New York Governor Andrew Cuomo struck a deal with state legislative leaders to extend the so-called Millionaires' Tax and to replace New York's largely flat personal income tax structure with a more progressive structure. Coupled with the extension of the Millionaires' Tax is a tax cut for the middle class. Thus, average New Yorkers will see more money in their pockets, while the state nonetheless increases its revenue. And, remember, this comes with a divided legislature, where Democrats hold an overwhelming majority in the Assembly, but Republicans narrowly control the State Senate.
I took a break to enjoy the holiday, as I'm sure many of you did, but my inbox kept busy, and on Friday came a doozy, courtesy of the Washington Post.
You remember that little bit of a banking crisis we had a couple of years back, where banks around the world might have possibly, maybe, just a little, conspired in a giant scheme to package toxic mortgage loans into Grade A, investment-ready securities instruments, which then blew up in everyone's faces to the tune of a whole lot of taxpayer bailouts?
Well all of a sudden, it looks like an agency of the Federal Government is looking to do something about it, in a real big way.
Last Friday the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced they're suing 17 firms (I'll give you a list, bit it's pretty much all the usual suspects); depending on who you ask the Feds are seeking an amount as high as $200 billion.
As Joe Biden would say, it's a big...well, it's a big deal, anyway, and that's why we're starting the new week with this one.
I have not been talking about the insanity around the debt ceiling and debt and deficit and the efforts of Republicans to drive us all off the cliff, but I am today - and I'm going to do it by allowing you to grab ahold of this problem and see for yourself just how unbelievably bad this manufactured crisis is going to be.
You will hear a lot of conversation about the consequences from others; today, however, you are going to get the chance to be both the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, and you will get to decide for yourself exactly what bills the Federal Government should and should not pay as the cash runs out if a deal is not made by the time borrowing authority runs out.
At that point you'll be able to see what's coming for yourself - and once you do, you won't need me to tell you what ugly is going to look like.
(FNS - Washington, New Germany, April 17, 1947) America's new Führer, Adolf Hitler, announced today that his official War History would in fact acknowledge that one of the biggest contributing factors to the defeat of the Allies was the insistence of the former United States of America on sticking to its Balanced Budget Amendment, which left them unable to fund the wartime conversion of the US economy for the benefit of the Alliance.
"All those ideas Mr. Roosevelt spoke of", said Hitler, "Lend-Lease, modular shipbuilding, War Bonds, secret weapons...in the end, all of them were just words, since the Americans' Congress was never willing to allow the country to fully fund its war effort."
In America, today, there are three kinds of drivers: those who look at the other gas pumps down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much that guy's spending on gas", those who look at their own pump down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much I'm spending on gas" - and those who are doing both at the same time.
Naturally, this has brought the Sarah Palins of the world back out in public, and once again the mantra of "Drill, Baby, Drill" can be heard all the way from the Florida coast to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
But what if those folks have it exactly backwards?
What if, in a world of depleting oil resources, the last thing you want to do is use yours up?
To put it another way: why isn't all our oil part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
We are continuing a recent theme here today in which two of my favorite topics are going to converge: Social Security and in-your-face political activism.
I have been encouraging folks to take advantage of the recent Congressional recess to have a few words with your CongressCritter about the proposed Death Of Medicare and all the proposed cuts to Social Security...and you have, as we'll discuss...and now we have an opportunity to do something on a national scale, just as we did a few weeks ago in support of Social Security.
This time, we're going to concentrate on fighting the idea that retirement ages should go up before we become eligible for Social Security and Medicare (and elements of Medicaid, as well), and that Americans should just keep right on working until the age of 67 or so-which isn't going to be any big problem...really...trust us.
Now that just makes no sense, and to help make the point we have a really cool video that you can pass around to all your friends-and your enemies, for that matter, since they'll also have to worry about what happens to them if they should ever make it to old age.
News is suddenly moving so fast that it's becoming hard for me to keep up; that's why we're not finishing the story today that we just began Tuesday. You know, the one about Titan Cement suing two North Carolina residents who appear to be doing nothing more than speaking the truth.
Unfortunately, other important news has forced itself to the front of the line, and it's going to demand that we break schedule, whether we like it or not.
That's why today we're going to be talking about Wisconsin, and how workers there are fighting back against the State's Republican legislators and Governor, who seem to have gone out of their way this past three weeks to govern without the consent of the governed.
It's kind of chilly today in Wisconsin...but I can assure you, things are heating up fast-and it ain't because of spring.
There's a lot of ways to be petty and cheap and stupid, and a lot of ways to stick it to a program you don't like, and by extension, the clients of that program...and this week the House Republicans have embarked on an effort to combine the two into one petty, cheap, and stupid way to stick it to the clients of Social Security and the workers who administer the program.
They're going to sell it to you, if they can, as a way to "lower the deficit", or words similar...but what this is really about is making the actual Social Security program work less well-because, after all, if a program is popular today, the best way to make it less so is to apply a bit of "treat 'em like their cars were impounded" to every interaction customers have with the system.
And what better way to make sure that happens...then to aggressively demoralize everyone who works down at the ol' Social Security office?
