Those boo's are not a good sign for the Republican party... from a bi-partisan "get things done... and get them done right..." perspective
Monday, October 22, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Social Security
Dana Milbank is concerned about the Social Security "crisis." In his column in the Washinton Post yesterday. He stated
But my second problem was his "fix" didn't even include a tax increase. He didn't even mention the possibility! I came of age in the clinton era, when we raised taxes and the economy grew at the same time. I'm not as scared of modest tax increases if they are important and effective tools for solving a fical problem the government can't get around.
Dean Baker has other thoughts for Milbank about the Social Security "Crisis"
Social Security will go into the red in 2017 and become insolvent 24 years later, according to the system's trustees. Medicare, meanwhile, starts bleeding in 2013 and goes under in 2019.First off he does the clever trick of putting the two programs together as if they were the same problem. They are not... Medicare is skyrocketing health care costs (like all the private insurance companys are having to deal with too) Social Security is a demographic shift that requires modest program changes.
Fixing the two would require Medicare and Social Security benefits to be cut immediately by 51 percent and 13 percent, respectively, perhaps by raising retirement ages.
But my second problem was his "fix" didn't even include a tax increase. He didn't even mention the possibility! I came of age in the clinton era, when we raised taxes and the economy grew at the same time. I'm not as scared of modest tax increases if they are important and effective tools for solving a fical problem the government can't get around.
Dean Baker has other thoughts for Milbank about the Social Security "Crisis"
[Milbank] is REALLY alarmed that President Bush's Social Security trustees project that the program will face a shortfall in 34 years. (The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the program will be able to pay all scheduled benefits for the next 39 years with no changes whatsoever.)
Milbank is either too young or to old to remember that Social Security had faced problems in the past. In 1983, the program literally ran out of money. Guess what? No one missed a check. President Reagan and Congress set up a commission (chaired by Alan Greenspan) and they produced a compromise package that is now projected to leave the program fully solvent for 63 years.
While it would not be advisable to wait until the trust fund is empty, we are still 39 years from our next 1983. Mr. Milbank must think that this country is in great shape if he thinks this distant and relatively minor problem should be at the top of the national agenda.
Btw, if we changed our immigration rules so that the Post and other news outlets could freely hire more qualified columnists than Mr. Milibank at lower wages, it could eliminate close to half of the projected shortfall by bringing a larger share of wage income under the cap on the Social Security wage tax. This would be a real win-win policy. Where are the free-traders?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
kind of like saying 2 + 2 = 7 in a Math class....
Recently (hat tip to Dean Baker) in the Wall Street Journal Fred Thompson couldn't give an accurate description of the government program he was attacking.
"I know this probably isn't a real popular thing to say, but we couldn't afford this prescription-drug bill," Mr. Thompson said last week on a swing through Iowa, home of Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who helped push the program through Congress. "We basically put a $72 trillion commitment on top of an already-broken entitlement system. Not a responsible thing to do."This is taking the "I'm the candidate who is going to tell you uncomfortable truths" a bit too far. In this situation Thompson took it so far as to be off on his numbers by over 62 trillion when discussing Medicare.
Joe Scarborough Takes on
This is the kind of thing the media shouldn't be able to get away with. The people over at TPM are helping to put this kind of behavior under the microscope.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Comperative Job Growth...
Dean Baker wants to know: Does the Washington Post Work for the Bush Administration?
That is probably the question that most readers are asking after reading the headline of the article on the September jobs data, "Strong Jobs Report Eases Fears Over Economy's Health." As I and others have said, the September numbers were somewhat stronger that expected, and the upward revisions to July and August job numbers were good news, but 110,000 jobs as "strong?" Give me a break.
The economy created an average of 240,000 jobs a month during President Clinton's second term. That qualifies as "strong" job growth, not 110,000.
The article also allowed the Bush administration to do some unaswered boasting. Quoting the White House that the upward revision to the August data (from a loss to a gain) coupled with September's jobs numbers "means that we've had 49 consecutive months of job creation. And that's the longest uninterrupted job growth on record for our country."
While the statement is true, it is not terribly meaningful. Prior stretches of job creation were interrupted by short strikes. Since the White House is interested in records, the Post could have pointed out that the 0.64 percent annual rate of job growth since President Bush took office is also the slowest rate of job growth on record for any comparable period of time.
