Burr: ‘Founders’ Wrote 14th Amendment, Repealing DADT Could Require Changes In ‘Accommodations’
Burr: ‘Founders’ Wrote 14th Amendment, Repealing DADT Could Require Changes In ‘Accommodations’
During tonight’s North Carolina senate debate, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) said he was against changing the 14th amendment to eliminate birth right citizenship, but said “it is important for the courts to determine” if the “founders” intended to allow for the practice:
BURR ON THE 14th: But I think when you have a debate in the country and that issue is raised, then it’s important for us to have that arbitrator, the courts to come in and tell us did our founders, when they wrote the 14th, did they have something else envisioned?
But the opposite should happen to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Burr insisted. That policy should be taken out of the courts and left to Congress. He didn’t know if being gay was a choice but worried that repealing the policy would require the military to change “the accommodations for troops”:
BURR ON DADT: Now personally I don’t see a reason to reverse it. But that’s a personal opinion. I think the country should have a debate. And what we should do is we should wait until the Department of Defense has gotten back the survey of those individuals who serve…. But I’m confident of this—that this is the wrong time to change this policy. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of troops deployed. We don’t yet know what we might have to do, from a standpoint of changing the accommodations for troops if the policy changed.
Watch a compilation:
As Pam Spaulding points out, Burr’s concern about “soap dropping in the shower,” so to speak, is unfounded. American soldiers are already showering alongside gay troops and so are the foreign troops who serve alongside openly gay servicemembers. None of our 25 allies that allow open service segregate troops on the basis of sexual orientation. As Larry Korb argues in this report, “the militaries of Great Britain, Canada, and Israel amply demonstrate that lifting the ban on openly gay service will not require the U.S. military to provide separate housing, shower, or other common-use facilities for gay and lesbian service members.” In fact, even General Carl Mundy, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1991 to 1995 and an opponent of a repeal, has predicted that segregating the forces “would be absolutely disastrous in the armed forces. …It would destroy any sense of cohesion or teamwork or good order and discipline.”
On the topic of health care, Burr said that he supported provisions that ban insurance companies from denying coverage to applicants with pre-existing conditions and close the Medicare Part D doughnut hole, but insisted that the Affordable Care Act must still be repealed.
“Actually, Judy, those provisions are acceptable to me and most Republicans and most Americans,” he said. “I think it’s important to realize we could have the elimination of pre-existing conditions tomorrow. We could have the elimination of lifetime caps tomorrow. We could begin to close the doughnut hole tomorrow. But you can’t fix the current health care bill that the president passed. And the truth is it doesn’t close the doughnut hole.”
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As It Was Outsourcing Jobs And Making Billions, Fiorina’s Corporation Claimed Tax Credit For ‘Small Start-Ups’
As It Was Outsourcing Jobs And Making Billions, Fiorina’s Corporation Claimed Tax Credit For ‘Small Start-Ups’
On the campaign trail, California’s Republican Senate nominee Carly Fiorina has repeatedly defended the decision to outsource thousands of jobs that tech giant Hewlett-Packard made while she was its CEO. “During my time at Hewlett Packard, yes, I had to make some tough choices like families and businesses all across California are making tough choices. China is fighting for our jobs,” she said.
But at the same time that she was shipping positions overseas — and HP was raking in billions in profits — Fiorina also claimed California tax credits meant to encourage start-up companies to invest in manufacturing equipment (and presumably create jobs here in the U.S.):
While Fiorina was chief executive of the computer giant, the state was hospitable enough to grant the company a controversial $13-million tax refund even though, state officials said, it had already used credits to offset some income tax bills…HP was awarded $13 million in 2005, when the company posted net earnings of $2.5 billion. That year, California faced a $6-billion budget gap and slashed funding for public health programs, education and law enforcement. In asking for the rebates, the companies cited provisions of a law that state officials said were designed to encourage small start-ups to invest in manufacturing equipment.
Considering that it was founded in 1939, HP calling itself a start-up is obviously a bit of a stretch. According to the Los Angeles Times, “in years before the vote, Hewlett-Packard made $20,000 in political donations to the four members of the five-member Board of Equalization who approved the tax relief,” which may have greased the skids a bit.
This credit is California’s version of a problem plaguing the tax code at the federal level: the proliferation of credits and handouts to mature, profitable companies. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with trying to incentivize actual start-up industries, but there’s no reason to be giving companies that can clearly stand on their own two feet taxpayer money, particularly when states and the federal government are facing their own severe fiscal constraints.
Nowadays, Fiorina spends a healthy portion of her time bashing her state’s economic policies, telling CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, “the facts are we’re destroying jobs in this state through bad government policy.” But during her tenure as CEO, Fiorina clearly had no qualms about accepting tax credits meant to create and preserve jobs and then shipping positions overseas anyway. I guess we should expect nothing less from someone who refers to outsourcing as “right-shoring.”
Orszag To Democrats: You Should Have Included Malpractice Reform In Affordable Care Act
Orszag To Democrats: You Should Have Included Malpractice Reform In Affordable Care Act
Peter Orszag laments in the New York Times today about the Democrats’ failure to include more robust malpractice reform in the Affordable Care Act, noting that “what’s needed is a much more aggressive national effort to protect doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines“:
The health care reform act that Congress passed earlier this year included a modest set of state pilot projects, including one in Oregon that is intended to experiment with this approach. But these pilots are small; the project in Oregon, for example, has only $300,000 in financing.
What’s needed is a much more aggressive national effort to protect doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines. That’s the only way that malpractice reform could broadly promote the adoption of best practices. [...]
The health care reform act that Congress passed earlier this year included a modest set of state pilot projects, including one in Oregon that is intended to experiment with this approach. But these pilots are small; the project in Oregon, for example, has only $300,000 in financing.
What’s needed is a much more aggressive national effort to protect doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines. That’s the only way that malpractice reform could broadly promote the adoption of best practices.
