MN Progressive Project - economy

Higher Taxes Have Negligible Effect

SV1000 — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:35:35 GMT

Former UK finance minister Alistair Darling stated yesterday that the punitive taxes his government assessed to executive bonuses had no effect on excessive pay.

Jan Randolph, a UK banking annalyst, added this in an interview with American Media's "Market Place",

It seems that if you want to get at the root of the problem [of excessive executive pay], you're going to have to do much more than just provide an annual tax. And all it's done is provide a little bit more revenue for the government. It hasn't fundamentally changed incentives and behavior.

This was all said with a somber disappointment regarding the effectiveness of the program in curbing executive pay. But this is great news for Mark Dayton and the democrats in the debate over tax policy in fixing our budget crises. Why? Because what this "failed experiment" in the UK is telling us is that raising taxes on the wealthy, even to as high as %50, has little or no economic impact other than to raise revenue for the government. These addition funds can then be invested in programs that DO have a significant economic impact, such as early education or deficit reduction.

I wonder if anybody in the Dayton camp will pick up on this golden trump card? Hmm, probably not.

Corporations are not people, Republican failure and teabagger majorities

The Big E — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:12:00 GMT

It's a slow, Dog Days of August Friday. Not that much newsworthy stuff happening. But there are three news tidbits that I saw today that impact Minnesota's 2010 elections.

First, the verdict is in that if the Republicans were in control, our current depression/recession would be far worse and the deficit would be larger. Second, corporations are going to spend $400,000,000 to influence the 2010 elections through their conservative front groups. Thirdly, only 29% of Americans agree with the Teabaggers.

The impact is that Republican policies don't work so the corporations are going to spend bazillions of dollars lying about Republican policies and smearing Democrats. The Dayton smear ad that hit the airwaves last night is only the tip of the iceberg.

Furthermore, appealing to their teabagger base is not good strategy for the Republicans, but they appear to be committed to it regardless. This, at least, is some good news.
The Economy & The Deficit

I'll begin with the Depression or Recession in which we currently languish. We know that Republicans only plan to create jobs is cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations. At this point, can anyone argue using facts that trickle-down economics or Reaganomics is anything but a failure?

Nothing is more important to Republican politicians these days than jobs and the deficit-at least according to Republican politicians. As House Minority Leader John Boehner put it in a "major economic address" on Tuesday, President Obama is "doing everything possible to prevent jobs from being created" while refusing to do anything at all "about bringing down the deficits that threaten our economy." Elect Republicans in November, Boehner assured his audience, and we will put an end to this insanity.
There's only one problem with Boehner's message: so far, the things that Republicans have said they want to do won't actually boost employment or reduce deficits. In fact, much the opposite. By combing through a variety of studies and projections from nonpartisan economic sources, we here at Gaggle headquarters have found that if Republicans were in charge from January 2009 onward-and if they were now given carte blanche to enact the proposals they want to-the projected 2010-2020 deficits would be larger than they are under Obama, and fewer people would probably be employed.
(Newsweek)

Corporations are people ... NOT

How much? That much? Holy **** but that's a lot of money. ThinkProgress has the details:

According to a new report from ThinkProgress, conservative organizations have committed (or already spent) $400 million to advance their conservative agenda at the ballot box this year. For comparison's sake, this outside money alone is more than the Democratic campaign committees spent combined when they took back both houses of Congress in the last midterm election. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal notes that special interest groups have already spent three times as much in 2010 than they had in 2006.
Among the outside groups that plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars electing conservatives are some familiar faces and some new ones as well. While the NRA and the Chamber of Commerce have long supported conservative causes, but the former plans to double its spending from $10 million in 2006 to $20 million now and the latter will triple its commitment to $75 million this year. Many new groups are also entering the scene in a big way, including Karl Rove's American Crossroads group with $52 million and Norm Coleman's American Action Network with $25 million.

The Teabagger Majority

Kind of like the Moral Majority back in the 80s (neither moral nor a majority), the Teabaggers claim to be a majority, but the truth lies elsewhere. So please, please, please, please, please, please keep on pandering to your base.

