Labor Unions, Teachers Unions, Policemen, firemen and Nurses unions will all pull out the stops to elect their Democrats this Nov. Why? Because these people plus all government workers have a pension and health care the average American would die for. (and probably will). When you can retire then collect a pension paying you more that you made while teaching and you have in addition a Cadillac health plan you have a pension to die for. The problem is these outrageous pensions are breaking the states. There is simply not enough revenue to maintain this extravagance. In addition to this States and municipalities across the country are one event away from bankruptcy. The result of years of piling up spending commitments no matter the revenue base.
The next stop is Washington where Barney Frank has a proposal to provide a federal guarantee for local debt. This is why I entitled this blog the way I did.
Look for this to be a priority if Democrats hold the House and Senate this year as they seek to reward public unions for saving the day with their campaign cash of over $100 million.
Putting the U.S. taxpayers on the hook for city debt would only provide local politicians with another excuse to avoid the cutbacks, furloughs and reforms necessary to balance their ledgers. Whatever its short-term pain, bankruptcy is the only disicipline that will break the addiction.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Obama Tries The Back Door If He Can't Get In The Front Door
When I was running a group of Department stores I used this pitch to help de-certify the unions. " You think by going union you will be protected from management." Let's say,"You are fired for a reason that you think is unfair and you don't have a union to protect you. The NLRB a government body is there to look after your interests and make sure you are treated fairly. Management, you and a NLRB member sit down and hear your case. The final decision is made by the NLRB. You pay no dues and your job is saved.(If the employer was wrong). Now assume you belonged to a union and the same thing happened. The meeting would be the same except one more party would be there (your union representative) the results would be the same, but, you would be paying dues.
Now, what happens if a SIEU member (Strongest most powerful union ) becomes the head of the government s National Labor Relations Board? Well, it has happened and Obama gave him this position after Senate Democrats refused to confirm him to the NLRB. Now, as a top lawyer for the SEIU Mr. Becker has suggested that the NLRB has the legal authority to impose card check-which eliminates secret ballots in union elections-without the approval of congress. And lo, at the end of August the NLRB dropped the bombshell, when, in a 3-2 decision, it decided to re-visit it's important 2007 Dana Corp. ruling.
Card check is a top labor priority because it allows a workplace to be organized if 50% of workers at the site sign a union card. Without a national law, unions have tried to persuade individual businesses to allow card check rather than secret ballots, and some have gone along.
When a workplace is organized after a secret ballot, workers are barred from a vote to "decertify" the union until after the the first negotiated contract expires. In it's Dana decision, however, the NLRB recognized that card check was an inferior substitute to secret ballots. It therefore held that when a company recognized a union via a card check, workers had the right to force an immediate secret vote on whether they really wanted to join that union.
The dana ruling is about protecting workers from union harassment. and if card check is as popular as unions claim, labor leaders should have no problem letting workers vote to ratify or reject a card check process. As NLRB member Peter Schaumber a Bush appointee, noted in his dissent to the NLRB decision to revisit the case, the dana ruling has in no way chilled the current card check process.
Since dana was decided, unions have been recognized via card check in 1,111 cases. The ruling has merely provided over site. In 54 of these cases, workers have demanded and received a vote on organization; In 15 of those elections workers voted against the union. This Dana reversal raises more questions about Mr. Beckers ethical standards. The labor lawyer has already refused to recuse himself from cases involving the SEIU, his former employer. Now, it turns out he has filed a brief for the AFL-CIO in the original dana case, arguing that there is no essential difference between card check and secret ballots and calling dana style protections "bad labor relations policy". Mr.Becker is clearly biased against dana and by any reasonable standard should not be able to rule on it.
Now that Mr. Obama went around the back door of congress to appoint his Mr. Becker it's time for Congress to investigate Mr. Becker's conflict of interest and turn the sensible dana decision into a statute that Mr. Obama's appointees can't override!
