As I wrote yesterday, the House Republicans’ health care plan would still leave 52 million without insurance. But don’t worry, there is one way you could still get healthcare:
Holy Moley, that was fast. RT Rybak send out an announcement last night:
…I want you to know that today we filed the paperwork to create the R.T. Rybak for Governor Committee.
Obviously, this isn’t a surprise. Everybody knew it was coming, and I think Rybak will make a strong candidate. All the same, my very first reaction was that he ought to have at least waited for the ink to dry on the ballots that re-elected him as mayor.
UPDATE: The timing probably has something to do with this.
Rybak’s full announcement is below the break:
Continue reading ‘Rybak files paperwork to run for Governor’
I have to agree with the DFL: If Tim Pawlenty really thinks a constitutional amendment to cap state spending is good policy, why is he only proposing it once he’s a lame duck who wouldn’t have to be bound by it? Why didn’t he make it a part of his platform 8 years ago? As Zack wrote, and as I’ve wrote about a number of Pawlenty’s other recent proposals, this is much more about Pawlenty running to the right for a presidential bid than it is about the good of our state.
My favorite part of Pawlenty’s announcement was his pronouncement that he “believe[s] it will make the budget forecasting process more stable and predictable and reliable.” If he wanted a more stable budget forecasting process, he wouldn’t have vetoed a responsible forecasting law that would have required budget forecasts to take inflation into account. Every biennium, Pawlenty pretends that our budget situation is about a billion dollars rosier than it really is — how’s that for a “stable” budget forecasting process?
The funny thing about Pawlenty’s timing with this proposal is that it comes right on the heels of an election in which voters from two different states — Washington and Maine — rejected similar proposals to cap state spending and property taxes. These so-called “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” (TABOR) laws have done a lot of damage to states that have passed them, and voters have realized that these policies are not in their best interests.
Continue reading ‘Pawlenty proposes spending cap that has been disastrous elsewhere’
This is just horrible. When we send our soldiers to war, they know that there’s a chance they could die. But not like this, shot by another soldier in the one place they should be safe — on a military base.
President Obama has promised that “We will make sure that we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident,” and there are certainly a lot of questions to be answered. According to the New York Times, the shooter was “mortified” about deploying, and even reports that he hired a lawyer to try to get out of the military. The FBI was monitoring web postings by a person of the same name that defended suicide bombers.
It’s too early to know the full story, and I’m not really interested in a lot of speculation right now. I trust Obama when he says the incident will be fully investigated, and I have a feeling it’s going to pose a couple of tough questions for our military.
I’m going to hold the rest of today’s posts until mid-afternoon. At the moment, it seems to me that political squabbling can wait a while.
I don’t often post DFL press releases to the blog, but I think the DFL’s statement on Tim Pawlenty’s ridiculous proposal for a constitutional amendment is right on. If this is such a great idea, why didn’t Pawlenty propose it 8 years ago?
I’ll have more to say on this — in my own words — in the morning.
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Pawlenty’s Proposed Parting Gift to Minnesota: Instability
Governor proposes constitutional amendment that would leave Minnesota unable to provide for its citizens
St. Paul (November 5, 2009) — The DFL Party released this statement from Chair Brian Melendez on Governor Pawlenty’s proposed changes to the Minnesota Constitution to cap the state budget at the level of revenue received during previous budget period:
Continue reading ‘DFL: Pawlenty’s partying gift to MN is instability’
Tim Pawlenty has apparently decided that his only route to victory in the 2012 Presidential election is to take a dramatic turn to the (far) right. In the last week alone, he has:
- Endorsed an independent conservative candidate over a Repubican candidate in the NY-23 special election.
- Questioned whether Sen. Olympia Snowe belongs in the Republican party (because the best thing for a tiny minority caucus to do is start expelling its members - maybe the Minnesota Senate GOP should try that).
- Proposed a constitutional amendment that would cap state spending.
What does all of this portend for the 2010 session of the Minnesota Legislature? Disfunction with a capital D. I expect Pawlenty to take extreme positions in order to pacify the right flank of the national GOP. As a result nothing will get done. I wouldn’t even be shocked if a bonding bill fails to pass (for the second time in the history of the Pawlenty Administration).
House Republicans have finally produced their own health care plan, which will be introduced as an amendment to the Democrat’s health care plan sometime this week. It’s about time. Now Americans can finally decide which party’s plan makes more sense for the future of our country.
