Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington), the chair of the House Tax Committee, asks conservatives to tone down their rhetoric on the tax bill. She argues that many of the provisions in her bill are based on policies enacted by conservative hero Ronald Reagan.
She also points out that Republicans are focusing only on tax deductions that were removed, and not on tax credits added. For example, the tax deduction for organ donation was replaced by a tax credit. After all, the way it was previously structured, wealthy Minnesotans would receive a large tax break for organ donation, while poorer Minnesotans would receive nothing. Is that really what we want?
Lenczewski argues that she’s doing something similar to what Reagan did at the Federal level two decades ago: Cleaning up and simplifying the tax code. Reagan himself cut many tax deductions, such as a sales tax deduction and a credit card debt deduction.
Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats have sent a clear signal to Republicans: They will be passing Obama’s agenda. Republican input is welcome, but Republican obstruction is not. I think what they’ve done is really smart. They’re saying that they’re open to real bipartisanship, but elections have consequences and they will not give the Republican party a veto on Obama’s proposals.
They’ve done this by confirming that they will use the budget reconciliation process, which would eliminate the Republicans’ ability to filibuster, to pass health care legislation. However, they will hold off on reconciliation until October 15. That gives them nearly six months to put together a bill that can garner Republican support. Ultimately, Democrats are sending a clear signal that if Republicans won’t participate in crafting a bill they can support, the Democrats will pass health reform on their own.
In a meeting with Republicans, Obama was clear on his reasons for threatening the use of reconciliation:
In a meeting with House Republicans at the White House Thursday, President Obama reminded the minority that the last time he reached out to them, they reacted with zero votes — twice — for his stimulus package.
…Democratic aides said that Obama made clear to the GOP leadership that he would continue to work in a bipartisan way, but that they didn’t have veto power over health care policy.
PhD candidate in Journalism and Mass Communications at U Wisc.-Madison needs your help: take his survey! It’s a really long, but for a good cause and right up our alley: “This study will hopefully shed some light on some understudied areas of news effects by letting me focus on a group of heavy news consumers who are highly interested in politics and current events.”
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This week, Obama talks about fiscal discipline and reducing the national deficit. My sense has always been that Obama cares strongly about the deficit, but it will take a few years to start seeing a reduced deficit for a couple of reasons.
First, dealing with the recession has been costly. For the time being, the economy still needs to be put above the deficit as far as our nation’s priorities. Once the recession is over, I would certainly like to see institutions that received Federal help to remain solvent make a larger contribution towards repaying the debt we accumulated to save them.
Second, several of Obama’s programs would pay up front for cost savings down the line. For instance, he’s looking to spend a substantial sum of money on healthcare right now, in hopes of changing the fact that Americans pay more for healthcare than citizens of any other industrialized nation.
During his address, Obama suggests several solutions, including the re-introduction of “paygo” legislation that requires legislators to pay for any spending increase or tax cut. This should be passed immediately.
PolitFact has been tracking over 500 promises made by Barack Obama during the presidential campaign. So far, they’ve rendered judgement on approximately 8 percent of those promises, and they list another 12 percent as “in the works.”
So far, I’d say he’s doing pretty well. Of the promises that PolitFact has judged so far, 85 percent have been either partially or fully kept. I view campaign promises that have been compromised on as successes — those are promises that he was able to bring before Congress, but where he ultimately had to settle on getting some of what he wanted instead of getting an all-or-nothing proposition rejected.
On a related note, when the campaign stretches for two years, there’s apparently time to make a lot of promises.
an Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction — compared with 44 percent who disagree.
The “right direction” number is up 8 points since February and a remarkable 31 points since October, the month before Obama’s election.
To me, the most important sign is that Americans overwhelmingly recognize there are no quick fixes. They know it will take time to pull the economy together, and they’re willing to give the administration the time it needs:
Seven in 10 Americans say it is reasonable to expect it to take longer than a year to see the results of Obama’s economic policies.
That doesn’t mean, though, that Americans are completely besotten with Obama.