Indeed, when I spoke to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) several weeks ago, he too indicated that malpractice reform was probably a missed opportunity that would have been politically difficult to incorporate into this effort. “I’m actually not surprised, I’m disappointed that we’ve failed to go further on some of these issues. I think the President is a realist, he’s a pragmatist, he needed to ensure that we could bring a bill, maybe not with everything he/we wanted across the line,” Daschle told me. “I think he felt it would be hard to hold Democratic caucuses together moving a bill that went further. Ultimately, I’m confident that it’s going to happen….it was probably a bridge too far in this legislative effort.”
To be clear, malpractice costs make up only a small percentage of national health care expenditures and malpractice reform does not significantly decrease physicians’ anxiety of being sued. But it’s an issue worth tackling, since developing sensible solutions could improve quality and increase the number of physicians. The good news is, as I’ve been chronicling here, HHS is already funding some promising pilot projects that could provide a template for any future legislative efforts.
UVA Fights Back Against Cuccinelli’s Climate Witch Hunt
UVA Fights Back Against Cuccinelli’s Climate Witch Hunt
Our guest blogger is Luke Cole, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was confronted at the University of Virginia for targeting one of its scientists in his crusade against the science of global warming. Despite the over $350,000 incurred by the University of Virginia to defend climate scientist Michael Mann and the university’s Department of Environmental Sciences from Cuccinelli’s global warming witch hunt, the UVA College Republicans invited Cuccinelli to an informal speaking engagement last week. Over 25 students protesting the AG’s actions greeted Cuccinelli with signs including “God Hates Data,” “Skeptical of Cuccinelli,” and “Science: Not Determined By Popular Vote.” Cuccinelli was also confronted by a UVA environmental policy professor during the Q&A. The following day, Cuccinelli wrote on his Twitter account:
Awesome day in central Virginia – gorgeous in the fall! Lively discussion at UVA – only rude person was a prof, students were great.
Cuccinelli spoke briefly of his civil investigative demands against the university, claiming that the university continues to support Mann despite the accepted view that his findings were falsified and have been disproved — neither of which are true.
During the question and answer section of the visit, Professor Vivian Thomson, an environmental policy expert who is on the faculty of the Department of Environmental Sciences and the Department of Politics at UVA and who regulated air quality in Virginia for eight years as a member (and Vice Chair) of the State Air Pollution Control Board, questioned Mr. Cuccinelli’s claims about the science of climate change and the actions undertaken by the US EPA to date, which I captured on my smartphone:
Thomson asked if he disagrees with the Supreme Court’s conclusions in Massachusetts v EPA (2007) that “the harms associated with climate change are serious and well-recognized?”
Cuccinelli responded that Massachusetts v EPA was all about legal standing.
Mr. Cuccinelli also implied that EPA is undertaking a costly cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases. Professor Thomson observed that the Agency is not undertaking a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program. EPA’s regulations to date have included (a) clean vehicle standards that will increase fuel efficiency and enhance energy security that should save motorists thousands of dollars over the life of their vehicles, and whose economic benefits far outweigh their costs; and, (b) a regulatory relief rule that exempts many small and medium-sized businesses from regulation for their greenhouse gas emissions.
“The costs that I am talking about are analogous to cap-and-trade, not that they are cap-and-trade,” Cuccinelli admitted. Professor Thomson asked Cuccinelli if he could share the cost studies that formed the basis for his claims about the costs of EPA’s actions to date. He had no such cost studies to offer. Read the rest of this entry »
UVA also asked the county court to put the case on hold while the Virginia Supreme Court resolves an appeal Cuccinelli filed seeking to overturn a previous August ruling rejecting his investigation.
In Response To Choi, Jarrett Insists Obama Must Appeal DADT Ruling, Says Frustration Should Be Directed At Congress
In Response To Choi, Jarrett Insists Obama Must Appeal DADT Ruling, Says Frustration Should Be Directed At Congress
This morning, Lt. Dan Choi denounced White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett for suggesting that those who urge the administration not to appeal a recent federal court decision overturning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell don’t “actually understand” President Obama’s duty to defend existing laws. “I”m so absolutely upset at the things she could be saying at this moment,” he began. “Valerie Jarrett said that gay people, some of us should try to understand the politics and the situation and that we are a nation of laws. Well we understand that, we don’t need a lecture from Valerie Jarrett on that.”
This afternoon, Jarrett appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room and doubled down on her argument that the Justice Department must appeal the ruling, insisted that Obama can’t change the policy through executive order and falsely suggested that Obama has already admitted that the policy is unconstitutional:
JARRETT: [Obama] can’t simply sign an executive order to revoke it or he would have. So we’re asking Congress to repeal it. And until then, the Justice Department has no choice but to defend the laws that are on the books and that’s what the Justice Department is doing. But we want it to end and end as soon as possible.
BLITZER: One legal scholar suggested today that perhaps the president could go ahead do what he needs to do, but at the same time make it clear to everyone that he thinks this law is unconstitutional.
JARRETT: He has done that. He did that as recently as last week at a town hall meeting. He said that he thinks this law should be absolutely repealed. He does not believe in this law. [...]
BLITZER: Will you push for repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell during the lame duck session?
JARRETT: I know the president has said he wants it repealed as quickly as possible….we share the frustration of people who think it should be done right away. We wish it had been done sooner. But we are determined to get it done.
BLITZER: If Dan Choi were here what would you say to him?
JARRETT: I appreciate his frustration. I share his frustration and I understand that for somebody who has served proudly in the military that he thinks this is an outrage. We think this is an outrage, too. And we think that focus should be directed at Congress. Because Congress is the one that passed it in the first place. Congress is the one who should repeal it.
Watch it:
LGBT advocates have argued that Obama could also use his stop-loss authority to prevent the military from discharging individuals based on their sexual orientation and have claimed that the White House does not have to appeal the ruling if he believes that it is unconstitutional.
This morning, Ted Olson — former Solicitor General under President George W. Bush — agreed with this emerging consensus, saying “It would be appropriate for them to say ‘the law has been deemed unconstitutional, we are not going to seek further review of that.’”
