Tax Day! Or as the Administration calls it... "Whoops"
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Blakeman: The Foundation of Our Great Nation
The Administration like the Democratic Leadership in Congress are drunk with power and in a rush to either reverse past administration policy or make their own as fast as they can. They are acting as if they only have 100 days in office rather than 4 years. With regard to Cuba, the President and the State Department obviously gave their blessing to members of the Congressional Black Caucus to visit Cuba last week and meet with the dictator brothers Castro. The Castros put on a show, and the Members of Congress were bit players. They were taken in by Fidel and Raul and their propaganda, as was the President. We should not be rewarding Cuba with unilateral concessions. They have retarded generations of their own people with their brutal regime and they are no friend of the United States. The President’s policy of apology and concession will not work in Europe, the Middle East or in our own Hemisphere.
My advice to the President with regard to the Summit of the Americas is this, democracy and free trade is what made us the greatest Nation on earth and it is those same principles that will make the Americas prosper as well. We need the Columbia Free Trade Agreement. We need to promote democracy and make the people of the Americas feel that they are just as important to us as is Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
My advice to the President with regard to the Summit of the Americas is this, democracy and free trade is what made us the greatest Nation on earth and it is those same principles that will make the Americas prosper as well. We need the Columbia Free Trade Agreement. We need to promote democracy and make the people of the Americas feel that they are just as important to us as is Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Bradley Blakeman Op-Ed: Self Defense on the High Seas
With regard to African Pirates - A bad story that has one chapter that ends well is still a bad story. Thank God the Captain of our U.S. Merchant Ship was rescued. Now that the World's attention has been shone on African Pirating, maybe the international community will finally act to stop it once and for all. It is unacceptable for rag tag criminals to rule the seas with impunity. Isn’t it about time that the United Nations did what they were chartered to do? Shouldn’t they be the ones to rally the World to stop this scourge? Commercial ships must be allowed to defend themselves. Ships should be allowed to travel with trained armed onboard security. The rules of engagement must me retooled to allow a ship's crew to deal with threats themselves if they can. This law enforcement operation by the U.S. Navy was avoidable. The millions of dollars this cost the U.S. Tax Payer should not have been necessary. This is not nor should it be a U.S. Problem alone to solve.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
South Park Speaks the Truth About “The Economy”
As I watched the spot-on parody of all-things “economy” and “bailout” on a recent South Park episode (see preview scenes and/or the whole episode here: http://www.southparkstudios.com/), I found myself thinking: Rush Limbaugh was right. Obama’s failures might be what the country really needs to see the foolishness of big government.
But a brilliant and funny cartoon television show has actually helped me see an angle on Rush’s inflammatory statement that makes sense. You see, I think we need to be starkly reminded of how clumsy, oafish and insulting big government can be before we can reject it in the next election cycle.
For those who haven’t seen the episode, “Margaritaville,” it is a comedic exploration of just how darned ridiculous Washington, D.C.’s handling of “The Economy” looks right now. One plot line portrays the development of a religious cult whose leader speaks of “The Economy” as if it were a deity whom we have deeply offended and are now suffering its vengeance. Meanwhile, another plot has us following one character (Stan) as he tries to return his father’s “Margaritaville” margarita-mixing machine for cash – an effort which takes him from mall store “Sur la Table,” all the way to the Treasury Department in Washington. Once inside the grand government building, Stan discovers that bailout decisions are, in fact, being made by cutting off a chicken’s head and waiting for the headless bird to run around and collapse on a giant game board that says things like “Socialize it,” “Bailout,” or “Try again.”
Watching the headless-chicken-bingo scene at the fictional Treasury Department was the moment where I thought, my goodness, this illustrates the very real, growing perception of how these huge decisions are being made. Tim Geithner might be the chicken. He even kind of looks like a chicken.
As is the style of all South Park episodes, the ultimate wisdom comes from the mouths of babes when one of the kids, Kyle, explains to his friends that the economy is not a deity, it’s not even a singular thing; it is, instead, an aggregate of all of us, all of our work, all of our spending, all of our businesses and investments.
Which is, well, correct.
This blinding glimpse of the obvious makes the worshippers of “The Economy” look ridiculous, kind of like the Wall-Street-worshipping turds and nerds we see on cable news who babble on about “the economy” without ever recognizing its complexity. Kyle’s simple truth also makes the fictional chicken-bingo game look like a rather accurate representation of the decision-making process in Washington of late.
The collective wisdom of the American people – let’s call it common sense – is simply bound to eventually conclude that relying on a select few mortals in Washington is a really foolish way of saving the economy. We are bound to grow tired of their silly games and turn back to what we know works: our own hard work, our own persistence (not the president’s), and our own innovation. We’re bound to take more of an interest in the things we can control ourselves – our own family’s budget, the budget of our small business if we own one – and turn away from the circus act that’s going on under the big top in Washington.
The more that Obama, Reid and Pelosi tread with heavy, expensive steps on American wallets and independence, the more we’ll miss the successful feeling of handling things on our own. We’re an independent lot, after all.
So Rush may have been right. Obama’s failures might just be the thing that re-ignites the spark of independence – the spark that we clearly need to once again make the city on the hill that is America shine on its own once again.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Cartoon of the Day
Not what the kids thought was going to happen when the "Easter Bunny" visited...
Talk about a happy meal...
Republican Dream
Submitted by ASO member: Raynard Jackson
Some people say dreams are for those that sleep; but dreamers have the ability to build worlds others cannot see.
