Monthly Archive for October, 2009
Page 2 of 5
Via mnpACT!, a great video that shows why nonprofit, universal health insurance is far preferable to our current model. Really, it’s a great argument for single-payer health care, but unfortunately that’s not happening — so we’ll have to take what we can get.
Taxpayingliberal over at MN Progressive Project has an important story that, as he notes, the mainstream media is doing its best to paper over. As some of you may know Republican Mary Kiffmeyer was part owner of a bank that catered specifically to fundamentalist Christians:
Tellers prayed with depositors at the drive through window. People were healed in the lobby by the laying on of hands. Some 60 people were “born again” in this bank. Your loan officer prayed with you when you applied for a loan. We don’t know how many non Christians got loans.
The bank has been under investigation for some time now:
Last spring a small news story appeared in the Star and Trib sighting the fact that the bank was being investigated by the FDIC for shoddy banking practices. Amongst other things the FDIC said the bank had poor oversight by the board and a number of questionable loans. In other words they were running their bank like a club house and giving out loans based on faith not fact.
And now, the bank has had to be bailed out by the FDIC:
20 million dollars of FDIC money will be required to bail out Kiffmeyers bank. It’s one of only 6 banks in the state to fail.
What’s particularly amazing about this to me is that with any other bank, Kiffmeyer and her fellow conservatives would rail against the FDIC’s intervention as “socialism” and a “government takeover.” But they don’t seem to object when it comes to their own bank.
I’d like to hear anyone out there defend UnitedHealth’s “Golden Rule” insurance plan, which denied Peggy Robertson insurance coverage because she had a C-section. They did tell her there was one way she could get coverage: She could get herself sterilized.
This story makes me wonder why we are bending over backwards making concessions to our health insurance companies. They seem to be going out of their way to provide as little coverage as possible to Americans, in as cruel a fashion as possible.
60 Democratic Senators is a lot, but it means Democrats in the Senate need every single member to vote with them to avoid a filibuster. On health reform, one of the major problems is Mary Landrieu (D-La), who is opposed to the public option because she also appears to be wildly misinformed:
Opining on the polls showing support for public option, she said it was all about the phrasing of the question.
“I think if you asked, ‘Do you want a public option but it would force the government to go bankrupt,’ people would say ‘No,’” she said.
What a strange thing to say. I suppose I would agree with her — if the public option would force the government to go bankrupt, I would not support it. Of course, that’s an irrelevant point, given that the public option will actually reduce the deficit.
Is it possible that Landrieu really thinks the public option will make the government go bankrupt? Anything is possible, but I’d sure hope that as a US Senator she would be better informed. Whatever her reasons for saying something so ridiculous, it really doesn’t seem like she’ll be a “yes” vote for the public option.
As much as Landrieu’s ignorance reflects poorly on her, it looks even worse for Majority Leader Harry Reid. With just 60 Democratic Senators, it’s unacceptable to have Democrats spouting such nonsense. Harry Reid needs to get his act together and figure out how to get to 60 votes. Getting through to people like Landrieu is his job, and he’d better get to it.
A few months ago, I posted an interview with the Treasury’s “special master for compensation” Kenneth Feinberg, saying how impressed I was at how intelligently he approached his task. NPR has another interview with him, in which he discusses his settlement with TARP recipients over their compensation plans.
In particular, Feinberg’s plan to limit cash compensation and require most bonuses to be paid in stocks is a good way to turn bankers’ focus to long-term gains. The plan is certainly not a silver bullet, but I think he’s done a great job working out a plan to eliminate the worst excesses of Wall Street firms, while still understanding that he needs to allow for competitive pay and incentives for success.
Listen to the Feinberg interview below, or click here for the story at NPR:
Today Margaret Anderson Kelliher’s campaign released her first list of supporters. While it has inspired some silly ‘snark’ in some corners of the blogosphere the real issue is getting down to the numbers. There are 35 37 super delegates on the list (I just eyeballed it, but I have 34 legislators and Lori Bergland Olson, Allison Myhre and Alyssa Harrington DFL Executive Committee members). Entenza lists 9 super delegates on his endorsments page.
As well on Kelliher’s list there are a few old hands who should be expected to be delgates (and some young hands like DJ Danielson). I’d go so far as to say that there is somewhere between 40 and 50 votes for endorsment on that list. And obnoxiousness on the internet aside (which I have contributed more than my fair share of) the next big step is going to be the endorsement process. Kelliher’s list is a pretty spectacular opening salvo and cements her place as (in my mind, Zach and I disagree on this) the frontrunner for the DFL endorsement.
