The Cato Institute, a non-profit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C., takes a look at the President’s health care town hall meeting that was broadcast on ABC recently:
With the nationalization of some of our largest companies, the recently-passed Waxman-Markey bill, and Obama’s health care proposal, it sounds like we’re well on our way to socialism in America, and I’m not throwing that term out lightly. How else can it be described?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech yesterday outlining the conditions Israel would accept for there to be a separate Palestinian state. You can see the entire speech courtesy of the BBC via YouTube by clicking here, or read a transcript by clicking here.
In a nutshell, Netanyahu said Israel would accept a so-called two-state solution only if Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people with Jerusalem as Israel’s unified capital, and if the proposed Palestinian state were demilitarized. Of course, these terms were swiftly rejected by the Palestinians. The New York Times reports:
“Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about negotiations, but left us with nothing to negotiate as he systematically took nearly every permanent status issue off the table,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement. “Nor did he accept a Palestinian state. Instead, he announced a series of conditions and qualifications that render a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible.”
Palestinian negotiators have long refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, contending that it would prejudge the refugees’ demand for a right of return and would be detrimental to the status of Israel’s Arab minority.
Or maybe the reason they refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is because the Palestinian National Covenant calls for the complete elimination of Zionism. I believe this is what we would call an “impasse.”
…I’m looking forward to the next stage of exploration: going back to the moon and beyond!
Someday I’d like to actually be in Florida to watch a rocket launch.
Since I posted the video of Schock’s reaction to Obama’s new tax policy, I thought it might be sporting to post the President’s announcement of his tax policy to kind of put things in perspective. Here’s what I found on the White House’s website:
What immediately made me laugh — not so much in amusement, but rather in disgust — was the fact that Tim “Tax Cheat” Geithner was introducing the whole thing. How can that guy stand up there and talk about tax cheats and not immediately get struck by lightning? Then Obama says this:
Nobody likes paying taxes, particularly in times of economic stress. But most Americans meet their responsibilities because they understand that it’s an obligation of citizenship, necessary to pay the costs of our common defense and our mutual well-being. And yet, even as most American citizens and businesses meet these responsibilities, there are others who are shirking theirs.
Yes, there certainly are. One of them is standing about five feet to your immediate right, Mr. President! Wow. It just doesn’t get any more hypocritical than that.
My dad, whenever he sees Geithner’s picture in the paper, immediately writes “TAX CHEAT” across Geithner’s forehead. I think that ought to be the standard in all newspapers and news reports across the country. I’m instituting it here at the Chronicle.
One more thing: I found this funny little parody of “Tax Man” by the Beatles on You Tube. It’s called “Tax Cheat (Tim Geithner Song)”:
I attended a movie at the recently established Peoria Theater on Saturday. It’s located in the Landmark Plaza; two of the screens that used to be part of the old Landmark Cinemas (later Nova, currently Reynolds) now make up the new independent film theater. In addition to the usual popcorn and soda, you can also buy beer and other alcoholic beverages, making the place an adults-only (over 21) establishment.
I went to see the film “I. O. U. S. A.,” about the skyrocketing national debt and its implications. You can see an abbreviated (30-minute) version of the film at their website and on YouTube.
Admission was inexpensive ($5), as was the popcorn and soda — at least, for a movie theater ($7 total for both). The screen was small, but the theater was clean, and they showed real film, not a DVD on an LCD projector like another local theater. At 4:45 on a Saturday, it turned out to be a private screening, since I was the only one there for this particular film. The service was friendly, and it was a pleasant experience overall.
The film itself, however, was as interesting as it was depressing. It chronicled America’s budget deficit over the life of the country, as well as its more recent deficits in savings, trade, and leadership. The film mainly focuses on the work of Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition (a “non-partisan, grassroots organization advocating generationally responsible fiscal policy”) and former U.S. Comptroller-General David Walker, who is now the President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (whose mission is “to increase public awareness of the nature and urgency of key economic challenges threatening America’s future and accelerate action on them”).
The problem in America, according to the filmmakers, is that we spend more than we produce. It’s a problem that plagues the nation from federal policymakers to individual citizens. We’re living beyond our means, feeling a false sense of wealth due to easy credit. And whereas your personal debts will more or less die with you, the public debt will be passed on to the next generation to pay.
Furthermore, because of our savings deficit in America, most national debt is held by foreign countries, which leads to some sobering implications. One that the movie points out is our vulnerability to “financial war.” This is where a creditor country can pressure a debtor country into modifying its policies by threatening to tighten credit. They use the example of the Suez Crisis when the U.S. forced our allies into a cease fire with Egypt by threatening to sell part of the U.S. investment in British government bonds, which would have significantly devalued the pound. As Proverbs 22:7 says, “the borrower is slave to the lender.”