Significantly, Jarrett also refused to say that Obama would lobby for repeal during the lame duck session and incorrectly suggested that he had said that the law is unconstitutional during the MTV town hall. At that event, Obama dodged the question and instead reiterated his promise that “This policy will end and it will end on my watch.”
Conservative Latino Coalition Distances Itself From Founder And His Ad Telling Latinos Not To Vote
Conservative Latino Coalition Distances Itself From Founder And His Ad Telling Latinos Not To Vote
Today, Capital Wire posted a press release issued by the conservative Latino Coalition denouncing the controversial ads released by Latinos for Reform, another right-leaning political group, which told Latinos not to vote. Latino Coalition president Hector V. Barreto stated:
The Latino Coalition believes in holding all our elected representatives accountable, by actively participating in the democratic process. At the heart of this process is our right and duty as citizens to vote. That we have not achieved Comprehensive Immigration Reform, yet, should motivate us to deepen our participation, not withdraw to the sidelines. [...] What is clear is that any message of abstention to Latinos is terribly ill-founded and contrary to our best interests.
Earlier this week, the president of Latinos for Reform, Robert de Posada, tried to tell MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that the Spanish-version of the ad was more tempered and only called on Latinos not to vote for candidates who betrayed them (the Spanish ad vaguely makes this point, but later clearly tells them not to vote at all). Also, when O’Donnell pointed out that “there are no other Latino organizations on board with this,” de Posada told him that he was simply listening to “a group of [Latino] leaders in Washington, DC who depend on access to the White House.”
Watch de Posada’s interview on MSNBC:
The Latino Coalition’s statement debunks de Posada’s first claim: “the spot’s Spanish translation deviates significantly from its English version, by widening blame to both political parties –as opposed to its English counterpart, which focuses on Democrats – and urging Latino voters not to vote in any election, as opposed to the specific instruction in the English-language spot not to vote in Congressional races only.”
Furthermore, the Latino Coalition also doesn’t have much to do with the current White House. In fact, what their press release curiously doesn’t mention is that the Latino Coalition was founded and led by Robert de Posada himself.
De Posada told Talking Points Memo earlier this week that he created the Hispanic Business Roundtable in 1994, which later became the Latino Coalition which he led until 2007. In fact, when Barreto became president, de Posada issued a statement saying “As national chairman, Hector Barreto will be a leader that helps set the
community on the right course to greater prosperity.”
After Stay Of Injunction, Pentagon Will Require Additional Approval For DADT Discharges
After Stay Of Injunction, Pentagon Will Require Additional Approval For DADT Discharges
Earlier today, Marc Ambidner suggested that the Pentagon — which on Tuesday sent a guidance to recruiters instructing them to accept gay and lesbian enrollees — may adopt a more lenient approach towards enforcing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell following the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ temporary stay of the policy. At a briefing this afternoon, officials hinted that they may be pursing a softer approach towards the ban, telling reporters that discharges will now require the approval of the “service branch secretary.” In other words, only four people in the entire Department of Defense will be able to discharge a gay soldier under the policy:
Discharges under the military’s ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy will now take the approval of the service branch secretary, and only in consultation with the defense department general counsel and the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, according to a pair of memoranda issued by senior military leadership today.
Until further notice, pursuant to a memorandum from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a follow-up memorandum from Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Clifford Stanley, no service member can be discharged under DADT without the ”personal approval of the secretary of the military department concerned, and only in coordination with me and the General Counsel of the Department of Defense.”
A senior defense department lawyer briefed reporters on Thursday afternoon about the memos, saying, ”These two memos are primarily in reaction to … the temporary stay last night. We are clearly in a legally uncertain territory.”
The temporary stay will likely remain in effect until after October 25, when the court decides whether to leave it in place pending an appeal of Judge Virginia Phillips’ ruling that the policy is unconstitutional.
Read the new memorandum HERE.
We note again for Servicemembers, that altering their personal conduct during this period, in reaction to last week's injunction, may have adverse consequences for themselves or others depending upon the state of the law. I also emphasize again, that it remains the policy of the Department of Defense not to ask Servicemembers or applicants about their sexual orientation, to treat all members with dignity and respect and to ensure maintenance of good order and discipline.
Once Seen As Victors Of Health Reform, Hospitals Now Turning Against Democrats In The Midterms
Once Seen As Victors Of Health Reform, Hospitals Now Turning Against Democrats In The Midterms
Jon Walker notices that the American Hospital Association — which had agreed to accept $155 billion in payment reductions over ten years if health reform covered at least 94% of Americans and didn’t include a public option — is now turning against the administration and “spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to help elect Republicans this November.”
On one hand, the news is not too surprising. The industry believes that helping elect Republicans will probably bring about looser regulations and less strenuous spending cuts from the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which the GOP has promised to repeal. On the other hand, while all of the health care interest groups won important concessions from the new law, none were more successful than the hospital industry. During the 15 months beginning in January 2009 and ending in March, when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, hospitals spent approximately $108 million on lobbying and got a lot for their effort.
Here are the cuts they accepted:
- Lowering the annual update rates paid to hospitals.
- Reducing Medicare payments for excessive and preventable readmissions.
- Lowering bonus payments for hospitals who treat the undeserved: Currently the government pays about $45 billion dollars a year in DSH payments to help hospitals afford uncompensated care. Since health care reform will insure 34 million Americans over a 10-year period, the number of ‘uncompensated’ care cases will decrease by as much as 80%, but DSH payments will only be cut by some 15%.
But, as the Tennessee Hospital Association’s (THA) concluded, the above cuts would still allow hospitals to net about $16 billion from reform. “The breakdown estimates that the industry will receive additional money of about $171 billion over those same 10 years as a result of reimbursements for newly insured patients…In other words, the hospitals would give up $155 billion in cost cuts, but take in $171 billion in new money — a net gain of $16 billion. What’s more, the Tennessee association notes that the deal delays most of the industry’s cost givebacks until the second half the agreement’s 10-year year period — well after the hospitals have enjoyed some of the benefits of the new money they’re expecting from expanded insurance coverage.”
