The rich and powerful insist that taxing THEM stifles the economy. The only alternative is forcing the rest of us to carry an increasingly heavy burden with fewer and fewer social supports.
The Obama/McConnell tax bill guaranteed that whoever must bear the burden of cutting government spending and balancing the budget, it WILL NOT be the folks who make up less than 1 percent of our population yet who grab 37% of the money - among them those who caused the financial meltdown in the first place.
These folks will continue to reap their huge bonuses and pay low taxes on them. These folks do not have to worry about medical costs - they can afford (and get) the very best of care.
These folks do not have to worry about decaying inner cities - their ivory tower penthouses are isolated and protected from them.
These folks continued to stockpile their wealth while the rest of us saw our home values sink below the mortgages on them; our pensions plans disappear into the nether mist as companies cleansed themselves of their obligations in Chapter 11 reorganizations; our savings and bond holdings languish in zero interest accounts for years on end; our 401Ks evaporate in employer selected and managed mutual funds.
These folks run the corporations that control every cent we earn, pollute our water, air and food and transport our jobs to cheaper labor markets overseas at the same time they swallow up billions in corporate welfare.
The folks who push us into crushingly expensive military conflicts and then put the cost on the credit card - ours not theirs.
No those who will bear the budget balancing burden will be the "small people" - the folks who don't go to Davos, Switzerland to decide the economic fate of the planet. The folks who struggle to get by on less and less.
Here's what I think...
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Cutting Entitlements
Entitlements equal Social Security and Medicare
We hear a lot of talk about lowering the deficit these days, usually from the same folks who vehemently push for lower taxes. With only 12 percent of the federal budget devoted to "discretionary" spending, we are informed "everything" must be on the table.
"Everything" usually DOES NOT include military spending. "Everything" means "entitlements." Eliminating "entitlements" is an integral component of the push to achieve smaller government. The first step will be a decrease in the benefits.
"Entitlements" mean Medicare and Social Security. We are informed these are the biggest slices of the budgetary pie (aside from military spending and interest on the debt that is).
Until the Obama/McConnell tax bill passed, if your annual salary was $40,000, you and your employer paid $4960 into Social Security. If your annual salary was $106,800, you and your employer paid $13,243 into Social Security. In both cases the annual contribution was 12.4 percent of the employee's salary. If your annual salary was $1 million, the annual contribution totalled $13,242 or .013 percent of your salary. (You are also entitled to the same annual payments as anyone else who has paid the maximum into the system ($106,800 and up)).
That is because Social Security was designed to be paid from the contributions made into it. It is an entitlement because we are entitled to it.
The tax bill reduces employees' 2011 contributions to 4.2 percent of their income up to $106,800. Employers' contributions remain unchanged. For someone paying in the maximum, this is a decrease of $2136. On $53,000, it is a decrease of $1060. This is money that will never be placed into the fund. The tax bill provides for shortfalls to be made up from the "general fund." This is a dangerous precedent. Instead of being self-funding, Social Security could become dependent upon general tax revenues - and far more vulnerable to the arguments of budget-busting legislators.
Retirement Age
Raising the retirement age is another important ploy of the anti-entitlement crowd. If you have worked at a white collar job during your employment years and are in good health, retiring at 70 may not be a pleasant prospect, but it is probably doable. If your work involved hard, physical labor, your body's natural aging will make continuing difficult. And if the wear and tear on your body caused by intense physical labor is substantial, it could be impossible.
Keep your eyes on Washington. Do NOT let them destroy the program that may be the only thing separating hundreds of millions of Americans from destitution in their senior years.
We hear a lot of talk about lowering the deficit these days, usually from the same folks who vehemently push for lower taxes. With only 12 percent of the federal budget devoted to "discretionary" spending, we are informed "everything" must be on the table.
"Everything" usually DOES NOT include military spending. "Everything" means "entitlements." Eliminating "entitlements" is an integral component of the push to achieve smaller government. The first step will be a decrease in the benefits.
