Congress goes on break after NPR ‘Fiscal Emergency’

MoonHowler

Many currently in Congress ran on promises to tackle jobs and the budget.  Instead, they have taken on NPR and Planned Parenthood.  Many experienced Republicans have been frustrated by the newcomers who don’t seem to understand Washington protocol.  Republicans have ended up blocking Republicans. 

According to Washington Post  columnist Dana Milbank:

The lack of grown-up behavior is driving Americans to despair. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 26 percent said that they were optimistic about the future when “thinking about our system of government and how well it works.” That’s less than half the level of optimism felt in 1974, during Watergate.

The Democrats are only showing themselves to be slightly more adult.  The party leaders opposed Dennis Kucinich’s bill to just dump Afghanistan at the end of the year and bring everyone home.   Many Democrats felt his plan was foolish and irresponsible and most voted against it.

Read More

NOAA cuts endanger us all

MoonHowler

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

“”Showing the recklessness of the GOP’s budget, proposed cuts would gut funding for Hawaii’s tsunami warning system,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), joining Democrats in trying to tie GOP budget cuts to threats posed by the recent Japanese earthquake.

But if you go through the GOP budget cutting bill, you won’t find any mention of cuts in tsunami warning funding, or in the National Weather Service, which has also been getting a lot of media attention about budget cuts as well.

The cuts – which right now have no chance to get through the Senate – would be in the budget of NOAA, the parent organization to both the tsunami and weather forecasting organs.

Read More

$250k isn’t rich for Bush tax cuts, but $50k is for teachers

MoonHowler

 

Huh?  Since when is $50k in this day and time adequate? 

Jon Stewart explains  tells it like it is. 

The Wisconsin fight continues and Jon points out the sheer hypocrisy of Republicans protecting those making more than $250k while at the same time howling over teachers making $50k.  That’s pretty hard to explain, unless you are Jon Stewart. 

 What part of his skit isn’t true? 

2 Week Reprieve from Government Shutdown

MoonHowler

We aren’t out of the woods yet…but the government won’t be shutting down at the end of the week.  House and Senate leaders  have bought 2 more weeks and there are $4 billion in spending cuts.  That’s a start.

A Washington Post poll released earlier in the week showed that both parties would share the blame if government services shut down.  Additionally from the Washington Post:

 Both sides also recognize that they are not on particularly strong political footing.

Republicans, who only recently returned to power in the House, understand that their mandate is fragile – and that it is not to bring the roof down.

“The American people’s priorities are clear,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. “They want to keep the government open, and they want to cut spending.”

Read More

Social Security Healthier Than We Were Led to Believe

MoonHowler

For the past 30 years I have been hearing how I will never see a penny of social security and how it will be bankrupt  long before I ever got there.  The doom and gloom has been a slow drum roll.  All the boomers thought they were paying in to a system that was giving all our money away to various groups who weren’t old people. 

Now in the Huffington Post:

Social Security, according to its annual report, is expected to pay out slightly more in benefits than it receives in payroll tax this year, for the first time since changes were made in 1983. But payroll taxes are only one source of income for the program, and with the others — including interest income on its $2.5 trillion trust fund, held in special issue U.S. Treasury securities — the program is expected to continue to run a surplus until 2024.

The program will need to start spending from its trust fund in 2025, with that fund becoming exhausted in 2037, which is consistent with last year’s estimate. But at a press conference Thursday, Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue, one of the government trustees releasing the report, begged reporters not to scare the public by exaggerating the significance of trust fund exhaustion

“That does not mean that there will be no money left,” Astrue said. At that point, even if Congress took no action, Social Security could still pay out 78 percent of expected benefits from annual revenues. “That would be a bad result, but it is a far cry from having no benefits at all,” he said.

Inaccurate reporting on the topic tends to “make young people despair about Social Security,” he said.

The program, signed into law in 1935 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has served as an economic lifeline for millions over the past 75 years. “I’m excited about the next 75 years of Social Security, and you should be too,” Astrue said.

So who has been the social security grim reaper all these years and why?  Has it been a way to control seniors?  Do we need to look to the future?  Of course.  But social security is not at critical mass and we need to stop the panic reaction.

Drastic Debt Reduction Plan

MoonHowler

The next steps are unclear for the deficit commission’s drastic debt reduction plan. Many people have simply said what has been proposed in the draft is unacceptable on many levels.

