Suing While Implementing: Utah Officials Meeting With HHS On ‘Daily Basis’ To Implement Reform
Suing While Implementing: Utah Officials Meeting With HHS On ‘Daily Basis’ To Implement Reform
Utah is suing the federal government over the constitutionality of health care reform, but like many states in this position, it’s also taking steps to implement the law. In fact, according to Dessert News, the state is moving quickly to establish a health exchange for small businesses:
Starting on Sept. 1, the Beehive state’s first health care exchange for small businesses will officially begin operation. On that same day, the federal version of the Utah Comprehensive Health Insurance Pool, which covers people with high-risk health conditions, will also start offering coverage. [...]
In the meantime, the state is set to launch its own health exchange designed for small employers — of two to 50 employees — in which companies will give their workers money they will use to purchase insurance coverage from a wide array of plan options tailored to their specific needs. Exchanges for larger employers will follow in a few weeks.
The tension between states implementing reform on one hand and suing the federal government on the other, is well pronounced in Utah, which has joined Florida’s challenge to the individual mandate, but has also established a special task force to implement the measure.
According to local health advocates on the ground, moderate to conservative Republicans are working diligently to assert local control over how reform is implemented and maximize Utah’s autonomy over the measure — all the while paying lip service to the repeal meme. The state has applied for the rate review grants announced earlier this week and is considering all other funding opportunities. Utah officials are conducting what was described to me as “daily” meetings with HHS officials about implementation, some of which include the governor’s adviser on health reform, John T. Nielsen and Utah Lt. Governor Greg Bell, a moderate Republican.
The tension in the state seems to rest between moderate and conservative Republicans, the latter of which is not too happy about the state’s partial embrace of reform. State health advocates I spoke to warned me that if the November elections bring the hard liners into power, any progress on implementing the measure could be reversed. But the willingness to at least give reform a try is itself surprising.
One Utah involved in state health issues speculated that even the repeal and replace advocates realize that “this is how they have to do reform and it is important to get started and try out some of these ideas.” “I wonder if they’re not thinking well, the only way to prove reforms are wrong, is to give them a good college try,” this person told me.
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Pentagon Doesn’t Anticipate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Will Be Priority For Military Families
Pentagon Doesn’t Anticipate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Will Be Priority For Military Families
Tomorrow, the military will mail paper surveys to 150,000 spouses of military servicemembers to gauge their reaction to repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law. The survey is part of a larger Pentagon effort to study how allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would affect military and family life. It comes on the heels of a controversial and highly criticized survey of 400,000 active military and reserve members.
Pentagon sources tell me that this second questionnaire, which will also include the partners of gay and lesbian troops, will be analyzed in a qualitative, rather than a quantitative manner. The military will try to assess if repealing the policy will affect military retention and recruitment, and the importance of the issue in the context of other concerns like educational opportunities and medical benefits.
“We are asking the family members, if we were to change the law, are there any impacts at all that might affect family readiness and military community life,” DoD spokesperson Cynthia Nixon told me. “We understand that military spouses play an important role in a servicemembers’ decision about whether or not they’re going to stay in the military. It’s a retention issue. It’s aslo a recruiting issue becaue we know that spouses are influencers in local communities.”
Interestingly, one source told me that the Pentagon expects DADT to rank low on the list of priorities and said that past focus groups have shown that family members have other, more pressing concerns.
Military spouses will have until September 27th to complete and mail in the survey.
Waxman And Stupak Demand BP Detail Scope Of Greenwashing Campaign
Waxman And Stupak Demand BP Detail Scope Of Greenwashing Campaign
In a letter to BP America CEO Lamar McKay, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) are demanding that BP disclose its “spending on corporate advertising and marketing relating to the the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and relief, recovery, and restoration efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.” Their request follows the efforts of Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) to get answers about BP’s massive greenwashing campaign, which includes months of full-page advertisements in national and regional newspapers, radio spots, television commercials, and Internet ads on websites including ThinkProgress.org. Outside estimates of the scope of the greenwashing campaign managed by BP’s public relations firm Mediashare are in the tens of millions of dollars, the Washington Post’s Krissah Thompson reports:
After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April, BP went on the air with television ads and bought a series of full-page ads in The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other papers to position itself as an imperfect but responsible corporation committed to the cleanup of the gulf. The company has spent $55.8 million on television and print advertising so far this year, according to the Nielsen Co., which tracks ad spending.
According to Media Monitors, BP’s radio spots surged to 10,684 last week, with a particular focus on Florida stations. Since mid-July, BP’s internet ads have been running on political blogs, including Talking Points Memo, the Common Sense Media network of liberal sites from FireDogLake to AmericaBlog, and a host of right-wing sites, including Eagle Interactive’s network with RedState and the Salem Web Network’s Townhall.com and Hot Air.
BP seems to be working harder to protect its brand than to help the people of the Gulf Coast, argued Alabama Attorney General Troy King. He has filed suit against BP because “while BP is spending millions on print ads and airtime, it’s not spending what it should on claims.” Fortunately, BP’s control of the claims process will finally end Monday, with the launch of Kenneth Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility.
(HT Mother Jones)
BP has an agreement with Common Sense Media to be notified about this story, reserving the right to pull ads from ThinkProgress.
New Report Details How Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Hurts The Military And The Troops
New Report Details How Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Hurts The Military And The Troops
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell scholar Nathaniel Frank — formerly of the Palm Center — is out with a new report detailing how the ban against open service undermines the military — which supporters of the policy claim to be preserving. But as Frank explains, “[f]ar from protecting military readiness, the policy has harmed it, sacrificing badly needed personnel that is replaced with less qualified talent; undermining cohesion, integrity, and trust through forced dishonesty; hurting the morale of gay troops by limiting their access to support services; wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars; invading the privacy of all service members—gay and non-gay alike—by casting a cloud of suspicion and uncertainty over the intimate lives of everyone in the armed forces; and damaging the military’s reputation which makes it harder to recruit the best and brightest America has to offer.”