“[T]he bond prices and stock prices will tell you that most hospitals are winners, at least in this bill,” Thomas Scully, who ran CMS from 2001 to 2004, explained at a recent roundtable for Health Affairs. “Assuming there are no subsequent bills, hospitals are probably the biggest winners. They got hardly touched and got a lot of new money,” Scully said.
Hospitals are also protected from cuts under IPAB through 2019 — but as their latest political manoeuvrings suggest, that still wasn’t good enough. After all, why tolerate any cuts — no matter how far into the future — when you there is a good chance that you can help elect a party that will make them all go away?
Tea Party Defends Climate Pollution As Lord’s Will
Tea Party Defends Climate Pollution As Lord’s Will
In a front-page article in the New York Times, John Broder noted that opposition to the science of global warming has become “an article of faith” among Tea Party conservative activists. In addition to libertarians who believe “efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth,” others — prodded by the “preaching” of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, and others — use their Biblical faith to justify their denial of the destructive power of coal and oil pollution. Tea Party organizers in Rep. Baron Hill’s (D-IN) district told Broder their denial of pollution was consistent with the Bible’s teachings:
“I read my Bible. He made this earth for us to utilize.” — Norman Dennison, founder of the Corydon Tea Party
“Being a strong Christian, I cannot help but believe the Lord placed a lot of minerals in our country and it’s not there to destroy us.” — Lisa Deaton, founder of We the People Indiana
Of course, the Bible teaches not only that earth’s bounty is a gift to humanity, but also that we must be its shepherds:
The land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. Lev. 25:23-24
I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and you made my inheritance detestable. Jer. 2:7
“These Tea Party people represent a fringe view not only in politics, but also in religion,” Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Politics, tells the Wonk Room. “The majority of Christians and other people of faith are supportive of protecting the environment precisely because of their religious beliefs, including the belief in God as creator.”
Many Christians, across the spectrum from evangelical to mainline to progressive, as well as scientists, celebrated when a group of evangelicals issued a statement in 2006 called “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action.” This “biblically based moral witness” sets its theological claim for the urgency of climate change action in the biblical view of God as creator, and that damaging the creation is “an offense against God himself.”
“The world is less than it might be so long as human beings are less than they might be, since the capacity of human beings to shape the material environment into a sign of justice and generosity is blocked by human selfishness,” Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said in 2009. “In the doomsday scenarios we are so often invited to contemplate, the ultimate tragedy is that a material world capable of being a manifestation in human hands of divine love is left to itself, as humanity is gradually choked, drowned or starved by its own stupidity.”
Religious leaders from Christian and other faiths are also mobilizing to fight big oil’s Proposition 23 effort kill California’s climate protection law. “My Christian faith calls me to care for my neighbor and all that God has created,” explained Rev. Dean W. Nelson, Bishop, Southwest California Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in a press announcement today. “Proposition 23 calls us to look back, not forward, and to cast a blind eye to the urgent consequences of our addiction to fossil fuels. These consequences include affects on human health, human-caused climate change and its threat to food and water supplies and densely populated coastal areas, and our economic vulnerability to global energy politics and prices.”
Key Regulation Requiring Insurers To Spend Premium Dollars On Health Care Moves Forward
Key Regulation Requiring Insurers To Spend Premium Dollars On Health Care Moves Forward
Politico’s Sarah Kliff and Jennifer Haberkorn are reporting that after six months of deliberations, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) have approved model regulations governing the all-important medical-loss ratio provisions of the Affordable Care Act. These regulations require insurers that don’t spend 80% to 85% of their premium dollars on health care to send refunds to their customers. The percentages are calculated from a ratio of “health expenditures” to other expenses and since reform became law, insurers have pressured the NAIC to include certain administrative expenses as medical costs, exclude all federal taxes from their revenue (the denominator in the MLR ratio), and allow insurers to aggregate the ratio across plans and markets — all in an effort to make it easier for the industry to meet the MLR requirements without actually spending more on health care.
The NAIC had already issued draft regulations which ignored many of these arguments, but in the days and moments leading up to the final vote, “Commissioners offered four ultimately unsuccessful, amendments: to remove brokers fees from the calculation and to aggregate spending calculations nationally rather than at the state level and two amendments related to giving insurers credits to help them reach the spending levels.” Despite the least minute activity and intense lobbying, “the proposed regulation moved forward unchanged”:
- TAXES: NAIC rejected the Congressional Committee chair’s statement that they only meant to allow issuers to deduct those taxes that are specifically related to the Affordable Care Act. It ruled that issuers can exclude all federal taxes but those on investment income.
- DEFINING HEALTH COSTS: NAIC rejected insurers’ suggestion that services like anti-fraud and “utilization review” be included in the definition of “medical expenses,” included other services that have not been traditionally classified as “medical,” and required issuers to substantiate why certain services improve care quality.
- AGGREGATION: Insures wanted the NAIC to calculate their MLRs across different units and markets. This would have allowed insures to group their plans together to mask the low MLRs of some of their plans. The draft guidelines would require issuers to break them down and account for the MLRs separately at every business unit in every state, preventing them from obscuring some low MLR plans.
- BROKER FEES: “The commissioners did approve a motion to appoint a subgroup to work with HHS on how to deal with issues related to broker and agent compensation. This compensation is currently categorized as an administrative expense; agent trade groups have pushed for their fees to be taken out of the calculation altogether. Brokers are nervous that their role will be greatly diminished if their fees are categorized as administrative spending.”
- CREDIBILITY ADJUSTMENTS: These address the normal statistical fluctuations that affect smaller and newer plans. In order to adjust for this, the NAIC considered introducing credibility adjustments based upon the size of an insurer’s business. The NAIC rejected moving from a 50% to a 80% confidence level on credibility adjustments, which would have given insurers a big break and made it easier for companies to meet the MLR.