"Entitlements" mean Medicare and Social Security. We are informed these are the biggest slices of the budgetary pie (aside from military spending and interest on the debt that is).
Until the Obama/McConnell tax bill passed, if your annual salary was $40,000, you and your employer paid $4960 into Social Security. If your annual salary was $106,800, you and your employer paid $13,243 into Social Security. In both cases the annual contribution was 12.4 percent of the employee's salary. If your annual salary was $1 million, the annual contribution totalled $13,242 or .013 percent of your salary. (You are also entitled to the same annual payments as anyone else who has paid the maximum into the system ($106,800 and up)).
That is because Social Security was designed to be paid from the contributions made into it. It is an entitlement because we are entitled to it.
The tax bill reduces employees' 2011 contributions to 4.2 percent of their income up to $106,800. Employers' contributions remain unchanged. For someone paying in the maximum, this is a decrease of $2136. On $53,000, it is a decrease of $1060. This is money that will never be placed into the fund. The tax bill provides for shortfalls to be made up from the "general fund." This is a dangerous precedent. Instead of being self-funding, Social Security could become dependent upon general tax revenues - and far more vulnerable to the arguments of budget-busting legislators.
Retirement Age
Raising the retirement age is another important ploy of the anti-entitlement crowd. If you have worked at a white collar job during your employment years and are in good health, retiring at 70 may not be a pleasant prospect, but it is probably doable. If your work involved hard, physical labor, your body's natural aging will make continuing difficult. And if the wear and tear on your body caused by intense physical labor is substantial, it could be impossible.
Keep your eyes on Washington. Do NOT let them destroy the program that may be the only thing separating hundreds of millions of Americans from destitution in their senior years.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Cuomo's Property Tax Ceiling Could Force Municipalities to Cut Services
The Register Star, my local newspaper, reported today that city officials fear revenue shortfalls if Governor Cuomo's push for statewide property tax limits is successful. Hudson Treasurer Eileen Halloran urged the city's Finance Committee to begin picking the areas in which cuts can be made and how to do them. Her suggestions included cutting back weekly trash collection to every other week, picking up recycling once a month, instead of weekly and reconfiguring the way snow removal is conducted.
[Click on this post's title for the Register Star article.]
Hudson already assesses a user's fee on residents for garbage collection in the form of city trash bags. Large bags cost $3.00 each; smaller ones are $1.50. No mention was made of increasing bag cost. Water and sewage fees also are levied on residents.
Proposing cuts in the snow removal program at a time when every week seems to bring another major snow storm and crews are struggling to keep up with clearing the streets and snow removal is almost guaranteed to incite widespread public anger.
Although the article does not discuss the school district, which assesses its own real estate taxes and the county, which shares a revenue base with the city, presumably they also will be affected. The fact that all three entities are burdened by "unfunded mandates" makes balancing budgets a much tougher job.
It would not be the first time the state pushed the pain of fiscal austerity down the road to localities. And who will be blamed for services cuts? The localities, of course.
[Click on this post's title for the Register Star article.]
Hudson already assesses a user's fee on residents for garbage collection in the form of city trash bags. Large bags cost $3.00 each; smaller ones are $1.50. No mention was made of increasing bag cost. Water and sewage fees also are levied on residents.
Proposing cuts in the snow removal program at a time when every week seems to bring another major snow storm and crews are struggling to keep up with clearing the streets and snow removal is almost guaranteed to incite widespread public anger.
Although the article does not discuss the school district, which assesses its own real estate taxes and the county, which shares a revenue base with the city, presumably they also will be affected. The fact that all three entities are burdened by "unfunded mandates" makes balancing budgets a much tougher job.
It would not be the first time the state pushed the pain of fiscal austerity down the road to localities. And who will be blamed for services cuts? The localities, of course.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Looking Back at John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address that contained the famous sentence - "And so my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."