After weeks of partisan fighting between DFLers and Republican governor Tim Pawlenty, Pawlenty is offering to compromise. I’ve been advocating some sort of compromise since before the session began — Democrats will have to put up with spending cuts, while Republicans will have to put up with raising new revenues. Of course, Pawlenty’s compromise looks different than mine:
Pawlenty was quick to add that he thought the two sides could reach a compromise on erasing a $4.6 billion projected budget deficit, possibly through deeper cuts and a larger accounting shift proposed by the House that would yield additional one-time cash.
Pawlenty’s “compromise” is a simple one: more of everything he proposed, and none of what the Democrats proposed. Isn’t compromise great? It’s no wonder Pawlenty makes this sort of “compromise” every year: compromise is easy when you don’t have to make any concessions. Of course, that’s not actually a compromise, but the DFL never seems to wise up and call his bluff. Instead, despite overwhelming majorities, they usually wind up giving the Governor everything he wants.
I have a better idea for this year: the DFL should stand up for the future of Minnesota and refuse to give in to Pawlenty. The Pawlenty plan would put Minnesota in debt for years and years, while he skips town to campaign in Iowa. That’s another one of his famous “compromises,” I suppose: He gets the political spotlight, while Minnesotans are left with the bill.
My theory is that since Minnesotans are paying taxes to support two US Senators we should get a refund for the days that we have only had one.
She now calculates that so far, the cost is approaching $1 million, counting since the day Al Franken should have been sworn in:
By my calculation that’s about $8,000 a day that we, as taxpayers, shell out for offices in Washington, D.C. and in Minnesota. (As far as I can tell from the 2,000-plus page report, all senators get about the same amount of money.)
Right now we have not had a senator for 107 days. At $8,000 a day, that’s about $856,000 we, as taxpayers, have funded for a Senate office that doesn’t exist.
Murphy thinks the rebate should come from the Federal government, but maybe Norm Coleman should have to cover a part of the cost, since he has clearly lost but continues to deny us full representation. Since Coleman is taking up so much of our courts’ time, maybe the $1 million could go towards restoring courts’ staffing. It won’t be enough to completely restore service from our beleaguered court system, but every bit helps.
I think the most incredible part of this story is that Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) still doesn’t understand how stupid he sounds.
During a House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing, Barton smugly posed a “stumper” to Energy Secretary Steve Chu: Why is there oil in Alaska? Doesn’t that prove that Alaska was once much warmer? Secretary Chu patiently tried to explain that oil takes a very, very long time to form. The whole earth was once much warmer, and the continents haven’t always been in their current locations — in fact, they’ve shifted over great distances over billions of years.
Watch the exchange below:
My mind is blown by Barton’s expression here. “So it just drifted up there?” he asks, sounding as if Chu is just making stuff up. For those of us who have been through high school, this should all sound pretty familiar.
As I indicated last night, Matt Entenza officially entered the race for Governor this morning in Worthington Minnesota. First reaction: Is this the earliest official start to a Minnesota Gubernatorial campaign by a challenger? Second reaction: well, there’s not really a second reaction because we all knew this was coming, didn’t we. Still, setting the predictability of the event aside, there is some nice campaign material to sort through, like this excerpt from the official press release (the full thing is below the fold):
“Community matters. Dreams matter. Opportunity matters,” Entenza continued. “Too many years without a DFL governor in our state have taken their toll, and today we have to ask ourselves: Is Minnesota better off today than it was six years ago?
“Minnesota has a proud tradition of being a state that works – literally and figuratively: low unemployment and attention to our priorities; things that made our state work, like education. We need to make Minnesota work again.”
Entenza’s campaign will revolve around three core principles: growing jobs by focusing on the potential of the clean energy economy, providing better educational opportunities to our children and those seeking higher education, and ensuring health care for all.
You know, as far as boiler-plate campaign rhetoric goes, I really like this. If there’s been a thesis of this blog it’s been that “Minnesota has a proud tradition of being a state that works” and we need to restore that proud tradition. As such, I’m taking full credit for all of Entenza’s campaign success (but none of his failure); it’s only fair.
And in case you’re thinking, “well, that’s great, but I want more Entenza!” Well, I have a treat for you: his announcement video!