Republicans constantly talk about the “American dream,” but never define what that dream is and how their policies can help that dream become a reality. They constantly use the mantras of: less government, more individual freedom, lower taxes, etc.
The Obama administration and the current financial crises present a great opportunity for Republicans to define the dream to the nation.
But first, Republicans must define who they are. If they don’t know who they are, how can the American people?
Some Republicans describe the party as conservative. But even among conservatives there is no agreement as to what this means. Therein is the problem facing the Republican Party: who are they and why are they here?
If they are a conservative party, what are they trying to conserve? The Democrats have done an excellent job of defining conservatives and conservatism because the Republicans are too busy fighting each other.
If the Republicans are a conservative party, then they are saying that moderates and independents have no place in their worldview. A moderate or independent may be pro-choice or pro-affirmative action, but agree with the party on small government, lower taxes, and a strong defense.
But, Republicans spend all their time focusing on their disagreements on issues like abortion, race, religion, etc!
Before Republicans can talk to America, they must first talk to each other. If they can’t agree on what they stand for amongst themselves, how can they persuade the American people on who they are?
There will never be agreement within the party on abortion, race or religion; neither will there be agreement within the country.
As a whole, I think most Americans agree with the Republican’s position of workers keeping more of the money they earn. Republicans have allowed the Democrats to turn this into a class issue. Republicans will lose this argument every time. The party needs to focus tax cuts more on those making half a million dollars and less. They also must talk more to single taxpayers with no kids. This is an often ignored, but growing demographic.
The American people are with Republicans when it comes to having a smaller, more efficient government. But when Republicans speak, the American people hear “no government.” Thus, Republicans are blamed for the current financial mess.
Republicans have a great opportunity to show the country what is the legitimate role for the government relative to oversight of the financial markets. Up to now, their has been no leadership on this issue.
Americans are willing to be persuaded, but Republicans must present real solutions to real problems. If Republicans truly believe in their principles, when will they take them to the market place of ideas?
Will the party leadership place a pro-choice Republican who is experienced in all things financial as the point to lead the party’s response to the financial crisis? Will the party’s leadership place an anti “don’t ask, don’t tell” general as the point on all things military?
Will the Republican Party place a pro-affirmative action, pro-minority set aside Black businessman as the point on small business issues? I think you get my point.
Americans are willing to listen, provided Republicans have something to say. But, they can no longer scare Americans into voting Republican based on what people are against. If they are the party of less government, then they must stay away from issues like Elian Gonzalez and Terri Schiavo.
What is the Republican vision for preventing the financial crises from happening again? What is their response to the North Korea missile test? What is the Republican response to the seemingly endless shooting and harassment of innocent Blacks by rogue policemen (N.F.L. player Ryan Moats or Oscar Grant, who was shot in the back of the head in San Francisco by a policeman while lying on his stomach unarmed)? What is the Republican response to the one foot policy that allows “only” Cubans who touch U.S. soil to stay in the country, but send Haitians immediately back to Haiti?
If Republicans share their vision with the American people, maybe then they will have a reason to wake up!
Some people say dreams are for those that sleep; but dreamers have the ability to build worlds others cannot see.
Republicans constantly talk about the “American dream,” but never define what that dream is and how their policies can help that dream become a reality. They constantly use the mantras of: less government, more individual freedom, lower taxes, etc.
The Obama administration and the current financial crises present a great opportunity for Republicans to define the dream to the nation.
But first, Republicans must define who they are. If they don’t know who they are, how can the American people?
Some Republicans describe the party as conservative. But even among conservatives there is no agreement as to what this means. Therein is the problem facing the Republican Party: who are they and why are they here?
If they are a conservative party, what are they trying to conserve? The Democrats have done an excellent job of defining conservatives and conservatism because the Republicans are too busy fighting each other.
If the Republicans are a conservative party, then they are saying that moderates and independents have no place in their worldview. A moderate or independent may be pro-choice or pro-affirmative action, but agree with the party on small government, lower taxes, and a strong defense.
But, Republicans spend all their time focusing on their disagreements on issues like abortion, race, religion, etc!
Before Republicans can talk to America, they must first talk to each other. If they can’t agree on what they stand for amongst themselves, how can they persuade the American people on who they are?
There will never be agreement within the party on abortion, race or religion; neither will there be agreement within the country.
As a whole, I think most Americans agree with the Republican’s position of workers keeping more of the money they earn. Republicans have allowed the Democrats to turn this into a class issue. Republicans will lose this argument every time. The party needs to focus tax cuts more on those making half a million dollars and less. They also must talk more to single taxpayers with no kids. This is an often ignored, but growing demographic.
The American people are with Republicans when it comes to having a smaller, more efficient government. But when Republicans speak, the American people hear “no government.” Thus, Republicans are blamed for the current financial mess.
Republicans have a great opportunity to show the country what is the legitimate role for the government relative to oversight of the financial markets. Up to now, their has been no leadership on this issue.
Americans are willing to be persuaded, but Republicans must present real solutions to real problems. If Republicans truly believe in their principles, when will they take them to the market place of ideas?
Will the party leadership place a pro-choice Republican who is experienced in all things financial as the point to lead the party’s response to the financial crisis? Will the party’s leadership place an anti “don’t ask, don’t tell” general as the point on all things military?
Will the Republican Party place a pro-affirmative action, pro-minority set aside Black businessman as the point on small business issues? I think you get my point.
Americans are willing to listen, provided Republicans have something to say. But, they can no longer scare Americans into voting Republican based on what people are against. If they are the party of less government, then they must stay away from issues like Elian Gonzalez and Terri Schiavo.