I've said many times that President Bush is not completely responsible for the weakness of the economy since he took office. However, when the tries to imply that the economy has been strong, he is not being honest.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Amnesty International's National White House Call-in Days Oct. 24-27th
3rd District Common Agenda is helping organize a local effort to get people in our community to participate in Amnesty Internationals National White House Call-in Day. The goal is to put Darfur on the President's agenda. Tell your friends and family throughout the country about the call-in effort . If you plan on participating in the call in, please email us at ga3rdcommonagenda@gmail.com so that we can keep count of participants. Or if you would like more info on the crisis get in touch. Also check out Amnesty International USA's webpage on the ongoing genocide in Darfur. As well as the Save Darfur coalitions website.
Call the White House - Insist on Adequate Funding for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Aid in Darfur Region
Killings, torture and rape of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the destruction of hundreds of villages have continued in Darfur, Sudan since 2003. Four years later Darfur remains one of the world’s worst human rights and humanitarian catastrophes, though recently progress toward a resolution to the conflict has been made.
Why phone calls to the White House? The U.S. government is a leading member state in the United Nations Security Council, which authorized the peacekeeping force for Darfur. We want to ensure that President Bush lives up to his promises to get UN peacekeepers into Darfur by early 2008, to provide critical funding for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, and to protect conflict-affected civilians
throughout the Darfur region. Thanks to significant pressure from concerned citizens, the U.S.government has taken some important steps on Darfur – now we need to ensure the U.S. government takes important action to facilitate the speedy arrival of the peacekeeping force.
Call the White House at 1-202-456-1111 on October 24-26.
Suggested talking points:
• I am calling to express my deep concern for civilians severely affected by the Darfur conflict,
including displaced persons and conflict-affected civilians in nearby Chad and Central African
Republic.
• In addition to close to 250,000 Darfuri refugees, hundreds of thousands of Chadian civilians and
refugees from CAR have been displaced into Chad as a result of the Darfur conflict.
• The U.S. government has played a significant role in UNSC Resolution 1769 (authorizing UNAMID, the peacekeeping force for Darfur) and related initiatives to bring peace to the people of Darfur. The U.S. government must now provide funding to UNAMID and the multidimensional force in Chad and CAR (MINURCAT). And it must provide additional funding to critical humanitarian operations
in these areas.
Call the White House - Insist on Adequate Funding for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Aid in Darfur Region
Killings, torture and rape of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the destruction of hundreds of villages have continued in Darfur, Sudan since 2003. Four years later Darfur remains one of the world’s worst human rights and humanitarian catastrophes, though recently progress toward a resolution to the conflict has been made.
Why phone calls to the White House? The U.S. government is a leading member state in the United Nations Security Council, which authorized the peacekeeping force for Darfur. We want to ensure that President Bush lives up to his promises to get UN peacekeepers into Darfur by early 2008, to provide critical funding for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, and to protect conflict-affected civilians
throughout the Darfur region. Thanks to significant pressure from concerned citizens, the U.S.government has taken some important steps on Darfur – now we need to ensure the U.S. government takes important action to facilitate the speedy arrival of the peacekeeping force.
Call the White House at 1-202-456-1111 on October 24-26.
Suggested talking points:
• I am calling to express my deep concern for civilians severely affected by the Darfur conflict,
including displaced persons and conflict-affected civilians in nearby Chad and Central African
Republic.
• In addition to close to 250,000 Darfuri refugees, hundreds of thousands of Chadian civilians and
refugees from CAR have been displaced into Chad as a result of the Darfur conflict.
• The U.S. government has played a significant role in UNSC Resolution 1769 (authorizing UNAMID, the peacekeeping force for Darfur) and related initiatives to bring peace to the people of Darfur. The U.S. government must now provide funding to UNAMID and the multidimensional force in Chad and CAR (MINURCAT). And it must provide additional funding to critical humanitarian operations
in these areas.
Monday, October 1, 2007
op-ed sent to AJC in response to Westmoreland
Opinion piece sent to AJC in response to Lynn Westmorelands article Open up your wallet and say "ahh"
There is nothing funny about resource allocation
by Jim Nichols
I wasn’t expecting parents struggling to pay health care costs across my district to be disrespected in a discussion of SCHIP. But in his piece entitled “Open up your wallet and say ‘Ah’ my Congressman Lynn Westmoreland made an analogy that did just that. In it he challenged the wisdom of spending when one is “in debt up to your ears and your credit cards are maxed out,” asserting that “a new credit card is not the answer.” First the “problems” he was citing were shortfalls in long-term budget projections. The combined budget shortfalls of Medicare and Social Security have more to do with health care cost inflation–which the rest of the industrialized world has learned to manage–rather than entitlement programs run amuck as Westmoreland infers. But more importantly it’s a question of tact; as my fiance stated to me after reading it, “if our child needed medical care we’d take out as many credit cards as we could to make sure they got treated.” Reading Westmoreland’s piece I felt the struggles of constituents being ignored.