So it's Day 3 of my fake campaign for Congress, and we've run into our first obstacle
The Fake Campaign, as you may recall, is fake headed for Wisconsin, to show solidarity, and we've fake hitched a ride on a delivery truck headed for Rush Limbaugh's Florida broadcasting studios-but we fake found ourselves caught up in the all-too-real Giant Grip Of Winter that has seized the Midwest over the past week.
We're back on the road now, but we were stuck for darn near a half-day there at Wall...and if you know anything about South Dakota, you know there are really only two things to do in the City of Wall: you can shuffle back and forth between Gold Diggers and the Badlands Bar, partaking of numerous intoxicating liquors along the way...or you can head on into Wall Drug (the same one that's on all those bumper stickers and signs) and partake of the finest display of Giant Jackalopia on the planet.
The Campaign, naturally, chose Jackalopia-and that's why today's Manifesto is all about the fake impromptu 5-cent-coffee-fueled Social Security Town Hall that we held in the Wall Drug Mall for several hours while we waited for I-90 to reopen.
We have spent the past two years watching as insanity has gripped Congress, and even more so with Republicans now running the House.
We have a wavering President, far too many feckless Democrats, and Republicans that have decided to dive headfirst into total "insane mode" in a full-blown effort to destroy this country just as fast as possible.
To give but one example, in my own District, WA-08, we are represented by the absolutely useless Republican Dave Reichert, whose best-known legislative achievement is that he has virtually no record of any legislative achievement whatever.
Now we've had a very interesting relationship, you and I, over these past few years; in my efforts to "bring you the story" I've been a fake political consultant, a fake lobbyist, even a fake historian...and now, I think it's time to try to bring our relationship to a new level.
And that's why, America, I'm announcing my fake candidacy for Congress.
Over the course of the past couple of weeks we've been talking about how the War On Social Security was about to get under way and what happens when countries choose to privatize their systems.
Today we take on another bite-sized chunk of economic analysis: how can you get to a situation where Social Security is financially stable for the next 75 years?
We'll describe some proposals that are out there-but the big focus of this conversation will be to look at one change that, all by itself, could not only solve the entire funding problem, but could actually allow us to lower the Social Security tax rate, immediately, and still achieve fiscal balance.
"Well, if that's such a bright idea" you might ask, "why haven't we adopted it already?"
That's a great question-and after you hear the proposal, you may well have explanations of your own.
When discussing presidential tours, Buffalo, New York is not a place that often makes the list. Maybe it's the fact that McKinley's trip to Buffalo ended up with Teddy Roosevelt getting sworn in to office, but really, that wasn't western New York's fault. Or it could be the fact that Buffalo doesn't have either the pull of powerful cities like NYC and LA, nor the heartland credibility of stopping in Missouri or Ohio.
Whatever the reason, with only one previous POTUS visit to Buffalo in the last decade, President Obama's decision to make a short stop here caused quite a bit of stir, and brought out media from all sorts of outlets this side of the Finger Lakes.
The billboard, and the YouTube video below, are part of new web-based movement created by out-of-work New Yorker, and is aimed at changing the national narrative to focus on us young people who are in a depression due to lack of work.
I've been out of work since January of last year, and this story touches me, because it is my story...the story of a lost generation.
We have learned during the course of the "War on Terror", that uneducated, under-employed, racist, disaffected men are the prime societal demographic who become terrorists.
That is why it was disturbing to read this on CNN.com today:
...a recent post on a blog encouraged people to throw bricks at local Democratic offices nationwide.
The Alabama-based blog, called "Sipsey Street Irregulars" http://sipseystreetirregulars.... a "window war" against Democrats and has kept a tally of the recent incidents of damage...
Blogger Michael B. Vanderboegh of Pinson, Alabama, told CNN Monday that in a Friday blog...he called for people to break windows at Democratic headquarters at the city and county level.
"My answer is violence, by getting their attention...if we can get across to the other side, that they are within inches of provoking a civil war in this country, then that's a good thing."
Now, I don't know the background of these so-called "3 Percenters", but my guess is they are not holding advanced degrees or celebrating America's diversity.
After surfing their Web site, I learned that they hate "Arabs" and "liberals", and blame everything wrong in their lives on everybody but themselves, tus justifying their extreme actions.
What do you get when you substitute in "Americans" and "Christians" in the above sentence? Why you get a terrorist - and that is what these groups are willing to be.
At every accomplishment of the current administration, at every improvement enacted by Congress, I still hold out hope that people will begin to realize the benefits of progressive governance, and the logic of equal social and economic opportunities for all.
The Republican party has to be reminded they share in the responsibility of governing this nation. Unfortunately, they continue, time and again to shirk that responsibility. The rhetoric used by the Republican party and their allied "tea partiers" have energized most, if not all, domestic anti-government groups (ie, domestic terrorists).
After my post the other day agreeing with Rep. Chris Lee's move on energy efficiency, I got to thinking about the parts of the energy picture, the ones nobody's talking about. Everyone likes to talk about alternative energy in vague terms like "green economy." What does it really mean for an area like ours, where the new natural resources actually are? And what actions do we need to take to make it practical for individuals, families, and small businesses to take advantage of?