What is the Republican vision for preventing the financial crises from happening again? What is their response to the North Korea missile test? What is the Republican response to the seemingly endless shooting and harassment of innocent Blacks by rogue policemen (N.F.L. player Ryan Moats or Oscar Grant, who was shot in the back of the head in San Francisco by a policeman while lying on his stomach unarmed)? What is the Republican response to the one foot policy that allows “only” Cubans who touch U.S. soil to stay in the country, but send Haitians immediately back to Haiti?
If Republicans share their vision with the American people, maybe then they will have a reason to wake up!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Is Larry Summers Over Already?
Submitted by ASO member: Bradley Blakeman
It’s time for the sun to set on Summers. The Press is reporting that the President’s chief economic advisor Larry Summers was himself a greedy pig who just this past year was paid by his fellow wall street buds more than 5 Million Dollars in compensation. While these executives were looting their companies and running them into the ground, Mr. Summers did not miss the opportunity to partake from their feedbag. All the economic advisers, treasury secretaries and the like have one thing in common, a incestuous relationship with Wall Street. It is where they came from, it is where they made their riches before coming to government and it is where they go back to, to make more. They “oversee” and “regulate” their friends. There is no arms length relationship. The President talks about aspiring to have the most transparent and ethical administration this country has ever seen and it has been to date everything but. He rails on Wall Street greed and he hires as his chief economic advisor the poster boy for it. He shames corporate executives for taking millions from companies who are going down the tubes and are taking US Bailout Dollars yet, the head person of his economic team is a pig himself. Mr. President you saw fit to fire the CEO of GM and you saw fit to call out Wall Street Execs who paid themselves millions in bonus money, will you fire Larry Summers for the same type of behavior you admonish others for? You can’t make this stuff up, Our Treasury Secretary is a tax cheat, the President’s chief economic advisor is guilty of the same type of greed that he now is charged to stop, the OMB Director this week was on the John Stewart Comedy Show yucking it up on how bad the economy is, Geithner cannot find anyone to work with, and the list goes on. Folks, we are in deep trouble.
It’s time for the sun to set on Summers. The Press is reporting that the President’s chief economic advisor Larry Summers was himself a greedy pig who just this past year was paid by his fellow wall street buds more than 5 Million Dollars in compensation. While these executives were looting their companies and running them into the ground, Mr. Summers did not miss the opportunity to partake from their feedbag. All the economic advisers, treasury secretaries and the like have one thing in common, a incestuous relationship with Wall Street. It is where they came from, it is where they made their riches before coming to government and it is where they go back to, to make more. They “oversee” and “regulate” their friends. There is no arms length relationship. The President talks about aspiring to have the most transparent and ethical administration this country has ever seen and it has been to date everything but. He rails on Wall Street greed and he hires as his chief economic advisor the poster boy for it. He shames corporate executives for taking millions from companies who are going down the tubes and are taking US Bailout Dollars yet, the head person of his economic team is a pig himself. Mr. President you saw fit to fire the CEO of GM and you saw fit to call out Wall Street Execs who paid themselves millions in bonus money, will you fire Larry Summers for the same type of behavior you admonish others for? You can’t make this stuff up, Our Treasury Secretary is a tax cheat, the President’s chief economic advisor is guilty of the same type of greed that he now is charged to stop, the OMB Director this week was on the John Stewart Comedy Show yucking it up on how bad the economy is, Geithner cannot find anyone to work with, and the list goes on. Folks, we are in deep trouble.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
CONservative Roots
Submitted by ASO member: Raynard Jackson
The root of the word conservative is con. And that's exactly what the American people have received from conservatives.
Modern American conservatism was created out of an alliance between classical liberals and social conservatives at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Many credit philosopher Edmund Burke as the father of this movement. Former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln stated that "conservatism is adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried." President Reagan is said to have stated, "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism."
But, for a Republican Party that reflexively quotes Reagan in every other word they speak, I find it quite odd that they espouse an agenda that is antithetical to what Reagan believed.
You have a Republican Party that grossly interfered in the Elian Gonzalez custody case. Republican members of congress tried to pass a bill to give him retroactive citizenship (though his father wanted him returned to Cuba). And this is the party of family values?
Remember the Terri Schiavo case. A case that President Bush, the Republican congress, and conservative activists injected themselves in over the objections of Schiavo's husband (who was the legal guardian).
All this grandstanding took place because these conservatives wanted to score political points at the expense of their so-called conservative principles.
During 6 of the 8 years of the Bush administration, Republicans controlled both houses of congress. What did they do? They increased government spending, increased the federal deficit, decreased government oversight of most federal agencies, and chipped away a many of our rights to privacy (all in the name of national security).
Conservatives vociferously claim that race shouldn't matter. I guess they are right in this regards because one rarely see anyone outside their race within their organizations (congressional staffs, think thanks, newspapers, etc.). So, they are truly color-blind or just blind to people of color.
Conservatives constantly warn of the dangers of "BIG GOVERNMENT," except when it comes to abortion or pharmacists who don't want to fill prescriptions they disagree with. If they can't outlaw abortion, they want to force doctors to show women an ultrasound of the fetus or mandate women receive information on adoption.
They also want a law to allow pharmacists the right to refuse to fill a prescription that goes against their morals. These are the same people who raised holy hell when it was widely reported that Muslims in Minnesota refused to check out customers at a grocery store if they had pork or alcohol (because of their religious beliefs). Conservatives basically said they should find new work (and I agree with them). I say the same thing to physicians and pharmacists.