Ahead of a rally in Washington this weekend that some say will test the strength of the Tea Party, a new CBS News poll finds that 29 percent of Americans say they are supporters of the movement.
Fifty-four percent say they do not support the Tea Party. The survey results are similar to last month's but show more support for the Tea Party than in April of this year.
Fifty-six percent of Tea Party supporters say they are conservative. Forty-four percent are Republicans, while 43 percent are independents. Few - just 13 percent - identify themselves as Democrats.
(CBS News)

Republican economist says Boehner, GOP wrong on stimulus

Joe Bodell — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:36:27 GMT

Mark Zandi, who advised John McCain on economic issues, was asked today about Minority Leader John Boehner's criticism of the economic stimulus package and President Obama's economic team.

"I think we'd be in a measurably worse place if not for the stimulus," Zandi said at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning. "If we had not had the stimulus...we'd have fewer jobs today than we actually have."
Zandi was responding to Boehner's contention yesterday that stimulus spending "has gotten us nowhere." Asked whether he agreed with Boehner, Zandi said "no."
"Without the stimulus spending," Zandi insisted, "instead of a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, we'd have an 11.5 percent unemployment rate."

Got that? This is a Republican economic advisor, who, regardless of his politics, understands modern economics, and he's confident that the unemployment rate would be 2 points higher today were it not for the stimulus package.

That translates to literally millions of people who would be out of work and placing a greater strain on the unemployment insurance system were it not for that package of tax cuts and direct investments.

Granted, Zandi wanted the package be more tax incentives rather than direct spending, but it's possible to disagree on the particulars without disagreeing on reality: that the stimulus package saved our economy from a descent into outright Depression-with-a-capital-D.

And there's John Boehner, already measuring the drapes in the Speaker's office, criticizing the package and saying the bill has "gotten us nowhere." This is the guy who would be setting a national congressional agenda were the GOP to pick up 40+ seats this fall.

If that's not a scary enough reason for Democratic voters to turn out this fall, I don't know what is.

The Tyranny of Oil and the battle for Energy Independence:

Dan Powers — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:58:17 GMT

Our economy is in crisis because of the house of cards we built on cheap energy, cheap oil to be specific. All of the flaws in our economy were revealed when oil prices spiked at just under $100 per barrel and Gasoline prices reached more than $4 per gallon in some parts of the country. Too much of our economy is based on oil.

The effects on the country were not subtle, raising the costs of everything, putting a bigger and bigger squeeze on consumers. Given the choice between paying the rent or mortgage on time or having food and gas, most would chose food and gas. When the situation continued and consumer debt began to rise many people found they could no longer keep up the house payments and then the defaults started.

On another side increased costs of construction made new homes too expensive, which meant less houses sold. Fewer houses sold meant less work for those building these houses. More unemployment meant less goods purchased. Less goods purchased meant lower production, which meant more unemployment. This viscous cycle continued even when gas and oil prices started to come down. In the past one part of a recovery would have been the wonderful production capacity of the USA. But over the last few decades we have slowly shipped our production to other parts of the world. Reducing those jobs in the US and making the situation less stable. Adding to the instability was the ever increasing costs of Health Care. The Job market, our very economy is teetering on the edge.
Are we secure as a nation when we depend on others for our basic energy needs? How much do we spend every year to maintain our access to oil from the Middle East? Why do we continue to make a mess of our foreign policy always supporting one dictator after another just to keep the oil flowing? When can we began to make the correct move and grow up as a Nation and quit wasting time, money, lives and resources? How much of our economy is tied to oil and the problems associated with oil? How much of our environment are we going to let be destroyed either through willful neglect or accident? The Gulf disaster and many others have shown us what can happen when problems occur. More than just the cost of the oil, all of the lives affected show us we must do more. How long until the coast lines or fisheries recover? How much pollution is too much?

Oil companies, even US oil companies are not about what is best for the US. They are about what is best for the company. If they weren't they would not be in business long. Sometimes what is best for one company or industry is also what is best for the US, but not always. Those same companies should be a part of the solution and in the process they could make even larger profits but in a different way.