With the abbreviated endorsement schedule momentum is going to be very important. Right now I would venture to guess that MAK, RT and Thissen (T-sun) are the frontrunners for the endorsement, I exclude Entenza, because I think with the depth of this field, and with their experience in 2006 DFL activists won’t be interested in giving the endorsment to someone who isn’t going to abide by it.
If I had to bet, I’d say that next August MAK will be taking on Matt Entenza, Mark Dayton and a player to be named later (I expect someone on the liberal vanguard will mount a pretty forgettable run).
Quite frankly, sometimes a bit of class warfare is needed. For instance, it’s bad enough that income inequality has soared over the last decade or two, and that almost all of the gains of the Bush Economy were concentrated amongst the very wealthiest. But the situation becomes intolerable when wealthy bankers self-righteously claim that the growing income gap and huge executive bonuses are actually leading to “prosperity” for the rest of us:
A Goldman Sachs International adviser defended compensation in the finance industry as his company plans a near-record year for pay, saying the spending will help boost the economy. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion hosted by St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Pardon my French, but that’s a load of crap. Over the past couple of decades, income growth at the top has far outpaced growth in the middle, led by the same finance CEOs who contributed so much to our financial meltdown, and then proceeded to take huge bonuses despite their clear failures. Now they’re trying to tell us that it’s good for us that they’re getting these astronomical payouts? You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t buy it.
The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on the topic “Medical Debt: Can Bankruptcy Reform Facilitate a Fresh Start?” MyDD has posted a fantastic clip of our very own Senator Al Franken in action at the hearing.
Franken took on Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a Senior Fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, over her claim that a universal healthcare system would somehow increase medical bankruptcies in the United States [conservative readers, feel free to chime in if you think that conclusion is in any way justified, because I can’t possibly imagine how anyone could reach that conclusion.] Faced with such an illogical argument, Franken broke out a weapon that he has used successfully throughout his career: facts.
FRANKEN: I think we disagree on whether health care reform, the health care reform that we’re talking about in Congress now should pass. You said that the way we’re going will increase bankruptcies. I want to ask you, how many medical bankruptcies because of medical crises were there last year in Switzerland?
FURCHTGOTT-ROTT: I don’t have that number in front of me, but I can find out and get back to you.
FRANKEN: I can tell you how many it was. It’s zero. Do you know how many medical bankruptcies there were last year in France?
FURCHTGOTT-ROTT: I don’t have that number, but I can get back to you if I like.
FRANKEN: Yeah, the number is zero. Do you know how many were in Germany?\
FURCHTGOTT-ROTT: From the trend of your questions, I’m assuming the number is zero. But I don’t know the precise number and would have to get back to you.
FRANKEN: Well, you’re very good. Very fast. The point is, I think we need to go in that direction, not the opposite direction. Thank you.
The debate should be over right now — according to the Congressional Budget Office, the House’s version of the health reform bill, which contains a “robust public option,” comes in under Barack Obama’s $900 billion goal and will reduce the deficit.
A preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office projects that the House Democrats’ health care plan that includes a public option would cost $871 billion over 10 years, according to two Democratic sources.
CBO also found that the Democrats’ bill reduces the deficit in the first 10 years.
The CBO typically only looks over a 10-year time period, which is too bad in a way, because the benefits of health reform and the public option will only increase over time.
So is this settled now? I believe the objections have been addressed at this point. For people who are concerned about a “government takeover,” the bill will leave the employer-based system intact for those who currently receive health benefits, and for those who don’t, the public option will be just one choice amongst an array of private choices in the health insurance exchange. For people who are concerned about the costs of reform, they are minimal — far less than the cost of the Bush tax cuts — and unlike Bush’s tax cuts, completely paid for.
Now that all the objections have been dealt with, let’s proceed to getting this passed in a timely fashion.
I’m not about to argue that our economy is in really tip-top shape. But who exactly thought it would be right now? For a year now, we’ve known exactly what we’re in for — a long slog through one of the worst economic environments our country has ever experienced. That’s not something that anyone expected to get better overnight. In fact, it’s likely to take years.
Which is why I get so annoyed when I hear House Minority John Boehner say the stimulus isn’t working because we are still losing jobs, as if anyone really expected it would be able to completely and immediately reverse our job losses. It’s unfortunately a tough message to sell politically, but the fact is that the stimulus has had a major impact:
“if gross domestic product shrank by 1 percent in the April-May-June period, it would have fallen by 4 percent without the recovery package,” [Economist Lawrence Mishel] says. “The plain facts are we’ve been losing jobs, but we’ve been losing them at one-third the rate we were losing them at the beginning of the year before the recovery package.”