[Click on this blog's title for a link to the full speech.]
January 20, 1961. I watched the ceremony on our black and white television. I was fourteen years old. Rereading it yesterday brought back the idealism Kennedy's words ignited.
"In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe."
Kennedy spoke to the America that answered his call to land on the moon before the end of the decade. He spoke to the eager citizens who answered his call to join the Peace Corps. Sadly, he also spoke to the millions of young Americans who were sent to fight in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of them dying there. He spoke to the descendants of African slaves who had yet to achieve full citizenship in the land of the free and the brave. But on January 21, 1961, nothing seemed impossible if we just had the will to achieve it.
Looking back on the turbulent decade that followed his speech, I can seen much that was accomplished. None of it came easily. The price paid for some of them was high. The country was deeply divided about the Vietnam war and the battle for civil rights. Even the space program had its serious opponents.
Fifty years later the world has yet to achieve peace. The United States experiment in democracy still struggles to resolve the differences between its citizens. Civilization is threatened by global warming, racial and religious intolerance, terrorism, resource depletion and economic instability.
Like Kennedy, I still believe that human beings can accomplish amazing and wonderful things. But without worthy goals and the will to reach them, we will fail.
[Click on this blog's title for a link to the full speech.]
January 20, 1961. I watched the ceremony on our black and white television. I was fourteen years old. Rereading it yesterday brought back the idealism Kennedy's words ignited.
"In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe."
Kennedy spoke to the America that answered his call to land on the moon before the end of the decade. He spoke to the eager citizens who answered his call to join the Peace Corps. Sadly, he also spoke to the millions of young Americans who were sent to fight in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of them dying there. He spoke to the descendants of African slaves who had yet to achieve full citizenship in the land of the free and the brave. But on January 21, 1961, nothing seemed impossible if we just had the will to achieve it.
Looking back on the turbulent decade that followed his speech, I can seen much that was accomplished. None of it came easily. The price paid for some of them was high. The country was deeply divided about the Vietnam war and the battle for civil rights. Even the space program had its serious opponents.
Fifty years later the world has yet to achieve peace. The United States experiment in democracy still struggles to resolve the differences between its citizens. Civilization is threatened by global warming, racial and religious intolerance, terrorism, resource depletion and economic instability.
Like Kennedy, I still believe that human beings can accomplish amazing and wonderful things. But without worthy goals and the will to reach them, we will fail.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Why Civility?
David Brooks' op ed piece in The New York Times is a forceful, well expressed argument for civility in public discourse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14brooks.html?src=me&ref=general
Since I could not have said it better, I did not even try.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14brooks.html?src=me&ref=general
Since I could not have said it better, I did not even try.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Mental Illness - Behind the Curtain
For a more detached, researched approach to this subject go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/12/AR2011011204068.html
Those who have witnessed a close friend or family member suffering from the disease know that the mentally ill are not always irrational. Even the most severe cases can have periods of lucidity. In criminal cases that can appear to be proof they are not truly deranged. Absent a few recognized brain malformations, diagnosis of mental illness is an inexact science.
Confronting mental illness up close and personal does not necessarily increase either empathy or understanding of the disease. I learned this the hard way. Two important people in my life suffered from mental illness.
One had periodic episodes separated by long stretches of normalcy. The other, more seriously ill, spent some time institutionalized; had some violent episodes early on; and for over 40 years took Thorazine, a powerful drug with serious side effects, to keep his illness under control. They both had strong family support. They both fought their diseases with tremendous courage, fortitude and determination and managed to live productive, meaningful lives.
There is a stigma attached to mental illness that makes families reluctant to seek help until the disease becomes unmanageable. Because most health insurance policies specifically exclude coverage for mental illness (I have heard the new health care legislation will end that), victims and their families often try to deal with it themselves. Mental illness, like other diseases, has many different causes, guises and symptoms. People who have not experienced it first or second hand often think the sufferers could just "snap out of it" if they weren't weak or self-indulgent.