Frank’s report substantiates what many of the recent personal stories of closeted soldiers have described anecdotally. He lists 12 ways in which the military is harmed by the policy (I’m excerpting the top five below):
1. Waste the talents of thousands of essential personnel with “critical skills” who were fired for their sexual orientation — 757 troops with “critical occupations” were fired under the policy between fiscal years 1994 and 2003.
2. Strike at the heart of unit cohesion by breaking apart cohesive fighting teams — a 2009 study published in Military Psychology found that sexual orientation disclosure is positively related to unit cohesion, while concealment and harassment are related negatively. Forcing troops to conceal their sexual orientation appears to reduce cohesion.
3. Hamper recruitment and retention by shrinking the pool of potential enlistees — an additional 41,000 qualified gay Americans might join if the ban were lifted, and an additional 4,000 personnel might remain in uniform
4. Lower the quality of military personnel by discharging capable gay troops leaving slots to be filled through “moral waivers” that admit felons, substance abusers, and other high-risk recruits.
5. Infect the morale of the estimated 66,000 gay, lesbian, and bisexual troops and their military peers who must serve in a climate of needless alienation, dishonesty, and fear
It’s worth pointing out that while these effects on military readiness are easily verifiable (by the Pentagon’s own reports no less), the claims from the other side about how repealing the policy would harm the institution have yet to be experienced by any of the 26 NATO allies that allow open service.
Deficit Fraud Kelly Ayotte’s First Step Toward Deficit Reduction Would Result In A Deficit Increase
Deficit Fraud Kelly Ayotte’s First Step Toward Deficit Reduction Would Result In A Deficit Increase
Kelly Ayotte, the front-runner for the Republican senate nomination in New Hampshire, likes to portray herself as a fierce fiscal hawk. “The spend-a-thon in Washington must stop. That means stopping anymore spending that adds to our deficit and debt,” she has said, adding that “spending cuts must be made with a hatchet, not a scalpel.”
But if her sit-down with the Foster’s Daily Democrat’s editorial board is any indication, Ayotte is a bit clueless when it comes to the federal budget, as her prime deficit reduction strategy would actually result in the deficit increasing:
One way Ayotte wants to cut the deficit is repeal the $900 billion health care reform bill. She noted many components don’t kick in until after the presidential election in 2012. “That’s why it’s important to keep the repeal effort alive,” she said. “What we owe is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It’s an American issue.”
Of course, as Matt Finkelstein notes, “according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years (and up to $1.3 trillion by 2029).” So repealing it will have the opposite effect of that which Ayotte claims she’s going for.
But this performance is really in line with the rest of Ayotte’s deficit peacockery. In an op-ed in the Nashua Telegraph — entitled “Time to stop the spendathon in Washington” — Ayotte outlined five steps that she thinks will fix the deficit. The first, a balanced budget amendment, is a pipe dream that even Republicans realize will be horribly destructive for the economy.
The next, repealing what’s left of the stimulus bill, only cuts spending in the short term and would necessitate repealing money dedicated to middle class tax cuts, thus increasing taxes on the middle class. She would also end earmarks, which amount to less than one percent of the federal budget, and add a “sunset” provision to federal programs, even though discretionary spending programs already have to be renewed every year.
Finally, she would indiscriminately cut every federal agency by 20 percent. I’m curious if she’s really in favor of downsizing the Defense Department, border enforcement, the FBI, the Coast Guard, and a whole host of other vital programs like food inspection or port security, by 20 percent overnight.
Note that none of Ayotte’s solutions have anything to do with the structural causes of the deficit. They’re simply the kinds of ideas conservatives like to tout even when the deficit isn’t a concern. If this is the best she can come up with, no one should be talking Ayotte’s deficit-cutting credentials seriously.
Conservatives Torn Over Whether Marriage Equality Is A Conservative Value
Conservatives Torn Over Whether Marriage Equality Is A Conservative Value
Matt Lewis has an interesting piece following the fallout from the Ann Coulter/HomoCon/WorldNetDaily controversy. To recap, this is the one in which the sharp-tounged but no longer terribly relevant Coulter was dropped from WorldNet’s “Taking America Back National Conference” for agreeing to speak at HomoCon, GOProud’s first annual conservative gay event. WND editor Joseph Farah punted on Coulter because, as he put it, “it would not make sense for us to have Ann speak to a conference about taking America back when she clearly does not recognize that the ideals to be espoused there simply do not include the radical and very ‘unconservative’ agenda represented by GOProud.”
Well, Lewis tracked some up and coming conservative leaders and they took issue with Farah’s characterization of conservatism:
“Conservatism and gay rights are actually natural allies,” said S.E. Cupp, conservative columnist and author of “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity.” “Conservatism rightly seeks to keep the government out of our private lives, and when you strip away the politics of pop culture, it’s this assertion of privacy and freedom that the gay rights movement is essentially making.”
This is how institutions evolve and emerge within a conservative culture,” says Jon Henke, a libertarian-leaning blogger. “In time, gay people will be married, extending the valuable social institution of marriage to more people. In time, conservatives will argue that the positive impact that marriage has on the gay community is further evidence of the importance of the institution of marriage.”
National Review’s Dan Foster believes the changing attitudes are largely generational, but added that “a central thread of conservatism, going back to Edmund Burke, is…gradualism.”
The growing acceptance of gay rights within the younger faction of the conservative movement sounds promising, but somehow insufficient and even irrelevant. “In time,” a greater number of conservatives could very well argue about “the positive impact that marriage has on the gay community,” but gay people shouldn’t have to wait. Gradual public acceptance of marriage may be enough for some conservatives who already enjoys the benefits of full equality under the law, but I suspect it’s less acceptable to those still fighting for it.