We have over 250 million gas consuming cars and trucks in the US. Even at a modest production rate of 10 million cars a year, double the amount of cars built in the US in 2007, it would take us 25 years to replace all of these cars. Even with the entire world production of 55million it would still take 5 years just to replace the cars currently in the US. And that is if we stop right now and just built all electric or Hybrid cars. The problem is too important to be passive and wait for the market forces to push us along. This is the type of investment and guidance that must come from the federal government.

While we can't do much about the costs of oil in Saudi Arabia we can invest in clean renewable energy here at home. Rather than just depending on oil and coal we must greatly increase our investment in solar, wind, hydrothermal, biomass, and other renewable energy sources. We must also invest in new and existing infrastructure to get these energy sources to market. All of these options and more give us the Independence we must have and the choices that will give our economy the lower cost and stability we need to grow.

To make our transition from oil, especially foreign oil, we must forget about finding one solution to solve all of our problems. Since President Nixon was in office every President has talked about reducing or eliminating our reliance on oil with little effect. Often time's one grand solution (silver bullet) was proposed, but the long term commitment and investment was missing. Too many groups trying to get money and nobody interested in solving the problem. Now we must pay for the mistakes and miss-starts of the last 40 years. Solar alone is not the answer nor is wind or nuclear. We will need to continue domestic oil production as well as a host of other energy production methods as we transition to other less polluting or zero polluting energy sources. The goal is a Clean Energy Independent future and how we get there is up to us. With stable, clean, abundant, renewable energy coming from multiple sources our economy and our Nation will be strong. But we must start now.

Watch the Republican's Depression wash across Minnesota

The Big E — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:49:00 GMT

So we all knew that 2008 was a really awful year. There was a month when a dozen of my friends lost their jobs. The company I worked for laid off a quarter of it's workforce during this period. But the collapse began long before. We all know that now.

Watch the high jobless rate wash down out of the range and encompass the state.

Government CAN Do Right

Colin Lee — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:32:35 GMT

The mantra of conservatives in America is "government cannot do anything right." Conservatives say, "government is the problem." As a result, they want to "starve the beast." However, we must remember the words of our Founding Fathers. They created a Republic because they believed, while no government is perfect and man is corruptible, government must be accountable to the people. Government must represent us. In doing so, they believed government would protect our prosperity.

If we believe as our Founders, then saying "Government cannot do anything right" means "WE cannot do anything right." Saying government is the problem means "WE are the problem." If government really cannot do anything right and government is the problem, then it is our duty as American citizens to correct these problems or our experiment in self-government will fail.

Government is faltering, but not because our Founder's idea of self-government is inherently flawed. OUR government has been hijacked. Every representative of the people is under great pressure to accept financial help from special interest groups who wish to petition our government for costly favors.
Fewer than half a dozen legislators in our entire state refuse donations from PACs, lobbyists, and corporations. The conventional wisdom is that you cannot be elected without their money and that you must accept certain compromises of your character in order to win the money and win election. Legislators love to claim that they always agreed with the positions of a lobbyist who donated to them, but they wouldn't feel pressure to conform to every whim if they didn't depend upon the donation. We have no way to tell what the legislator would have believed without the money.

Ronald Reagan once said, "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." As Reagan pointed out, the problem with politicians is that they are available for hire to a few even though they are supposed to represent everyone. The reason we see so many ethics scandals among politicians is because they are so used to crossing ethical boundaries to raise funds or solicit support.

The problem with allowing our politics to be run by corporations is that the main objective of most modern corporations is to obtain the greatest possible return on investment. This means using every means possible to make taxpayers pay corporate costs or revenues. Every dollar given to a politician by a corporation is paid back by taxpayers several times over. The problem with corporate political donations is that eventually we run out of other peoples' money.

If I can leave you with one message about how my campaign differs from my opponent's, it is this: My campaign is NOT a corporate subsidiary. Although I support many of the organizations endorsing me, depending upon their donation money would make me more accountable to them than I am to the voters. My opponent sees nothing wrong with accepting $25,000 in political contributions from PACs and lobbyists because she has been taking their money for twelve years and will do their bidding for fourteen if we give her the chance.

