Archive for June, 2009
Money as Debt…An Interesting Lesson
Thursday, June 25th, 2009More “investment” in Education – NOT Exactly!
Thursday, June 25th, 2009Nolan Finley
Lansing lets good ideas gather dust
Tom Watkins has another good idea: Rename the state Department of Education the Department of Health Care and Pensions, because meeting the soaring benefit costs of active and retired teachers is its major preoccupation.
“As it stands now, any new money that goes into education really just goes to cover rising health care and pension costs,” says Watkins, who runs a consulting firm focused on relations with China. “That’s where the education ‘investment’ has gone and will be going unless serious efforts of reform are addressed.”
Watkins was dumped by Gov. Jennifer Granholm as state school superintendent in 2005, but not before penning a report that warned of the coming catastrophe unless Michigan changed the way schools are funded and attacked the runaway cost of teacher benefits.
It did neither.
And now Watkins’ report stands as one more glaring example of how Michigan’s political leaders fiddled while the state burned to the ground.
The collapse of the domestic automobile industry and its impact on Michigan’s tax base would have challenged even the boldest, most courageous politicians. But as this state came apart, its leaders ignored repeated pleas to confront the crisis with reforms that might have lessened the blow.
John Rakolta Jr., chairman of the Walbridge construction company, carries around a folded-up page torn from Crain’s Detroit Business that details 10 major studies of Michigan’s structural deficit since 2005. The reports were mostly commissioned by private groups such as the Detroit regional and state chambers and Detroit Renaissance. A few were requested by the Legislature and governor.
They have three things in common: They identified waste and inefficiency in state government; they recommended real structural change; and they were largely ignored.
Almost none of the ideas in the 10 reports have been implemented.
Had the reports been taken seriously, Michigan could have turned its seven-year head start on the national recession into an advantage. It could have found in the crisis the opportunity to restructure, right-size and reform government so the state today would be best positioned to exploit an economic rebound.
Instead, the hard work of reform remains ahead.
Granholm came into office complaining about the fiscal mess bequeathed her by former Gov. John Engler. Her successor will inherit a budget shortfall that will be many times larger than the one Engler left, and the bleakest balance sheet in the state’s history.
And still, our leaders are doing nothing of any real substance to change the way Michigan operates.
The groups that paid for past studies have given up on change until 2011, when a new governor and Legislature are in place. But Michigan can’t afford to spend another 18 months in limbo. By the time 2011 dawns, the deficit hurricane will be blowing full-force.
Schools will see their annual foundation grant plunge $500 or more in two years, unless policymakers act now. A cut that large will push many districts into insolvency.
It will be too late then to heed the alarms sounded by folks like Watkins, who looked into the future and saw this nightmare, but couldn’t get Michigan’s leaders to wake up.
Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The Detroit News. His column runs on Sunday and Thursday. (313) 222-2064 ornfinley@detnews.com.
Rasmussen Poll…America is Waking Up
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
What did you do when capitalism died, Daddy?
Friday, June 19th, 2009http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTdjODk3ZDE1MDdiNWQ1ZTc0NWQ4NTU3ZWIwZjJhNjI=
Et Tu, Big Business?
The coup de grâce of capitalism’s murder is at the hands of its most successful child.
By Jonah Goldberg
I won’t be surprised to hear that question from my daughter by the time she gets out of college — or should I say the State Mandatory Voluntarism Training Facility?
When liberals hear conservatives decry the death of capitalism, they titter and roll their eyes. “Oh, you paranoid right-wingers! You see Bolsheviks around every corner.”
But such exasperation is the exhalation of concentrated ignorance. The absence of free markets isn’t necessarily Bolshevism, or even socialism. Capitalism’s death can come in many forms, by many different hands.
After all, not all of Julius Caesar’s murderers thought alike. They were united in their belief Caesar had to go, not necessarily on what would replace him. Caesar fought off his attackers until he saw that among their number was Brutus, his friend. “Et tu, Brute?” he exclaimed; “You, too, Brutus?” It was not the enemy blows but his friend’s betrayal that sapped his will to fight and brought his downfall.