Now, what happens if a SIEU member (Strongest most powerful union ) becomes the head of the government s National Labor Relations Board? Well, it has happened and Obama gave him this position after Senate Democrats refused to confirm him to the NLRB. Now, as a top lawyer for the SEIU Mr. Becker has suggested that the NLRB has the legal authority to impose card check-which eliminates secret ballots in union elections-without the approval of congress. And lo, at the end of August the NLRB dropped the bombshell, when, in a 3-2 decision, it decided to re-visit it's important 2007 Dana Corp. ruling.
Card check is a top labor priority because it allows a workplace to be organized if 50% of workers at the site sign a union card. Without a national law, unions have tried to persuade individual businesses to allow card check rather than secret ballots, and some have gone along.
When a workplace is organized after a secret ballot, workers are barred from a vote to "decertify" the union until after the the first negotiated contract expires. In it's Dana decision, however, the NLRB recognized that card check was an inferior substitute to secret ballots. It therefore held that when a company recognized a union via a card check, workers had the right to force an immediate secret vote on whether they really wanted to join that union.
The dana ruling is about protecting workers from union harassment. and if card check is as popular as unions claim, labor leaders should have no problem letting workers vote to ratify or reject a card check process. As NLRB member Peter Schaumber a Bush appointee, noted in his dissent to the NLRB decision to revisit the case, the dana ruling has in no way chilled the current card check process.
Since dana was decided, unions have been recognized via card check in 1,111 cases. The ruling has merely provided over site. In 54 of these cases, workers have demanded and received a vote on organization; In 15 of those elections workers voted against the union. This Dana reversal raises more questions about Mr. Beckers ethical standards. The labor lawyer has already refused to recuse himself from cases involving the SEIU, his former employer. Now, it turns out he has filed a brief for the AFL-CIO in the original dana case, arguing that there is no essential difference between card check and secret ballots and calling dana style protections "bad labor relations policy". Mr.Becker is clearly biased against dana and by any reasonable standard should not be able to rule on it.
Now that Mr. Obama went around the back door of congress to appoint his Mr. Becker it's time for Congress to investigate Mr. Becker's conflict of interest and turn the sensible dana decision into a statute that Mr. Obama's appointees can't override!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Government Hit List Is Being Developed
As a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs-President Obama said "We knew that" at his press conference Friday in response to a question about rising health spending.
That wasn't how he sold the plan,but, anyway, that's a truism. Heres another: The White House was always going to blame insurance companies for any cost increases, even when it's own policies cause them.
Witness Kathleen Sibelius's Thursday letter to America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade group-a thuggish message even by her standards. The Health and Human Secretary wrote that some insurers have been attributing part of their 2011 premium increases to Obama Care and warned them that:"There would be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases."
Zero tolerance for expressing an opinion, or offering an explanation to policyholders? They're more subtle than this in Caraces.
What Ms. Sibelius really means is that the government will prohibit insurers from doing business if reality is not politically convenient for Democrats. Obama Care includes a slew of mandated benefits for next year, such as allowing children to remain on their parents plan until they are 26 and "free" preventive care (IE, no direct out-of-pocket cost sharing for consumers.) The tone of Ms. Sibelius's letter suggests that she doesn't understand that money is exchanged for goods and services, and that if Congress mandates new benefits, premiums will rise.
The Administration estimated that these regulations should increase all premiums by 1% to 2% on average. That isn't what insurers are finding in practice in the local, price sensitive individual and small business insurance markets, where coverage is typically less comprehensive to hold down costs.
For some current policies in some states, the one-year increase jumps as much as 9%,
Obama Care gives Ms. Sibelius's regulators the power to define "unreasonable" premium hikes, which will mean whatever they decide it will mean later this fall. She promised to keep a list of insurer's "with a record of unjustified rate increases" and then to bar them from Obama Care's subsidized "exchanges" when they come on line in 2014. In other words, insurers must except price controls now or face the retribution of a de facto ban on selling their products to consumers four years from now.
Democrats built this system and now they own it politically. The least they could do is to take credit for it's consequences. It seems to me that the Obama Administration is hell bent on driving all of these people out of business so he can have his single payer plan which he has always wanted.
That wasn't how he sold the plan,but, anyway, that's a truism. Heres another: The White House was always going to blame insurance companies for any cost increases, even when it's own policies cause them.