As Senator John Marty points out, sports team owners donate to both parties and both parties' candidates. Why? It's been proven to work.

If we take our government back, maybe we can teach that old dog new tricks. Let's take back what belongs to us. Since tax money was once ours, we must make sure it is well-spent. This redesign requires the brightest minds in our state working on solutions. We must lower out-of-control health care costs and make it easier to create profitable businesses.

It won't happen simply by electing Republicans, who have a worse spending record than Democrats. The fifteen year record for the largest increase in the size of state government was set in 2002-2003, when Republicans controlled the MN House, Governor's office, Congress, U.S. Senate, and Presidency.

We need innovative solutions, which only come to fruition when our politicians listen to constituents on both sides of the aisle to bring forward the best ideas. This won't happen as long as special interest money sets the bounds of debate. We must have free airtime and public financing of campaigns. Only then can government do right.

Pawlenty vs Facts (Hint, Pawlenty loses)

BulliedPulpit — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:10:59 GMT

The House passed a (very small) bill to give aid to states today. The bill is intended to ease the burden of Medicaid and prevent teachers from being laid off. Pawlenty's office released the following statement:

"The federal government should not deficit spend to bail out states and special interest groups. Minnesota balanced its budget without raising taxes and without relying on more federal money. The federal government's reckless spending spree must come to an end. "

Putting aside the fact that Pawlenty doesn't understand how stimulus works, the bill is completely paid for. A couple tax loopholes are closed and the stimulus extension of SNAP (food stamps) was cut. I actually disagree with how they paid for it--indeed, I disagree with bothering to pay for it at all--but those are the facts. And T-Paw's statement bears no relation to them.

Edit to add: In case anyone is curious, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that Minnesota will get $346m for Medicaid and $167m for education.

Obama Addresses Netroots Nation (and mentions DADT)

Mark My Words — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:53:10 GMT

h/t Joe.My.God

Tom Emmer's "Plan"

JoeDavis — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:22:47 GMT

Tom Emmer would really like his plan to cut wages to fade away. I mean really, really would like it to go away, but we wont let it. Not even with corporate cash coming in to try and change the subject from his record of harmful votes against working class folks will this issue go away. Why? Because even after two weeks of criticism for his plan to slash workers wages, and every spin attempt he could think of, he still said he would still sign a minimum wage cut as governor. There isn't any way around it, Tom Emmer is just not on the side of working class Minnesotans.

That's why us folks over here at Alliance for a Better Minnesota Action Fund sent a camera crew to Tom Emmer's town hall meeting last week to get the reactions of local workers on how Tom Emmer's plan to cut their wages--by as much as three to four dollars an hour-- would impact their lives. That's why we're putting this ad, "Plan",on the air starting today.

You'll notice that none of these folks look to be raking in $100,000 a year. Certainly none of these folks played a part in creating our economic troubles, so why does Tom Emmer think that our way back to prosperity includes reaching into their pockets for their wages? Because, simply put, Tom Emmer cares more about a corporate bottom line than a family's. We've had eight years of a governor who has chosen big business over working families, and it's time for a new direction.

Visit TomEmmersMN.org or EmmerTruth.MN to learn more about how dangerous Tom Emmer's plan for Minnesota would be to working people across the state. Follow us on Twitter, or find us on Facebook, and together we can make sure we start buidling a Minnesota that works for all of us again.

Tom Emmer is incoherent on wages

The Big E — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:00:00 GMT

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer has become incoherent on salaries and the minimum wage. This issue became a controversy for him last week at an event at the Eagle Street Grill in St. Paul when he claimed that servers make over $100,000 per year and should have lower wages. This statement in itself is ludicrous, but it's Emmer's history on the minimum wage and his subsequent floundering that makes him incoherent.

Because of this controversy, he's gone beyond flip-flopping. His clarifying statement confuses the situation saying he's not for lower anyone's wages while at the same time suggesting workers accept lower wages to protect their jobs. Now he wants to exempt servers tips up to $20,000.