Some older conservative leaders already agree with this. As Olson asked yesterday on MSNBC’ Andrea Mitchell Reports, “What could be, at the end of the day, more conservative than two loving people, that want to get married, that want to build a family, that want to be part of our neighborhoods and community — that is a conservative value.”
Steven Rosen’s Wonderland Road Map
Steven Rosen’s Wonderland Road Map
To read former AIPAC official Steven Rosen’s piece in Foreign Policy today is to enter a wonderland. Adding a fun new element to his usual Israelis awesome/Palestinians awful rubric, Rosen writes “The Palestinians deeply distrust interim arrangements, and they have frequently asserted that they will not enter another interim agreement”:
But the Palestinian Authority might not hew to this uncreative position if intelligent American mediation led the way. Abbas accepted the Quartet’s Middle East Roadmap in 2003 knowing that it called very clearly and explicitly for an interim arrangement with a Palestinian state having “provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty … as a way station to a permanent status settlement.” The Roadmap made this interim Palestinian state Phase II of the process, after Phase I (”Ending Terror and Violence, Normalizing Palestinian Life, and Building Palestinian Institutions”) and before Phase III (”Permanent Status Agreement and the End of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”)… (Palestinian objections to interim agreements have been a continuing feature of Middle East diplomacy, but the record is replete with past examples where they did in fact agree to the step-by-step approach.)
This is quite right, the record is replete with past examples where the Palestinians did in fact agree to the step-by-step approach — and here they are, almost twenty years after the Madrid conference, with no state, and Palestinian land increasingly carved up into an archipelago in a sea of Israeli settlements and security zones. I can’t imagine why the Palestinians would distrust interim arrangements at this point.
Calling on the Obama administration to make use of the the 2003 Road Map, Rosen reminds us that it “is the only document providing a pathway to a Palestinian state ever accepted by all the parties involved in Middle East peace negotiations”:
It was issued by the Quartet, consisting of the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the secretary-general of the United Nations on April 30, 2003. Then it was endorsed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council (including Syria!) in Resolution 1515 on Nov. 20, 2003. It was endorsed again by the Quartet on March 19, 2010. It was accepted “without any reservations” by Abbas at the Middle East peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan on June 4, 2003. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accepted it on May 23, 2003, and Sharon’s government, by a majority vote, accepted it on May 25, 2003. Both sides are bound by the Roadmap, and it does not require a fresh endorsement by either. It is one of the signed written commitments of the Palestinian government on which the peace process is based today.
I agree with Rosen that the Road Map provides a useful framework for getting peace negotiations back on track. But here’s the thing: So does President Obama. According to Moran Banai, policy director of Middle East Progress, “The Obama administration has been building on the Road Map.” Banai continues:
The whole concept upon which they began their work was, everyone has obligations under the Road Map, everyone committed to it, so everyone should live up to it. That includes Israel’s obligation under the Road Map, to stop building settlements. The Road Map cited the Sharm el-Sheikh committee’s report with regards to this issue, which called for a freeze on all settlement construction, including natural growth. It comes back to what the administration did at first, asking everyone to live up their commitments, which the Palestinians to a great extent have done.
The Israelis, when they accepted the Road Map, did so with reservations, and a main one was, we won’t do anything until the Palestinians get security under control and meet their obligations. Considering the progress that the Palestinians have made on their security forces and on institution-building, the Palestinians have essentially mooted this objection.
Given all this, it’s simply surreal for Rosen to ask whether Obama will “take the advice of the pressure-on-Israel enthusiasts who twice led him into the cul-de-sac of the ‘freeze on natural growth’ of settlements,” as if a “freeze on natural growth” of settlements weren’t itself an Israeli obligation of the Road Map.
Current reports indicate that the parties are “on track” to direct talks. One of the main arguments made by those trying to convince Abbas to agree to negotiations is that it would allow the Palestinians to test Israel’s seriousness. And just as rumors of talks are swirling, there appears to be an effort underway, of which Rosen is a part, to downplay Israel’s responsibilities and minimize what it will agree to, including this sort of talk of another “interim agreement.”
While Israel under Netanyahu has, for the first time, thanks to the Obama administration’s commitment to enforcing the Road Map, taken a step toward meeting its obligation on settlements by implementing a 10-month settlement moratorium (if a largely symbolic one), that moratorium will soon be over, and it’s not clear that Israel has any intention of continuing to meet this obligation. Moreover, it is Israel which is currently opposed to a Quartet statement reiterating those commitments and outlining final status parameters so that the talks can begin.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has his own domestic political pressures to deal with, and so does President Abbas, but it’s silly to pretend, as Rosen would have us do, that the Palestinians don’t have good reasons for resisting the sort of “interim arrangements” that, from their perspective, have in the past only served to facilitate the expansion of Israeli settlements on land that the Palestinians intend for their state. Especially given that Netanyahu himself is on record bragging about his past success in manipulating those arrangements to frustrate progress toward peace.
Toomey Says His Plan To Privatize Social Security ‘Would Be A Very Important Start’
Toomey Says His Plan To Privatize Social Security ‘Would Be A Very Important Start’
Earlier this week, a host of Republican pundits tried to claim that no members of their party are proposing to privatize Social Security. “There’s no Republican, basically, standing up and saying that, and we haven’t for a very long time,” said Republican talking head Ed Rollins.
Of course, plenty of Republicans have proposed just that, most notably Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), whose Roadmap for America includes the creation of personal Social Security accounts. Kentucky’s Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul said “let young working people opt out, the sooner the better, let ‘em opt out and get a better investment,” while Indiana’s GOP Senate candidate Dan Coats has endorsed a Social Security plan “along the lines of what Paul Ryan has proposed.”
And then there’s Pat Toomey, the Republican nominee for the Senate in Pennsylvania. During an interview with Real Clear Politics, Toomey touted his plan for Social Security privatization, conveniently leaving out the word “privatization”:
RCP: Your campaign website, under “spending,” complains of “wasteful pork projects, multiple bailouts, the so-called stimulus, and new government programs.” But what about entitlements?