Witness Kathleen Sibelius's Thursday letter to America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade group-a thuggish message even by her standards. The Health and Human Secretary wrote that some insurers have been attributing part of their 2011 premium increases to Obama Care and warned them that:"There would be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases."
Zero tolerance for expressing an opinion, or offering an explanation to policyholders? They're more subtle than this in Caraces.
What Ms. Sibelius really means is that the government will prohibit insurers from doing business if reality is not politically convenient for Democrats. Obama Care includes a slew of mandated benefits for next year, such as allowing children to remain on their parents plan until they are 26 and "free" preventive care (IE, no direct out-of-pocket cost sharing for consumers.) The tone of Ms. Sibelius's letter suggests that she doesn't understand that money is exchanged for goods and services, and that if Congress mandates new benefits, premiums will rise.
The Administration estimated that these regulations should increase all premiums by 1% to 2% on average. That isn't what insurers are finding in practice in the local, price sensitive individual and small business insurance markets, where coverage is typically less comprehensive to hold down costs.
For some current policies in some states, the one-year increase jumps as much as 9%,
Obama Care gives Ms. Sibelius's regulators the power to define "unreasonable" premium hikes, which will mean whatever they decide it will mean later this fall. She promised to keep a list of insurer's "with a record of unjustified rate increases" and then to bar them from Obama Care's subsidized "exchanges" when they come on line in 2014. In other words, insurers must except price controls now or face the retribution of a de facto ban on selling their products to consumers four years from now.
Democrats built this system and now they own it politically. The least they could do is to take credit for it's consequences. It seems to me that the Obama Administration is hell bent on driving all of these people out of business so he can have his single payer plan which he has always wanted.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
It's Obamas Economy Now!
George Bush started the stimulus plan with $168 Billion now 19 months later enter Obama's Stimulus ll for a hefty $814 Billion which was also supposed to make up for lost private demand. It to was a combination of the one-time tax rebates and spending mostly on social programs like Medicade rather than on "Shovel ready projects." Mr. Summer's promised this would have a 1.5 multiplier effect on GDP growth, and White house economistsChristina Romer and Jared Bernstein famously predicted the spending would keep the jobless rate below 8%.
All during this time the federal Reserve was also feeding the economy with unprecedented monetary stimulus,cutting it's benchmark interest rate to near zero and expanding it's balance sheet to more than $2 Trillion by purchasing mortgage backed securities and other assets.
During this time too, Congress passed other industry specific bills-cash for clunkers, the $8000 home buyers tax credit, mortgage payment relief, and jobless benefits up to 99 weeks. Yet all of this has merely stolen auto and home purchases from the future, with sales failing again, despite historically low interests rates.
Now U.S growth has decelerated to a mere 1.6 in the second quarter and a jobless rate of 9.6 after three consecutive months of job losses. In sum, never before has government has spent so much and intervened so directly in credit allocation to spur growth, yet the results have been mediocre at best. In return for adding nearly $3 trillion in federal debt in two years , we still have 14,9 million unemployed.
Democrats have embarked on the most sweeping expansion of government since the 1960's, imposing national health care, rewriting financial laws from top to bottom, attempting to re-regulate the telecom industry, and imposing vast new costs on energy, among many other proposals, not to stop there, in January it plans to impose a huge new tax increase on the "Wealthy."which in practice means on the most profitable small businesses.
Central to Mr. Obama's political strategy for passing these priorities has been trashing business and bankers as greedy profiteers. His administration has denounced or held up as political or legal targets the Chrysler bond holders, Wall Street bonuses, Goldman Sachs, health insurer profits, carbon energy investors and anyone else who has dared to oppose any of it's plans to "transform" U.S. society. At the Labor Day event in Milwaukee, Mr Obama was at it again, declaring that "anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping that it will trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up-They just haven't studied our history. We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness."
Such rhetoric is not the way to restore business, it only spreads fear and even greater uncertainty.
As for blaming Republicans with only 41 senators they couldn't even block the $10 billion teachers union bailout. The only major Obama priorities that haven't passed are the cap and trade and the union card check. These were blocked by handful of Democrats who finally said "no mas." No administration since L.B J's in 1965 have passed so much of it's agenda in one congress- which is precisely the problem.