Some historians claim Caesar actually said, “Tu quoque, fili mi?” or, “You too, my child?”
Whether that’s more accurate, it certainly seems a more fitting declaration as the coup de grâce of capitalism’s murder is at the hands of its most successful child: big business.
Everywhere we look we see the great and once-great beneficiaries of free markets running to the state for protection from the cruel bullying of competition. On health care, insurance companies and others repeat the mantra that they want to be “at the table rather than on the menu,” all the better to be positioned as a tax collector of the welfare state. General Motors and Chrysler have gone from being pimped-out prostitutes of the state to outright chattel more akin to the leather-bound gimp in Pulp Fiction, eager to do the bidding of the president and the UAW.
Once-proud companies like GE have become seduced by global-warming schemes because they recognize that there’s more money to be made selling white elephants to Uncle Sam than there is selling competitive products consumers want. Indeed, cap-and-trade taxes promise to deliver precisely the protectionist industrial policies the Left has dreamed of for decades, only under a “progressive” label.
This week, Philip Morris, the biggest of the big tobacco companies, supported and won passage of an “anti-tobacco” bill that will make it easier for Philip Morris (a subsidiary of Altria) to sell cigarettes by making it harder for smaller, more innovative firms to compete. One way it will do that is by curtailing the First Amendment rights of tobacco companies, making it harder to advertise their products (including healthier alternatives to normal cigarettes). Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro and other established brands, already controls 50 percent of the market. That’s why it lobbied government to keep it that way.
Also this week, the White House announced its plan to deal with “systemic risk” in the financial markets. The basic idea is that big firms — giant banks, insurance companies, etc. — cannot be allowed to fail if their failure threatens something called “stability.” The Obama administration is confident that with its new organizational flow charts and enhanced job description for the Federal Reserve, bureaucrats will suddenly see clearly what they couldn’t see before. These regulators will know exactly when bubbles get too big, when booms last too long, and when tens of thousands of managers, investors, actuaries, and bankers make bad or sub-optimal decisions.
The problem, other than the shortage of Jedis and shamans to fill these posts, is that big companies will understand the surest way to attain immortality is to become too big to fail. Once they’ve achieved that privileged status, these companies will become de facto wards of the state, insured for life at taxpayer expense like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and in exchange they will do whatever Uncle Sam asks.
It’s too soon to tell which companies will leap at the opportunity to sell their souls for immortality, but you can bet that many of those already suckling the TARP teat will be among the first to celebrate the sagacity of the new system.
While doctrinaire socialists might feel betrayed by liberalism’s cozy embrace of big business, their betrayal pales in comparison to the bitterness of free-marketers who defend big business’s freedom to operate, only to see these businesses use that freedom to hide behind the skirts of the nanny state. Real freedom means the freedom to fail as well as succeed. Big business wants to be protected from the former and deny competitors the latter. And their betrayal, more than anything, disheartens those who would defend both freedoms.
— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.
Boxer…”just call me Senator”
Thursday, June 18th, 2009Remember me…
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009Camp Leads on Health Care Reform
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/17/house.health.care/index.html?eref=rss_politics&iref=polticker
House GOP to unveil outline of health care bill
CNN Radio
WASHINGTON (CNN) – House Republicans are planting their flag in the health care battle Wednesday, unveiling the outline of a GOP bill. Like Democrats, Republican leaders are not yet explaining how they would pay for their proposal.
The plan, co-authored by Rep. Dave Camp, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, calls for refundable tax credits for lower-income Americans.
But Camp, a Michigan lawmaker, and Republicans have not determined key details, including the amount of those tax credits or who precisely could be eligible.
“We’re going to provide a dollar amount to people who want to buy insurance,” Camp told CNN Radio. “The numbers are going to depend on how [the ideas] are scored.”
“Scoring” is the process for determining how much a proposal could cost. Thus, Camp and Republicans are waiting to see the relative expense of different proposals before committing to specifics.