Tom Emmer isn't a leader who has a plan. He's a back-bencher used to flinging poo and giggling at where it sticks. Now that he's under scrutiny, he's floundering.

I'll begin with the distant past ... 2005. Emmer introduced an amendment to abolish the minimum wage. This is the typically ridiculous kind of thing that fire-brand back benchers do.

Emmer repeatedly said he does not want to lower workers' wages, but (on May 2, 2005 2:15:00 into this clip ) Emmer proposed abolishing the minimum wage.
[picture removed]
Emmer withdrew the amendment after clearly stating "this would repeal the state minimum wage" sources say because Republicans told him it was not a good idea.

In 2008, Emmer clearly understood how much servers made and it wasn't $100K (h/t Flash):

In 2008, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would have raised the minimum wage to $7.75 because it didn't include the tip credit for hourly service workers. Emmer voted against that bill. In 2005, DFLers defeated a tip credit amendment.
Emmer said he supports reinstituting the credit, which he said hasn't existed in Minnesota since 1990. He quoted a 2008 Hospitality Minnesota survey of restaurant owners that said state servers make an average of $15.43 an hour in wages plus gratuities.

Emmer made it clear which side of the worker/owner divide he was on back in 2005 and in 2008. However, he hadn't jumped the shark with any statement so ludicrously and blatantly false to make him look clownish.

That moment came Tuesday of last week (7/6/2010):

^{(h/t Mike McIntee for the vid)}

The next day, Jon Tevlin of the Star Tribune confronted the owners of the Eagle Street Grill. They confessed that Emmer got it wrong or made it up:

"I don't want people thinking we have people making $100,000 a year here, because we don't," said Kasel, who had to call his 29 employees that morning to prevent a mutiny. "No way, shape or form did I [tell Emmer] anyone made $100,000."

Team Emmer were becoming concerned. On Thursday (7/8/2010) they released a clarifying statement after Tevlin's story (and every other media outlet's) hit. It didn't help. There is no apology for telling a lie or admission that he got his facts wrong. Actually, it showed how incoherent Emmer is on this issue.

As I pointed out, Emmer says two contradictory things in this statement:

After reading Republican MN-GOV candidate Tom Emmer's non-apology over his servers make $100,000 gaffe, I think he may have actually thrown more fuel on the fire. Instead of apologizing and saying he misspoke ... it happens, we're all human after all ... he tried to explain how he doesn't want to reduce anyone's wages then three paragraphs later tells workers they should accept reduced wages and be grateful they have a job.
When a reporter asked if I supported the concept of a tip credit, I answered yes. I want the wait staff at a restaurant to be successful and make as much as they can, and a recent study published in Applied Economics Letters shows that tip credits have essentially no negative impact on wages for tipped employees. So contrary to what some people are saying, I have no interest in "cutting wages."

Emmer would like everyone to believe that he's compassionate. That he's not an out-of-touch conservative who doesn't care what his slash-n-burn economic policies would do to Minnesotans.
His problem is that in the same press release, in the same non-apology explanation intended to calm the waters, he says the following:
I am a strong believer that a paycheck is better than an unemployment check. Job losses and business closings aren't good for anybody. The United Auto Workers Union learned that lesson the hard way, as our auto industry almost collapsed at least partly due to an unwillingness to negotiate wage, benefit, and work rules that would have kept the industry afloat.

Seriously? We all know what he's trying to say here. Accept lower pay and benefits to keep your minimum wage job.

I believe that Emmer does want to reduce working people's wages, but just doesn't want anyone to think that he does. That's pretty hypocritical.

To settle the matter once and for all, Team Emmer scheduled a stunt for Monday night at the Old Mexico. The restaurant is conveniently owned by a supporter and donor. Emmer's manner of settling this issue once and for all is an epic fail -- blame the media:

In a video shot by Emmer's campaign, the candidate takes orders, brings food and clears tables. It's a damage control effort by Emmer, who's blaming the media for "misreporting" something he said at a restaurant last week -- that he supports a tip credit.