Toomey: You know, I’ve always said that we need to reform our big entitlement programs. These programs are not sustainable in their current form and so we’re going to have to put them on a secure footing. That’s what we have to do.
RCP: OK, how do we do that? Do we raise the retirement age? Do we cut benefits?
Toomey: I’ve got a whole chapter in a book that I wrote that deals with how I think, one of the ways I think we could reform Social Security to make it viable. So I have provided great detail on that whole idea. That would be a very important start.
Of course, in Toomey’s book, the first subhead under the “Transforming Social Security” chapter is “Personal Accounts Lead to Personal Prosperity.” And it’s really no surprise, considering Toomey’s reaction to President George W. Bush’s privatization scheme. “I have been arguing for many years in favor of Social Security personal retirement accounts,” Toomey said at the time. “I’m thrilled that the President is taking up this critical issue.”
Of course, as a Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis found, under a Bush-style privatization plan, an October 2008 retiree would have lost $26,000 in that year’s market turmoil, and if the U.S. stock market had behaved like the Japanese market during that retiree’s life, the private account would have lost $70,000. And it’s likely not a coincidence that Toomey didn’t let the word privatization into his response, as polls show that such a plan is highly unpopular.
Ken Starr: Defending SB-1070 ‘Is Going To Be A Very Hard Case,’ Birthright Citizenship ‘A Venerable Tradition’
Ken Starr: Defending SB-1070 ‘Is Going To Be A Very Hard Case,’ Birthright Citizenship ‘A Venerable Tradition’
Last night, on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, “Clinton White House nemesis” and new president of Baylor University Law School Ken Starr explained that Arizona is going to have a tough time defending its immigration law against the Justice Department’s claims that it is preempted by federal law:
I think the law is such that it’s going to be a very hard case for Arizona and I’ll tell you why: the Constitution itself provides for a power given to Congress to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, or immigration control. [...] Certain provisions, those in terms of checking immigration papers or checking identity papers…those touch on the powers of Congress to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.
As the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) points out, “the U.S. Supreme Court consistently has ruled that the federal government has broad and exclusive power to regulate immigration.” SB-1070 contains several provisions that not only expand the scope and limits and federal immigration law, but also directly conflict with it. That’s why federal district court judge Susan Bolton enjoined several major provisions of Arizona’s immigration law, most notably, the section which requires police to enforce immigration law. Bolton concluded that “the United States is likely to succeed on the merits in showing that…[the enjoined provisions] are preempted by federal law” and the “United States is likely to suffer irreparable harm” in the absence of an injunction. Starr described Bolton’s ruling as a “strong decision.”
Starr also weighed in on the 14th amendment debate. While some right-wing lawmakers have argued that the 14th amendment can simply be “reinterpreted” or “clarified” to overturn birthright citizenship, Starr affirmed in absolute terms that the only way to deny the American-born children of undocumented immigrant citizenship would be by changing the Constitution. Starr also noted that the provision was neither an oversight nor a mistake made by the architects of the 14th amendment, rather, the restoration of a “venerable tradition” that overturned the Dred Scott decision:
This [birthright citizenship] is an ancient part of law that we then made absolutely clear in the 14th amendment. [...] The 14th amendment begins with a very specific definition that a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States is a citizen of the United States. That’s pretty clear to me. [...] It’s not as if the ratifiers and the architects of the 14th amendment just made it up — they were restoring a very venerable tradition in English and, and frankly, United States law.
Watch it:
Starr emphasized that the broken immigration system cannot be adequately addressed by the courts and that it’s up to Congress to fix it by enacting immigration reform.
FLASHBACK: McConnell Predicted Health Law Would Increase Prescription Drug Costs
FLASHBACK: McConnell Predicted Health Law Would Increase Prescription Drug Costs
When HHS sent out the first round of rebate checks to seniors who fall into the so-called doughnut hole of Medicare Part D, Republicans accused the administration of “hiding the whole truth” and argued that prescription drug costs would still increase for seniors. “What the administration, however, will not mention at today’s event is that for every senior who gets a check, more than three other seniors will see an increase in their prescription drug insurance premiums,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in early June. He went further: “The reason for this is that the health care bill Democrats forced on Americans earlier this year requires higher government mandated minimum standards for everyone. So those who opted for anything below that minimum will now see their premiums go up. And the number of seniors in this category far, far outnumbers those getting a check.”
At the time, FactCheck.org questioned McConnell’s assertion, pointing to a CBO report which found that premiums would increase by “about 4%” in 2011, but “beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs apart from those premiums would fall, on average, as would their overall out-of-pocket drug spending including premiums.” Yesterday, the CMS further disproved McConnell’s predictions. According to the agency, most seniors will pay about the same for prescription premiums in 2011, while those with the highest costs will pay less:
The average monthly premium charged by Medicare drug plans for standard coverage will rise to an estimated $30 in 2011, an increase of $1 over 2010, or about 3 percent, said Donald Berwick, Medicare administrator. …Nonetheless, seniors with high drug costs can look forward to a noticeable improvement next year.
That is because the new health care law will begin to close the coverage gap known as the doughnut hole. Medicare recipients in the gap will get a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs and 7 percent on generics. The discounts will gradually increase until the gap finally closes in 2020.
Republicans are still dedicated to repealing the drug rebates, however, and have described the checks as “a colossal waste of money” that the country can’t afford.
Coats Admits He Has No Idea How Much His Giant Tax Cuts For The Rich And Corporations Would Cost
Coats Admits He Has No Idea How Much His Giant Tax Cuts For The Rich And Corporations Would Cost
Yesterday, Indiana’s Republican Senate candidate Dan Coats unveiled his job creation plan while campaigning at a medical parts manufacturer. Like the jobs plan that have been released by other Republican senate hopefuls like Marco Rubio (FL) and Roy Blunt (MO), Coats’ plan is heavy on the tax cuts and fearmongering about government regulation.