“That will come later,” Camp said, insisting the Republican legislation will be “much less costly than the Democratic bills.”
Neither party has presented a full bill, and final costs are unknown.
House Republicans on Wednesday plan to release a two-page summary of Camp’s proposal, which CNN Radio obtained.
Some highlights include:
- “Pools” of insurance. It would let states, small businesses and others group together to offer lower-cost, health care plans. Such pools would have to offer, at a minimum, any coverage that is provided in a majority of states.
- Medicaid transfer. It would allow Medicaid users to take the value of their Medicaid benefits and transfer/apply those to a private health care plan instead.
- Boosting of health care savings accounts. It would increase incentives for people, especially those in lower income brackets or over 55, to build up HSAs.
- Automatic insurance. It would encourage employers to sign up their workers for health insurance automatically, so that employees would have to “opt out” of coverage if they didn’t want it.
- Longer coverage for youths. It would allow dependent children to stay on their parents’ policies until they are 25.
- Promotion of wellness at the workplace. It would encourage employers to reward employees for improved health.
- Expansion of community health centers.
- Mobile health care. It would allow Americans to maintain their specific health insurance policies when they lose or leave jobs.
- In-home care. It would provide financial help and encourage more in-home care over institutions.
- Limitations on malpractice lawsuits. There is general agreement over limiting such lawsuits, but a deep divide exists over exactly how much.
This Republican alternative bill also contains several health careideas that are increasingly championed by both parties.
This House Republican plan comes a day after fellow Republican Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois and other moderates in the so-called Tuesday Group released their proposal, which spelled out many of the same ideas as the Camp bill.
Kirk contends his plan is less partisan but said he supports Camp’s effort.
Iran’s Real “Revolutionary Guard”…A Must See
Monday, June 15th, 2009Press Release…New Business Development Client
Monday, June 15th, 2009Anuzis Joins The RAP Index Team
Former Michigan GOP Chair to Serve As RAP Advisor
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Hollis (Chip) Felkel
864-297-9488
cfelkel@therapindex.com
Saulius “Saul” Anuzis, former Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has
teamed with The RAP Index®, the proprietary public affairs software solution
created by The Felkel Group, Inc. Anuzis will serve in a business development
role as part of the group’s RAP Advisors team. Relying on his extensive contacts
and relationships built over years in the political and business development
arena, Anuzis will assist the firm in marketing The RAP Index®, which identifies
stakeholders’ relationships with over 28,000 policy makers at the local, state and
federal level.
“I am very excited to be a part of this effort. The RAP Index provides valuable,
actionable intelligence which is what the advocacy world needs now more than
ever,” said Anuzis.
Along with his RAP Advisors role, Anuzis works with the American Solutions team and serves as the
National Chairman for their Save American Jobs project. His accomplished background includes being
elected as the youngest delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1980 and serving as Third
Vice Chair of the MRSC where he also served six years as a member and two terms as a Congressional
District Chairman, precinct delegate and candidate for public office. During his time as Michigan
Chairman, Saul actively cultivated relationships with members of the Republican National Committee all
across the country. His daily blogs and regular updates are a source of up-to-the-minute information for
Michigan activists and national GOP activists as well. In addition to his political activities, Saul and his
business partner own Quick Connect USA, a telecommunications firm providing local, long distance,
VOIP, internet and data services to residential and small businesses throughout Michigan.
“We are certainly pleased to have someone with Saul’s outstanding reputation join the RAP Index®
team. His wealth of contacts and relationships will be of great value as we continue to redefine advocacy,
putting real people with real relationships back into the process,” said Hollis “Chip” Felkel, CEO.
Earlier this year, TFG released The RAP Index® 2.0, a unique approach that mines and identifies key
stakeholder relationships in the public policy arena, while also objectively assessing the stakeholder’s
willingness, ability, interest and aptitude for leveraging their relationships or engaging on issues. “The
RAP Index® makes it possible for an organization to use its best possible assets, its own people, as it
deals with public policy,” says Felkel. “It’s about finding the right messengers, and those are the people
who have the relationships to begin with.” To learn more, visit www.therapindex.com or
www.felkegroup.com.