 

Perhaps a plan this draconian is a place to start discussion. Right now it seems that senior citizens and federal works are heavily targeted and that the wealthy will be impacted the least.

 

Ten Flash Points in the Fiscal Commission Chairmen’s Proposal

Palin and Gingrich Begin the Ben Bashing

MoonHowler

Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have both turned their sites onto to Federal Reserve and its leader, Ben Bernanke.  Both Palin and Gingrich have started taking their shots via Twitter.  The 2012 Wannabes are expected to follow suit.   Attacks on The Fed, before September 2008, were pretty much confined to the gold bugs, conspiracy theorists, and the financial press.

Post election 2010 much has changed.  According to the Huffington Post:

The tea party itself — judging from its 10-point “Contract From America,” at least — did not make the Fed a top concern; they were focused on spending issues.

But the tea party tide also swept in numerous libertarian hard-money types and fellow travelers, a cadre soon to grow. They hate the very idea of the Fed, not to mention Bernanke’s activism in running the place.

Hopefully Benanke will put on earplugs and blinders and do what he has to do.  The Fed is an independent agency.  Bernanke  is appointed.   He will not run for election or re-election.  And meanwhile,  Sarah Palin, the eternally ill-informed candidate who should not have run,  continues to be mean as a snake.  Maybe she will put a sock in it.  I can’t imagine anyone whose advice I would be less likely to take.   Palin witch hunts just about everything.  She Ben Bashes but offers nothing positive.  

 

Tea Party Electees Struggle to Suggest Budget Cuts

MoonHowler

The Huffington Post:

Signaling how difficult it will be for the Republican Party to live up to its campaign promises of cutting spending while preserving the Bush tax cuts and not cutting benefits for seniors, Tea Party favorites Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky.) struggled on Sunday to actually name any specific cuts they plan on making.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Christiane Amanpour repeatedly pressed Paul to move beyond “slogans and platitudes” to “direct information” on how the Republican Party will balance the budget and cut the deficit.

Paul immediately reiterated that he was going to push for a balanced budget amendment and said that cuts needed to come from across the board — including defense spending. Whenever Amanpour asked whether a specific program — such as Medicare, Social Security and health care — would be cut, Paul simply kept reiterating that he was going to be looking “across the board.” He was unable, however, to actually name anything significant that would be on the chopping block.

It’s easy to criticize when someone else has the ball.  Now the ball is in DeMint’s and Paul’s court, it isn’t quite as easy to do the slice and dice thing on the budget.  Those who criticized the loudest will continue to be questioned, every single day.  The clock started Wednesday, November 3.  We expect great results.  Surely those with the best sound bites can come up with a cut or two.  So far all I have seen is BS and blather.  It seems we have evolved some since 1789.

AMANPOUR: One significant one. No, but you can’t just keep saying all across the board.

PAUL: Well, no, I can, because I’m going to look at every program, every program. But I would freeze federal hiring. I would maybe reduce federal employees by 10 percent. I’d probably reduce their wages by 10 percent. The average federal employee makes $120,000 a year. The average private employee makes $60,000 a year. Let’s get them more in line, and let’s find savings. Let’s hire no new federal workers.

 

Where is he getting these figures from?  How do we not hire more federal workers?  Someone today said to cut FBI agents.  Get serious. 

Virginia Budget Faux Surplus

MoonHowler

From The Washington Examiner  7/19/10:

 

Virginia’s government is in surplus, and the McDonnell administration couldn’t be happier. So, too, are state workers, who were promised a three percent bonus if the state finished its fiscal year in the black.

But is Virginia’s surplus really all it’s cracked up to be? Republican Delegate Bob Marshall put it this way:

To say Virginia ended the fiscal year with a surplus when we decided not to pay all the bills i.e. VRS (I did not vote for the final version of the budget because taxes and fees were added which did not pass both chambers or which were rejected), is to be caught speeding with literary license.

Needless to say, Marshall’s pith doesn’t fit the narrative being peddled by McDonnell and others, who very much want the world (and credulous talk show hosts) to believe the books were balanced and a surplus generated without gimmicks or tax hikes.

Here’s McDonnell pitching his story to Sean Hannity. No taxes raised? A model for Washington politicians to follow? Sorry, Sean. They already do.

Marshall’s point about the VRS – Virginia’s state employee retirement system – is an important one. To help make the budget numbers work, the General Assembly declined to make a $620 million payment into the VRS. They say they will, at some future date, and with interest. But that’s playing with fire.  A review of state pension plans from the American Enterprise Institute put Virginia’s unfunded liabilities at nearly $53 billion – 17 percent of state GDP.