Strangely, most of the media has stopped discussing Emmer's lie or gaffe of claiming servers make $100,000 or more per year. They now frame the issue in the term Emmer and the restaurant lobbyists use, tip credits. The credits are for the owners. It's a wage cut and a tip penalty for the servers.

Today, Emmer held a press conference at Old Mexico and has a new idea altogether:

Emmer's proposal would exempt the first $20,000 a server makes in tips from state taxes. He said such a move would help create jobs in the hospitality industry.
"Let's not tax their tips. Right now they're taxed on both the hourly wage they receive, plus the tips they receive," said Emmer. "Let's eliminate the tax on the tipped wages, because it's a nightmare, I think, to track anyway. More importantly -- what it does for somebody who earns $20,000 in a year, it puts another 500 bucks in their pocket."
Emmer is also proposing new tax breaks for restaurant owners.

This is not leadership. It is floundering. But please, don't stop.

Minnesota's Economy: The public good

Colin Lee — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:35:23 GMT

Unlike business, our state government exists for a different reason. Minnesota's Constitution points this out in Article I, section 1: "Government is instituted for the security, benefit, and protection of the people, in whom all political power is inherent, together with the right to alter, modify or reform government whenever required by the public good." In Minnesota, we must remember the public good. The constitutional goal of our government is to lift ALL boats, not just luxury yachts. The public good is pro-Capitalist and supportive of the small, local businesses that make Minnesota great.
Our state's success depends upon the ability of private citizens to set up profitable small businesses that last. Making those businesses successful requires substantial public investments in education, transportation, and law enforcement. Taxes are not the greatest consideration to businesses. We need look no further than Albania and other Eastern Bloc nations for examples of a right-wing tax paradise. They fail to provide adequate infrastructure for business to succeed because they did not make necessary investments. Profits from these tax shelters leave the country and fail to stimulate the economy.

Right-wingers like Tom Emmer, the Republican candidate for governor, have argued that creating jobs is very simple. Emmer used the example of a "tip penalty" against waiters and bartenders as a job-creating innovation. He said garnishing tips as part of the minimum wage would save struggling restaurant owners money and create jobs. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the state with the most waiter jobs per capita is Nevada. The state with the most bartender jobs per capita is Montana. These states are both among the seven states without Emmer's tip penalty.

BLS data:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current...
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current...

"Libertarians" love to oversimplify market forces. They love to pretend that restaurant owners hire waiters because they have an extra $3/hr left after cutting server wages, not because they think they can sell more beer and burgers if they hire another waiter. If the two states with the most tipped workers per capita are also the states required to pay those workers the highest minimum wage, then maybe Henry Ford was right.

Ford wrote in 1922 that paying workers a higher minimum wage would mean more workers could afford his automobiles and that the whole regional economy would benefit. He also was an early advocate for the forty-hour work week, arguing that this change dramatically reduced turnover in his factories and lowered costs for training and hiring new talent. Emmer wants to challenge Ford's logic, but Ford has the last laugh. Ford is the only surviving auto manufacturer from the 1920s.

According to Art Rolnick, Vice Chairman of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, Minnesota has been a very successful business, "Sometime in the early 1950s, we started to pour money into education. Today, we're one of the most educated states in the country. This is more than just a correlation. It's causality. Human capital investment in education is what helps to create strong economies." He continued, "Minnesota's unemployment right now is seven percent, well below the national average. I attribute that to having an active and highly educated workforce. Relative to the nation, we shine."

Minnesota's education investment also has paid off in lowering law enforcement costs. "You don't often make the connection between education and crime prevention, but there is a connection, and it's a big one," Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said. "Getting kids involved in early education makes a critical difference in helping them finish school and become law-abiding adults," Rice County Attorney Paul Beaumaster said. "It's considerably cheaper to pay for high-quality pre-K today than it is to pay room and board for criminal offenders down the road." In Minnesota, each inmate costs taxpayers over $37,000 per year.