Coats calls for permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts, including those for the richest two percent of Americans that President Obama would like to see expire, as well as eliminating the estate tax and cutting the corporate income tax. But when asked about how much these massive cuts would add to the deficit, Coats freely admits that he has no idea:
He could not say what the fiscal impact of his proposals would have on the nation’s deficit, saying it would need more analysis. “I believe the effectiveness will far outweigh the costs,” he said. “Our hope is that we can come back with a budget neutral (plan) or savings.”
Coming back with a budget neutral plan may be Coats’ hope, but in order to achieve that he’s going to need draconian spending cuts or huge middle class tax increases, because the tax cuts he’s proposing will blow a serious hole in the budget. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy alone will cost $830 billion over ten years, and eliminating the estate tax is another $784 billion. All of this spending and borrowing will serve to benefit the richest two percent of the country.
As for the corporate income tax, Coats doesn’t actually say how big a cut he has in mind, just that he wants “to make the U.S. competitive with other leading industrial nations.” This is a common conservative trick, focusing on the marginal rate while ignoring that the myriad loopholes and deductions that are in the U.S. corporate tax code result in the U.S. bringing in below average corporate tax revenue for an industrialized nation. For the sake of putting a number on this, the House Republican plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent would cost $2.7 trillion over ten years.
Finally, this is supposed to be Coats’ jobs plan, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, extending the Bush tax cuts is the least effective tax step that could be taken to boost the economy, while cutting the corporate tax rate “is not a particularly cost-effective method of stimulating business spending.” “Increasing the after-tax income of businesses typically does not create an incentive for them to spend more on labor or to produce more,” CBO said.
So let’s call this plan out for what it is: a conservative tax cut wish-list that dramatically lowers taxes for rich people, without even pretending to be fiscally responsible.
VIDEO: Why Oil Billionaire David Koch Is Secretly Funding Astroturf To Repeal CA Clean Energy Law AB 32
VIDEO: Why Oil Billionaire David Koch Is Secretly Funding Astroturf To Repeal CA Clean Energy Law AB 32
This post is part of a Progressive Media blogging series on the fossil fuel-funded Prop 23 effort to repeal California’s clean energy climate law. Read Rebecca Lefton’s posts on Prop 23’s economic impact, national repercussions, and funding from Texas oil companies.
Much has been reported about how Texan oil companies Valero and Tesoro have been fighting to repeal the landmark clean energy climate change law, AB 32. The Wonk Room recently obtained a PowerPoint from Tesoro showing that the company made a pitch to oil companies, including BP, to join their effort known as Proposition 23.
But there is another powerful out-of-state fossil fuel interest trying to eviscerate California’s pioneering climate change law: Koch Industries. The Wonk Room has learned that Koch Industries is funding the lead “grassroots” group organizing support for Proposition 23, and is also funding the Pacific Research Institute, the main think-tank producing junk studies smearing AB 32.
As ThinkProgress and the Wonk Room have detailed, Koch Industries is the largest funder of climate change denying and anti-environmental regulation fronts worldwide and its Americans for Prosperity Foundation is responsible for helping to create the so-called Tea Party movement. While the Koch brothers at the helm of Koch Industries are committed right-wing ideologues, their financing of front groups helps boost the profits of their conglomerate. Koch Industries contributes heavily to carbon pollution through their asphalt, timber, and oil refinery subsidiaries, and the University of Massachusetts lists Koch as the the 10th worst air polluter in America.
In its corporate newsletter, Koch Industries explicitly states that the low carbon fuel standard California is set to adopt to comply with AB 32 carbon emissions regulations would harm its bottom line because Koch imports mostly high-carbon crude oil from Canada. Another Koch newsletter warns that its Pine Bend Refinery in Minnesota specializing in high-carbon Canadian crude would become much less profitable for Koch if low fuel standards mirroring AB 32 are adopted around the country.
In an attempt to kill AB 32 and squash the likelihood that similar laws spread nationwide, Americans for Prosperity California — a front group founded and funded by Koch Industries executive David Koch — has been organizing Tea Party rallies with Prop 23 proponent Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Linda), bringing Tea Party support to AB 32 repeal hearings, and producing videos calling on Californians to pass Prop 23. The Wonk Room, with help from CAPAF intern Tara Kutz, has produced a video detailing Koch’s secret role in repealing Californian clean energy:
WR: Moreover, here is a rare clip of Americans for Prosperity operative Meredith Turney bragging to Koch Industries executive David Koch that her front group will help take over the Golden State. Koch Industries fears that laws like California’s revolutionary AB32 will hurt their bottom line, that’s why, like the tobacco industry, they are funding front groups. Here, in a Koch Industries corporate document, they say clean energy laws like AB32 will quote “be very bad news for our industry.”
Watch it:
The WonkLine: August 19, 2010
The WonkLine: August 19, 2010
Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 9:30 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security, immigration and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below. You can also follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
National Security
“The last U.S. brigade combat team in Iraq has left the country, a move that helps U.S. President Barack Obama reach his goal of 50,000 troops in the country by September 1.”
“The United Nations will convene a high-level donors meeting Thursday to prod frugal governments to contribute more to relief efforts in Pakistan…where aid contributions have paled in comparison with previous large-scale disasters.”
“The floods in Pakistan have upended the Obama administration’s carefully honed strategy there, confronting the United States with a vast humanitarian crisis and militant groups determined to exploit the misery, in a country that was already one of its thorniest problems.”
Health Care
“President Barack Obama’s health overhaul hasn’t helped Americans feel any more secure about their own medical care, according to a survey to be released Thursday by leading private researchers.”
“In a study that sheds new light on the effects of end-of-life care, doctors have found that patients with terminal lung cancer who began receiving palliative care immediately upon diagnosis not only were happier, more mobile and in less pain as the end neared — but they also lived nearly three months longer.”