The model regulation will now be delivered to Health and Human Services (HHS) for certification by the Secretary and consumer advocates I spoke too are fairly happy with the rule. “We are very proud of the NAIC this morning. Congress asked them to do a job and they did it with openness, integrity, and dignity,” W & L Law School Professor Timothy Jost emailed me in a statement. “Although we did not get everything we wanted in the MLR rule as consumers, we think the rule is fair, workable, and faithful to the law.” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has also issued a positive statement. “These recommendations are reasonable, achievable for insurers and will help to ensure insurance premiums are, for the most part, supporting health benefits for consumers,” she said. “Not only do they ensure consumers receive better value for their health care dollar, they recognize special circumstances in different markets to preserve market stability and employee coverage as we transition to the new marketplace in 2014. ”
However, HHS has already indicated that it would likely issue wavers to mini-med plans and other insurance plans that would be unable to meet the new requirements because of the way they are structured.
Portman’s Newest Social Security Scheme: Privatize The System, Then Bail Out The Bad Investors
Portman’s Newest Social Security Scheme: Privatize The System, Then Bail Out The Bad Investors
Earlier this month, former Bush administration budget director Rob Portman, who is running on the Republican ticket for Ohio’s open Senate seat, denied that he favored privatizing Social Security, despite his long record of statements in support of doing just that. “I mean, this is what Einstein talked about, the magic, the greatest force in the universe, the power of compounding interest. That’s what we’re talking about here,” Portman said of private Social Security accounts.
But now Portman has added a new quirk to his privatization plan, in a pretty clear attempt to calm the nerves of those who rightfully worry about their Social Security being subject to the whims of the markets:
During the debate and in the “spin room” with reporters afterward, Portman insisted he has pledged not to cut benefits for retirees. Instead, he said he supports allowing young people to take a small portion of their Social Security taxes to set up personal accounts to invest as they see fit. But he insisted if they lost money, the government would step in to make them whole again.
This idea is simply absurd. In addition to the substantial costs associated with a traditional privatization scheme — which would force the government into trillions of new borrowing — Portman would add the cost of bailing out the accounts of those investors who lost money.
Obviously, this sets up a huge moral hazard problem. If investors know full well that the government is going to “make them whole again,” no matter what they do, then the incentive is to make risky investments and hope for a big payoff. After all, why not take the risk if the government has guaranteed that you can’t lose money? “If the government guaranteed to bail you out in case of losses, then investors would make riskier investments and the number of people who need bailing out would rise,” wrote Matthew Yglesias in reaction to Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) promoting a similar idea.
Of course, there’s a simple way to avoid creating this sort of cockamamie scheme and the assorted problems that come along with it: don’t privatize Social Security. But Portman has been in thrall to this idea for so long, he seems willing to say and do whatever it takes to make it look like a responsible plan.
Brookings’ Ken Pollack: Airstrikes On Iran ‘Will Be War’
Brookings’ Ken Pollack: Airstrikes On Iran ‘Will Be War’
There’s a lot to recommend in Ken Pollack’s new piece outlining an Iran containment strategy, but I’d put his dismantling of the argument that Iran’s nuclear program can be dealt with through air strikes at the top of the list. Many of the key points — an attack would unify Iranians, deal a death blow to the Green movement, cause the regime to redouble its efforts toward obtaining a nuclear deterrent — have appeared elsewhere, but Pollack assembles them into a methodical and devastating (and, I think, dispositive) argument against the sort of “roll of the dice” that air strikes would represent.
Pollack also dispatches the notion, currently a favorite of those pushing for military action against Iran, that launching preventive strikes wouldn’t really be a war:
Once the United States starts a war with Iran — and launching air strikes will be war — it is impossible to know how it will end, and what would be required of Washington to end it. America may well feel compelled to respond to any Iranian retaliation, setting off a tit-for-tat cycle, raising the risk of escalation on both sides. The incredible paranoia and intractability of the Iranian regime has led to repeated instances in which Tehran refused to abandon courses of action even though it was suffering horrific damage — remember the hostage crisis? The Iran-Iraq war? In other words, the same behavior patterns that make it hard for the United States to coerce Iran by sanctions also make it unlikely that Washington can coerce the Islamic Republic by war. As we should have learned in Iraq, wars always entail very significant unforeseen consequences, and we need to recognize that bombing Iran could lead us down unexpected paths to even-worse outcomes (like invading and occupying Iran) to end what we started.
With a country as difficult as Iran, the United States should only launch air strikes if it is ready to pay all of the potential costs — and there are few Americans ready to bear the price of another major U.S. war in the Middle East.
After seven years in Iraq, and almost ten years in Afghanistan, Americans are clearly not enthusiastic about getting into another war, which is why the Bomber Boys would much rather not have to discuss the actual implications or likely consequences of the “military action” hey keep calling for. It’s also why it’s important that they be forced to. Because at the end of the day, there’s only one way that Iran’s nuclear program will be dealt with to anyone’s satisfaction: Inspections. The only question is whether those inspections will be conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, under the auspices of the United Nations, or by occupying U.S. troops.
Prop 26′s Dirty Backers Flee From Political Poison Of Prop 23
Prop 26′s Dirty Backers Flee From Political Poison Of Prop 23
Supporters of Proposition 26 — a California ballot measure that could cripple implementation of the state’s landmark climate law — are attempting to distance themselves from the unpopular effort to block the legislation. California oil companies and the Chamber of Commerce, who have sat out of the Proposition 23 fight to suspend AB32, have been quietly funneling millions of dollars to support Prop 26, which would “require a two-thirds vote of the state legislature anytime a government agency tries to assess a fee on a company that is not then used to regulate that entity”:
Unlike Prop 23, which has seen many of the big donors sit out, Prop 26 has received multimillion-dollar contributions from the likes of the California Chamber of Commerce, Chevron Corp., Philip Morris USA Inc. and Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. Also contributing are ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum, according to data available through the California Secretary of State.