Unlike most states, our robust economy has been insulated from the effects of recessions until this decade. In the Tim Pawlenty decade, the average inflation-adjusted earnings for workers within our state have dropped by nearly nine percent-- double the national average.

Are we better off from Tim Pawlenty's policies? House prices are dropping. Class sizes are growing. We aren't fixing roads. Property taxes are higher than income taxes for the first time in fifteen years, but he never cut taxes even when the Republicans were in charge. We have the capacity to change this, but it won't happen by giving away our legislature to politicians who take large donations from corporate donors.

I am running for Lakeville State Representative this Fall without any special interest donations from PACs or lobbyists, even from groups I agree with. My opponent has accepted over twenty thousand dollars over the years, including from big oil, insurance, lawyers, bankers, utilities, trucking, pawnshops, and others. If we expect to turn our state economy around, we cannot keep electing representatives who vote for taxpayer giveaways in exchange for campaign donations.

John Kline holds low wage job fair

The Big E — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:44:00 GMT

Rep. John Kline (R-MN) held a job fair today in Inver Grove Heights. Even though he sits on the House Education and Labor Committee (Labor = jobs?), he won't do or is incapable of doing anything to create jobs in his district. Instead he holds a job fair to make it look like he cares.

In today's tough economic times, many use any resources available to find jobs including job fairs. My Congressman, John Kline (R) sponsored one such fair at Inver Grove Community College this week. It had good attendance (lots of out-of-work folks) but as the guys in suits said on their way out, all the positions were lower paying entry jobs so they dressed up for nothing.
(Truth Surfer)

Too bad the jobs at his fair don't pay well.

Michele Bachmann's latest conspiracy theory: G20 Summit is to talk about a one world government

The Big E — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:07:00 GMT

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-BP) loves to fearmonger. The G20 Summit in Toronto gives her an excellent opportunity to indulge in a new conspiracy theory. She fears that they are really meeting to set up a "one world government."

In an interview on Scott Hennen's radio show today, Bachmann claimed that the purpose of the G-20 was to "bind together the world's economies." Neglecting the already interconnected nature of the global economy, Bachman declared that "President Obama is trying to bind the United States into a global economy":
BACHMANN: What really concerned me was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said that we don't want to see one country's economy doing better than another. What? This is the U.S. Treasury Secretary? We don't want to see Zimbabwe's economy do better than the United States? Aren't we supposed to be about the United States and making sure that our economy can be the greatest in the world. If you look at the G20, what they're trying to do is bind together the world's economies. Look how that played out in the European Union when they bound all of those nations economies together and one of the smallest economies, Greece, when they got into trouble, that one little nation is bringing down the entire EU. Well, President Obama is trying to bind the United States into a global economy where all of our nations come together in a global economy. I don't want the United States to be in a global economy where, where our economic future is bound to that of Zimbabwe. I can't, we can't necessarily trust the decisions that are being made financially in other countries.

"So I think clearly this is a very bad direction because when you join the economic policy of different nations, it is one short step to joining political unity and then you would have literally, a one world government," said Bachmann. "I don't want to cede United States authority to a transnational organization." Listen here:

I realize that Republicans don't actually listen to what they say and have no sense of how crazy they sound. I mean, hey, it's working for Bachmann -- her insane ramblings have made her a major player in the Republican party.

Doesn't Bachmann know that the WTO can override American laws already? Didn't Republicans whole-heartedly support the WTO and GATT?

Curious thing about the Nurses' strike

Joe Bodell — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:59:26 GMT

Something I've noticed about the great messaging coming from the Minnesota Nurses' Association leading up to and during yesterday's one-day strike: they've kept the focus on patient care and safety. This is a great move, and the nurses have executed it well.

But dig a little deeper, and what do you find? While the standard grumbling about unions and strikes from the other side is "they just want more money for less work, grumble grumble," what the nurses are saying here is "look, we need to lower the patient-to-nurse ratio. Either hire more nurses, or make us work more shifts."

Interesting, no? I thought so.