Persons in the throes of mental illness can be unattractive, frightening, hostile. The true nature of their disease can be disguised by their attempts to "self-medicate" with drugs and alcohol.
The only things I know about it are: it is painful to undergo; awful and frightening to witness in a loved one; and very, very real.
Those who have witnessed a close friend or family member suffering from the disease know that the mentally ill are not always irrational. Even the most severe cases can have periods of lucidity. In criminal cases that can appear to be proof they are not truly deranged. Absent a few recognized brain malformations, diagnosis of mental illness is an inexact science.
Confronting mental illness up close and personal does not necessarily increase either empathy or understanding of the disease. I learned this the hard way. Two important people in my life suffered from mental illness.
One had periodic episodes separated by long stretches of normalcy. The other, more seriously ill, spent some time institutionalized; had some violent episodes early on; and for over 40 years took Thorazine, a powerful drug with serious side effects, to keep his illness under control. They both had strong family support. They both fought their diseases with tremendous courage, fortitude and determination and managed to live productive, meaningful lives.
There is a stigma attached to mental illness that makes families reluctant to seek help until the disease becomes unmanageable. Because most health insurance policies specifically exclude coverage for mental illness (I have heard the new health care legislation will end that), victims and their families often try to deal with it themselves. Mental illness, like other diseases, has many different causes, guises and symptoms. People who have not experienced it first or second hand often think the sufferers could just "snap out of it" if they weren't weak or self-indulgent.
Persons in the throes of mental illness can be unattractive, frightening, hostile. The true nature of their disease can be disguised by their attempts to "self-medicate" with drugs and alcohol.
The only things I know about it are: it is painful to undergo; awful and frightening to witness in a loved one; and very, very real.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Murder Most Foul
When I was a senior in high school, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. During my college years Malcolm X was shot and killed, freedom riders were murdered in Mississippi, peaceful demonstrators for civil rights were attacked by dogs and fire hoses in Selma and Birmingham and within a few short months Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were murdered at gunpoint.
During the early 70s it felt like society was breaking apart. Student demonstrators at Kent State were shot (and killed) by the National Guard. Patty Hearst was kidnapped by a homegrown terrorist group. "Hard hats" slugged it out with antiwar demonstrators in the streets of New York City. Anti busing protesters in South Boston violently protested the integration of Boston schools. Colleges were shut down by protesting students. The United States vice president (Spiro Agnew) was forced to resign or face corruption charges. The president of the United States (Richard Nixon) resigned to avoid an impeachment trial.
In the early 1980's President Reagan was shot and nearly died.
In 1995 a domestic terrorist bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Abortion clinics have been bombed and the doctors who provided services for them murdered.
In 2001, after the 9/11 tragedy, anthrax was sent through the mail killing postal workers and recipients alike.
Over the past several days explosive devices mailed to political figures have detonated.
After the health care bill was passed, Congressmen who supported it received death threats and many had their offices vandalized.
And yesterday a gunman opened fire on an Arizona Congresswoman and killed a Federal judge, several bystanders including a child and severely wounded the Congresswoman.
The thought of returning to the climate of the 1960s and early 1970s is frightening. The tone of our political discourse and the failure of either the right-wing media or Republican politicians to reject the posturings of the extremists, is unconscionable. If this comes to pass, we will see a curtailment of our personal freedom unlike anything that has gone before. There are extremists on the right (and some, albeit fewer in number, on the left) who would tear our democracy down and replace it with the dictatorship of the mob. There are more sinister forces working behind the scenes who would grab that opportunity to establish the oligarchy they have been working toward for decades.
Rule by the mob or by the oligarchy? Which do you think would emerge? Either way, the thing we call liberty would be the first casualty.
