preliminary findings indicate that they will follow the same trend.This has raised some concerns that there won't be enough young people to support the aging population. We've been depending on immigrants (who have a higher birthrate than native Americans) to prop up Social Security to keep the population growing.
For most of this time of steep decline Republicans have been on an anti-immigrant tirade. The primary claim has been that Mexicans come here to have "anchor babies" so that they can enjoy the fabulous welfare and medical benefits America has to offer. In response states like Arizona passed laws of questionable constitutionality in response to this fear mongering. The reality is different:
But after 2007, as the worst recession in decades dried up jobs and economic prospects across the nation, the birthrate for immigrant women plunged. One of the most dramatic drops was among Mexican immigrants — 23 percent.At the peak of anti-immigrant hysteria the exact thing that Republicans were decrying was declining. But since Mitt Romney's devastating loss to President Obama Republicans have been doing a total 180 on immigration. Now they want to make nice with Hispanics.
The truth is, the recession hit the poorest people — including immigrants — the hardest. Immigrants don't come to this country to bear their children, they come here to get jobs that pay more than they can make at home. The fact is, health care in Mexico is free. Many Americans have gone to Mexico to take advantage of this. So there's little incentive for pregnant women to leave their extended families and free health care in Mexico to come to the United States where they're in constant danger of being deported and they have to register with the government to obtain welfare benefits.
Republicans have always tried to frame the immigration debate in terms of illegal aliens coming to this country to steal our jobs (or steal our welfare, they can never decide which). But the real problem has always been that employers created an attractive nuisance by hiring illegal aliens for more than they can make in their home countries, while paying wages lower than native Americans can afford to accept. The proof is in the pudding: when the recession made those jobs dry up, illegal immigration declined.
But the other side of this is that when people move to America they become Americans:
Latino immigrants who have been here longer tend to adopt U.S. attitudes and behavior, including having smaller families, Suro said. He added that the decline in the birthrate among Mexican immigrants is probably so sharp because the rate was so high that there was more room for it to fall.As a Salvadoran said while pregnant with her third child:
“To have more babies, it costs more,” she said as her 2-year-old son Emanuel played nearby.
Pointing to her belly, she said she plans to have her tubes tied after giving birth. “The factory is closing,” she said with a smile.
Hey, Check Out The New Sidebar!
I've made some changes to the sidebar and brought the site more in line with the 21st century. Scroll down and you will see the latest political news, world news, business news, US news and (for my local homies) Minnesota news. A little further down is a list of the tags (finally) on the front page. Click on any tag (US Debt, US Deficit, for example) and you can see all my posts on said subject.
One other note...since the election, we've doubled our traffic here at Markadelphia and get between 400 and 500 page loads a day with over 7,000 page views in the last month. Mega!
One other note...since the election, we've doubled our traffic here at Markadelphia and get between 400 and 500 page loads a day with over 7,000 page views in the last month. Mega!
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Where is the Sense?
Peter Bergen's recent piece pretty much jibes with what I have been saying all along regarding the GOP mental meltdown over Benghazi. Mr. Bergen is CNN's national security analyst and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad."
What is the Republican theory of the case against Rice? It appears to boil down to the idea that leading Democrats covered up the involvement of terrorists in some way connected to al Qaeda in the Benghazi attack during the run-up to the close presidential election because President Obama and others in his administration had for some time said that al Qaeda was close to strategic defeat.
I guess that's it but, again, I have to wonder...where was the outrage after 9-11? Then we had 3000 civilians killed on our home soil in the worst attack in US History. This was an attack in a massively destabilized country on a CIA listening station (not an embassy or consulate as is commonly thought) with a US Ambassador, who knew the risks, two CIA contractors and a Navy seal losing their lives. To the Right, this means that all of our women and children were raped/tortured/killed by Islamists whilst they were shitting on the flag.
Anyway, Bergen raises an interesting question, which I put to all of you..
Does this case make sense? First, you would have to accept that Obama, Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all knowingly deceived the American public about what had happened at the Benghazi consulate.
Second, it was the intelligence community, not officials at the White House or State Department, that eliminated from the talking points used by Rice after the Benghazi attack the suspected involvement of the Libyan jihadist group, Ansar al-Sharia.
That's right. How do we know this?
According to accounts of former CIA director David Petraeus' closed door testimony about Benghazi to congressional intelligence committees earlier this month, the intelligence community eliminated references to Ansar al-Sharia in the talking points so as not to tip off members of the terrorist group that the CIA believed that they were responsible for the attack.
The conspiracy therefore was not to mislead the American public but to mislead America's enemies.
Hmmm...sounds familiar, eh?