I thought the film was well-done (production-wise), although I certainly haven’t seen as many documentaries as the Washington Post movie critics, who panned the film for being formulaic. I thought the slick graphics made a difficult topic easy to understand. Also, the movie moved at a good pace.
Substantively, the conclusions drawn by the filmmakers are, naturally, not universally held. The Center for Economic and Policy Research has published a paper titled, “IOUSA Not OK: An Analysis of the Deficit Disaster Story in the Film IOUSA,” in which the authors (Dean Baker and David Rosnick) give a real-time, point-by-point counterargument. While they take issue with several points made in the movie, the main thrust of the report is their contention that health care costs are the major culprit causing dire debt projections, and that if the country can rein in these costs, national budget deficits and their resulting debt will be no big deal:
The federal government pays for almost 50 percent of the country’s health care costs through Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care programs. Almost all of the payments in these programs go to private sector health care providers (hospitals, doctors, nursing homes etc.). The government projects that private sector health care costs will rise far more rapidly than the economy grows. This assumption leads to projections of massive deficits in the next few decades.
While these projections of exploding health care costs imply that budget deficits will be a huge problem, if the United States can contain its health care costs, then budget deficits will be very manageable….
In other words, the real problem facing the country is a broken health care system. If health care costs continue to grow at the projected rate, then future generations will see relatively little gain in their living standards, even if we eliminate all government spending on health care.
Nevertheless, if something isn’t done about the health care crisis, then projections are that the debt will rise not only in real dollars, but as a percentage of gross domestic product. Even critics of the film agree that this scenario would be bad for the country. Whatever the solution is, something needs to be done soon to address this issue.
Taxpayers for Common Sense has published all of the disclosed earmarks in the 2009 omnibus spending bill. Even though Ray LaHood is out of Congress and now the Secretary of Transportation, the earmarks he requested last year remain… and there are a lot of them (an asterisk next to the amount indicates that LaHood was the sole requester of the funding):
| Agency | Account | Project | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture Research Service | Buildings and Facilities | National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, Peoria, IL | $2,192,000* |
| Agriculture Research Service | Salaries and Expenses | Animal Health Consortium, Washington, DC | $820,000* |
| Agricultural Research Service | Salaries and Expenses | Biotechnology Research and Development Corporation, Washington, DC | $2,503,000 |
| Agricultural Research Service | Salaries and Expenses | Crop Production and Food Processing, Peoria, IL | $786,000* |
| Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service | SRG | Agricultural Marketing, IL | $176,000 |
| Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service | SRG | Center for One Medicine, IL | $235,000 |
| Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service | SRG | Future Foods | $461,000 |
| Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service | SRG | Livestock Genome Sequencing, IL | $564,000 |
| Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service | SRG | Midwest Poultry Consortium, IL | $471,000 |
| Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service | SRG | Soybean Research, IL | $745,000 |
| Department of Commerce | NOAA–Operations, Research and Facilities | Illinois State Geological Survey, Illinois Height Modernization, Champaign, IL | $725,000 |
| Department of Justice | COPS Law Enforcement Technology | Cass County Sheriff, 9-1-1 Center Equipment & Communications Upgrades, Virginia, IL | $515,000* |
| Department of Justice | COPS Law Enforcement Technology | City of Lincoln Police Department, Lincoln PD security upgrades, Lincoln, IL | $25,000* |
| Department of Justice | COPS Law Enforcement Technology | East Peoria Police Department, East Peoria Technology Grant, City of East Peoria, IL | $410,000* |
| Department of Justice | COPS Law Enforcement Technology | Logan County Sheriff, Logan County 9-1-1, Lincoln, IL | $300,000* |
| Department of Justice | COPS Law Enforcement Technology | Peoria Police Department and Peoria County Sheriff, City of Peoria radio and technology upgrades, Peoria, IL | $650,000* |
| Department of Justice | OJP–Byrne Discretionary Grants | Jacksonville/Morgan County Underwater Search & Rescue Dive Team, Morgan County Rescue Dive Team, Jacksonville, IL | $175,000* |
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Cross Agency Support | Lakeview Museum of Arts & Sciences, Lakeview Museum Planetarium, Peoria, IL | $250,000* |
| Defense | DHP | Pediatric Medication Administration Product and Testing | $800,000* |
| Defense | GP | STEM Education Research Center | $5,000,000* |
| Defense | OM,ARNG | Advanced Trauma Training Course for the Illinois Army National Guard | $2,400,000 |