It is past time that the American people stopped listening to their media gurus and politicians and started working with each other. Sound bytes are catchy but do not inform us. Political catch phrases are convenient but disingenuous. Simple solutions are attractive but usually ineffective.
Wake up, America. You are under siege. The forces that work to divide you are the forces you need to combat.
During the early 70s it felt like society was breaking apart. Student demonstrators at Kent State were shot (and killed) by the National Guard. Patty Hearst was kidnapped by a homegrown terrorist group. "Hard hats" slugged it out with antiwar demonstrators in the streets of New York City. Anti busing protesters in South Boston violently protested the integration of Boston schools. Colleges were shut down by protesting students. The United States vice president (Spiro Agnew) was forced to resign or face corruption charges. The president of the United States (Richard Nixon) resigned to avoid an impeachment trial.
In the early 1980's President Reagan was shot and nearly died.
In 1995 a domestic terrorist bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Abortion clinics have been bombed and the doctors who provided services for them murdered.
In 2001, after the 9/11 tragedy, anthrax was sent through the mail killing postal workers and recipients alike.
Over the past several days explosive devices mailed to political figures have detonated.
After the health care bill was passed, Congressmen who supported it received death threats and many had their offices vandalized.
And yesterday a gunman opened fire on an Arizona Congresswoman and killed a Federal judge, several bystanders including a child and severely wounded the Congresswoman.
The thought of returning to the climate of the 1960s and early 1970s is frightening. The tone of our political discourse and the failure of either the right-wing media or Republican politicians to reject the posturings of the extremists, is unconscionable. If this comes to pass, we will see a curtailment of our personal freedom unlike anything that has gone before. There are extremists on the right (and some, albeit fewer in number, on the left) who would tear our democracy down and replace it with the dictatorship of the mob. There are more sinister forces working behind the scenes who would grab that opportunity to establish the oligarchy they have been working toward for decades.
Rule by the mob or by the oligarchy? Which do you think would emerge? Either way, the thing we call liberty would be the first casualty.
It is past time that the American people stopped listening to their media gurus and politicians and started working with each other. Sound bytes are catchy but do not inform us. Political catch phrases are convenient but disingenuous. Simple solutions are attractive but usually ineffective.
Wake up, America. You are under siege. The forces that work to divide you are the forces you need to combat.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Broken in Twain
New editions of Mark Twain's iconic Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, characterized as "school friendly" are about to be published. These versions change every use of the word "nigger" to "slave" and every "injun" to "Indian." Because, of course, those words are politically incorrect.
[Click on this post's title for more source material.]
Supporters of the editions claim they will make the frequently censored classics readily available to students. I heard one educator assert today on public radio that high school students are not mature enough to read the unexpurgated versions and to assign them would give teachers the impossible task of trying to teach the novels to their diverse student populations.
Thank heavens our children are being shielded from the unvarnished dialect of our most American of writers. How fortunate that their sensitive souls are protected from a forthright portrayal of racism in pre-Civil War America. The fact that not all black people of that time were slaves is a minor point conveniently to be glossed over.
Changing Twain's words to slave and Indian may disrupt the perfect replication of his subjects' dialect, but surely this is a small price to pay for a wider readership and more comfortable students and teachers.
Education is supposed to be challenging, you say? What a preposterous concept in 21st century America.
[Click on this post's title for more source material.]
Supporters of the editions claim they will make the frequently censored classics readily available to students. I heard one educator assert today on public radio that high school students are not mature enough to read the unexpurgated versions and to assign them would give teachers the impossible task of trying to teach the novels to their diverse student populations.
Thank heavens our children are being shielded from the unvarnished dialect of our most American of writers. How fortunate that their sensitive souls are protected from a forthright portrayal of racism in pre-Civil War America. The fact that not all black people of that time were slaves is a minor point conveniently to be glossed over.
Changing Twain's words to slave and Indian may disrupt the perfect replication of his subjects' dialect, but surely this is a small price to pay for a wider readership and more comfortable students and teachers.