Here’s the Congressional Budget Office’s summary of its findings on the Republican health care plan:
CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that the amendment would reduce federal deficits by $68 billion over the 2010-2019 period
…
[The bill would reduce] the number of nonelderly people without health insurance by about 3 million in 2019 and leaving about 52 million nonelderly. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019—83 percent—would be roughly in line with the current share.
…
CBO anticipates that the combination of provisions in the amendment would reduce average private health insurance premiums per enrollee in the United States, relative to what they would be under current law-by 7 percent to 10 percent in the small group market, by 5 percent to 8 percent for individually purchased insurance, and by zero to 3 percent in the large group market.
Well, it appears to meet one of the goals for health care reform; it will reduce our spending on health care per person. As far as extending insurance coverage to all Americans, well, not so much.
Let’s compare that analysis to the CBO’s analysis of the Democratic bill:
Continue reading ‘Republicans release their health care plan; it stinks’
On Monday, I wrote a post about what appears to me to be an increasingly polarized and extreme Republican party. Mitch Berg objects with his standard argument: When Democrats talk about “moderate Republicans,” they’re really just saying nobody should vote against the Democratic party line. I’ll concede that at times, I’m sure that’s what liberals do mean, including myself. But I really do think the lack of compromise across the aisle in Washington is a major problem.
I think this quote gets to the heart of the issue. Here’s Berg on whether Republican legislators should compromise with Democrats:
Um, Jeff? If the GOP has a bad year in 2010, building on our almost-negligible position today, then why is our cooperation even an issue?
I suppose it’s not an issue from the standpoint of whether the Democrats can pass bills. But it’s certainly a major issue for our policymaking process, the tone of American politics, and ultimately the quality of the policy made in Washington. The Dems can do it alone, and I think they should if they can’t get any cooperation from the GOP — but the results would be much better if lawmakers of both parties were involved.
“Stage Right” at Big Hollywood, in the midst of a post complaining about Sesame Street (really), gives us this gem:
don’t tell me, “If you don’t like it change the channel.” There are no channels left! It’s everywhere. Just last week I had Obama’s service and volunteerism promoted on every single major network, including Disney and Nickelodeon.
Wow, what a horrible commie conspiracy. The “liberal media” is encouraging “service and volunteerism.”
Didn’t this used to fall under the category of non-partisan stuff that nobody complains about? What’s next? Is Big Hollywood going to start complaining that the “state-run media” is devoting too much time to covering Michelle Obama urging kids to eat healthy?
Every election day, I’m reminded of how silly it is that we vote on Tuesdays. Why is it that election day is the “first Tuesday after the first Monday” of November?
In 1845, before Florida, California, and Texas were states or slavery had been abolished, Congress needed to pick a time for Americans to vote. We were an agrarian society. We traveled by horse and buggy. Farmers needed a day to get to the county seat, a day to vote, and a day to get back, without interfering with the three days of worship. So that left Tuesday and Wednesday, but Wednesday was market day. So, Tuesday it was. In 1875 Congress extended the Tuesday date for national House elections and in 1914 for federal Senate elections. [Why Tuesday?]
At least in Minnesota, we’re lucky to have very long voting hours, which makes it a lot easier for Minnesotans to vote even if they don’t work a 9-to-5 job. Some other states have polls that close a lot earlier, which disenfranchises a lot of people.
Nationwide, it’s past time for a new system. There are so many options, all of which would be better than our current system. We could make election day a national holiday to make it easier for people to get to the polls, allow voting for a couple of weeks before election day, or allow unrestricted absentee voting, switch to voting by mail, etc. With so many better alternatives, how long are we going to keep voting on the “first Tuesday after the first Monday”?
In the two gubernatorial races being watched nationwide, there weren’t any major surprises as Virginia and New Jersey did what they’ve done for a couple of decades now — elect a Governor of the opposite party from that in power in Washington:
Since 1989, the party holding the White House has gone on to lose both the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. The streak goes back even further in Virginia, where the party holding the White House has gone to lose the gubernatorial race since 1977. [CNN]
Nobody expected a Democratic win in Virginia after Creigh Deeds sank like a stone in polls starting a couple of months ago. A late surge in polling made it look for a moment like Democrat Jon Corzine might salvage his race in NJ after being behind for months, but it was not to be.
