President Obama, your time for the same act of courage is now. History will long remember it.
Tax reform -- broaden the base, save the "kicker" in a reserve fund. Broaden the economy.
Oregon one of 10 states in 'greatest fiscal peril' | Politics & Elections - - Oregonlive.com.Even though the national economy has begun to rebound, Oregon is likely to have a harder time coming up with enough money to pay for schools and other public services -- or finding enough places it can cut back its spending -- than it did when patching together a balanced budget for 2009-10, said Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew center.
Her reasoning: Oregon's unemployment will remain high, causing tax revenues to stay low; federal stimulus money to bail out state budgets has largely run out; and voter mandates including long sentences for repeat criminal offenders mean some budget cuts are off limits.
In the long term, states like Oregon would benefit if they diversify their economy, give lawmakers more latitude to make tax and spending changes and reverse voter mandates such as Oregon's unique kicker rebate that prevents the state from building reserves when times are good, Urahn said.
But lawmakers don't have time for a long-term fix when they must balance budgets for 2010-11 and 2011-12 and it's unclear how states including Oregon will keep from going over the cliff, she said. The January vote on whether to keep or reverse $735 million in higher taxes on corporations and high-income individuals will be one key decision point, she said
The nonpartisan Pew Center on the States is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and aims to conduct rigorous research on state policies to determine what works and what does not.
Oregon: The downturn has severely affected some of Oregon’s leading industries, such as timber and computer-chip manufacturing, and exposed the state’s reliance on volatile corporate and personal income taxes—the result of voters rejecting a statewide sales tax nine times. State revenues plummeted 19 percent between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, a reflection of Oregon’s heavy reliance on income taxes. Lawmakers this year approved more than $1 billion in new taxes to make sure the state can pay its bills. But voters in January 2010 will have the final say on $733 million in new income taxes that are part of that package, and the electorate historically rejects tax hikes at the polls. Download the report on Oregon.
The US Senate filibuster and personal hold have turned the intent of the American constitution on its head: instead of majority rule with respect for the minority, it has become ultraminority blockage preventing any rule. The majority has to bend over so far backward for the minority that the minority dictates what can come up.
Steven Pearlstein - Want real reform? Let's start with Congress:
Because of the quaint traditions of the [US Senate], there are today scores of top positions in government that routinely remain unfilled for months because one senator or another has decided to put a "hold" on a nomination. And on any controversial issue, and even some that are not, 60 votes are now required to overcome the threat of endless "debate" and actually pass a piece of legislation, along with 60 votes on as many amendments as senators can dream up.
It's gotten to the point now where all it takes to kill something in the Senate is the mere threat of a filibuster, without anyone actually having to mount one. And if you somehow managed to get, say, health reform legislation to the floor, it would take 60 votes to pass a bill that included the public option and 60 votes to pass one without it.
Catch-22!
Despite what you hear from legislative leaders, there is nothing preordained about this wholesale disregard for majority rule. In fact, it violates the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution, which expressly delineates a limited number of instances in which anything other than a majority vote is required. And it makes a mockery of Senate rules and precedent, which for nearly two centuries were grounded in a tradition of comity and mutual respect between majority and minority.
Yes, politics is the art of the possible. But leadership is the art of expanding the possible. Leadership without politics is futile. But politics without leadership is blind.
We are all populists now.
$140 Billion for Bonuses, Zero for America’s Future | OurFuture.org.
This is November and US Steel still has not found financing at reasonable rates to get back to work building [its] plant. They need $1 billion and this project is good for America's industrial capability, workers and environment. But, apparently, Wall Street needs to pay out $140 billion in bonuses this year, speculate on life insurance plans, do “flash trading” on stocks, etc. instead.
What Wall Street Is Supposed To Be Doing
Wall Street and the financial economy are supposed to be to supporting the real economy by playing the role of middleman, connecting sources of money with companies needing that money to allocate capital where it is needed. This is supposed to be a constructive process that helps We, the People fund innovative startup companies, build factories and schools,allocate capital for company expansion and fund other large-scale projects that require a pooling of resources and dilution of risk. That is their essential role in the economy.
But there is a problem with the way Wall Street has been and is operating. Instead of playing a background role supporting the real economy Wall Street has been dominating the economy, influencing the government and running quick-buck schemes, creating bubbles, speculating up prices on commodities and generally running wild. Before the financial meltdown Wall Street was not allocating capital productively, it was allocating capital destructively. In the companies-as-buy/sell-commodities posts I have been exploring how Wall Street's practices has been destroying companies, eliminating jobs and generally wrecking our economy while making a very few vastly wealthy. The company-buyout game turns good companies into debt-ridden, job-shedding shells. The greed-based drive for ever-higher returns tries to destroy companies like Costco because they are “overly generous” to their customers and employees. Wall Street has turned into a machine that grinds up jobs and communities, forcing wage cuts, dehumanization of workplaces, and corruption of our democracy.