| Defense | PA,A | Small Caliber Trace Charging Facilitization Program | $1,200,000 |
| Defense | PA,AF | PGU-14 API Armor Piercing Incendiary, 30mm Ammunition | $2,400,000 |
| Defense | RDTE,A | 302 Advanced Battery Technology | $4,000,000 |
| Defense | RDTE,A | High Explosive Air Burst (HEAB) 25mm Ammunition | $4,400,000 |
| Defense | RDTE,AF | Scorpion Low Cost Helmet Mounted Cueing and Information Display System | $4,000,000 |
| Corps of Engineers | Investigations | Illinois River Basin Restoration, IL | $382,000 |
| Corps of Engineers | Investigations | Peoria Riverfront Development, IL | $48,000 |
| Corps of Engineers | Investigations | Upper Miss River-Illinois WW System, IL, IA, MN, MO & WI | $8,604,000 |
| Corps of Engineers | Construction | Upper Mississippi River Restoration, IL, IA, MN, MO & WI | $17,713,000 |
| Corps of Engineers | Section 206 | Emiquon Preserve, IL | not disclosed |
| Corps of Engineers | Section 205 | Meredosia, IL | not disclosed* |
| Corps of Engineers | Section 1135 | Spunky Bottoms, IL | not disclosed* |
| Corps of Engineers | O&M | Illinois Waterway, IL & IN (MVS Portion) | $1,772,000 |
| Department of Energy | EERE | Green Building Technologies, Bradley University (IL) | $475,750* |
| Environmental Protection Agency | STAG Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Project | County of Peoria, Regional Storm Water Plan Implementation | $500,000* |
| Department of Education | Higher Education | Illinois College, Jacksonville, IL for a teacher preparation program, including curriculum development | $190,000* |
| Department of Health and Human Services | Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) – Health Facilities and Services | Memorial Medical Center, Springfield, IL for the Intelligent Pharmacy and Automated Drug Management electronic medical records initiative | $666,000 | Department of Health and Human Services | Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) – Health Facilities and Services | OSF Healthcare System, Peoria, IL for an electronic medical records initiative | $95,000 |
| Department of Health and Human Services | Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) – Health Facilities and Services | University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, Peoria, IL for facilities and equipment | $381,000 |
| Institute of Museum & Library Services | Museums & Libraries | Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, IL for exhibits | $95,000* |
| Architect of the Capitol | House Office Buildings | Renovation of the Jacksonville Bandstand | $95,000* |
| Military Construction | Air NG | Illinois, Greater Peoria RAP, C-130 Squadron Operations Center | $400,000 |
| Department of Transportation | Buses and Bus Facilities | Paratransit Vehicles, west Central Mass Transit District, IL | $104,500* |
| Department of Transportation | Buses and Bus Facilities | Replacement of Paratransit Vehicles, Greater Peoria Mass Transit District, Peoria, IL | $380,000* |
| Department of Housing and Urban Development | Economic Development Initiatives | Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, IL for planning and construction of a new building that will highlight the achievement and skills of art, history, science and achievement | $95,000* |
| Department of Housing and Urban Development | Economic Development Initiatives | OSF HealthCare System, Peoria, IL for planning, design and construction of a Hospice Home | $332,500* |
| TOTAL* (requested solely by LaHood) | $14,190,750 | ||
| GRAND TOTAL (all earmarks listed above) | $54,341,000 | ||
It struck me as I read through this list that LaHood did not request one large earmark for the proposed downtown museum, but instead has comparatively little earmarks sprinkled throughout the omnibus bill — a few thousand here for exhibits, a few thousand there for the planetarium, etc. I would imagine that he did the same in previous years, thus spreading the earmarks out over time as well.
Citizens Against Government Waste named LaHood their “Porker of the Month” in January 2009. When giving their reasoning, they specifically pointed out LaHood’s earmarks for Lakeview:
His congressional rating with the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste went from a mediocre 68.8 percent during his freshman year to an abysmal 11 percent in his last year in Congress. In fiscal year 2008 alone, Rep. LaHood was responsible for securing 52 earmarks totaling $58.9 million, among them a $250,000 earmark for the Lakeview Museum Planetarium along with an additional $198,000 for the installation of green technology in the Planetarium at a time when the nation faced tens of billions in transportation maintenance backlogs [emphasis mine]. A January 14 Washington Post article noted that in 2008 he sent $9 million worth of earmarks to campaign contributors, and that he ranked in the top 10 percent of all members who obtained earmarks. Secretary LaHood expressed his derision for the taxpayers’ money when he told the Peoria Journal Star last year that the reason he “went to the Appropriations Committee, the reason other people go on the Appropriations Committee, is they know that it puts them in a position to know where the money is at, to know the people who are doling the money out and to be in the room when the money is being doled out.”