Weak people take strong positions on weak issues. Conservatives will raise a stink about abortion, but said very little to this day about the abuse the Catholic Church unleashed on innocent children.
Conservatives always talk about the hypocrisy of the left, but I challenged them on the very same point. Are they for less government? Or Just when it's an issue that they are promoting? Are they for individual freedom, even when it involves something they disagree with (Terri Schiavo's husband's right to remove her from life support or Elian Gonzalez's father's right to have his son returned to him in Cuba)?
Conservatives claim to support the rule of law, but based on the above cases, it seems this only applies if they are in agreement with the actions in question. They are quick to quote Lincoln and Reagan with their words, but with their actions they have become as the tinkling cymbal or sounding brass; full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.
The root of the word conservative is con. And that's exactly what the American people have received from conservatives.
Modern American conservatism was created out of an alliance between classical liberals and social conservatives at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Many credit philosopher Edmund Burke as the father of this movement. Former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln stated that "conservatism is adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried." President Reagan is said to have stated, "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism."
But, for a Republican Party that reflexively quotes Reagan in every other word they speak, I find it quite odd that they espouse an agenda that is antithetical to what Reagan believed.
You have a Republican Party that grossly interfered in the Elian Gonzalez custody case. Republican members of congress tried to pass a bill to give him retroactive citizenship (though his father wanted him returned to Cuba). And this is the party of family values?
Remember the Terri Schiavo case. A case that President Bush, the Republican congress, and conservative activists injected themselves in over the objections of Schiavo's husband (who was the legal guardian).
All this grandstanding took place because these conservatives wanted to score political points at the expense of their so-called conservative principles.
During 6 of the 8 years of the Bush administration, Republicans controlled both houses of congress. What did they do? They increased government spending, increased the federal deficit, decreased government oversight of most federal agencies, and chipped away a many of our rights to privacy (all in the name of national security).
Conservatives vociferously claim that race shouldn't matter. I guess they are right in this regards because one rarely see anyone outside their race within their organizations (congressional staffs, think thanks, newspapers, etc.). So, they are truly color-blind or just blind to people of color.
Conservatives constantly warn of the dangers of "BIG GOVERNMENT," except when it comes to abortion or pharmacists who don't want to fill prescriptions they disagree with. If they can't outlaw abortion, they want to force doctors to show women an ultrasound of the fetus or mandate women receive information on adoption.
They also want a law to allow pharmacists the right to refuse to fill a prescription that goes against their morals. These are the same people who raised holy hell when it was widely reported that Muslims in Minnesota refused to check out customers at a grocery store if they had pork or alcohol (because of their religious beliefs). Conservatives basically said they should find new work (and I agree with them). I say the same thing to physicians and pharmacists.
Weak people take strong positions on weak issues. Conservatives will raise a stink about abortion, but said very little to this day about the abuse the Catholic Church unleashed on innocent children.
Conservatives always talk about the hypocrisy of the left, but I challenged them on the very same point. Are they for less government? Or Just when it's an issue that they are promoting? Are they for individual freedom, even when it involves something they disagree with (Terri Schiavo's husband's right to remove her from life support or Elian Gonzalez's father's right to have his son returned to him in Cuba)?
Conservatives claim to support the rule of law, but based on the above cases, it seems this only applies if they are in agreement with the actions in question. They are quick to quote Lincoln and Reagan with their words, but with their actions they have become as the tinkling cymbal or sounding brass; full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Wait. Dude. I thought you were cool.
Okay, so President Obama held this electronic town hall thing at the White House last week where he answered questions from ‘regular people’ on topics ranging from health care to the economy to, well, pot.
Online participants voted on which questions they most wanted answered and apparently the issue of legalizing marijuana to “help the economy” was very, very popular – which appears to be the reason that the president answered it. You know how much he likes things that are popular.
Anyway, he essentially made light of it, made a little joke, and said, no, that’s not a good way to grow the economy, and then he moved on.
Pretty un-cool of him, don’t you think? My guess is that there are liberal-to-libertarian pot smokers all over this great nation who voted for the guy and were pretty disappointed in that answer. Because Obama is supposed to be the cool leader. After all, he wrote in his book, Dreams From My Father, about smoking a lot of weed in his young adulthood. So we think he’s cool about weed. So why not seriously look at changing what he surely thinks is an oppressive federal law?
Or maybe smoking pot is only okay for certain people? For the really smart people who think big thoughts?
Munchie minds want to know, President Cool. We thought you were on our side.
-Libertarian Lass
Online participants voted on which questions they most wanted answered and apparently the issue of legalizing marijuana to “help the economy” was very, very popular – which appears to be the reason that the president answered it. You know how much he likes things that are popular.
Anyway, he essentially made light of it, made a little joke, and said, no, that’s not a good way to grow the economy, and then he moved on.
Pretty un-cool of him, don’t you think? My guess is that there are liberal-to-libertarian pot smokers all over this great nation who voted for the guy and were pretty disappointed in that answer. Because Obama is supposed to be the cool leader. After all, he wrote in his book, Dreams From My Father, about smoking a lot of weed in his young adulthood. So we think he’s cool about weed. So why not seriously look at changing what he surely thinks is an oppressive federal law?
Or maybe smoking pot is only okay for certain people? For the really smart people who think big thoughts?
Munchie minds want to know, President Cool. We thought you were on our side.
