Progressive Viewpoints

Democrats Now See ‘No Rush’ on Health Care Bill

I guess he liked that curveball thrown by Scott Brown so much he like to get a few more thrown at him?

Democrats Now See ‘No Rush’ on Health Care Bill - NYTimes.com.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, deflected questions about health care. “We’re not on health care now,” Mr. Reid said. “We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.” He added, “There is no rush,” and noted that Congress still had most of this year to work on the health bills passed in 2009 by the Senate and the House.

White House Plans for the Middle Class. Middle Grades

I would rate it as less than "middle grades" for the Middle Class.  The problem in America isn't that taxes are too high (they are low relative to the rest of the world), it is that incomes are too low.  American median income (unless you're in the top few percent) has been flat since about 1980, and has declined for lower income people.

We don't need tax cuts to make the middle class more affordable, we need higher incomes, more jobs.

I grade the tax-cuts-and-deficit-reduction plan a "D".

White House Plans for the Middle Class. Middle Grades. | OurFuture.org.

Mostly, the new initiatives don’t create jobs. Doubling the child tax credit, limiting student loan payments to ten percent of income, expanding tax credits to match retirement savings – they’re just relief. They are designed to help underpaid or unemployed people to cope when they don’t have enough money. They don’t create jobs or generate wealth. asdf

Rebuilding our infrastructure and offering public service jobs when the private sector fails, [Economic Policy Institute] estimates the plan will create over 4.6 million jobs in the first year, at a gross cost of roughly $400. The entire cost would be recouped within ten years by a financial transactions tax, which would take effect three years after enactment.

Open Left:: It's Official: Obama is an idiot .

After passing a stimulus that most economists (not just liberal ones) said was too small, and that was made even more inadequate by being heavily tilted toward poor-performing tax-cuts, Obama is now intentionally recreating FDR's mistake of 1937, when he prematurely cut back spending to try to balance the budget, and sent the country into a new recession.

Public Opinion Snapshot: The Public's Priorities: Jobs vs. the Deficit

Public Opinion Snapshot: The Public's Priorities: Jobs vs. the Deficit.

When the choice was creating more jobs even if there was less deficit reduction or reducing the deficit even if unemployment remained high, the result was even more lopsided. By 3:1 (74-25), the public favored creating more jobs.

This suggests that while policymakers should be sensitive to public concern about the deficit, they should not forget that jobs are still the top priority.

New Deal for U.S. Climate Policy?

I've generally considered the market mix of carbon cap-and-trade with limits based on science a good mechanism, but subject to bad implementation.  I don't see the Senate doing a good job implementing it as special interests have undermined it by giving away instead of marketing permits, etc.

While a carbon tax is simpler its price is generally set by Congress which has a bad track record in setting the prices right.

So this new proposal might be a way to move forward reasonably.  (Actually similar to something Al Gore proposed years ago of having most of the fees rebated to taxpayers on a per-person basis.)

New Deal for U.S. Climate Policy? « The Baseline Scenario.

Last Friday, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) unveiled the CLEAR (Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal) Act, which could break the impasse in the debate over U.S. policy on climate change (McClatchy coverage is here.)

CLEAR has won a favorable reception from a broad swath of the political spectrum, ranging from ExxonMobil to Friends of the Earth. The scroll of supportive statements on Cantwell’s website includes praise from the AARP, the American Enterprise Institute, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Alaska’s Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, and MoveOn.org.

CLEAR is a “100-75-25-0” policy:

• 100% of the permits to bring fossil carbon into the U.S. economy will be auctioned from day one – there are no permit giveaways.
• 75% of the auction revenue is returned directly to the public as equal per person dividends.
• 25% of the auction revenue is devoted to investments in energy efficiency, clean energy, adaptation to climate change, and assistance for sectors hurt by the transition from the fossil-fueled economy.
• Zero offsets are allowed: polluters cannot avoid curbing use of fossil fuels by paying someone else to ostensibly clean up after them.

The Cantwell-Collins bill also strictly limits the buying and selling of permits to prevent carbon market speculation and profiteering.

The Wrong Side of History ... again

There is a dangerous meme that says something to the effect that conservatives today need to reform to their basic principles like the good old days. That somehow they've gotten off track and need to return to their roots from some golden age of conservatism.

Let's be clear. It is the same as it ever was. Fear-based paranoia of loss of a mythologized America and one that, then as now, is based not on how things work in the real world but on ideology.

Op-Ed Columnist - The Wrong Side of History - NYTimes.com:

Indeed, these same arguments we hear today against health reform were used even earlier, to attack President Franklin Roosevelt’s call for Social Security. It was denounced as a socialist program that would compete with private insurers and add to Americans’ tax burden so as to kill jobs.

In hindsight, it seems a bit ridiculous, doesn’t it?  Social Security passed, and the republic survived.

Similar, ferocious hyperbole was unleashed on the proposal for Medicare.  President John Kennedy and later President Lyndon Johnson pushed for a government health program for the elderly, but conservatives bitterly denounced the proposal as socialism, as a plan for bureaucrats to make medical decisions, as a means to ration health care.

Oregon one of 10 states in 'greatest fiscal peril' | Politics & Elections

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.

Beyond California: States to Watch (Oregon)

Beyond California: States to Watch.

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.

$140 Billion for Bonuses, Zero for America’s Future

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.

GOP Health Insurance Proposal saves less, covers fewer

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?

The Prius of the sky

The Prius of the sky - James Fallows:

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.