There was one huge upset, though, in a race that received a ton of National attention, and which says a lot about the implosion of the Republican party. Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in NY-23, a district the Democrats haven’t won in over a century. This is not a vote of confidence in the Democrats, but it is a sign of how the right’s internal bickering is going to cause major problems for them if they can’t get it under control.
Continue reading ‘Nationwide, a few GOP victories, one major upset for Dems’
There were no major surprises, and few chances to really see ranked-choice voting come into play in Minneapolis last night. Joe Bodell has the complete results at MN Progressive Project. There were a few races were 2nd-choice votes will be needed to officially put one candidate over 50 percent, but in all but one case the results are clear, with the leading candidate receiving 47 or 48 percent of the 1st-choice vote and the nearest challenger with under 40 percent. These races would all take miracles for the 2nd-place finisher on the 1st-choice votes to come from behind.
| Park Board District 5 |
1st choice | |
| Carol Kummer |
2957 | 37.9% |
| Jason Stone |
2788 | 35.7% |
| Steve Barland |
1537 | 19.7% |
| McLaine Looney |
151 | 1.9% |
| Dan W. Peterson | 368 | 4.7% |
There were two cases, though, where we’ll see ranked choice voting (i.e. Instant Runoff Voting) come into play, both involving the Park Board. In District 5, Carol Kummer and Jason Stone are nail-bitingly close. This one will be determined by 2nd-choice votes — in fact, it may even need to be decided by the 3rd-choice votes of those whose first choices were Barland and Looney.
Because Minneapolis voting machines could not be calibrated to tabulate anything other than the 1st-choice votes, the ballots will all need to be tabulated by hand, which means it will be some time before we know the winner of the Park Board race.
The other race that will take some time to shake out is the Park Board at-large race, in which none of the eight candidates for three positions received enough votes on the first ballot.
The mayoral race certainly didn’t lead to a surprise, as RT Rybak beat his nearest competitor by 63 percentage points among 1st-choice ballots.
I don’t know much about New Jersey’s election system, so I’m not going to stick my neck out defending it. However, I do remember last year when Minnesota’s election officials worked diligently to have a fair, transparent recount — and were smeared all over the pages of the Wall Street Journal editorial pages. The Journal was a major source of disinformation during the Minnesota recount, and they’re gearing up again just in case there’s a recount in New Jersey:
Plenty of reasons exist for suspecting absentee fraud may play a significant role in tomorrow’s Garden State contests. Groups associated with Acorn in neighboring Pennsylvania and New York appear to have moved into the state. An independent candidate for mayor in Camden has already leveled charges that voter fraud is occurring in his city. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party in New Jersey is taking advantage of a new loosely written vote-by-mail law to pressure county clerks not to vigorously use signature checks to evaluate the authenticity of absentee ballots, the only verification procedure allowed. [Wall Street Journal opinion section]
This time, the Journal is prepared. They have a wealth of experience from trashing Minnesota’s election system, and they’re getting out in front just in case they have an opportunity to do it again.
Do your civic duty today and vote!
I think it’s time to clear up a misconception. Republicans aren’t against taxes — they’re just against wealthy people paying taxes. They’re absolutely fine with the poor paying more; in fact, that would free up some money so we could reduce corporate income taxes and raise CEO bonuses.
That’s Republican Pat Anderson’s platform, from her official campaign announcement yesterday:
Former State Auditor Pat Anderson says she would expand the state sales tax to clothing and some services in exchange for cuts in corporate and individual income taxes.
Now, Anderson is right when she says (on her website) that our current system leaves us a huge structural deficit that must be reformed. In fact, I’m also for expanding the sales tax to clothing and services, which could raise a lot of money even while lowering tax rates, and provide a more stable revenue source. Where Anderson loses me, though, is in saying that she wants to exchange that expansion for cuts in individual income taxes.
There’s a simple reason why we have a progressive income tax — it’s the only tax that can be easily structured so that the poorest among us pay less, while those who can afford it pay a larger share. The sales tax, on the other hand, is regressive — the poorest pay a larger share of their income. Expanding the sales tax doesn’t increase regressivity much, as long as food remains exempt, particularly because tax rates could be lowered. Shifting our revenue from an income tax to a sales tax, though, would shift our tax burden squarely onto those who can least afford it, such as the poor and unemployed.
Don’t think Anderson doesn’t understand this. Her campaign website clearly advocates for “a broader flatter rate structure,” read “shifting taxes from the wealthy to the poor and middle class.”
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