Moonhowlings

Governor McDonald has targetted 2 critical areas for huge cash infusions:  VRS and higher education.  The governor plans to pump over 2.2 Billion into the state pension plan.  He also intends to spend over $200 million over the next two years in higher education.  Both areas are quickly approaching critical mass of not being able to do what they are intended to do.

According to hamptonroads.com:

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s announcements this week that he intends to pour $2.2 billion into the state pension system and boost spending for higher education by $200 million over the next two years are remarkable in two respects.

First, each implicitly acknowledges what nearly everyone in Virginia has long known but pretended isn’t true: The state’s failure to keep up with its obligations has reached a tipping point.

That much has been clear on any number of issues, perhaps none more than on transportation, which McDonnell has begun addressing through debt and public-private partnerships that ensure costly tolls on primary routes in South Hampton Roads.

But a study released earlier this week by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission underscored the bleak future of the Virginia Retirement System and the thousands of state workers counting on it.

The report explained the pension system’s condition as a consequence of multiple factors: the state’s pattern of contributing less each year than recommended, the economic downturn, increasing numbers of retirees and fewer workers taking their place. Analysts have calculated VRS is underfunded by nearly $20 billion.

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From the Richmond Times Dispatch:

Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday unveiled a two-year, $84.9 billion spending plan that balances increases in transportation, higher education and the state’s pension system with $882 million in targeted reductions largely to Medicaid and public education funding. The proposed budget for July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2014, contains no tax increases but raises certain fees, including $10 million worth from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

If fees are increased at the DMV, doesn’t that really constitute a tax increase, by another name? 

Additionally, if items like Medicaid and public education get shortchanged, doesn’t that simply make local governments more strapped for much needed cash?  The real estate market has not rebounded all that much which is where the taxes come from in most localities.  There is also a movement under way to do away with the BPOL tax. 

Somehow politicians need to accept that we are not all that stupid.  We know that neither PWC nor Virginia can print money.  We know that a certain amount of money is needed for schools and for medicaid.  If the buck stops here, we either do without cops and other public safety services or we have 40 kids in a classroom. 

How do you cut back on Medicaid?  Where do you start?  Do you disqualify people?  I don’t know the answers.  It just seems that we are playing a shell game.  The fed cuts what it gives to the states.  The state cuts what it gives to the localities.  The localities have things they must do like provide medicaid, education money and public safety.  So we move it around. 

This is like the song, Where have all the Flowers Gone.  Gone to Flowers everyone.  McDonnell is on Fox News bragging that he has a surplus.  Not really.  How about that money owed to VRS that has not yet been repaid?  How about what is being shorted the localities?  How about the increased fees?  Just because we don’t call it a tax, is it still a tax?  Yup. 

I don’t really care.  I noticed a huge hit since the last time I renewed my license.  I expected it.  But lets call it what it is.  It’s a tax increase called a fee. 

What is Congress doing? Is it so important to destroy a presidency that they are willing to sacrifice a country? Remember the words of Mitch O’Connell when he told us that that Republicans’ top priority during the next two years would be to defeat Obama.

There is no bipartisanship in the House nor in the Senate. Obama needs to recognize that the fist has been offered and he needs to act accordingly. The debt ceiling issue that led to the United States losing its AAA bond rating and the subsequent stock market free fall should have been fair warning. Many of us will not forget.

From The Washington Post:

“It’s not that 99 percent of Americans want a revolution,” Ezra Klein wrote Tuesday. “It’s that 99 percent of Americans sense that the fundamental bargain of our economy — work hard, play by the rules, get ahead — has been broken, and they want to see it restored.”

Almost 15 days later, the submissions are appearing at a more rapid pace. At the same time, thousands of people can now protest in their home cities, as Occupy Wall Street has spread nationwide.

Voicing opposition to everything from corporate greed and bank foreclosures to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and unemployment, the Web site Occupy Together estimates there are now “Occupy” movements in 291 cities.

As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations move across America, I am becoming more and more convinced that this is a unique movement and isn’t just your usual professional demonstrator and anarchists.  Yes, some of them are there.  They have to be somewhere.  However, more and more people in that sea of folks seem to be Americans  who are just frustrated by foreclosures, joblessness, political rhetoric that misses the point, and general malaise concerning their fate in their America. 