The California Chamber of Commerce has pumped at least $3.3 million into Prop 26, and California’s Chevron has spent $2.5 million.
The language of Prop 26 would open the implementation of AB32 to new avenues of legal challenges and obstruction based on a “hidden taxes” argument, and is a fall-back defense for opponents of clean energy if Prop 23 fails. The oil-fueled Tea Party effort to kill California’s climate law is foundering, as the state’s voters turn against the idea that pollution is good business. A new poll finds that support for Prop 23, which would suspend the clean energy law AB32, has collapsed, despite the millions of dollars pumped into the state by Midwest oil companies Tesoro, Valero, and Koch Industries, and the AstroTurf efforts of Koch’s Americans for Prosperity.
“Rules under the global warming law, which would require companies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, take effect in January and could be vulnerable to legislative gridlock over fees” if Prop 26 passes, the Los Angeles Times explains.
“Prop. 26 would eviscerate the funding of all air- and water-pollution programs, even oil-spill cleanup,” Warner Chabot, chief executive of the California League of Conservation Voters, told the Times.
“If 26 passes, it is a Christmas present to the oil industry, the tobacco industry and every other polluting industry. The cost of regulation will shift from the industry to taxpayers.”
Texas University Art Director Forced To Resign After Protesting Rep. Gohmert’s ‘Terror Babies’ Claims
Texas University Art Director Forced To Resign After Protesting Rep. Gohmert’s ‘Terror Babies’ Claims
Christian Cutler
Christian Cutler, who until recently, was the art gallery director at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA), was also watching Gohmert’s appearances and decided he didn’t want anything to do with the high school art show Gohmert had asked him to judge. According to Cutler, after hearing Gohmert’s statements, he called one of his aides and told her that he had decided against judging the competition, saying “I really don’t want to associate myself with Congressman Gohmert and I felt he was a sensationalist and from recent information via the Web and television I felt like he was a fear monger.”
Ten days later, he received a letter from Gohmert who wrote that he “disagrees” with Cutler’s remarks, “but will defend to the death your right to be misinformed.” Gohmert also revealed that the art show was supposed to be hosted at SFA (a detail Cutler was not previously aware of) and that he was moving it somewhere else. SFA college president Baker Pattillo was copied. Cutler tried to apologize and explain that he wouldn’t have pulled out of the art show had he known it was being held at his school, but to no avail. Shortly thereafter, Cutler was forced to resign from his job.
KTRE9 reports that now, “Cutler frantically searches for a job to support his family.” He claims to have learned his lesson: “Maybe keeping those personal opinions to myself,” he said. Watch KTRE9′s report:
Gohmert maintains that he “did not ask nor desire that the Director of Art Galleries be dismissed and am not aware of all of the reasons for his dismissal,” suggesting that perhaps Cutler’s termination had something to do with his job performance. However, Cutler claims he received “outstanding” performance reviews in the three years he worked for SFA.
(HT: TPM)
Google Uses Offshore Tax Havens To Lower Its Tax Rate To 2.4 Percent
Google Uses Offshore Tax Havens To Lower Its Tax Rate To 2.4 Percent
Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that some multinational corporations — including General Electric and Pfizer — lowered their effective tax rate by more than 20 points thanks to the use of offshore tax havens and the loophole ridden corporate tax code.
But those companies don’t have anything on Google. According to a Bloomberg News report, Google, thanks to a setup in which it moves its profits to Ireland and countries in the Caribbean, has paid a 2.4 percent tax rate over the last three years, avoiding $3.1 billion in taxes:
Google’s income shifting — involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” — helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries…The method takes advantage of Irish tax law to legally shuttle profits into and out of subsidiaries there, largely escaping the country’s 12.5 percent income tax.
“It’s remarkable that Google’s effective rate is that low,” said Martin Sullivan, a tax economist who formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. “We know this company operates throughout the world mostly in high-tax countries where the average corporate rate is well over 20 percent.”
The U.S. corporate tax rate is 35 percent. But Google not only avoided U.S. taxes with its scheme, it also dodged taxes in the United Kingdom (where the statutory corporate tax rate is 20 percent). Facebook is reportedly cooking up a similar tax plan right now.
Despite having a relatively high statutory corporate tax rate, the U.S. collects little corporate tax revenue due to the prolific use of tax havens and the needless subsidies the U.S. taxpayer provides to mature, profitable industries. In fact, “the U.S. Office of Management and Budget estimates corporate tax receipts will account for just 7.2% of federal revenues in 2010, with large corporations contributing less than one-sixth as much as small business and individual taxpayers to the Federal Treasury.” Eighty-three of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. corporations and 63 of the 100 largest federal contractors have at least one subsidiary in a tax haven.
Since the Obama administration came into office, it has been trying, along with some congressional Democrats, to close some of the more egregious tax loopholes that allow corporations to sling profits all over the world and never pay taxes on them. But they have been stymied at every turn by Republicans, working with the Chamber of Commerce and other Big Business groups, who are content with allowing corporations to do all they can to get around paying the tax rate on the books.
Valerie Jarrett: Those Who Oppose Appealing DADT Injunction Don’t ‘Actually Understand’ Process
Valerie Jarrett: Those Who Oppose Appealing DADT Injunction Don’t ‘Actually Understand’ Process
This morning, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett responded to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to temporary stay a lower judge’s injunction of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, insisting that the administration had a duty to defend the policy. “Until Congress repeals it, the Justice Department is doing what it is required to do and that is, to defend the laws of the land,” Jarrett said. “But I want to be very clear that the president thinks it is time for the policy to end, and that’s what he intends to ask Congress to do”:
JARRETT: You know what, the Justice Department is required to defend the law of the land. Believe me, we wish there were another way because the President has been so clear. And I think there are many members of the gay community who actually understand this and who are working with us to try to put pressure on Congress to repeal it. It’s clear that the vast majority of American people think that it should not be the law. And we are determined to have Congress revoke it. But we have to go through that orderly process.