“It may have taken years for the federal government to pass legislation to reform health care, but Utah policymakers are on the fast track to putting the state’s health care plan into action.”
Immigration
Utah state Rep. Stephen Sandstrom (R) insists that his proposed Arizona-style immigration bill would withstand any federal court challenges.
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors withheld an item from its Wednesday agenda to accept $1.6 million in immigration funding from the state that would help pay for Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration enforcement efforts.
A handful of Colorado Republican state lawmakers have traveled to Arizona to get advice from local lawmakers on how best to craft a similar anti-immigrant bill in their state.
Economy
“Forced into an uneasy balancing act between their members and the president they helped elect, the national teachers’ unions are responding to the Obama administration’s teacher-effectiveness agenda in notably different ways,” Education Week reports.
“Nationwide, bankruptcy filings rose 20 percent in the 12-month period ending June 30,” according to the latest data.
“Big U.S. banks should be able to meet tighter global capital requirements without having to raise substantial amounts of new equity,” according to an analysis by Barclays Capital.
Climate Change
As BP’s oil has become toxic to the food chain in the Gulf of Mexico, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) is investigating the administration’s “rosy forecasts” about the oil cleanup and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is “demanding a detailed accounting of the oil giant’s ad buys.”
Extreme storms have killed four in the Washington DC region, swept away a home in Tennessee, ravaged Tempe, AZ, and destroyed crops in Oregon, as the slow hurricane season is expected to rapidly intensify.
“More than four million Pakistanis have been made homeless by nearly three weeks of floods,” the United Nations said on Thursday.
Who Is Still Uninsured In Massachusetts?
Who Is Still Uninsured In Massachusetts?
A new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of the uninsured in Massachusetts holds important lessons for federal regulators and lawmakers as they plot ways to implement the individual health insurance mandate in 2014. Massachusetts, which implemented an individual requirement to purchase health care coverage in 2006, now has the lowest uninsurance rate in the country — 4.1% in 2008 — but has yet to achieve true universal coverage. The RWJ report examines who makes up that 4% and why:
Consistent with earlier work on the characteristics of uninsured adults in Massachusetts and in the nation as a whole, we find that the adults who remained uninsured under health reform in Massachusetts in 2008 were more likely than those with insurance coverage to be:
- Male, young, and single
- Racial/ethnic minorities and non-citizens
- Unable to speak English well or very well
- Living in a household in which there was no adult able to speak English well or very well
Compared with insured respondents, uninsured adults also reported substantially lower educational attainment and less employment and had lower family income and greater financial stress.
In other words, despite the state’s far-reaching enrollment campaign, “broad-based policy initiatives and outreach under federal reform may be less effective at stimulating take-up among certain demographic groups than among the population as a whole,” the study finds. “These hard-to-reach groups will require targeted policy and outreach efforts that address their particular barriers to health insurance take-up.”
Other than the ‘Enroll America’ campaign between the health insurance industry and consumer group Families USA, health care reform regulators and lawmakers have said little publicly about the importance of enrolling everyone in health insurance once the individual mandate becomes operational in 2014. These results and Massachusetts’ experience suggest that the government should pay particular attention to lower-income communities, many of whom will become Medicaid eligible.
Fox News Pushes Tax Cuts For The Rich, Tax Increases For The Poor
Fox News Pushes Tax Cuts For The Rich, Tax Increases For The Poor
Last month, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore explicitly called for raising taxes on the poorest Americans in order to finance tax cuts for the rich. And he is not the only member of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire that thinks taxes need to be cut for the rich but increased for the poor.
As I noted yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s chief economist, Martin Regalia, said that allowing the Bush tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans to expire would be “a bullet in the head for an awful lot of people.” Fox News’ Bill Hemmer decided to run a segment on the comments, where Fox Business’ Eric Bolling agreed that having the rich pay the same rates that they paid under President Clinton would somehow doom the economy. But he then went on to complain that “unfortunately” 47 percent of households “don’t pay a dime in federal income tax”:
HEMMER: A bullet in the head? Is that what tax increases do?
BOLLING: Sure. If we do have an economic recovery from this massive recession we’ve been in, it will be the bullet in the head to the economic recovery because this will be the biggest, by far, tax increase that America’s ever seen, coming at absolutely the worst time. As it is Bill, they’re going to say, ‘well it’s only for the rich.” This will trickle down to every human being who pays taxes. Unfortunately, there’s only about, I don’t know, 53 percent of American households who pay federal income tax, the other 47 percent don’t pay a dime in federal income tax.
Watch it:
If Bolling thinks its unfortunate that so many people have no federal income tax liability, is he calling for raising their taxes? Moments after saying that its “absolutely the worst time” to raise taxes on the rich? And agreeing that tax increases amount to “a bullet in the head?”
The reason that so many people have no federal income tax liability is that “their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability.” 6 out of 10 non-payers have incomes of less than $20,000, and more than two-thirds of those who pay no federal income tax do pay federal payroll taxes. And, of course, they pay state and local taxes, including more regressive local sales taxes.
Plus, the fact that so many have no federal tax liability is a reflection of how much income is concentrated in the hands of the rich. The richest one percent of Americans currently make nearly 25 percent of the country’s income.
Extending the tax cuts for the rich — which costs $830 billion over ten years and $36 billion next year alone — is the least efficient way to boost the economy via tax policy. And as the record of the Bush administration shows, tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans do not trickle down to everyone else. So let’s call this segment what it was: shilling for the rich while pushing higher taxes for the poor.