Read More

The Gun Conundrum

MoonHowler


Buying a gun is taking longer and longer these days, here in the Old Dominion.  What’s the hold up?  It seems that gun sales are up in Virginia.  However, there are fewer state and federal employees to do that background checks.  According to the Richmond Times Dispatch:

The Virginia State Police, the agency that administers the checks, acknowledges that there has been an increase in processing time.

Officials say it is tied to increased demand for firearms at the same time that budget and funding constraints have reduced the number of staffers available to handle the transactions.

Spokeswoman Corinne Geller said that since May 2009, the agency has lost 11 people from its 28-person staff at the Virginia Firearms Transaction Center, including two federally funded full-time workers who used to attend gun shows and conduct the computerized checks on-site.

She said the delays during peak periods can take four to six hours, with a few that require research into out-of-state records taking overnight.

So how many of the people who are grousing and grumbling were also those same people who advocated for smaller government and to cut back state spending? 

Apparently some people find the state of the state unacceptable:

“This is not acceptable,” said Philip Van Cleave, president of the pro-gun nonprofit group, Virginia Citizens Defense League.

 

Van Cleave had more to say:

Van Cleave said the delays are costing dealers money and keeping firearms out of the hands of people who need them.

“It is a safety issue,” Van Cleave said. “A person experiencing a death threat and who is denied a lawful gun purchase overnight would be left helpless at the hands of an assailant.”

He said he has received reports of dealers at gun shows losing up to half their business because purchasers’ background checks have not been completed by the time the show closes.

“We cannot afford to have our dealers weakened by artificially sagging sales and purchasers unreasonably inconvenienced,” he added.

Everyone seems to think their issue is more important than someone else’s. We need more cops, more library staff, more teachers, more magistrates, judges, clerical workers in the Bureau of Vital Statistics, more DMV employees. Too many people are hollering less government but are not willing to make the sacrifices needed. Cutting spending involves us all. Government waste is never in the area of our favorite thing to do. It is always in someone else’s camp.

I would prefer to pay more taxes and have restrooms and shorter lines. Throw in a sunset clause to 2 to get us over the hurdle. When those screaming less taxes and less government wake up to the realization that goods and services cost money and that government employees aren’t the ugly step children of private industry, then perhaps we can stop looking like an underpaid third world nation.

Meanwhile, the gun buyers will just have to suck it up and wait in line longer like everyone else is having to do. I hope they will be right out there leading the charge to raise taxes to pay for the goods and services we need to operate as a state. Should I be holding my breath?

VA Government: Steal and Spend Economy

MoonHowler
Virginia Legislature
Virginia Legislature

 

 

First they raided the state employee and teacher pension fund to the tune of $630 million dollars. Now it seems they will finish the job off by robbing the jurisdictions. State lawmakers call this the new ‘hand in the cookie jar’ technique of acquiring money  the ‘reversion program.’  The ‘reversion program is being used to help compensate for the budget shortfall.

To come up with the money, the localities are giving the choice of writing a check or cutting services in  programs they receive state funding for. The plan was originally instituted in FY 2009. According to the Washington Examiner:

The “reversion” program — as state lawmakers call it — originally was excluded from the coming year’s budget, but lawmakers decided to incorporate and expand the policy. As a result, counties and cities will have to return $60 million to the state during each of the next two years.

Read More

No Jail Time Would Save Commonwealth $$$

MoonHowler

convict-looking-out_~LJU_109

 

 

Any time a person  can serve jail time because of charges, the person is advised to get an attorney.  If they cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for them.  According to and article in the Virginia-Pilot:

No jail time. No attorneys. No need for the state to spend its scarce dollars.

At least, that was the thinking of some Virginia prosecutors who proposed a novel way to save money: They won’t seek jail time for misdemeanor charges and the judge won’t have to appoint a state-paid attorney to represent indigent defendants.

Supporters of HB1394 suggest that it will save Virginia several million dollars, although how much is unclear.

“I haven’t seen anything like this,” said Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Harvey Bryant, a supporter of the measure. “The funding situation is so serious that we’ll look for cases where we’ll say, ‘We’re not seeking jail time.’ ”

Commonwealth’s attorneys floated this idea as a way to prevent deeper cuts into their budgets and staff. Instead of laying off prosecutors, the state would pay less for court-appointed attorneys.