SCHIP is a federal program designed to work in a targeted manner to capture low income children who do not fall within Medicaid qualifications, its one goal is to improve health care coverage of children–not end the health care crisis. Since 1997 the programs have reduced the number of children without insurance by about one-third. The best synopsis I can give of his position is that Westmoreland questions the wisdom of how the bill is paid for and sees it as a burden on taxpayers. I won’t waste space on the question of crowd-out rates or the claimed superiority of private health insurance, and would direct people to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offices analysis for context on those issues
Beyond the rhetoric I question framing the $157 billion cut to Medicare Advantage as a cut to Medicare. A change that saves taxpayer money and increases efficiency–providing people the same quality of care–is a cut? This cut has been a recommendation of groups such as the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the American Medical Association; not to mention MedPac– the advisory body for the congress in charge of Medicare payment policy. According to MedPac the largest overpayments “average 19% more than it would cost to treat comparable beneficiaries under regular medicare, with half of these overpayments going to profits, marketing, and administrative cost.” This doesn’t devastate Medicare it creates a situation where more people get health coverage.
The context of the numbers, with claims of “staggering” and “upsetting” spending increases that create “Government-run health care” seem questionable as well. $130 billion over 10 years is $48.82 per-capita according to the budget calculator at Center for Economic and Policy Research website. To assert a better funded SCHIP would lead to government-run health care is a leap in logic. SCHIP and Medicaid are programs using private doctors and private health care plans where states negotiate the limits, rates, and package details. These are decisions made by people at the state level.
By cutting payments which typically go into marketing, administration, and profits; and increasing the cigarette taxes (which in-its-self is projected by the American Cancer Association to ‘prevent more than 900,000 Americans from dying prematurely because of smoking’) the SCHIP bill increases the number of children covered in this country. If one more parent is kept from needing to open an extra credit card to get the quality care their child needs, my $48.82 will be well worth it.
Mr. Westmoreland, please publicly clarify your position on SCHIP in a more precise manner. I will acknowledge that your criticisms on a point by point basis might be sound if the bill was intentioned as a long term fix to the health care crisis but the question at hand falls short of that framework. Claims that families of four with incomes above poverty are less deserving of reprieve and assistance than a family in poverty seems divisive–the nuances of government spending are not black and white questions of who works harder or which struggle is more burdensome. By using analogies about bad credit you frame it in that way. The problems with your piece–the representation, analogies, and logic—make the case that it will be the inability of those opposed to Universal plans to come up with workable solutions over the past 20 years that will give us universal health care... not Hillary Clinton.
There is nothing funny about resource allocation
by Jim Nichols
I wasn’t expecting parents struggling to pay health care costs across my district to be disrespected in a discussion of SCHIP. But in his piece entitled “Open up your wallet and say ‘Ah’ my Congressman Lynn Westmoreland made an analogy that did just that. In it he challenged the wisdom of spending when one is “in debt up to your ears and your credit cards are maxed out,” asserting that “a new credit card is not the answer.” First the “problems” he was citing were shortfalls in long-term budget projections. The combined budget shortfalls of Medicare and Social Security have more to do with health care cost inflation–which the rest of the industrialized world has learned to manage–rather than entitlement programs run amuck as Westmoreland infers. But more importantly it’s a question of tact; as my fiance stated to me after reading it, “if our child needed medical care we’d take out as many credit cards as we could to make sure they got treated.” Reading Westmoreland’s piece I felt the struggles of constituents being ignored.
SCHIP is a federal program designed to work in a targeted manner to capture low income children who do not fall within Medicaid qualifications, its one goal is to improve health care coverage of children–not end the health care crisis. Since 1997 the programs have reduced the number of children without insurance by about one-third. The best synopsis I can give of his position is that Westmoreland questions the wisdom of how the bill is paid for and sees it as a burden on taxpayers. I won’t waste space on the question of crowd-out rates or the claimed superiority of private health insurance, and would direct people to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offices analysis for context on those issues
Beyond the rhetoric I question framing the $157 billion cut to Medicare Advantage as a cut to Medicare. A change that saves taxpayer money and increases efficiency–providing people the same quality of care–is a cut? This cut has been a recommendation of groups such as the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the American Medical Association; not to mention MedPac– the advisory body for the congress in charge of Medicare payment policy. According to MedPac the largest overpayments “average 19% more than it would cost to treat comparable beneficiaries under regular medicare, with half of these overpayments going to profits, marketing, and administrative cost.” This doesn’t devastate Medicare it creates a situation where more people get health coverage.