Health Insurers Lobbying To Make Profits Seem Smaller Than They Are
Health Insurers Lobbying To Make Profits Seem Smaller Than They Are
Yesterday, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) adopted relatively robust draft definitions for calculating the medical loss ratios (MLR), prohibiting “insurance companies from considering costs related to fraud prevention and detection, utilization review, and individual wellness promotion (among others) when calculating their medical loss ratios (MLRs).” The insurance industry, which has been lobbying the NAIC to include a broad range of activities as medical expenses, criticized the document and warned of “unintended consequences” if certain practices could not be classified as “quality improvement.” Under the new health care law, insurers are required to spend 80% to 85% of premiums on health care and issue rebates to consumers if they fail to meet this threshold. But consumer advocates who attended the NAIC conference tell me that the real battle will now focus on whether issuers will be able to deduct all federal taxes before calculating the MLR, an issue the NAIC punted during its conference.
Insurers have seized on a single mention of “federal taxes” in Section 2718 of the health law — the section that deals with MLR — to argue that they should be allowed to exclude all federal taxes from their revenue (the denominator in the MLR ratio), a move that would save issuers millions of dollars and allow them to meet the MLR requirements without necessarily spending more on care.
Democrats are now disputing their claim. In a letter to HHS Secretary Sebelius, the six Democratic committee heads with jurisdiction over health care argued that they did not intend for issuers to exclude all federal taxes — only those that pertain to health care:
As the NAIC works to craft proposed definitions, we are writing to clarify legislative inent as it pertains o the exclusion of Federal taxes from revenue calculations. Section 2718 sets forth the computation of MLR for the purposes of computing annual premium rebate. Section 2718(b)(1)(A) defines the denominator of the MLR for this purpose as “the total amount of premium revenue (excluding Federal and State taxes and licensing or regulatory fees…).”
“Federal taxes and fees” in this context is meant to refer only to Federal taxes and fees that relate specifically to revenue derived from the provision of health insurance coverage that were included in the PPACA. Thus, the Federal taxes and fees that fall into this category are: (1) the annual free imposed by section 9010 based on each health insurer’s market share based on net premiums written; (2) the annual fee imposed by section 6301 on each health insurance policy (based on the average number of people covered under the policy), and (3) the tax imposed by section 9001 on high-cost employer-sponsored health coverage. Federal income taxes or payroll taxes were not intended to be excluded from the denominator.
Similarly, NAIC consumer representative and Washington & Lee Law Professor Timothy Jost argues in this brief that issuers’ insistance on a very literal translation of the statute is transparently self serving and hypocritical. Throughout the definition making process, Jost argues, the NAIC “have consistently eschewed a literal approach to interpreting the statute, trying practically to effectuate the intent of Congress while accommodating the practical realities of insurance regulation.” “Time and again insurers have supported definitions that deviate from the literal language of the statute when following the literal language of the statute would be to their disadvantage.”
Ultimately, allowing insurers to deduct all federal taxes would frustrate the intent of the law — it would make the companies’ income appear to be lower than it actually is and deprive consumers of possible rebates. For now, the industry is determined to get its way and has, according to some sources, even threatened to go to court over the matter.
Don Blankenship: The Science Of Climate Change Is ‘Humorous,’ Mountaintop Removal ‘Small Afterdamage’
Don Blankenship: The Science Of Climate Change Is ‘Humorous,’ Mountaintop Removal ‘Small Afterdamage’
Coal baron Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, perhaps perturbed by the recent opprobrium received by BP CEO Tony Hayward, wants to remind us that he is still the most evil man in America. The explosion of the Blankenship’s Upper Big Branch mine after deliberate safety violations killed 29 miners in the worst coal disaster in 40 years, but the news was overshadowed by BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion weeks later. Massey Energy is the leading practitioner of mountaintop removal mining, which has led to ecological catastrophe in four Appalachian states, but BP’s blowout hit four states and the Gulf of Mexico.
In an interview with the New York Times, Blankenship argued that climate scientists are clinically insane, blowing up mountains doesn’t harm the environment, renewable energy and over-regulation caused the Bush recession, and critics of his social Darwinism are really just socialists. Up is down in Blankenship’s world: destroying mountains for their coal helps the environment while environmentalists harm the environment.
Blankenship’s words of wisdom on mountaintop removal:
“When the job is finished and reclaimed and revegetated, I think it would be hard to argue any meaningful or extensive damage to the environment.”
“Surface mining provides the funding to make improvements in people’s lives. And that is more important than the small afterdamage of the environment, if you can say that is even damage.”
Blankenship’s words of wisdom on global warming:
Anyone who says they can tell you the temperature of the earth in a hundred years, you should put a straitjacket on them. They don’t have any idea. It’s almost humorous that a country that can’t predict its budget deficit in a year could predict the temperature in a hundred years. The problem with the world’s climate is that it’s impacted by a lot of things. We all know that.
Watch it:
Blankenship’s philosophy of life — the power of denial:
It’s good to be villainized by people who don’t understand and that are wrong. United Mine Workers was a long time the most violent union in America, they committed violence against us, and we beat them, we wouldn’t expect them to like us. Some people believe in CO2 so strongly it trumps every other thought that they’ve got, so we wouldn’t expect them to favor coal mining. Some people believe that the country should be socialized so they are opposed to free enterprise. I mean, you have to have your own beliefs, your own core beliefs, your own strengths and do what you think is right. You can’t do what others believe is right, you have to do what you believe is right.
Watch it:
“There has to be pragmatism in what we do,” Blankenship argues, where “pragmatism” means denying the reality of anything that prevents him from destroying the planet and others’ lives for cash.
Senate Hopeful Randy Parraz Sues Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Senate Hopeful Randy Parraz Sues Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Today, civil and labor rights activist and senatorial candidate Randy Parraz (D-AZ) served Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio with a civil lawsuit. In the suit, which was filed earlier this month, Parraz claims that he was wrongfully arrested by the sheriff’s deputies in 2008. Arpaio’s spokesman has indicated that “the sheriff’s office doesn’t comment on pending lawsuits.” However, a press release issued by Parraz’s campaign for Senate provides more details:
Two years ago, in the spring of 2008, Parraz helped launch Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability to expose Sheriff Arpaio’s abuses of power, including racial profiling. Parraz led a delegation of about a hundred MCSA members before the Board of Supervisors demanding they address Sheriff Joe’s actions. [...]