So is this a good way to save the Commonwealth of Virginia millions? Should we skip the jail time for drug users, drunk drivers and wife beaters and just fine them out the ying yang?

Further support of the bill is explained:

A supporter of the bill, Springfield Republican Del. David Albo, said that in many cases, people convicted of misdemeanors, such as first-offense marijuana possession or simple assault, aren’t sentenced to jail anyway. Prosecutors already have the authority to waive jail – this bill makes sure they do so when possible, he said.

Not everyone is on board with this bill, including the governor who also felt there could be unintended consequences for those who relied on court appointed lawyers to prove their innocence.

Lowlights of the Governor’s Budget Recommendations

MoonHowler

The Governor’s budget recommendations were released today.  According to Governor McDonnell:

“All the cuts give me heartburn,” McDonnell said at a news conference. “All of them were difficult because I know that behind every cut there is a Virginian . . . that might be affected.”

Some of the lowlights from the governor’s cuts are as follows:

  • $730 million in reductions to k-12 education
  • Up to 10 unpaid furlough days for state workers
  • Freezing enrollment in a health insurance program for low income children and pregnant women
  • Increased employment contribution to the state pension program.
  • Eliminate funding for the state school breakfast program for low income children.

Some of the highlights include 

On the other side of the employees’ proposed unpaid days off, McDonnell wants to give them a 3 percent Christmas bonus in December 2011.

He also wants to eliminate former Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s proposal under which state employees would be required to contribute 1 percent of their salaries to their retirement plans in fiscal 2011 and 2 percent in fiscal 2012.

Details haven’t been worked out and there are definitely other programs on the chopping block.  The General Assembly now has to get down to business. According to House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem in the Richmond Times Dispatch:

McDonnell’s recommendations were welcome.
 
“We all are going to have a lot of tough decisions,” Griffith said. “Ours may not be the same tough decisions the governor makes, but we’re all trying to get to the best budget we can get with the money we have and all ideas are.”
 

Griffith also agreed with the governor about unfreezing the LCI formula. according to the Roanoke Times.

House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, defended McDonnell’s decision to lift a proposed freeze on adjusting the state’s local composite index school funding formula. The composite index measures a locality’s ability to pay for its public schools, and Kaine had proposed delaying an adjustment to the formula in his December budget. Lifting the freeze will steer more money to Northern Virginia at the expense of other localities, but Griffith said the governor is right to propose the change.

“If we start saying when it benefits another region of the state that we don’t like it, then in a couple of years they may do away with it and we’ll be getting the short end of the stick,” Griffith said. “It’s helped us for 30 years. It hurts us this year. But I suspect it will help us for 30 years in the future, and messing with it and playing games with it in a single year is foolish.”

Much will unfold over the next week or so as far as budget cuts.  Most of us will be unhappy over something.  People will attempt to defend their own turfs.  In most cases it won’t always be possible.  However, these are tough times and we knew it was coming.  Feel free to add to the list in this thread as we find out more proposals by the governor or the General Assembly.

Virginia’s immaculate reductions

MoonHowler

Editorial posted in its entirety 2/17/10:

Editorial from the Washington Post:

EVEN BEFORE Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell took office a month ago, he made clear that he would force cuts of almost $2 billion from the state’s two-year, $30 billion operating budget. That’s on top of $2 billion-plus in cuts already proposed in the spending plan submitted by his predecessor, Timothy M. Kaine, shortly before he left office — to say nothing of the billions more Mr. Kaine had already lopped from the budget. Mr. McDonnell, who ran for election on a platform opposing higher taxes, was within his rights; having preached the Republican gospel of smaller government as a candidate, he has something close to carte blanche to cut the budget.

But with crunch time approaching, Virginians have heard next to nothing from the governor about how to shrink an already badly depleted budget. And having dodged tough questions in last fall’s campaign about how to spare public education and core services, Mr. McDonnell is now attempting to outsource the political pain to the state legislature.

Past Virginia governors, faced with having to make cuts, proposed budget amendments and took the political responsibility. By contrast, Mr. McDonnell, after weeks of consultations with top lawmakers in Richmond, has made only private recommendations to make heavy cuts that would involve closing schools across the state, firing state employees and slashing health and social service programs.

The governor’s approach has left even Republican lawmakers seething. “I just wish he’d be clear with us and with the public right now and send down amendments that say exactly what he wants us to do,” an unnamed veteran GOP lawmaker told the Associated Press. “That’s how you lead.”