-Libertarian Lass
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
The Reluctant Optimist
I’m fascinated by the delicate “plate spinning” the Administration is using to avoid a calamitous crash. It feels like they keep adding another plate (a very pretty, shiny, distracting one) to keep us from noticing the three on the other end that are woefully close to coming down. I hear folks talking about the shift in focus from the economy to energy, or health care, or the tax code, or the new herb garden on the White House grounds. But the health care piece, especially, feels like an unnecessary distraction.
I just don’t see a scenario where meaningful health reform happens. Chairman Baucus balked at paying for it out of the deductions of high earners. Many more oppose taxing employer-offered benefits. Even if they could agree on what to do, no one seems to know how to pay for it. I keep hearing individual members of Congress talking about working on “the 80 percent where we agree,” but 80 percent seems like an awfully high bar for agreement. If they truly agreed on 80 percent, wouldn’t they have already done a portion of it?
I’ve always thought the problem was this: we want health care to be both a business, with competition and yes, profit, and we want it to be a state-given right for all citizens. We can’t figure out how to have both. The private sector could introduce all sorts of efficiencies and common-sense to the system, but we can’t get out of our own way as a country to let it happen. We have to stop talking about the system we’d create now, if we were starting from zero. That ship has sailed. Too many stakeholders are too married to some portion of the haphazard system we’ve created to let it be dismantled. Like it or not, this hodge-podge, quasi-entitlement, public/private mess is our system. It’s imperfect, it’s bureaucratic, it’s inefficient, it’s outrageously expensive. But until Washington is willing to allow the sacrifices that would have to be made to undo what we’ve got, I think the best we’ll get is an expensive distraction.
I just don’t see a scenario where meaningful health reform happens. Chairman Baucus balked at paying for it out of the deductions of high earners. Many more oppose taxing employer-offered benefits. Even if they could agree on what to do, no one seems to know how to pay for it. I keep hearing individual members of Congress talking about working on “the 80 percent where we agree,” but 80 percent seems like an awfully high bar for agreement. If they truly agreed on 80 percent, wouldn’t they have already done a portion of it?
I’ve always thought the problem was this: we want health care to be both a business, with competition and yes, profit, and we want it to be a state-given right for all citizens. We can’t figure out how to have both. The private sector could introduce all sorts of efficiencies and common-sense to the system, but we can’t get out of our own way as a country to let it happen. We have to stop talking about the system we’d create now, if we were starting from zero. That ship has sailed. Too many stakeholders are too married to some portion of the haphazard system we’ve created to let it be dismantled. Like it or not, this hodge-podge, quasi-entitlement, public/private mess is our system. It’s imperfect, it’s bureaucratic, it’s inefficient, it’s outrageously expensive. But until Washington is willing to allow the sacrifices that would have to be made to undo what we’ve got, I think the best we’ll get is an expensive distraction.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Health Care Come-On
American taxpayers, right now, are a little bit like a young woman who regrets going a bit “too far” with the wrong guy. As we smooth our collective hair and tuck in our collective blouse, backing gently away from the grabby, greedy federal government, we are probably still hoping for a gesture of caring and genuine affection. Perhaps we think it might come in the form of more affordable health care, making up for the mauling we’ve suffered from bailing out the financial industry.
At this moment, I can only tell taxpayers what I’ve told many young female friends: Girls, be sharp and keep your clothes on.
Here are a few tips to at least de-coding the health-care come-ons that are likely to come out of Washington, DC in the coming months:
1. Don’t fall for the phrase “reform the American health-care system.” We don’t have a health-care system in the U.S. We have a health-care marketplace where insurance, medical services, and pharmaceuticals are bought and sold. Government spending, taxation and regulation impact this marketplace profoundly. A politician that boldly promises to reform “the system” needs to explain him or herself a little more fully. Don’t let them get away with this kind of smooth talk. You’re too smart for that. Ask questions, seek specifics on taxation, regulation and spending.
2. Don’t fall for the big spender; he’s going to stick you with the tab, and his plan isn’t necessarily going to work. Much like efforts to improve education, spending more taxpayer dollars has failed to solve our various health-care problems. So listen to four-star-restaurant-level spending proposals as you would listen to a salesman – after all, you’re paying for this date.
3. “I want what’s good for you, baby,” the “consumer.” Addressing you as a consumer is some sweet, caring, empowering talk. But do you really feel like a consumer? Honestly? Have you ever comparative-price-shopped for a doctor, a diagnostic test, or a prescription? Maybe you’d like to become a consumer. Maybe you’d like to buy your own health insurance or your own medical goods and services. And that’s fine. That would be empowering. But don’t believe that they respect your rights as a consumer before they actually let you become one.
One final piece of advice that applies to girlfriends and taxpayers alike: take a second look at the nerds. They can be better for us.
If a geeky politician, for example, starts talking about the “tax treatment of employer-provided health insurance,” your eyes may start to glaze over. But fight it! The tax treatment of health insurance is actually at the root of most of our health-care problems.
Ever wondered why we rely on our employers for insurance? It’s a tax answer. Here’s a short primer so that the nerd talk might more sense:
Employers can buy health insurance with pre-tax dollars, while individuals have to buy it with money that has already had a bite taken out of it by taxes. The difference in price paid is staggering – and flatly unfair.
Okay, so WHY do employers get this break that individuals don’t? Well, it’s an accident of history. During World War II, there were caps on wages and employers had to find different ways to reward and attract employees. They started offering health insurance as part of compensation packages. Congress later thought that practice was quite nice and should be rewarded – and they used their favorite reward-and-punishment tool, the tax code, to show their approval. The rest, as they say, is history.