Thanks to Chuck Schumer, one of our very local issues is getting some attention from entities as notable as the New York Times (registration required to read) and the NBA.
Adidas is planning to move most production of N.B.A. players' official jerseys and shorts out of the United States, managers of the main factory producing the gear said on Tuesday.
With the decision threatening 100 jobs at the factory, American Classic Outfitters in Perry, N.Y., 50 miles east of Buffalo, Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, urged Adidas not to move the jersey operation.
"It is flat wrong for Adidas to move the production of jerseys worn by N.B.A. players outside the United States when there are U.S. companies that have done this work so well and for so long," Schumer said. "And to do it in this economic climate adds insult to injury."
Schumer said he might ask the N.B.A.'s commissioner, David Stern, to intervene.
Good for Senator Schumer. Speaking as someone who lives just a few miles from Perry and has been over there many times, 100 jobs are something that could make or break a community out here. Despite the low cost to employ workers out here, far lower than in the cities, there are still very few manufacturing jobs available in the rural areas where they're badly needed. A company like Adidas, considering relocating to some sweatshop operation in China to save a few dollars, could end up pulling the plug on hundreds of real people--the workers, their spouses and children, and all the others who rely on that money coming into the town to run their own small businesses.
In these towns, every dime of outside money means the world, and 100 jobs can mean the difference between survival and slow economic starvation.
With luck Senator Schumer will lay down the law with Adidas over this travesty. When that happens, it's my hope that the Senator would be interested in coming out here and visiting the town he helped keep alive.
Senator Gillibrand held a conference call today on what's being done about the current situation that our dairy farmers find themselves in. Those of us in the rural counties (partiularly Wyoming County, with more cows than people) probably already know that there's a big problem with the dairy industry, but a brief summary and clarifiation of the problem is in order.
Milk pricing is set according to rules established by the federal government, a system set up back in the 1930s to help alleviate the effects of the Great Depression on farmers. Now, however, the system has become antiquated, and the price a farmer gets for milk is substantially lower than the average cost to produce it. Of course, that low price (roughly 97 cents a gallon) isn't being passed on to customers at the grocery store.
So there's a lot of conversation out there about car dealerships being told they won't be selling cars for Chrysler and GM any more.
The idea, we are told, is to save the auto manufacturers money by reducing the number of dealerships with whom they do business.
I don't really know that much about the car business; and I really didn't understand where these cost savings would come from, but I was able to have a conversation with the one person I do know who actually could offer some useful insight.
Follow along, Gentle Reader, and you'll get a bit of an education at a time when we all need to know a bit more about these companies we suddenly seem to own...and about the closure of thousands of local businesses that will make the news about our bad job market worse.
The first 100 days has become a milestone for executives at all levels of government. But no executive is scrutinized more after the first 100 days than the President of the United States.
How did those four items impact New York? According to a state-by-state spreadsheet that breaks down how many people benefited from the SCHIP expansion, the ARRA and the tax credits, New Yorkers were assisted in a big way.
The spreadsheet shows that due to the expansion of SCHIP, 267,000 more children are covered that weren't covered before. The expansion of SCHIP was something that the 110th Congress did pass, but President George W. Bush stood in the way (along with fellow Republicans) and prevented the expansion from taking place. Thanks to a stronger majority in both houses of Congress and President Obama, SCHIP expansion is reality.
The Making Work Pay Tax Credit provides a refundable tax credit up to $400 for individuals and $800 for married couples. The impact of this tax credit on New York was huge. Approximately 6,760,000 New Yorkers will be recipients of the Making Work Pay Tax Credit.
The American Opportunity Tax Credit is a provision that President Obama proposed on the campaign trail that helped Americans pay for post-secondary education. The provision allows for a $4,000 partially refundable tax credit to help individuals pay for attendance at a public college or university. For those attending community colleges, it would make community college virtually free. In return, the student must complete 100 hours of community service with a government unit, hospital or non-profit organization. Nearly 295,000 New Yorkers will be recipients of the American Opportunity Tax Credit (formerly known as the Hope Credit). And while the provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was only temporary, President Obama's budget called for making the provision permanent.
And has been repeated over the last few months, 215,000 jobs would be created or saved in New York through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
There are plenty of others who will look at President Obama's first 100 days from a national perspective. I chose to look at it from a New York perspective. Are we better off now than we were under President Bush? There is no doubt about it. We have made great progress over the last three months and will continue to head in the right direction under Obama's leadership. While we have a long road head, Obama has proven over the last few months that he is willing to tackle the tough challenges, not run from them. That is an admirable trait and that is why he has been nothing but successful in his first 100 days as President of the United States.
The New York State Senate held its first stimulus package town hall meeting in Queens on Thursday. Yesterday, another town hall meeting was held on Long Island to educate the public and answer questions regarding the stimulus package and its impact on their locales.
It should be noted that Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith helped host the first two town halls in Queens and Long Island. He will do the same in Rochester on March 26, according to his office.
If you are interested in attending, you can RSVP through Senate Majority Leader Smith's office by calling (212) 298-5585 or by using the form on the Federal Stimulus Package town hall forum website.