If Rice had gone beyond her unclassified talking points and said that Ansar al-Sharia was suspected to be behind the Benghazi attacks, no doubt she would now be being hounded for the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
Exactly.
Bergen also raises a third point that isn't discussed enough.
Third, it is worth recalling that whenever there is a news event in a chaotic country on the other side of the world, first accounts about the event are often wrong. Remember the erroneous reports about another big news event last year; the death of Osama bin Laden. Initially, it was portrayed by the Obama administration that bin Laden had died during a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan and had used his wife as a human shield. As more accurate information subsequently came in from the field, administration officials clarified that bin Laden put up no resistance and had not used his wife as a shield. This is not conspiracy; this is the fog of war.
If the Obama administration had said, "We don't know what happened" how would that have honestly looked? McCain and his little band of pants squirters know this and they are just playing politics.
Some more great points...
It is also worth recalling that the situation in Benghazi was so chaotic and dangerous that it took three weeks for the FBI to get in to the city to investigate what had happened at the consulate. And it took even more time for the facts to emerge that the Benghazi mission wasn't really a consulate in any conventional sense, but was more of a CIA listening station and that two of the four Americans who had died in the attack weren't diplomats as initially portrayed but were, in fact, CIA contractors.
Facts, folks, are stubborn things.
I have no doubt that the witch hunt is going to continue and accusations will be flying around about cover-ups and the suffix "gate" is going to be attached to all of this. But I predict that right around that time or maybe a little after, we're going to catch some of the guys that were responsible for the attack and then the truth will come out.
And that's when McCain and the others are going to realize why the GOP keeps losing elections.
What is the Republican theory of the case against Rice? It appears to boil down to the idea that leading Democrats covered up the involvement of terrorists in some way connected to al Qaeda in the Benghazi attack during the run-up to the close presidential election because President Obama and others in his administration had for some time said that al Qaeda was close to strategic defeat.
I guess that's it but, again, I have to wonder...where was the outrage after 9-11? Then we had 3000 civilians killed on our home soil in the worst attack in US History. This was an attack in a massively destabilized country on a CIA listening station (not an embassy or consulate as is commonly thought) with a US Ambassador, who knew the risks, two CIA contractors and a Navy seal losing their lives. To the Right, this means that all of our women and children were raped/tortured/killed by Islamists whilst they were shitting on the flag.
Anyway, Bergen raises an interesting question, which I put to all of you..
Does this case make sense? First, you would have to accept that Obama, Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all knowingly deceived the American public about what had happened at the Benghazi consulate.
Second, it was the intelligence community, not officials at the White House or State Department, that eliminated from the talking points used by Rice after the Benghazi attack the suspected involvement of the Libyan jihadist group, Ansar al-Sharia.
That's right. How do we know this?
According to accounts of former CIA director David Petraeus' closed door testimony about Benghazi to congressional intelligence committees earlier this month, the intelligence community eliminated references to Ansar al-Sharia in the talking points so as not to tip off members of the terrorist group that the CIA believed that they were responsible for the attack.
The conspiracy therefore was not to mislead the American public but to mislead America's enemies.
Hmmm...sounds familiar, eh?
If Rice had gone beyond her unclassified talking points and said that Ansar al-Sharia was suspected to be behind the Benghazi attacks, no doubt she would now be being hounded for the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
Exactly.
Bergen also raises a third point that isn't discussed enough.
Third, it is worth recalling that whenever there is a news event in a chaotic country on the other side of the world, first accounts about the event are often wrong. Remember the erroneous reports about another big news event last year; the death of Osama bin Laden. Initially, it was portrayed by the Obama administration that bin Laden had died during a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan and had used his wife as a human shield. As more accurate information subsequently came in from the field, administration officials clarified that bin Laden put up no resistance and had not used his wife as a shield. This is not conspiracy; this is the fog of war.
If the Obama administration had said, "We don't know what happened" how would that have honestly looked? McCain and his little band of pants squirters know this and they are just playing politics.
Some more great points...
It is also worth recalling that the situation in Benghazi was so chaotic and dangerous that it took three weeks for the FBI to get in to the city to investigate what had happened at the consulate. And it took even more time for the facts to emerge that the Benghazi mission wasn't really a consulate in any conventional sense, but was more of a CIA listening station and that two of the four Americans who had died in the attack weren't diplomats as initially portrayed but were, in fact, CIA contractors.
Facts, folks, are stubborn things.
I have no doubt that the witch hunt is going to continue and accusations will be flying around about cover-ups and the suffix "gate" is going to be attached to all of this. But I predict that right around that time or maybe a little after, we're going to catch some of the guys that were responsible for the attack and then the truth will come out.
And that's when McCain and the others are going to realize why the GOP keeps losing elections.
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