It is in the interest of the tea parties, the GOP  and some Democrats  to dismiss these people as kooks, commies, pinkos, anarchists, and professional agitators (that’s what they used to call them back in the day).   Why?  Because Occupy Wall Street (OWS) could end up being a huge groundswell of EveryAmerican who lacks the face of any political party and who just wants to put a stop to the absurdities and obstructionism going on in this country.   Obviously the tea parties want to be the new kid on the block, but they aren’t really.  They are just another branch of very conservative Republicanism, despite protests to the contrary.  Read more…

Rep. Frank Wolf ripped into lobbyist Grover Norquist on the floor of the House today, stating that his no-taxes pledge has “paralyzed” Congress from doing what is necessary to tackle the deficit.

According to Politico.com:

“Simply put, I believe Mr. Norquist is connected with, or has profited from, a number of unsavory people and groups out of the mainstream,” Wolf said.

In an interview, Norquist dismissed Wolf’s remarks as a “hissy fit.”

“He gets in these silly attacks on me that are plagiarized from racist websites,” Norquist told POLITICO. “He’s got to know that this is garbage.”

Wolf, a 16-term congressman who sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, also accused Norquist of using his no-taxes pledge – signed by virtually every congressional Republican — as leverage to push causes that the lawmaker said “many Americans would find inappropriate.

Wolf, who has a long conservative voting record, has not signed Norquist’s pledge.

Wolf emphasized that he himself did not support tax increases – essentially the mission of Norquist’s organization, Americans for Tax Reform. But the no-taxes pledge, Wolf argued, was hamstringing Congress from being able to “realistically” pursue tax reform – which Wolf said was a critical component in taming the nation’s debt.

“Have we really reached a point where one person’s demand for ideological purity is paralyzing Congress to the point that even a discussion of tax reform is viewed as breaking a no-tax pledge?” Wolf asked.

“He gets in these silly attacks on me that are plagiarized from racist websites,” Norquist told POLITICO. “He’s got to know that this is garbage.”

Good for Frank Wolf.  He understands the meaning of compromise.   Its about time someone sent Norquist packing.

Nationaljournal.com had the following to say:

Norquist was dismissive of Wolf’s attack in an interview with National Journal. “He either doesn’t understand what the pledge is or he is not accurate in how he portrays it,” Norquist said. “He had a melt-down and a hissy fit and I hope he’ll sober up and get back to the issue of holding spending down, not raising taxes.”

No one is quite sure what set Rep. Wolf off and no other congressmen or women jumped in to back him up.

From the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is expected to seek a new base tax rate for the wealthy to ensure that millionaires pay at least at the same percentage as middle income taxpayers.

A White House official said the proposal would be included in the president’s proposal for long term deficit reduction that he will announce Monday. The official spoke anonymously because the plan has not been officially announced.

Obama is going to call it the “Buffett Rule” for Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained that rich people like him pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-class taxpayers.

Buffett wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece last month that he and his rich friends “have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.”

The measure would be in addition to $447 billion in new tax revenue that Obama is seeking to pay for his short-term spending and tax cutting plan to jump start the economy.

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday he would oppose tax increasesto reduce the deficit. Boehner has urged Congress’ deficit “supercommittee” to lay the groundwork for a broad overhaul of the U.S. tax code.

The panel has almost unlimited authority to recommend changes in federal spending and taxes and is working against a deadline of Nov. 23.

Boehner said the panel has “only one option, spending cuts and entitlement reforms,” a reference to government benefit programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

It’s about time.  Most of us are tired of hearing how everything is going to come off the packs of those receiving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in order to protect the rich.  If the rich are job producers?  Where are the jobs?  Oh, no one will create them because the economy is “skittish?”  I repeat, where are the jobs?  I suppose the ” job producers” aren’t really job producers.  They are just people who want to keep their part of the pie and let the middle class shoulder the cost. 

Any middle class person who falls for this like of bull puckey deserves to be taxed.  However, leave me out out of it.  And while we are on the subject of pet peeves, how about those entitlements?  You know–the Social Security and Medicare that you and your employer have paid in to for decades.  Entitlements my a$$!  Touch my “entitlements,” lost your job!  Is this where I say pry my SS check out of my cold dead hands?  You get the picture.   Fear the Boomers!