Watch it:
It’s not just those in the gay community that don’t “actually understand” the White House’s insistence on mischaracterizing its duty to defend existing laws. As Ted Olson — former Solicitor General under President George W. Bush — explains, “it happens every once in awhile at the federal level when the solicitor general, on behalf of the U.S., will confess error or decline to defend a law.” “I don’t know what is going through the [Obama] administration’s thought process on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” Olson said. “It would be appropriate for them to say ‘the law has been deemed unconstitutional, we are not going to seek further review of that.’”
But the White House has refused to say if President Obama still believes that the law is constitutional — as he told Anderson Cooper earlier this year — and has shied away from issuing an executive order placing a moratorium on future discharges. Meanwhile, a new CBS News poll finds that 56 percent of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly, while 31 percent oppose letting them do so.
The WonkLine: October 21, 2010
The WonkLine: October 21, 2010
Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 9:30 a.m. roundup of the latest public policy news. 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 US State Department officially announced Wednesday plans to sell up to $60 billion in advanced military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, in what experts call an effort to bolster regional powers against Iran.” The deal “will include authorization for the Saudis to purchase up to 84 new F-15s and upgrades to Saudi Arabia’s existing fleet of 70 F-15s.”
“A military offensive in southern Afghanistan is chasing the Taliban out of their stronghold in Kandahar province, the Afghan president’s half brother said.”
“China has evacuated more than 150,000 people and recalled more than 50,000 fishing boats to port as its southern coast braces for Typhoon Megi, state-run media said Thursday.”
Economy
“New York courts are the first in the United States to require lawyers handling foreclosures for banks and servicers to take steps to ensure the procedure is done properly,” the state’s top judge said yesterday.
Senate candidate Chris Coons (D-DE) “changed his previous position on the Bush era tax cuts this morning,” saying “he would support extending all of the tax cuts for everyone for ‘several years.’”
“A key plank of the U.S. financial overhaul, aimed at preventing a potential collapse of a large financial firm, is being complicated by international disagreement,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Education
Outgoing D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee “is considering jobs in both the public and private sectors, she said Wednesday, declining to say whether she was offered or would consider New Jersey’s top education post.”
Oregon gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley (R) said yesterday that “if elected he would partner with the president on education reform,” even as President Obama was in the state to campaign for Dudley’s opponent.
“A little-noticed provision in the Higher Education Opportunity Act may end up reshaping how the federal government measures the success of community colleges and other institutions that award two-year degrees,” Inside Higher Ed reports.
Immigration
Latino organizers in battleground states say they’re seeing little evidence of money the DNC says it is pouring into Latino voter outreach.
Experts are saying that a GOP group’s ad telling Latinos not to vote may cause a backlash and “turn out to be a perverse and unwelcome gift for Hispanics — and Democrats — in 2010.”
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced that he has endorsed Nevada Republican senatorial candidate, Sharron Angle before attending a tea party rally in her home state.
Climate Change
I what ” may prove to be the worst such event known to science,” a “huge coral death has struck Southeast Asian and Indian Ocean reefs over recent months” due to global warming pollution.
“Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too,” Kelly Khuri, founder of the Clark County, Indiana Tea Party Patriots told the New York Times, explaining her belief that “so-called climate science is just ridiculous” and climate legislation is “all just a money-control avenue.”
“The president is opposed to Prop. 23 — a veiled attempt by corporate polluters to block progress towards a clean energy economy,” the White House announced Wednesday.
LGBT Equality
A three-judge panel granted the Justice Department’s emergency request to allow Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell “to remain on the books so that the appeals court could have more time to fully consider the issues presented.”
“The longest serving openly gay member of Congress on Wednesday said President Obama ‘made a mistake’ by appealing a court decision against ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and should consider the reconsider the decision if the Senate can’t pass repeal in the lame duck session.”
“The White House has rejected the nomination of Daniel Alter, who would have become the first openly gay man to sit on the federal bench, because of comments he made that were considered anti-Christian.”
Health Care
“A seven-month-long process for determining how much U.S. health insurers must spend on medical care comes to a head on Thursday, amid fresh concerns that the rules will lead companies to desert some small-group and other niche markets.”
Peter Orszag: “The health care legislation that Congress enacted earlier this year, contrary to much of today’s overheated rhetoric, does many things right. But it does almost nothing to reform medical malpractice laws.”
“A national health insurer and its majority owners, Wall Street powerhouses Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Blackstone Group, were accused in a lawsuit Wednesday of defrauding their California customers with ‘junk insurance’ that provided little or no protection.”
Justice
Why Ginni Thomas made that weird phone call to Anita Hill.
The Obama Administration can appeal the DADT court decision and still not defend this unconstitutional law. “Many people seem to believe that the law would disappear if the Justice Department refused to appeal the court order. But there are two reasons that’s not the case,” Walter Dellinger, writes.
“I wish Chief Justice John Roberts could spend a day and a night in the Rocky Mountains experiencing what his activist Supreme Court majority has dumped on the American voter in 2010.”
Court Of Appeals Temporarily Reinstates Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Court Of Appeals Temporarily Reinstates Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Moments ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily granted the government’s request to stay a federal district court’s injunction of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, potentially allowing the Pentagon to again ban gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. From the court:
This court has received appellant’s emergency motion to stay the district court’s October 12, 2010 order pending appeal. The order is stayed temporarily in order to provide this court with an opportunity to consider fully the issues presented.
Appellee may file an opposition to the motion for a stay pending appeal by October 25, 2010. To expedite consideration of the motion, no reply shall be filed.
The ruling comes after the government announced on Tuesday that recruiters had to accept gay soldiers as it was still trying — and ultimately failed — to secure a stay from U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips. It filed this request for an emergency stay at approximately 11:30 this morning. The Pentagon will likely issue another guidance to bar gay recruits from enrolling. As Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner explains:
This is not, however, a stay of the order that will last through the appeal. This is only a temporary stay granted through the time when the Ninth Circuit can decide — sometime after the Oct. 25 deadline given to the LCR attorneys to respond to the stay request — whether to issue a stay pending the outcome of the appeal.