The Democrat's purposely used the recession as a political opening to re-distribute income, reverse the free market reforms of the Reagan era, and put government at the commanding heights of economic decision making.
Mr Obama and the Democratic Congress have succeeded in doing all of this despite the growing opposition of the American people who are now enduring the results. The only path back to robust growth and prosperity is to stop this agenda dead in it's tracks, and then by stages to reverse it. These are the economic stakes in November.
All during this time the federal Reserve was also feeding the economy with unprecedented monetary stimulus,cutting it's benchmark interest rate to near zero and expanding it's balance sheet to more than $2 Trillion by purchasing mortgage backed securities and other assets.
During this time too, Congress passed other industry specific bills-cash for clunkers, the $8000 home buyers tax credit, mortgage payment relief, and jobless benefits up to 99 weeks. Yet all of this has merely stolen auto and home purchases from the future, with sales failing again, despite historically low interests rates.
Now U.S growth has decelerated to a mere 1.6 in the second quarter and a jobless rate of 9.6 after three consecutive months of job losses. In sum, never before has government has spent so much and intervened so directly in credit allocation to spur growth, yet the results have been mediocre at best. In return for adding nearly $3 trillion in federal debt in two years , we still have 14,9 million unemployed.
Democrats have embarked on the most sweeping expansion of government since the 1960's, imposing national health care, rewriting financial laws from top to bottom, attempting to re-regulate the telecom industry, and imposing vast new costs on energy, among many other proposals, not to stop there, in January it plans to impose a huge new tax increase on the "Wealthy."which in practice means on the most profitable small businesses.
Central to Mr. Obama's political strategy for passing these priorities has been trashing business and bankers as greedy profiteers. His administration has denounced or held up as political or legal targets the Chrysler bond holders, Wall Street bonuses, Goldman Sachs, health insurer profits, carbon energy investors and anyone else who has dared to oppose any of it's plans to "transform" U.S. society. At the Labor Day event in Milwaukee, Mr Obama was at it again, declaring that "anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping that it will trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up-They just haven't studied our history. We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness."
Such rhetoric is not the way to restore business, it only spreads fear and even greater uncertainty.
As for blaming Republicans with only 41 senators they couldn't even block the $10 billion teachers union bailout. The only major Obama priorities that haven't passed are the cap and trade and the union card check. These were blocked by handful of Democrats who finally said "no mas." No administration since L.B J's in 1965 have passed so much of it's agenda in one congress- which is precisely the problem.
The Democrat's purposely used the recession as a political opening to re-distribute income, reverse the free market reforms of the Reagan era, and put government at the commanding heights of economic decision making.
Mr Obama and the Democratic Congress have succeeded in doing all of this despite the growing opposition of the American people who are now enduring the results. The only path back to robust growth and prosperity is to stop this agenda dead in it's tracks, and then by stages to reverse it. These are the economic stakes in November.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
SHAKESPEARE Had Our Same Problems 378 Years Ago
Enter Hamlet.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
and by opposing end them. To die-to sleep-
no more; and by to sleep to say we end
the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished, to die-to sleep.
To sleep-perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
that makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's* contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
the insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his *quietus make
With a* bare bodkin? Who would these* fartels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscovered country, from whose born
No traveler returns-puzzles the will,
And makes us bear those ills we have
Than to fly to others that we know not not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.-*Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! -Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
contumely: humiliation
quietus: "he is quit"
bare bodkin: dagger
fartels: bundles, burdens
soft you: hush
Notice the insolence of office? It must be something in the water! Hopefully we can refresh the water in November.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Vote To Repeal Obama Care
Facing a nationwide backlash, Democratic congressional candidates have a new message for voters: We know you don't like Obama Care, so we'll fix it.
This was the line offered by Democrat Mark Critz, who won a special election in Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district after expressing opposition to the law and promising to mend it-but not to repeal it.