So if the geek-y politician or pundit on TV talks about the “tax treatment” of employer-sponsored health insurance, listen up. A nerd can be insightful, and that can be very attractive. He is also likely to be a very respectful date. He’ll let you keep your shirt.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Obama Drama
Last year, President Barack Obama ran the closest thing to a perfect campaign ever seen in this country. There was no senior level turnover during the campaign. There was no public feuding from various factions within his campaign (unlike Hillary Clinton's). Even the transition was extraordinarily smooth.
So, I am dumbfounded by all the drama surrounding the early days of his presidency. Seems like Obama went from a serious drama to a sitcom in short order. When he made his announcement in Springfield, IL in 2007, it was All in the Family, with his wife and children. The media portrayed him as the ultimate Family Guy. He campaigned One Day At A Time with his cast of Friends.
He campaigned with a discipline unseen in presidential politics. With his upset victory in the Iowa caucuses, his supporters were feeling Good Times.
But with the unexpected loss in New Hampshire, they felt Bewitched and Lost.
But, he proved to be a Survivor heading into Super Tuesday.
He refused to take his campaign into the Weeds, even when Hillary's campaign went very negative on him. For that, he received Big Love from the voters.
The Obama campaign got hit with The Facts of Life of politics as the Clinton's showed their true Colors in South Carolina.
Bill Clinton basically said welcome to The Real World. Obama tried to knock Hillary out in Texas, but they went down to the Wire. But, he did ultimately destroy the Clinton's Dynasty. They never thought he could win The Office. Their explanation was definitely from Spin City.
The Democratic convention was one of the best run conventions ever. The huge crowds gave him loud Cheers, thereby making him an American Idol.
During the general election, Obama ran an Amazing Race, with John McCain being the Biggest Loser. His campaign made McCain's team look like a bunch of Scrubs and subsequently, they all disappeared Without a Trace.
Now that Obama made his Bones, it was time to move to the West Wing. He found that it was a Different World than he thought. He inherited an economy that was in the General Hospital, but is now in the ER.
There is no doubt that Obama has one of America's Toughest Jobs. But, with 20/20 hindsight, it's quite obvious that his budget will turn our country into a Supernanny state. As the World Turns and Obama searches for his Guiding Light, our country seems to see nothing but Dark Shadows.
Seems the Commander in Chief wants us to live on Fantasy Island-a place where the government is the answer to all that ails us.
But What's Happening is no one trusts the government. We know every president has Different Strokes once they get In the House. But Gimme a Break. Before you start expanding the government, you must reform it and make it functional. The government couldn't protect people from Bernard Madoff. The Securities and Exchange Commission couldn't protect us from Wall Street. If we are not careful, we are all going to end up in the House of Payne!
Raynard Jackson is president & CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC., a D.C.-based political consulting/government affairs firm. You can listen to his radio show every Saturday evening from 7-9:00 p.m. Go to www.ustalknetwork.com to register and then click on host, and then click on his photo to join his group.
So, I am dumbfounded by all the drama surrounding the early days of his presidency. Seems like Obama went from a serious drama to a sitcom in short order. When he made his announcement in Springfield, IL in 2007, it was All in the Family, with his wife and children. The media portrayed him as the ultimate Family Guy. He campaigned One Day At A Time with his cast of Friends.
He campaigned with a discipline unseen in presidential politics. With his upset victory in the Iowa caucuses, his supporters were feeling Good Times.
But with the unexpected loss in New Hampshire, they felt Bewitched and Lost.
But, he proved to be a Survivor heading into Super Tuesday.
He refused to take his campaign into the Weeds, even when Hillary's campaign went very negative on him. For that, he received Big Love from the voters.
The Obama campaign got hit with The Facts of Life of politics as the Clinton's showed their true Colors in South Carolina.
Bill Clinton basically said welcome to The Real World. Obama tried to knock Hillary out in Texas, but they went down to the Wire. But, he did ultimately destroy the Clinton's Dynasty. They never thought he could win The Office. Their explanation was definitely from Spin City.
The Democratic convention was one of the best run conventions ever. The huge crowds gave him loud Cheers, thereby making him an American Idol.
During the general election, Obama ran an Amazing Race, with John McCain being the Biggest Loser. His campaign made McCain's team look like a bunch of Scrubs and subsequently, they all disappeared Without a Trace.
Now that Obama made his Bones, it was time to move to the West Wing. He found that it was a Different World than he thought. He inherited an economy that was in the General Hospital, but is now in the ER.
There is no doubt that Obama has one of America's Toughest Jobs. But, with 20/20 hindsight, it's quite obvious that his budget will turn our country into a Supernanny state. As the World Turns and Obama searches for his Guiding Light, our country seems to see nothing but Dark Shadows.
Seems the Commander in Chief wants us to live on Fantasy Island-a place where the government is the answer to all that ails us.
But What's Happening is no one trusts the government. We know every president has Different Strokes once they get In the House. But Gimme a Break. Before you start expanding the government, you must reform it and make it functional. The government couldn't protect people from Bernard Madoff. The Securities and Exchange Commission couldn't protect us from Wall Street. If we are not careful, we are all going to end up in the House of Payne!
Raynard Jackson is president & CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC., a D.C.-based political consulting/government affairs firm. You can listen to his radio show every Saturday evening from 7-9:00 p.m. Go to www.ustalknetwork.com to register and then click on host, and then click on his photo to join his group.