So far, Mr. McDonnell has proposed more government spending than reductions. He wants to pump up programs geared toward job creation, which is fine with us, and charge the state $29 million in the course of shifting more education funds to Northern Virginia from downstate: also fine. No doubt, it’s more pleasant to tell taxpayers how their dollars will benefit the commonwealth than to let them in on the news that services and schools will be gutted.

We’d ask the same question about his much-vaunted transportation plan. The governor said he would raise hundreds of millions of dollars to build roads by selling off state-run liquor stores. But at his urging, a bill in the legislature to do just that was killed last week. The probable reason? Profits from such liquor stores go directly into the state’s coffers, to the tune of about $100 million a year. Mr. McDonnell, having promised to tackle Virginia’s transportation funding crisis in his first year in office, still has time. What Virginians have yet to see are viable ideas that will yield cash for a transportation budget whose construction funds are just about gone.

The governor has taken the reins at a difficult juncture. He faces agonizing decisions. To his credit, he has appointed moderate, pragmatically oriented cabinet secretaries to help make those calls. There is no reason to expect the deliberations on budget-cutting or transportation to be quick and easy. But having ruled out new taxes to preserve schools and services, we wish he would level with Virginians about the pain, and shortfalls, to come — and take some responsibility for them.

If Republicans legislators are irriated, what about the Democrats and the rest of us. When is McDonnell going to shed some sunshine on what type of budget cuts he is going to make. Maybe he will find that it isn’t as easy from the Governor’s Mansion as it was from the campaign trail. Why is he not forthcoming with budget information? These are issues Virginians need to know and talk about.

The Post is to be commended on its catchy editorial title.

UPDATE: The Governor has released his budget.  You may view it in the Roanoke Times.  Click the blue.

Governor’s Office

County Schools Could Lose 700 jobs

MoonHowler

Dr. Steven Walts has proposed massive cuts in the School Board budget to make up a shortfall of nearly $80 million dollars.  Projects and building will also be delayed as will certain school bus routes.  After school programs will also see the budget hatchet.  700 jobs could also be cut. 

According to the Manassas News and Messenger, additional cuts considered are:

Walts is also proposing increasing parking fees for high school students, charging athletic participation fees at the middle and high school level and reducing Central office budgets by 10 percent. The elimination of bus routes means that all students being bussed to specialty schools out of their district would be eliminated. However, bus routes for Thomas Jefferson School for Science & Technology and both Pennington and Porter Traditional Schools would remain.
The net effect of the bus issue, according to budget presenter David Cline, would be to transition those 32 buses to handle the surge in the regular student population, which is expected to reach more than 78,000 students by next fall.

 

The budget cuts are going to run deep.   Bus services for specialty programs will be cut.  Parents would have to provide transportation.  Parking fees will increase.  Central office will get a 10% cut.  Class sizes will increase.  Retirement will be encouraged.

Finally the N & M has hinted at the freeze on re-calculating  the Local Composite Index issue  submitted  by former Governor Kaine and apparently getting ready to get the nod by current Governor McDonnell.  They have taken no position to day on NoVA schools being short-changed by millions.  The county and both cities stand to lose millions of state dollars because the formula is not being re-calculated  as it should be. 

The budget takes into account an expected $20 million shortfall due to the proposed freezing of the composite index by former governor Tim Kaine. The index is a formula that determines the ability of localities to pay for education, and grants state funding based on that determination.
Prince William’s index dropped more than 4 percentage points, thanks in part to a huge decrease in property values and consequently, potentially less money for both the county and the schools. Approximately 57 percent of the general fund revenue from the county goes to the schools.

People who value education should be swamping the governor’s office with letters, calls and emails advising him to recalculate the formula to ensure the Northern Virginia schools do not get shortchanged as they surely will if things remain the same. 

The Washington Post makes no bones about the LCI causing a quarter of the problem:

Officials attributed a quarter of the school system’s projected $80 million shortfall to a proposed freeze in the adjustment of a state funding formula that is intended to compensate school systems for enrollment growth and declining tax revenue. School Board members urged parents to contact their elected officials.

“The entire General Assembly needs to hear that this is not fair,” said board member Don Richardson (Gainesville).

In an unrelated topic, the PWC School Board has appointed Lisa Bell to serve as the Neabsco School Board member until a special election is held November, 2010.