Warren Buffett’s op-ed click here.

Huffington Post:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP/The Huffington Post) — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says he never suggested that disaster funds for victims of Hurricane Irene should be held up by budget concerns.

The Virginia Republican told reporters after meeting constituents on Wednesday in Richmond that the House has already found sufficient savings to provide billions in dollars in disaster relief for victims of Irene, the hurricane that pummeled the East Coast this past weekend.

Cantor says it is the Democratic-led Senate that is holding up legislation that would authorize funds for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

He adds: “There are no strings attached. We found the money.”

Cantor forgets that we all heard what we heard on video.  How strange that after he gets guff from all sides about making insensitive remarks in the event of a major US natural disaster, he finds the money?  This is a fast job of back-pedaling and it is very obvious that Cantor was just trying to score some points with his conservative base. 

There are some things that just aren’t subject to  the ‘cut the spending’ mantra of Cantor’s tea party politics.    Meanwhile, where is Katia?  Hopefully Katia is blowing out to see.  Many areas in the Northeast still haven’t seen the last of the ravages of Irene. 

Was Cantor trying to tell us that Harry Reid made him make those stupid remarks?  Yea, that’s the ticket.  Harry Reid made him do it.

From Wikipedia:

The United States National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is part of the United States Department of Energy. It works to improve national security through the military application of nuclear energy. The NNSA also maintains and improves the safety, reliability, and performance of the United States nuclear weapons stockpile, including the ability to design, produce, and test, in order to meet national security requirements.

Basically these are the guys that go in to countries and obtain the most dangerous material in the world. The Peace SEALS, as it were.

The National Nuclear Security Administrations was created by Congressional action in 1999,^[2] in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee spy scandal and other allegations that lax administration by the Department of Energy had resulted in the loss of U.S. nuclear secrets to China.^[3] Originally proposed to be an independent agency, NNSA gained the reluctant support of the Clinton Administration only after it was instead chartered as a sub-agency within the Department of Energy, to be headed by an Administrator reporting to the Secretary of Energy.^[4] The first NNSA Administrator appointed was Air Force General (and CIA Deputy Directory) John A. Gordon.^[5]

NNSA has four missions with regard to National Security:

• To manage the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.
• To reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction and to promote international nuclear safety and nonproliferation.
• To provide the United States Navy with safe, militarily effective nuclear propulsion plants and to ensure the safe and reliable operation of those plants.
• To support United States leadership in science and technology

Read more…

Huffington Post:

On the Senate side, Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) will serve on the commission, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced. Reps. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) will represent House Republicans, said Speaker John Boehner.

All six Republicans have signed a pledge to Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform that they will not vote to raise taxes.

Well, why bother to even meet.  These people have sworn allegiance to Grover Norquist, whoever the hell he is.  Any tax code  change, and additonal  federal fees is raising taxes.  Increasing the Social Security ceiling is a form of ‘raising taxes.’  Making someone who currently doesn’t pay federal taxes start paying them is ‘raising taxes.’ 

I think that kind of ‘pledge’ should disqualify each and every one of those Republicans.  You cannot come in to negotiate something with that kind of caveat.  It won’t work.  They either have to commit to serving the United States or Grover Norquist. 

Senator Reid appointed Democratic Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to serve on the committee.  If any of these Democrats have pre-existing pledges under their belt, they should be disqualified also.  

From the Boston Globe:

So why is President Obama the villain in all of this?    At what point are the Republicans going to admit their culpability in extreme debt over 8 years?  Any time it is brought up, Obama is accused of trying to blame Bush.  Well…we need to stop blaming anyone.  However, facts are facts. 

Financing 2 wars and a drug program and cutting taxes caused the problem.  There was more going out than coming in.  It is a relatively simple math problem.  I liked having a tax cut.  Who wouldn’t?  But it contributed largely to our current situation, given our expenditures during the Bush years.  Let’s all just be honest where it came from and come up with solutions to fix the problem rather that racing right up to the edge of the cliff over ideology. 

The S & P also needs the American people to collectively give it the finger.  Where was that agency before the Crash of 2008?  Obviously playing switch. 