Salter calls President 'Artfully Dishonest'
At his press conference Tuesday, President Obama was his usual assured and nimble self. He is one of the most graceful and appealing political communicators to appear on the national stage in my lifetime. He is, also, one of the more artfully dishonest ones.
He used a question about the uncertain prospects for a resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to emphasize his persistence. According to the President, he professes a “whole philosophy of persistence,” and he cited several of his initiatives in which he calmly adhered to that philosophy while impatient critics carped about their lack of immediate success. Among the examples, this:
“When it comes to Iran . . . we did a video, sending a message to the Iranian people and the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And some people said, well, they did not immediately say that they we’re eliminating nuclear weapons and stop funding terrorism.”
Now, there are certainly critics of the President’s approach to Iran who worry it is based more on wishful thinking than the hard headed realism he promised to restore to America’s foreign policy. And some of those might have seen his videotaped Nowruz greetings to Iran as evidence of his naiveté. But to the best of my knowledge not even his most outspoken and implacable detractors insisted it produce Iran’s immediate disarmament and a cessation of its support for terrorists.
Nor has anyone criticized the President because he has not “immediately eliminated the influence of lobbyists in Washington.” No one of adult judgment would believe such a Utopian achievement were possible in the near or long term without first suspending the First Amendment. The President was criticized for promising repeatedly that his administration would not permit officials who previously were lobbyists to work on issues they once lobbied on, and then immediately proceeded to allow several former lobbyists to do so. Nor has he been criticized because he has “not immediately eliminated wasteful pork projects.” He has been criticized because he accepted without resistance an omnibus spending bill that was loaded with earmarks.
We had an indication of how the President favors this kind of straw man during debate over the stimulus bill, when he denounced Republicans who balked at the price tag or felt it wasn’t sufficiently stimulative as advocates of doing nothing in the midst of a global recession. Yet, Republicans opposed to the bill offered an alternative that was different in size and kind, but was, arguably, more stimulative and responsible than the bill the President supported.
He also likes to dismiss his opposition as biters of the hand of bipartisanship he has generously offered them. Yet, he declined to pursue genuine bipartisan compromise on the stimulus bill because it was needed so urgently he couldn’t spare the time to negotiate seriously. He ignored Republican concerns about earmarks in the omnibus bill because it was last year’s unfinished business. And he threatens to circumvent the traditional supermajority needed to pass major legislation in the Senate, and the bipartisan negotiations it requires, by putting the most sweeping, expensive and controversial policies proposed in his budget submission into budget reconciliation, which requires a simple majority of 51 votes to pass. His excuse: Republicans had similarly abused the process to pass the Bush tax cuts.
Perhaps, the President is a persistent man because, when it comes to this kind of disingenuousness at least, persistence pays off. Few in the press have been stirred to point out the many obvious discrepancies between the President’s declarations of his intentions and the reality of his actions anymore than they were inclined to do so during the campaign. He gets away with it. And it runs counter to the deepest instinct of most politicians to cease prevaricating when there is no penalty for continuing to do so.
When Ed Henry of CNN asked the President why he waited two days to express his outrage over the AIG bonuses, the President dismissively responded, “because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak.” I doubt there was a single reporter in the East Room that night who believed the President’s explanation for his delayed reaction. They knew the administration had been surprised by the fierceness of the public’s reaction, and belatedly raced to catch up to it.
But there was nary a hint of skepticism offered. They all laughed in appreciation of the surefooted artfulness of the President’s putdown, no doubt offering him further assurance that when it comes to employing straw men and red herrings and other deceptions to promote policies that might very well bankrupt the United States, he would be smart to remain a persistent man.
He used a question about the uncertain prospects for a resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to emphasize his persistence. According to the President, he professes a “whole philosophy of persistence,” and he cited several of his initiatives in which he calmly adhered to that philosophy while impatient critics carped about their lack of immediate success. Among the examples, this:
“When it comes to Iran . . . we did a video, sending a message to the Iranian people and the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And some people said, well, they did not immediately say that they we’re eliminating nuclear weapons and stop funding terrorism.”
Now, there are certainly critics of the President’s approach to Iran who worry it is based more on wishful thinking than the hard headed realism he promised to restore to America’s foreign policy. And some of those might have seen his videotaped Nowruz greetings to Iran as evidence of his naiveté. But to the best of my knowledge not even his most outspoken and implacable detractors insisted it produce Iran’s immediate disarmament and a cessation of its support for terrorists.
Nor has anyone criticized the President because he has not “immediately eliminated the influence of lobbyists in Washington.” No one of adult judgment would believe such a Utopian achievement were possible in the near or long term without first suspending the First Amendment. The President was criticized for promising repeatedly that his administration would not permit officials who previously were lobbyists to work on issues they once lobbied on, and then immediately proceeded to allow several former lobbyists to do so. Nor has he been criticized because he has “not immediately eliminated wasteful pork projects.” He has been criticized because he accepted without resistance an omnibus spending bill that was loaded with earmarks.
We had an indication of how the President favors this kind of straw man during debate over the stimulus bill, when he denounced Republicans who balked at the price tag or felt it wasn’t sufficiently stimulative as advocates of doing nothing in the midst of a global recession. Yet, Republicans opposed to the bill offered an alternative that was different in size and kind, but was, arguably, more stimulative and responsible than the bill the President supported.