Just as a side note: we here at MNpublius are not endorsing any DFL candidate, nor do we even have a cohesive opinion behind closed doors. We will do our best to cover all the DFL candidates for Governor and maybe we’ll start backing specific candidates closer to the endorsement. This much I have said, however, and I’ll say it again: In a crowded field with a strong GOP incumbent, abiding by the endorsement is an important showing that the candidate cares more about good governance than him or herself. There are extenuating circumstances that justify non-abidance (and I’ll agree the whole process is a little fubar), but generally it is tough for people who care about winning to feel good about a candidate going renegade against his or her own party. So, yeah, just thought I’d clarify our stance as we head into the early stages of this interesting cycle.
So, I’m really confused this morning. Out of all the places in the universe that I expected to finally make the correct argument about torture, the last place I thought it would be is Fox News. But, as Jeff Fecke at the Blog of the Moderate Left points out, apparently Shep Smith still has a soul (careful, that blank in the title is filled with appropriately foul language):
Exactly right! I don’t care if it works or not, we do not do it. It is contrary to the fundamental core of what this great nation is all about. It makes our argument easier that the efficacy of the techniques is in serious question but honestly, it doesn’t matter either way, it is below us and we will not do it. Anyone who argues otherwise is a coward of the worst variety: one who would willingly sacrifice everything this country has stood for, its citizens have fought for, and countless have died for in order to (they wrongfully think) make us an immeasurably small degree safer. That, my friends, is the definition of a coward.
This is the United States of America and we understand that there are ideals worth fighting for, that sometimes an idea is as powerful as ammunition, and that our role is to be the city upon the hill. No one, much less any American, should ever advocated for anything that undermines that. Much less something that puts us in the pleasant company of the Spanish Inquisition, the Gestapo, the Japanese during WWII, the Pinochet Regime, the Khmer Rouge, and modern day enemies such as Syria and North Korea.
Alright, with that rant expended, I’ll return to under the rock from whence I came!
I wish our elected officials could tear themselves free from political games and deal with our budget’s major structural problems. Our budget has been made worse by the recession, but it has major long-term problems that need to be addressed. The problem is simple — revenues are declining because of an outdated sales tax system, while expenses are climbing as our population ages. Elected officials, for good reason, often focus on the here-and-now, but we actually need a long-term solution.
That’s why I’m disappointed with an amendment in the Minnesota Senate by none other than Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller:
The original omnibus proposal by chair Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook) [PIM item] would have imposed across-the-board income tax increases that sunset in 2014. Pogemiller’s amendment changes the sunset provision by causing the new rates to blink off, or to be reduced, in the event that any February revenue forecast prior to 2014 indicates that the state’s general fund will be balanced as of June 30 of that year.
Sure, it sounds great politically. Pogemiller is sending the message that we’re only raising taxes because we’re in a crisis, and we’ll undo it as soon as possible. The problem is that our budget crisis won’t really be over when the recession ends. It will only end when we start regularly taking in more revenue than we spend on a regular basis. That means higher taxes and fewer services — not just in this biennium, but for decades.
Former DFL House Minority Leader Matt Entenza will formally announce his campaign for governor tomorrow morning. He’ll make the announcement in his hometown of Worthington.
It was widely expected that Entenza would run for governor. He set up a website, formed an exploratory committee and has been traveling the state as a part of his think tank Minnesota 2020. Entenza left his position as board chair earlier this week.
Want to know what your health care would be like if we let the Republicans take charge of health care reform? Look no further than Rick Scott, the founder of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights and “one of America’s foremost health care entrepreneurs,” according to his biography.
Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is one of the few right-wing groups that is actively opposing health care reform, instead touting a flawed market-based model. The way they phrase it, it sounds good:
We believe the path to effective health care reform must be based on the patient-doctor relationship and not from a top-down, big government perspective. Anything that interferes with an individual’s freedom to consult their doctor of choice to make health care decisions defeats the purpose of meaningful health care reform.
Scott’s record, on the other hand, is less pleasant. He touts his experience as the head of Hospital Corporation of America/Columbia Hospital Corporation, but Think Progress’s Wonk Room looks into exactly what his achievements were as a “health care entrepreneur”:
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