For Democrats who voted for Obama Care, this tactic is an escape route, a chance to distance themselves from the president with a vague promise to fix health-care reform in the next congress. Dr. Scherz and Docs4PatientCare are enlisting thousands of doctors in an unorthodox and unprecedented action. Because the issue this election is so stark -literally life and death for millions of Americans in the years ahead-we are this week posting a "Dear Patient" letter in our waiting rooms. The letter in unambiguous language what the new law means:
Dear Patient,
Section 1311 of the new health care legislation gives the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and her appointees the power to establish health care guidelines that your doctor must abide by or face penalties and fines. In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them employees of the government and means that your doctor and you are no longer in charge of your health care decisions. This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world. Obama Care will bring major cost increases, rising insurance premiums, higher taxes, a decline in new medical techniques, a fall off of the development of miracle drugs as well as rationing by government panels and by bureaucrats.like passionate rationing advocate Donald Berwick that will force delays of months sometimes years for hospitalization or surgery. We will cite the brute facts of Obama Care's passage: Despite countless protests
by doctors and overwhelming public opposition-up to 60% of Americans opposed this bill. The current party pushed this bill through legal bribes and Chicago style threats and is determined now to resist any repeal and replace efforts. The Democratic leadership and the White House completely dismissed the will of the people in ruthlessly pushing through this legislation.
In the face of voter anger some Democratic candidates are now trying to make a cosmetic retreat, calling for for minor modifications or pretending they are opposed to government-run medicine. Once the election is over, however, they will vote with their party bosses against repealing the bill.
Missouri voters rejected Obama Care overwhelmingly in August 71% to 29% to reject the federal requirement that all individuals purchase health insurance. America's doctors have millions of personal interactions each week with patients. We have political power. We intend to use it by working to defeat those who have disrupted and gravely endangered the best health-care system in the world.
The sad story regarding this bill is that no one read the bill , even Speaker Polisi said, "Now that we've passed the bill we will find out whats in it!"
This was the line offered by Democrat Mark Critz, who won a special election in Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district after expressing opposition to the law and promising to mend it-but not to repeal it.
For Democrats who voted for Obama Care, this tactic is an escape route, a chance to distance themselves from the president with a vague promise to fix health-care reform in the next congress. Dr. Scherz and Docs4PatientCare are enlisting thousands of doctors in an unorthodox and unprecedented action. Because the issue this election is so stark -literally life and death for millions of Americans in the years ahead-we are this week posting a "Dear Patient" letter in our waiting rooms. The letter in unambiguous language what the new law means:
Dear Patient,
Section 1311 of the new health care legislation gives the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and her appointees the power to establish health care guidelines that your doctor must abide by or face penalties and fines. In making doctors answerable in the federal bureaucracy this bill effectively makes them employees of the government and means that your doctor and you are no longer in charge of your health care decisions. This new law politicizes medicine and in my opinion destroys the sanctity of the doctor patient relationship that makes the American health care system the best in the world. Obama Care will bring major cost increases, rising insurance premiums, higher taxes, a decline in new medical techniques, a fall off of the development of miracle drugs as well as rationing by government panels and by bureaucrats.like passionate rationing advocate Donald Berwick that will force delays of months sometimes years for hospitalization or surgery. We will cite the brute facts of Obama Care's passage: Despite countless protests
by doctors and overwhelming public opposition-up to 60% of Americans opposed this bill. The current party pushed this bill through legal bribes and Chicago style threats and is determined now to resist any repeal and replace efforts. The Democratic leadership and the White House completely dismissed the will of the people in ruthlessly pushing through this legislation.
In the face of voter anger some Democratic candidates are now trying to make a cosmetic retreat, calling for for minor modifications or pretending they are opposed to government-run medicine. Once the election is over, however, they will vote with their party bosses against repealing the bill.
Missouri voters rejected Obama Care overwhelmingly in August 71% to 29% to reject the federal requirement that all individuals purchase health insurance. America's doctors have millions of personal interactions each week with patients. We have political power. We intend to use it by working to defeat those who have disrupted and gravely endangered the best health-care system in the world.
The sad story regarding this bill is that no one read the bill , even Speaker Polisi said, "Now that we've passed the bill we will find out whats in it!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)