Education is supposed to be challenging, you say? What a preposterous concept in 21st century America.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Who Needs Social Security Anyway?
Employees will pay 2% less into Social Security this year. Their deduction will decrease from 6.2% to 4.2% of their gross wages. Employers will continue to pay 6.2%. These percentages will apply to the first $106,800 earned. Once over that amount, both contributions will stop. (For years this ceiling annually increased, but in 2010 and 2011 it remained at the 2009 amount.)
According to a year-end letter from my accountant, the Social Security contribution cut will cost $120 billion. According to the tax bill any shortfall will be covered by the general fund.
For years we have heard our politicians arguing that Social Security was threatened with insolvency. It puzzled me that the same people who have made this claim voted for the contribution cut. Further, they chose to do this in the year that the first baby boomers retire. That's right, the great deluge of retirements of the post World War II population surge begins this year. The population bubble that began in 1946 and continued well into the 1960s is aging. This year Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and myself are among the first wave of Americans, to reach what was once considered retirement age - 65. The Social Security Administration does offer some incentive if we postpone retirement until age 67. Medicare qualification remains at 65.
Social Security was designed to pay for itself, with benefits to retirees paid from contributions made into the system by the currently employed. During the baby boomer working years this worked well. With far more workers than retirees, the system produced surpluses. These surpluses were supposed to prepare the system for the time when the number of retirees exceeded the number of workers. Of course the money went into the general fund so it was probably spent.
Now our debt-swamped government is decreasing the contribution just as the real challenge to its solvency begins.
Many of our conservative leaders oppose the entire concept of Social Security. They believe folks should take responsibility for their own retirement. Well, guess what, that did not work out real well for most of us. Lower and middle income workers in this country have seen their purchase power decline over the past 30 years. Wages have stagnated. Their homes, the one investment most of them made, have declined in value, with many worth less than the mortgages they carry. Company pension plans have disappeared. IRA savings accounts have been earning nothing for several years. Investment accounts were slammed during the crash.
Without Social Security many of us face destitution in our retirement years. We earned those benefits. We and our employers made those contributions over our working lifetimes.
Who needs Social Security? We do.
Do NOT let Washington destroy it.
According to a year-end letter from my accountant, the Social Security contribution cut will cost $120 billion. According to the tax bill any shortfall will be covered by the general fund.
For years we have heard our politicians arguing that Social Security was threatened with insolvency. It puzzled me that the same people who have made this claim voted for the contribution cut. Further, they chose to do this in the year that the first baby boomers retire. That's right, the great deluge of retirements of the post World War II population surge begins this year. The population bubble that began in 1946 and continued well into the 1960s is aging. This year Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and myself are among the first wave of Americans, to reach what was once considered retirement age - 65. The Social Security Administration does offer some incentive if we postpone retirement until age 67. Medicare qualification remains at 65.
Social Security was designed to pay for itself, with benefits to retirees paid from contributions made into the system by the currently employed. During the baby boomer working years this worked well. With far more workers than retirees, the system produced surpluses. These surpluses were supposed to prepare the system for the time when the number of retirees exceeded the number of workers. Of course the money went into the general fund so it was probably spent.
Now our debt-swamped government is decreasing the contribution just as the real challenge to its solvency begins.
Many of our conservative leaders oppose the entire concept of Social Security. They believe folks should take responsibility for their own retirement. Well, guess what, that did not work out real well for most of us. Lower and middle income workers in this country have seen their purchase power decline over the past 30 years. Wages have stagnated. Their homes, the one investment most of them made, have declined in value, with many worth less than the mortgages they carry. Company pension plans have disappeared. IRA savings accounts have been earning nothing for several years. Investment accounts were slammed during the crash.
Without Social Security many of us face destitution in our retirement years. We earned those benefits. We and our employers made those contributions over our working lifetimes.