Conservatives Largest Ideological Group
Monday, June 15th, 2009
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conservatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group.aspx
June 15, 2009
“Conservatives” Are Single-Largest Ideological Group
Percentage of “liberals” higher this decade than in early ’90s
PRINCETON, NJ — Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. The 21% calling themselves liberal is in line with findings throughout this decade, but is up from the 1990s.
These annual figures are based on multiple national Gallup surveys conducted each year, in some cases encompassing more than 40,000 interviews. The 2009 data are based on 10 separate surveys conducted from January through May. Thus, the margins of error around each year’s figures are quite small, and changes of only two percentage points are statistically significant.
To measure political ideology, Gallup asks Americans to say whether their political views are very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, or very liberal. As has been the case each year since 1992, very few Americans define themselves at the extremes of the political spectrum. Just 9% call themselves “very conservative” and 5% “very liberal.” The vast majority of self-described liberals and conservatives identify with the unmodified form of their chosen label.
Party-Based Ideology
There is an important distinction in the respective ideological compositions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. While a solid majority of Republicans are on the same page — 73% call themselves conservative — Democrats are more of a mixture. The major division among Democrats is between self-defined moderates (40%) and liberals (38%). However, an additional 22% of Democrats consider themselves conservative, much higher than the 3% of Republicans identifying as liberal.
True to their nonpartisan tendencies, close to half of political independents — 45% — describe their political views as “moderate.” Among the rest, the balance of views is tilted more heavily to the right than to the left: 34% are conservative, while 20% are liberal.
Gallup trends show a slight increase since 2008 in the percentages of all three party groups calling themselves “conservative,” which accounts for the three percentage-point increase among the public at large.
Thus far in 2009, Gallup has found an average of 36% of Americans considering themselves Democratic, 28% Republican, and 37% independent. When independents are pressed to say which party they lean toward, 51% of Americans identify as Democrats, 39% as Republicans, and only 9% as pure independents.
Ideological tendencies by leaned party affiliation are very similar to those of straight partisan groups. However, it is worth noting the views of pure independents — a group usually too small to analyze in individual surveys but potentially important in deciding elections. Exactly half of pure independents describe their views as moderate, 30% say they are conservative, and 17% liberal.
As reported last week on Gallup.com, women are more likely than men to be Democratic in their political orientation. Along the same lines, women are more likely than men to be ideologically “moderate” and “liberal,” and less likely to be “conservative.”
Still, conservatism outweighs liberalism among both genders.
The pattern is strikingly different on the basis of age, and this could have important political implications in the years ahead. Whereas middle-aged and older Americans lean conservative (vs. liberal) in their politics by at least 2 to 1, adults aged 18 to 29 are just as likely to say their political views are liberal (31%) as to say they are conservative (30%).
Future Gallup analysis will look at the changes in the political ideology of different age cohorts over time, to see whether young adults in the past have started out more liberal than they wound up in their later years.
Bottom Line
Although the terms may mean different things to different people, Americans readily peg themselves, politically, into one of five categories along the conservative-to-liberal spectrum. At present, large minorities describe their views as either moderate or conservative — with conservatives the larger group — whereas only about one in five consider themselves liberal.
While these figures have shown little change over the past decade, the nation appears to be slightly more polarized than it was in the early 1990s. Compared with the 1992-1994 period, the percentage of moderates has declined from 42% to 35%, while the percentages of conservatives and liberals are up slightly — from 38% to 40% for conservatives and a larger 17% to 21% movement for liberals.
Survey Methods
Results are based on aggregated Gallup Poll surveys of approximately 1,000 national adults, aged 18 and older, interviewed by telephone. Sample sizes for the annual compilations range from approximately 10,000 to approximately 40,000. For these results, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