The context of the numbers, with claims of “staggering” and “upsetting” spending increases that create “Government-run health care” seem questionable as well. $130 billion over 10 years is $48.82 per-capita according to the budget calculator at Center for Economic and Policy Research website. To assert a better funded SCHIP would lead to government-run health care is a leap in logic. SCHIP and Medicaid are programs using private doctors and private health care plans where states negotiate the limits, rates, and package details. These are decisions made by people at the state level.
By cutting payments which typically go into marketing, administration, and profits; and increasing the cigarette taxes (which in-its-self is projected by the American Cancer Association to ‘prevent more than 900,000 Americans from dying prematurely because of smoking’) the SCHIP bill increases the number of children covered in this country. If one more parent is kept from needing to open an extra credit card to get the quality care their child needs, my $48.82 will be well worth it.
Mr. Westmoreland, please publicly clarify your position on SCHIP in a more precise manner. I will acknowledge that your criticisms on a point by point basis might be sound if the bill was intentioned as a long term fix to the health care crisis but the question at hand falls short of that framework. Claims that families of four with incomes above poverty are less deserving of reprieve and assistance than a family in poverty seems divisive–the nuances of government spending are not black and white questions of who works harder or which struggle is more burdensome. By using analogies about bad credit you frame it in that way. The problems with your piece–the representation, analogies, and logic—make the case that it will be the inability of those opposed to Universal plans to come up with workable solutions over the past 20 years that will give us universal health care... not Hillary Clinton.
Been busy... so its time to party!
3rd District Common Agenda
Books to Prisoners House Party
What? House party to collect donations for Books to Prisoners–a Seattle-based, all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that sends (paperback only) books to prisoners in the United States.
When? Thursday November 8th.
At Jim and Deana’s house
217 Turnstone Rd.
Stockbridge, GA 30281
Swing by between 6:30 and 8:30pm to drop off books, donations, or to just say hello!
Prisoners request a variety of books. Most prisons accept paperback books only. The most popular requests are dictionaries, thesauruses, African American history and fiction, Native American studies, legal material, GED materials, and languages (particularly Spanish.) Other common requests include fiction, vocational-technical manuals, politics, anthropology, art and drawing, psychology, and health and fitness.
Tax-deductible donations will be accepted (as well as donations to help cover cost of shipping). Donations are tax-deductible to BTP if donation is over $100. If you would like a tax-deductible receipt, please make your check over $100 to "A W.I.S.H." (A World Institute for Sustainable Humanity). They are the sponsoring organization and can provide a tax-deductible receipt and a free BTP t-shirt!
For more info on Books to Prisoners go to:
http://www.bookstoprisoners.net/
For more info on the party or 3rd District Common Agenda go to
http://3rddistrictcommonagenda.blogspot.com/ or call Jim at (404)791 6652
3rd District Common Agenda
“Responsible Citizenship: Creates Accountable Leadership”
Books to Prisoners House Party
What? House party to collect donations for Books to Prisoners–a Seattle-based, all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that sends (paperback only) books to prisoners in the United States.
When? Thursday November 8th.
At Jim and Deana’s house
217 Turnstone Rd.
Stockbridge, GA 30281
Swing by between 6:30 and 8:30pm to drop off books, donations, or to just say hello!
Prisoners request a variety of books. Most prisons accept paperback books only. The most popular requests are dictionaries, thesauruses, African American history and fiction, Native American studies, legal material, GED materials, and languages (particularly Spanish.) Other common requests include fiction, vocational-technical manuals, politics, anthropology, art and drawing, psychology, and health and fitness.
Tax-deductible donations will be accepted (as well as donations to help cover cost of shipping). Donations are tax-deductible to BTP if donation is over $100. If you would like a tax-deductible receipt, please make your check over $100 to "A W.I.S.H." (A World Institute for Sustainable Humanity). They are the sponsoring organization and can provide a tax-deductible receipt and a free BTP t-shirt!
For more info on Books to Prisoners go to:
http://www.bookstoprisoners.net/
For more info on the party or 3rd District Common Agenda go to
http://3rddistrictcommonagenda.blogspot.com/ or call Jim at (404)791 6652
3rd District Common Agenda
“Responsible Citizenship: Creates Accountable Leadership”
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