Anyway, gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton put a pithy note on Facebook about the strike:

I proudly walked with dedicated Nurses on picket lines in front of United Hospital in St. Paul and Abbott-Northwestern in Minneapolis. Allina painted a thick yellow line marking off their hospital, not on their property but on our city streets. Instead of spending money on paint and hiring Tom Horner's PR firm to "spin" for them-- they should have been settling with the Nurses and avoiding this stalemate.

Double-zing.

Tim Pawlenty Doesn't Understand Stimulus

BulliedPulpit — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:24:31 GMT

Via MinnPost, this is Tim Pawlenty's view of how stimulus works, from Meet the Press:

"So If I took a dollar from you, David - this is what government does - I'm extracting a dollar from you, in the form of taxes. I'm the government. I take it from you, subtract 20 or 30 percent for overhead, because I'm going to manage, squirrel around, do compliance checks, audits, bureaucracy and the like.

Ok, I'll give him the general "government is inefficient" crap for the sake of argument, and because it's often true, though likely not to the extent Pawlenty thinks. Moving on.

"Then I'm going to redeploy your dollar back into the economy at say 70 or 80 cents on the dollar, based on a politicized agenda or a politicized set of priorities. That's a model of decision-making that's not efficient. It's political, plus, it's not growth. So what I mean by that is: You were gonna spend your dollar anyhow. Your dollar in your pocket was gonna buy you dinner that night. Was gonna pay for your kids' college. You might've bought a car. You might've bought an iTunes, who knows? But your dollar was gonna circulate in the economy.

Suddenly, Pawlenty veers off track. This is not how stimulus works. Not that it's really T-Paw's fault, this is conservative boiler-plate. First, the notion that the government is grabbing money out of your pocket to spend inefficiently is incorrect. We are actually grabbing China's money, and spending it in America. Stimulus is deficit-spending. So the money that is being used is essentially being printed, as far as the American economy is concerned. This is money that wouldn't otherwise be in the economy. The government is not just reallocating money that's already there. It is actively putting money into the economy.

This is one reason that extending unemployment benefits is really effective stimulus. When a person goes from gainful employment to unemployment, their dollars drop out of the economy. Even with unemployment benefits, they're spending less, but they're still spending money. People on unemployment spend a high percentage of that money, because they need to eat and pay their mortgage.

What stimulus is intended to do is boost aggregate demand. The way for the economy to pick up is for demand to go up. As people spend more, businesses need to create more products, hire more workers, invest in new facilities, etc. It all hinges on boosting aggregate demand, and the way you do that is by getting people to spend more.

Pawlenty is right that the stimulus was created in a highly politicized process, but politics are inherent in everything. It's always amusing when a politician (particularly one positioning himself for a presidential run) criticizes something as "political." The Obama administration did manage to accomplish a lot of smaller priorities under the umbrella of stimulus, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. As long as those projects increase aggregate demand, they're a net positive.

What's more, Pawlenty's construction that government stimulus money is used inefficiently is only half-right. According to the CBO, several forms of stimulus act as multipliers. That is to say, the government leverages its money so that its usefulness is more than the dollar amount would normally indicate. The best forms of stimulus, according to the CBO, are direct purchases by the federal government, followed by transfer payments to state and local governments. I already wrote about why giving money to state and local governments is so crucial.

Conservatives always point to tax cuts as the most effective stimulus. The idea being that the consumers will be more able to efficiently spend the money than the government. The CBO says that's just not true. Tax cuts, particularly for the wealthy and corporations, are rated as having the least stimulative effect. Really, going by the numbers, the ARRA should have had fewer tax cuts and more direct spending, which is exactly the opposite of what every conservative has called for.

"The notion that the federal government is gonna take money from you or anybody here, bring that into government and send that back out and declare that to be economic growth is a flawed decision-making. It's what the economist call substitution or transference effects.

This sounds good in theory, but as I just explained, it's not how stimulus works.

I often grapple with the question of whether conservatives actually believe this stuff, or if it's just elaborately constructed justification for an already-decided-upon policy position, ie lower taxes. I have a dim view of the policy chops of your average politician, but some of these guys must know that they're completely misrepresenting the policies in question.