To take just one example, the stimulus act has saved hundreds of thousands of jobs just in education, according to an analysis by the Department of Education:
Based on an analysis of states’ initial and preliminary submission of the first ARRA Section 1512 Quarterly Report we foresee that over 250,000 education jobs have been retained or created through the Recovery Act. These jobs include teachers, principals, and support staff in elementary and secondary schools, and educational, administrative, and support personnel in institutions of higher education.
Yes, Mr. Boehner, we all know the economy isn’t exactly roaring yet. But as a Congressman, I’d think you’d be glad we were able to save all of these jobs to prevent things from getting even worse.
Like IEDs, prolonged absences from the people they love, the constant stress of working in actual war zones, rampant rumor mongering and complete untruths racing through the local population… they don’t need to deal with rumor mongering and complete untruths coming from the homefront.
Tim Pawlenty likes to portray Minnesota cities as wasteful, bloated big-spenders as he slashes Local Government Aid (LGA) to balance his budget. But in a shocking twist, it turns out that LGA actually pays for things. Things like a police force:
Akeley is the latest Minnesota city to consider going without its own police in response to declining local-government aid (LGA) and, in some cases, population.
Akeley would join a growing club that now includes Remer, Longville and Hackensack, among others. Hoyt Lakes and Aurora might combine their police forces. Wyoming is downsizing its force by switching to uninsured part-timers.
Pawlenty would like you to think that, because of his “no new taxes” pledge, you are now getting more bang for your buck. But while our property taxes soar, we are receiving fewer and fewer services from our state and local governments. We can’t even rely on the basics like effective police protection anymore.
Conservatives are already crowing about the blowout they hope will happen in 2010. But they shouldn’t get too confident yet. Here’s the thing — policymaking is tough, and it can look pretty ugly. People are tired of watching the debate over healthcare. But while the public may be dismayed over the debate in Washington, they still trust Obama and the Democrats, and they’re still glad something is happening.
Compare that to the public’s impression of the Republicans. The public overwhelmingly doesn’t see the Republican Party as qualified to run this country. Just look at the results of a recent Washington Post poll:
Poll respondents are evenly divided when asked whether they have confidence in Obama to make the right decisions for the country’s future, but just 19 percent express confidence in the Republicans in Congress to do so. Even among Republicans, only 40 percent express confidence in the GOP congressional leadership to make good choices.
Only 20 percent of adults identify themselves as Republicans, little changed in recent months, but still the lowest single number in Post-ABC polls since 1983.
Are Americans frustrated by logjams in Congress? Undoubtedly. Are they going to vote the Republicans into power because of it? Unlikely.
I find myself torn on yet another topic: How large a bonding bill should be produced in the 2010 legislative session? My first inclination was to think that it will need to be small, but there is a real argument to be made for producing a large bonding bill in 2010, rather than trying to keep it small out of concern for the FY2012-2013 deficit.
The reasons for a large bonding bill are simple: Increased investment in our state’s infrastructure and the the attendant jobs that will be created during construction/renovation/etc. The reasons for a small bonding bill are actually more complicated. At first glance, it would appear that our impending deficit would make any additional spending prohibitive. But because of what bonding is — funding projects with long life spans by financing them over a long period — a large bonding bill only really adds slightly to our biennial budget.
In fact, Minnesota actually spends fairly little on debt service. In the 2010-2011 biennium, we spent $1 billion toward debt service out of a $31 billion budget — or about 3.2 percent. Or looked at as a percent of our state GDP, we spend about 3.6 percent on debt service. As Steve Perry writes at Politics in Minnesota, we’re among the ten lowest-spending states when it comes to our debt service per capita. In fact, “Minnesota ranked 42nd among U.S. states in per capita public debt.”
The Institute for the Study of Labor just released a fascinating study that indicates how far we still remain from equal employment opportunity.
To study contemporary discrimination we conducted a field experiment in the low-wage labor market of New York City. The experiment recruited white, black, and Latino job applicants, called testers, who were matched on demographic characteristics and interpersonal skills. The testers were given equivalent resumes and sent to apply in tandem for hundreds of entry-level jobs. Our results show that black applicants were half as likely to receive a callback or job offer relative to equally qualified whites. In fact, black and Latino applicants with clean backgrounds fared no better than a white applicant just released from prison.
These findings are really important, because they go right to the heart of our debate over social policy. At the center of that debate is a single question: Are the poor lazy, or are there structural obstacles that make it difficult for some of them to find work? This study has a clear answer — particularly for minorities, it’s rarely as simple as telling the poor to “just get a job.”
People Are Shouting
RSS