With all this federal money coming in, one wonders why the museum partners need a county sales tax, too.
But getting beyond that, the fact that LaHood has so many earmarks in the mammoth appropriations bill (and the fact that he’s no longer in Congress, and the fact that President Obama made a campaign promise to veto any legislation with earmarks) has the mainstream media taking notice. ABC News’ Senior Political Reporter Rick Klein noticed and listed several of the projects LaHood earmarked — including the Lakeview earmarks. And Fox News is all over it as well:
In LaHood’s case, the former Republican Illinois congressman wrote a March 19, 2008, letter asking Congress set aside funding to move the “Jacksonville bandstand” from one of the House office buildings to the National Museum of American History in Washington. LaHood also earmarked funds for police radio upgrades, agriculture research and equipment at a planetarium in Peoria, Ill. . . .
Congressional Scholar Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution cautions that some of these earmarks are merely extensions of existing programs. Mann noted that earmarks authored by former members of Congress may have merit. But Mann concedes that doing last year’s bill in February 2009 enables these former legislators to continue to wield power long after they’ve left office.
“It sounds bizarre that there are earmarks by members who are no longer in Congress,” Mann said. “There are historical legacies to actions taken by politicians.”
But Mann has questions for House appropriators who authored the bill and allowed the old spending requests to linger.
“Did they feel they were bound by these earmarks? Were they scrubbed by the staff?” he asked. . . .
Still, others wonder if it’s appropriate for the ghosts of former lawmakers to continue to have power.
One congressional aide who requested anonymity asked whether the lawmakers who replaced the old members would advocate the same earmarks.
“Their legislative priorities might be different. Those members were lobbied and decided to write that earmark. And now we’re going to leave it in even though (the former member) isn’t here any more?” the aide asked.
That’s a good question. Since Schock replaced LaHood in the House, one wonders if he would advocate the same earmarks. I’ll see if I can find out. One thing we do know, Schock voted for the omnibus bill in the House on February 25
CORRECTION: Schock actually voted against the omnibus bill. Steve Shearer explains:
You cite Roll Call # 85 which was on a resolution just prior to the vote on final passage of the Omnibus. Roll Call 85 was a resolution which prevented the scheduled pay raise for House members from taking effect. The resolution passed overwhelmingly. So Aaron Schock’s aye vote in Roll Call 85 was against the pay raise.
The final passage of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 was Roll Call 86, not 85. On that, (passage of the Omnibus spending bill) Aaron Schock voted NO. As opposed to Roll Call 85, Roll Call 86 was a much more divided vote between the yeas and nays.
Roll Call 85 just was a preceding resolution against implementation of the scheduled pay raise. The vote on final passage of the Omnibus Appropriations Act followed that vote.
Here’s the correct roll call for HR 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act 2009. My apologies for the error.
I heard a story on NPR the other day about the chancellor of the Washington (D.C.) public schools, Michelle Rhee. She has a plan for improving the struggling urban school district:
She has proposed a new contract for the union that would undermine tenure, the teachers union holy of holies. The carrot is money. By tapping Mayor Fenty and private philanthropists, she is hoping to make D.C. teachers the best-paid in the country. Current teachers would actually have a choice. If they are willing to go on “probation” for a year—giving up their job security—and can successfully prove their talent, they can earn more than $100,000 a year and as much as $130,000, a huge salary for a teacher, after five years. If not, they still get a generous 28 percent raise over five years and keep their tenure. (All new teachers must sign up for the first option and go on probation for four years.) Rhee predicts that about half the teachers will choose to take their chances on accountability for higher pay, and that within five years the rest will follow, giving up tenure for the shot at merit pay hikes.
Of course, the goal of this is not only to reward successful teachers, but to get rid of “incompetent teachers,” as Rhee puts it elsewhere. The teachers union says, “You can’t fire your way into a successful school system.” Rhee counters that tenure does nothing to improve student achievement and only makes it harder to terminate poor teachers, which is bad for the children. The union questions Rhee’s ability to judge who is or is not a good or competent teacher. And back and forth it goes.
Rhee has a bargaining chip: charter schools.
About a third of D.C. parents now opt to send their kids to charter schools, which are public schools—but where the teachers are non-union. The union has lost more than a thousand of its more than 5,000 teaching slots during the past decade. Rhee, it appears to many, is not interested in protecting turf. If she can open more charter schools that are better than the regular city schools, she seems willing to let the old system wither away.