Eric Cantor (R-Va) apparently had much more of a hand in the debt ceiling debacle than we thought.  Just 10 days after the freshman class of the Congress was inaugurated, Cantor and the frosh booked it up to Baltimore Harbor for a retreat.  (retreat from what?  to days of work?)  and he told them how things were going to be.  All dewy eyed and excited about their new job, the frosh now had a way to fulfill their campaign promises. 

According to the Washington Post, it went down something like this?

A vote to increase the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit was coming soon, he told the caucus members who had gathered at the Marriott in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for a closed-door retreat less than 10 days after taking power. Think of it as a “hidden” opportunity, he implored them, a chance to achieve their goal of reining in the federal government and its spending habits.

“I’m asking you to look at a potential increase in the debt limit as a leverage moment when the White House and President Obama will have to deal with us,” said Cantor, one of several new House leaders who detailed the game plan for the coming months. “Either we stick together and demonstrate that we’re a team that will fight for and stand by our principles, or we will lose that leverage. 

With everyone, especially the  87  GOP newcomers all revving their engine, the plan was in place–the plan to take the country to the brink of potential disaster, again.  This time, that disaster resembled a default on our debt. 

Read more…

Late Sunday afternoon the leadership of  both chambers of both parties  and the president all came to an arrangement of sorts to end the stalemate over lifting the debt ceiling, thus avoiding  default.   The agreement comes just in the nick of time since August 2 was the drop dead date established by the Secretary of the Treasury. 

The economy is just too fragile to hold hostage and we aren’t out of the woods yet.  Both the House and the Senate now need to agree.  Will that happen?  It remains to be seen.  This is not the time for stubbornness.Extremist factions of both parties simply cannot hold the country hostage just to get their own way. 

What will happen?  Will the debt ceiling be lifted or will the president be forced to use section 4  of the 14th amendment that says “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” 

The devil is in the details.  Meanwhile, countries around the world see national crisis as a self-inflicted wound and suggest that the United States has already done a great deal of damage to its own reputation.  According to the New York Times:

The United States government may not be so lucky with its reputation.

Even before negotiations went down to the wire on Sunday night, the bitterness, division and dysfunction that resounded around the world in recent weeks as the United States veered toward default did more than just fuel a perception that Washington is approaching Japan-like levels of political gridlock. Among foreign leaders and in global markets, the political histrionics have eroded America’s already diminishing aura as the world’s economic haven and the sole country with the power to lead the rest of the world out of financial crisis and recession.

It has chipped away at the global authority of President Obama, who was celebrated abroad when he came to office as a man who would end an era of American unilateralism. Now the topic of discussion in other capitals is whether the Age of Obama is giving way to an Age of Austerity, one that will inevitably reduce America’s influence internationally.

Thanks a lot, folks.  But that was the grand plan anyway, wasn’t it?  Anything to damage  Obama. 

(and why we must do something immediately)

This isn’t funny, folks.  It isn’t  something that can be held at political ransom so those with a point to prove can make their point.  It costs money to run a country.  You have to bring in enough money to pay for running the country.  This is simple math. 

The ‘job producers’ (very wealthy)aren’t producing the jobs so let’s let them pay their fair share.  Revenues must be raised and spending must be sliced.   Until we can get the house in order, the debt ceiling needs to be raised.

The Senate now plans a vote at 1 pm on Sunday. 

According to The Plum Line at the Washington Post:

There are Republicans in both the House and Senate who are still pushing for another vote on the balanced budget amendment, even though “cut cap and balance,” which contains such an amendment, has already failed in the Senate. Tea Party GOP Senators such as Jim DeMint and Rand Paul are calling on colleagues to reject John Boehner’s proposal for a two-tiered debt ceiling increase, and are instead demanding another vote on “cut cap and balance.” Meanwhile, House conservatives such as Mike Pence are also urging another vote on a modified version of a balanced budget amendment.

To such conservatives, McCain offered a simple answer: You’re in fantasy-land, and you’re doing your constituents a disservice by perpetuating the falsehood that such a thing can ever happen.

“What is really amazing about this is that some members are believing that we can pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution in this body with its present representation — and that is foolish,” McCain said angrily. “That is worse than foolish. That is deceiving many of our constituents.” McCain went on to rip the idea as “bizarro.”

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