The GOP health insurance proposal would save $34 billion LESS than the Democratic proposal while only covering 3 million new people vs the Democratic proposal covering 40 million more people. There may be some useful ideas in the proposal to further improve the Democratic one, but gee: cover more, save more with the Democratic proposal!
Republicans have spent months on an absurdist position only to concede in their proposal to do less and cost more. Hm.
The GOP Proposal - The Daily Dish:[According to the Congressional Budget Office, the GOP healthcare proposal would] cut close to $70 billion off the deficit in the next ten years.
...Vast numbers of people would be shut out of access to insurance because they just cannot afford it. The GOP's response to this is: we cannot afford to help right now. Which is honest enough. But it doesn't exactly counter the fact that, according to the same CBO, the Democrats bill would save $104 billion off the deficit in the same time period. So, if affordability is what's at stake, why not back the Dems?
A contest for fuel-efficient small airplanes has a winner: a modified VariEze that gets 45 mpg at over 200 MPH with two people aboard, and nearly 100 mpg at a lower "maximum range" speed.
... We don’t want to replace our dependence on foreign oil with a dependence on foreign manufacturing. And we want those clean energy jobs to be located at home. Especially if we’re funding them with our own tax dollars. As Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage puts it:
“Not simply a timid buy America policy satisfied with the final assembly of parts and technologies made elsewhere, but moving entire supply chains so that our workers and engineers and entrepreneurs are familiar with cutting edge technologies that our inventors can soon surpass.”
Right now, half of our wind turbines are imported from overseas. Ninety percent of our solar cells are manufactured in China — which requires that its own solar installations use domestic (Chinese) content.
This isn’t about protectionism or neanderthal rejection of global trade. It’s about thriving in a competitive global economy. America needs to think strategically. Move away from asset bubbles and debt-driven consumer spending. Rebuild our real economy of production and manufacture.
Public investment in infrastructure is a crucial step in that direction. It creates jobs now and increases our competitiveness in the future. A new smart grid is part of it — and it’s even smarter if the transformers aren’t imported from China.
... the Democratic Party is now deeply divided by two divergent, and seemingly irreconcilable, approaches to reform. If President Obama fails to grasp soon why his idea of reform has alienated key parts of his base--and if he fails to do something to bridge the divide--the result may be much worse than acrimony from the chattering liberal classes. He could have a full on mutiny on his hands by 2010.
One way to describe this divide is to say that President Obama has advanced "conservative reform"--repair and improve, but maintain what we have--whereas the base of the Democratic Party wants, and has aggressively demanded, "progressive reform"--out with the old, in with the new. It is impossible to exaggerate how much friction these contrasting approaches to reform have created in just one year.
Consider, for example, the banking crisis...
The automotive industry bailout....
The health care reform debate....
Next up on the environment....
With each of these fights, a larger and larger portion of the issues patchwork Democratic Party base is drawn into a increasingly bitter narrative of disappointment over Obama's approach to reform.
By 2010, just about every Democratic Party member with a stake in some issue will be saying the same thing about Obama: his policies are not a clear enough departure from the past; this is not real reform.
The collective malaise will only be compounded if Democratic losses in the midterm election are significant.
To [Karl] Rove "us" is the Republican party and "them" is the Democratic party. This isn't just Rove's problem - most in both party establishments view the political world this way - with just as many seeing "us" as Democrats and "them" as Republicans. But this view masks what is truly happening - and makes the establishments of both parties blind to what is coming in 2010.
Voters are increasingly seeing themselves as "us" and both parties in Washington as "them". They are not going to discriminate between the two parties in 2010. The results next Tuesday will likely demonstrate the voter's frustration with those in power, regardless of party. Far from signaling a backlash against Democratic rule and hope for the Republican Party, the results on Tuesday will signal that in 2010 incumbents in both parties, of all ideological stripes should be frightened.
Take off your partisan glasses on Tuesday night and this is what you will see.
Here's a video of House Minority Leader John Boehner reacting negatively to the House Health Care Reform bill on the grounds that reading legislation is hard. And just who the hell obligated Boehner and his colleagues to read laws, anyway? Some group of "voters" in a "congressional district" or something? It's crazy. ...
The funny thing is, regarding this bill he couldn't possibly peruse, he's got all sorts of definitive assumptions about it. "We've got better ideas," he says, "and we'll be talking about them over the next week." [Like he's been saying for months.] Sure! It's not like anyone told John Boehner about the summer-long health care debate that we'd be having. He's only now getting up to speed.
[Yes] as Igor Volsky pointed out yesterday, a whole slew of measures that the GOP requested have been provided in the bill. These include ... deficit neutrality, long-term cost reduction, across-state-lines competition, medical malpractice reform, protections for small business, and much more.