In either event, if Rhee gets her way, many are saying that it will have a ripple effect through the nation, with many other urban school districts trying to follow in Rhee’s footsteps.
District 150 is starting to look into charter schools, and on an unrelated note they’re looking for creative ways to save money. For the new math and science academy, they’re even looking to partner with Bradley University; such an arrangement “could help the university develop and train better teachers, as well as provide a better educational opportunity within District 150.” No word yet on what relationship charter school teachers would have to the union.
So, should District 150 follow Rhee’s plan for improving urban schools? Or, to put it another way, should Peoria’s public schools make tenure-busting and/or union-busting part of their strategy?
From today’s Journal Star:
Museum backers hope the federal economic stimulus plan includes $4 million to construct an underground parking garage for the Downtown project.
Of course they do. Especially with Mr. LaHood as Secretary of Transportation, they probably feel pretty confident they’ll get that money, too. Nevermind the fact that we don’t need any additional parking for this project. Nevermind the fact that they haven’t raised their goal in private or public funding, indicating that there is not sufficient local support for this project. The latest spin on the project is to call it a “stimulus project,” designed to stimulate the local economy:
[Brad] McMillan said an agreement with museum representatives and Caterpillar – which wants to construct a $41 million visitors center next to the Downtown museum – said “100 percent” of jobs generated from the construction of the facility would come from “local construction” and trades.
“This could mean a lot of work during a tough economic time span,” McMillan said.
In order for the project to go forward, of course, Peoria residents would have to approve a .25% increase in the local sales tax. So, you see, a higher sales tax will be a good thing for the economy, because it will create 250 construction jobs. Let’s see, $24,000,000 in higher sales taxes, plus $4,000,000 in federal stimulus money, that’s $28 million for 250 jobs, or $112,000 per job.
So now, not only is this project an exercise in inefficient land use, it can also be poster child for inefficient use of public funds.
The first time I read the Journal Star’s breaking news article on retiring Congressman Ray LaHood being chosen by President-elect Obama for U.S. Secretary of Transportation, it was all about LaHood being a “moderate” Republican, able to reach across the aisle, yada yada yada, and his being a personal friend of Rahm Emanuel. Conspicuously absent from the article: anything on LaHood’s knowledge of or position on transportation issues.
Now the article has been changed considerably. Gone is any reference to Rahm Emanuel. Included now are quotes from Phil Hare and Glenn Poshard on what a hard worker LaHood is, and how he’s so non-partisan. The only comment about LaHood’s transportation prowess comes from Poshard, who is summarized as saying “LaHood has a comprehensive grasp of the needs of the state and need for a massive infrastructure overhaul nationwide.”
Oh really?
LaHood is getting high marks in some blogs and news reports for breaking with President Bush and voting for the Passenger Rail Investment Act and the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act. However, we here in central Illinois know that his support of rail transportation only goes so far.
In 2004, he didn’t support high-speed rail in Illinois (along the Chicago-Bloomington-St. Louis route) because he said it was too expensive and rural residents were against it. The expense? Nearly $200 million for track and equipment upgrades. Yet he then turned around and supported (nay, fought for) a $499 million project to upgrade I-74 through Peoria and East Peoria, providing us with ten times the capacity we need and literally walling off urban neighborhoods.
Then, just last year, LaHood pooh-poohed the idea of Amtrak extending service to Peoria. We should be happy with bus service to Bloomington to catch a train, he told WCBU at the time. Real progressive there, Ray. This was before the Amtrak-IDOT feasibility study was even started. He simply made up his mind that Peoria shouldn’t have passenger train service.
And LaHood, like most local leaders, tried to broker a deal between rail companies and the Peoria Park District to kill freight rail service on the Kellar Branch so it could be turned into a linear park. Short-sighted again. Less freight rail means more trucks on the roads, which means more wear and tear on our streets and highways and more greenhouse gases in the air.
According to the USDOT website, “The Office of the Secretary (OST) oversees the formulation of national transportation policy and promotes intermodal transportation.” “Intermodal” — that means “interconnectivity between various types (modes) of transportation.” LaHood’s policies in Peoria have only favored one mode — the motor vehicle. Because of that, I find him a surprising and disheartening choice for Transportation Secretary, especially when Joe Biden promised that an Obama-Biden administration would be “the most train-friendly administration ever.”
You may recall that I called Ray LaHood’s office to ask him not to vote for the pork-laden $700 billion bailout bill. He voted for it anyway, which shows just how much pull I have. Ha ha. Yesterday, I got a letter from him thanking me for the call and explaining his position. I thought you might be interested in hearing what he had to say (any typos are my fault):