Who needs Social Security? We do.
Do NOT let Washington destroy it.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Farewell to 2010
Well, Don't Ask Don't Tell got repealed. The 9/11 first responders received assistance. The START treaty was approved. Doesn't sound too shabby, does it?
New York's Governor David Paterson handed over the reins to Andrew Cuomo. Paterson surely breathed a heart-felt sigh of relief as he did so. He will be missed by some of us for his forthright, starkly realistic presentation of the state's budget crisis to the voters. For over two years he valiantly struggled to bring fiscal stability to the state and without his efforts New York would be in far worse condition than it is. Of course no responsible political leadership goes unpunished and every special interest group in the state waged an unrelenting campaign to hound him out of office. I suspect theirs was a Pyrrhic victory. Andrew Cuomo, with strong election results behind him, is better positioned than Paterson to ram through unpopular state budget cuts. New York (like many, many other states) has long since cut the gravy and now faces deep, potentially devastating cuts to essential services.
All over the U. S. states are in crisis. Their pension plans are unfunded. They are cutting deep into education, transportation, infrastructure maintenance and health care. Layoffs of public employees consistently negate any employment gains made in the private sector. These layoffs negatively impact consumer spending, federal, state and local tax revenues, unemployment benefit costs and the costs of medicaid. To say nothing of the continued deterioration of our already challenged educational system. They are laying off policemen, firemen, transportation workers, sanitation personnel. The fact is we are getting smaller government on a state and local level with each passing day - and the results are NOT going to be pretty.
The Obama/McConnell tax package that extended the Bush era tax cuts for just about everyone, may end up being the "last hurrah" for the "kick the can down the road" crowd. The package's stimulus potential is limited. Its debt-increasing potential, on the other hand, is exponential.
The idiotic 2% reduction in employees' Social Security contributions alone will cost $120 billion and threatens to weaken this vital component of middle and lower income retirement. First there was Greece, then there was Ireland. Could the U.S. be next?
For now, I will bask just a tiny bit longer in the glow of a wonderful holiday season. Tomorrow will arrive soon enough.
New York's Governor David Paterson handed over the reins to Andrew Cuomo. Paterson surely breathed a heart-felt sigh of relief as he did so. He will be missed by some of us for his forthright, starkly realistic presentation of the state's budget crisis to the voters. For over two years he valiantly struggled to bring fiscal stability to the state and without his efforts New York would be in far worse condition than it is. Of course no responsible political leadership goes unpunished and every special interest group in the state waged an unrelenting campaign to hound him out of office. I suspect theirs was a Pyrrhic victory. Andrew Cuomo, with strong election results behind him, is better positioned than Paterson to ram through unpopular state budget cuts. New York (like many, many other states) has long since cut the gravy and now faces deep, potentially devastating cuts to essential services.
All over the U. S. states are in crisis. Their pension plans are unfunded. They are cutting deep into education, transportation, infrastructure maintenance and health care. Layoffs of public employees consistently negate any employment gains made in the private sector. These layoffs negatively impact consumer spending, federal, state and local tax revenues, unemployment benefit costs and the costs of medicaid. To say nothing of the continued deterioration of our already challenged educational system. They are laying off policemen, firemen, transportation workers, sanitation personnel. The fact is we are getting smaller government on a state and local level with each passing day - and the results are NOT going to be pretty.
The Obama/McConnell tax package that extended the Bush era tax cuts for just about everyone, may end up being the "last hurrah" for the "kick the can down the road" crowd. The package's stimulus potential is limited. Its debt-increasing potential, on the other hand, is exponential.
The idiotic 2% reduction in employees' Social Security contributions alone will cost $120 billion and threatens to weaken this vital component of middle and lower income retirement. First there was Greece, then there was Ireland. Could the U.S. be next?
For now, I will bask just a tiny bit longer in the glow of a wonderful holiday season. Tomorrow will arrive soon enough.
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