If a stay is granted pending the appeal, though, DADT would likely go back into effect in the interim, as the appeal is not even scheduled to complete the briefing process until the second week of March 2011.
Attorneys for the Log Cabin Republicans, the plaintiffs in the case, had filed their opposition to the DOJ’s stay request, noting, “Each argument that the government asserts as a basis for a stay has already been raised to the district court, which rejected them all – not cursorily, or in passing at an oral argument, but in extensive reasoned opinions at multiple stages of the proceedings below.” (H/T: Chris Geidner)
"While we are obviously disappointed that the injunction was temporarily stayed, we hope that the Ninth Circuit will recognize the inherent contradiction in the government's arguments for a longer stay in light of eight full days of non-enforcement with no 'enormous consequences,'" said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United and the sole named veteran plaintiff in the case along with the Log Cabin Republicans. "An objective look at the evidence before the court clearly indicates that ending 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' would not harm military readiness, but would rather enhance it."
"We view the decision as nothing more than a minor setback," Dan Woods said. "We didn't come this far to quit now, and we expect that once the Ninth Circuit has received and considered full briefing on the government's application for a stay, it will deny that application.
"The revival of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' law is a sad day for all Americans who want the best and brightest service members defending our country. Today's decision only furthers our resolve to send this law to the dustbin of history and also draws a spotlight on the administration to make good on their pledge to end these discharges that damage our national security."
“This interim temporary stay means that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is once again on the books, and is likely to be enforced by the Defense Department. Gay and lesbian service members deserve better treatment than they are getting with this ruling. We now must look to the Senate next month in the lame duck session to bring about the swift certainty needed here and to repeal this unjust law that serves no useful purpose.”
Corker And Growing List Of Republicans Trying To Temper Expectations On Health Care Repeal
Corker And Growing List Of Republicans Trying To Temper Expectations On Health Care Repeal
Ben Armbuster notes that Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) is now denying reports that he told a group of donors that Republicans weren’t serious about repealing the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. According to the Davis Intelligence Reports, Corker “told the gathering of donors not to worry about the incoming class of ‘crazier Republicans’ because the majority of Senate Republicans, especially minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), had no intention of repealing the president’s health care bill“:
They instead planned to fix only the “bad parts” of the law, Corker reportedly told the group. Several attendees, including a very senior Republican official, appeared visibly shocked by Corker’s comments.
Sen. Corker’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
“Sen. McConnell has been unambiguous [...] on the need to repeal the bill and replace it with commonsense reforms that actually reduce costs,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told DIG.
Corker’s denial aside, this isn’t the first time the senator has had to backtrack from pouring cold water on the GOP strategy of full repeal. “I know this is probably not the company line, but the [health care] bill is passed. The president now has in his hands a completed bill,” Corker said in March as Obama prepared to sign the legislation into law. Shortly thereafter, during a speech at Vanderbilt University, Corker admitted, “The fact is that’s [repeal] not going to happen, OK?” but later backtracked from his remarks by saying that it won’t happen before 2012.
Indeed, after promising their base the moon and the stars, Republican senators and candidates have tried to temper expectations for what they will be able to achieve if they do win back the House. On Monday, outgoing Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) also backpedaled from the full repeal pledge, reverting back to the GOP’s original strategy of only changing parts of the law law. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has similarly said, “I think, we need to keep expectations, again, fairly modest as far as what we can do over the next two years.”
260 Candidates Sign Pledge To Repeal Tax That Affects Only The Richest 0.6 Percent Of Estates
260 Candidates Sign Pledge To Repeal Tax That Affects Only The Richest 0.6 Percent Of Estates
Last week, the Wall Street Journal noted that more than 250 current congressional candidates have signed a pledge to support elimination of the estate tax (which is levied on inheritance). 253 Republicans and 2 Democrats joined the repeal pledge, which is being circulated by the American Family Business Institute, an organization that also funds right-wing attacks on the estate tax.
Due to a Bush-era budgeting gimmick, there is no estate tax this year, but President Obama has proposed permanently setting it at the 2009 level of 45 percent with a $3.5 million exemption (which means the first $3.5 million is passed on entirely tax free). Conservatives, when not pushing for outright repeal, have coalesced around a plan put forth by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) that would cut the rate to 35 percent and raise the exemption to $5 million.
The common right-wing refrain when it comes to the estate tax is that it decimates scores of small businesses and family farms, preventing them from being passed on to the next generation. But as a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice points out, at the 2008 level (which is lower than the level Obama has proposed), just 0.6 percent of deaths resulted in any estate tax liability at all:
New data from the IRS show that only 0.6 percent of deaths in the U.S. in 2008 resulted in estate tax liability in 2009. (Estate taxes are usually filed during the year after the year in which a person dies.) The estate tax that would exist under President Obama’s tax plan would affect even fewer estates, which demonstrates why Congress should consider enacting a more robust estate tax than what President Obama proposes.
As CTJ put it, “one of the strangest things about politics in our nation’s capital is that the taxes that get attacked the most by lawmakers are those taxes which affect the fewest, and the richest, people.” Indeed, the data confirms that there is certainly no case for making the estate tax any lower than it was in 2009, and plenty of reasons to increase rates on some estates.
If it were permanently set at the the 2009 level, 62.5 percent of estate tax revenue would come from estates worth more than $20 million, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Another 35 percent of the revenue would come from estates worth between $5 million and $20 million. Repealing the tax, meanwhile, would cost $784 billion over the next ten years.
CTJ endorsed the estate tax plan put forth by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which would create a more progressive estate tax, with higher marginal rates at $10 million and $50 million and a “billionaires surtax.” This kind of move makes sense, as income inequality in the country is the worst its been since 1928 and the richest households have been taking in a bigger and bigger share of the country’s total income.
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