On September 29, 2008, Mr. Parraz spoke up at a Board of Supervisors meeting without being recognized by the Supervisor Board Chairman Andrew Kunasek. His six second statement was in regard to the request that the Board of Supervisors place certain issues on their agenda for public consideration. Following the event, in a clear attempt to intimidate the Maricopa citizens’ group, Arpaio’s Sheriff Deputies arrested Parraz because of the views he expressed and his leadership role within the community. The arrest was video taped.
Parraz’s complaint will join the hundreds of lawsuits that are already collecting dust on Arpaio’s desk. It also echoes the abuse of power allegations that that triggered an FBI investigation that is currently ongoing. Apparently, several well-known Arizona public figures other than Parraz who were also critical of Arpaio were paid “unwelcome visits” by Arpaio’s officials. The victims have accused Arpaio of “using his position to settle political vendettas.”
Perhaps coincidentally, the Washington Post reported today that Arpaio may soon face yet another lawsuit — from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ, which is investigating allegations of civil rights abuses on behalf of Arpaio’s deputies, claims that his officials are refusing to cooperate with federal agents. As a result, the DOJ is threatening to sue the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office “to compel access to the requested documents, facilities, and personnel.”
Randy Parraz is the only Latino Democratic candidate for US Senate in the entire nation.
Rep. Steve King Unloads On Climate Change Scientists: ‘Frauds’ Practicing ‘Modern Version Of The Rain Dance’
Rep. Steve King Unloads On Climate Change Scientists: ‘Frauds’ Practicing ‘Modern Version Of The Rain Dance’
During two Iowa town halls last week, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) put his natural penchant for outlandish statements on display. Prior to calling President Obama a “Marxist” who “does not have an American experience,” King fielded a number of questions about energy and climate change. His responses revealed a man not just skeptical of climate change, but downright hostile to science in general.
King began by contending that the 97% of scientists who support the evidence behind manmade climate change are “frauds.” He then proceeded to call the notion of manmade climate change “not rational” but “a religion” like “the modern version of the rain dance”:
KING: Every civilization, according to this Professor Brown, has not only always paid attention to the weather. Every civilization has tried to affect and change the weather. So whether it’s the Chinese seeding clouds, whether it’s some of the industrialized nations in the world trying to get together for cap-and-trade to try to reduce the CO2 emissions. You know, this might be the modern version of the rain dance.[...] It’s not rational, it’s a religion that we’re up against. I mean that from the broadest sense of the word. It’s something you can’t necessarily prove.
King later admitted that he doesn’t just disagree with taking steps to combat climate change, but he fundamentally opposes climate change science. King recoils at the fact that most GOP leaders agree with the science, arguing instead that “you don’t ever give up a premise unless you happen to believe that they’re right. And we should not concede the science of this.” He proceeded to put his minimal scientific understanding on full display, agreeing with a constituent who was “amazed” that people faulted carbon dioxide when it’s the main ingredient plants use to produce oxygen:
KING: They have not made that scientific case. I have always argued against the science. Some of our leadership have said “don’t argue the science.” They get pollsters in and coach us. I’m not very coachable…(laughing)…But I’ve said “you don’t ever give up a premise unless you happen to believe that they’re right.” And we should not concede the science of this. And they say, “you should just argue the economics, not the science.” Well, no. They were wrong on the science[...]
CONSTITUENT: Do you realize that carbon dioxide is the main ingredient plants use with sunshine to make oxygen and sugars for us to eat and for animals. What’s the matter with carbon dioxide? It’s amazing to me the way some of these people think.
KING: I agree with you. There have been many times in the history of the planet that we’ve had higher concentrations of CO2 than we have here today. There are a couple of German engineers that took that theory apart and proved it wrong in a lab. I’ve read through that, but I’d have to go back to school for a half a year or a year to tell you I followed every bit of their rationale. But the presumption of the Greenhouse Effect is at least, from what I saw, was pretty convincingly rebutted.
However, instead of using science to predict and fight climate change, King advised instead that we turn instead to the Bible. Given that rising sea levels are threatening to swallow up entire nations, that may not be such bad advice:
CONSTITUENT: It’s got nothing to do with carbon dioxide. It’s got to do with socialization [sic]. Just like their tax on energy. That’s got nothing to do with our benefit. Where’s this tax go to that they’re wanting to spend for their supposedly bad things we got ahold of? Where does it go to? And who’s blamed?
KING: I think you make an important point. I know that there is a good number of them that believe that the science says that the earth is getting warmer and we can control it. Some of them really believe it. Control is a big part of it. I finally found a book that I’d been looking for – one to help me figure out what’s going on – and the answers are in the Bible.
Listen here:
Ted Olson On Mosque: ‘I Think Probably The President Was Right About This’
Ted Olson On Mosque: ‘I Think Probably The President Was Right About This’
This afternoon, Ted Olson — whose wife died in the September 11th attacks — distanced himself from other conservatives and told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he did not oppose the building of a mosque near ground zero. “It may not make me popular with some people, but I think probably the President was right about this,” he began:
OLSON: I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices or structures, places of religious worship or study where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws and that sort of thing. And that we don’t want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith. And I don’t think it should be a political issue. It shouldn’t be a Republican or Democrat issue either. I believe Governor Christie from New Jersey said it as well, that this should not be in that political partisan marketplace.
Watch it:
On Proposition 8, Olson said that he expected the ninth circuit court of appeals to stay Judge Walker’s decision and “keep everything as it is until we get a chance to decide this case on the merits.” “We will argue that case in early December. That’s where we are anxious to get a decision promptly,” he said.
Olson also argued that fighting for marriage was consistent with conservative values. “What could be, at the end of the day, more conservative than two loving people, that want to get married, that want to build a family, that want to be part of our neighborhoods and community — that is a conservative value.”
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