He also likes to dismiss his opposition as biters of the hand of bipartisanship he has generously offered them. Yet, he declined to pursue genuine bipartisan compromise on the stimulus bill because it was needed so urgently he couldn’t spare the time to negotiate seriously. He ignored Republican concerns about earmarks in the omnibus bill because it was last year’s unfinished business. And he threatens to circumvent the traditional supermajority needed to pass major legislation in the Senate, and the bipartisan negotiations it requires, by putting the most sweeping, expensive and controversial policies proposed in his budget submission into budget reconciliation, which requires a simple majority of 51 votes to pass. His excuse: Republicans had similarly abused the process to pass the Bush tax cuts.
Perhaps, the President is a persistent man because, when it comes to this kind of disingenuousness at least, persistence pays off. Few in the press have been stirred to point out the many obvious discrepancies between the President’s declarations of his intentions and the reality of his actions anymore than they were inclined to do so during the campaign. He gets away with it. And it runs counter to the deepest instinct of most politicians to cease prevaricating when there is no penalty for continuing to do so.
When Ed Henry of CNN asked the President why he waited two days to express his outrage over the AIG bonuses, the President dismissively responded, “because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak.” I doubt there was a single reporter in the East Room that night who believed the President’s explanation for his delayed reaction. They knew the administration had been surprised by the fierceness of the public’s reaction, and belatedly raced to catch up to it.
But there was nary a hint of skepticism offered. They all laughed in appreciation of the surefooted artfulness of the President’s putdown, no doubt offering him further assurance that when it comes to employing straw men and red herrings and other deceptions to promote policies that might very well bankrupt the United States, he would be smart to remain a persistent man.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Changing the Rules for Past Behavior is Bad Policy
Changing the Rules for Past Behavior is Bad Policy
The AIG Mess
Submitted by ASO member: Tom Sullivan
Doing business is becoming more complicated by the minute. With a shrinking economy and a growing government , the regulations issued by local, state, and federal agencies, and yearly changes to the tax code are enough to jolt business owners awake at night in a cold sweat.
We know that regulations cost small business more than their larger-business counterparts. And, we have accepted that a certain amount of bureaucracy is the cost of doing business. What do not know is how close we are to creating a regulatory framework so complex it will scare people away from taking risks, the key ingredient to entrepreneurship.
The anger over AIG using a taxpayer-funded bailout to pay executive bonuses has prompted the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation penalizing behavior by changing the rules after the fact. We are wise to consider restrictions on corporate behavior when those companies are depending on federal help. There are always conditions, expectations, and qualifications when two parties enter into a contract. When a company enters into a contract with the government to receive billions of dollars, it should expect some pretty tough contract terms.
However, companies doing business with the government should not expect for the rules to change retroactively. Not only is that wrong from a simple understanding of contractual responsibilities, it is bad policy.
The worse thing to happen right now as our country is struggling to get out of a recession is for companies to start second guessing their decisions because the government "might change its mind." Expansion plans, hiring plans, and product innovations will come to a grinding halt for fear of unknown consequences.
Last year, the University of Kansas won the NCAA men's basketball championship. What would happen if tomorrow we decided to ban the 3-point shot? And, what if we decided to make the change retroactive to the 2008 NCAA championship? Who would have won the championship? That is ridiculous. However, we are doing the same thing to the business community by accepting a retroactive tax to fix a problem we failed to address when the government agreed to provide AIG with $152 billion last fall.
With regulatory costs exceeding $1.1 trillion, we can not add to the mess by changing rules retroactively. I am glad that the Senate is considering how harmful retroactive rule changes can be to our regulatory structure and to our economy.
The AIG Mess
Submitted by ASO member: Tom Sullivan
Doing business is becoming more complicated by the minute. With a shrinking economy and a growing government , the regulations issued by local, state, and federal agencies, and yearly changes to the tax code are enough to jolt business owners awake at night in a cold sweat.
We know that regulations cost small business more than their larger-business counterparts. And, we have accepted that a certain amount of bureaucracy is the cost of doing business. What do not know is how close we are to creating a regulatory framework so complex it will scare people away from taking risks, the key ingredient to entrepreneurship.
The anger over AIG using a taxpayer-funded bailout to pay executive bonuses has prompted the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation penalizing behavior by changing the rules after the fact. We are wise to consider restrictions on corporate behavior when those companies are depending on federal help. There are always conditions, expectations, and qualifications when two parties enter into a contract. When a company enters into a contract with the government to receive billions of dollars, it should expect some pretty tough contract terms.
However, companies doing business with the government should not expect for the rules to change retroactively. Not only is that wrong from a simple understanding of contractual responsibilities, it is bad policy.
The worse thing to happen right now as our country is struggling to get out of a recession is for companies to start second guessing their decisions because the government "might change its mind." Expansion plans, hiring plans, and product innovations will come to a grinding halt for fear of unknown consequences.
Last year, the University of Kansas won the NCAA men's basketball championship. What would happen if tomorrow we decided to ban the 3-point shot? And, what if we decided to make the change retroactive to the 2008 NCAA championship? Who would have won the championship? That is ridiculous. However, we are doing the same thing to the business community by accepting a retroactive tax to fix a problem we failed to address when the government agreed to provide AIG with $152 billion last fall.
With regulatory costs exceeding $1.1 trillion, we can not add to the mess by changing rules retroactively. I am glad that the Senate is considering how harmful retroactive rule changes can be to our regulatory structure and to our economy.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Op-Ed: What's the Price Of Toxic Assets?
Submitted by ASO member: Kimberly Wilcox
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was busy writing his press release from the Treasury Department & editorial in the Wall Street Journal, while other members of the Obama administration chattered on the Sunday political talk shows. But, they all had one goal: going to extraordinary lengths to sell the Treasury Department's new program for "taking toxic assets off the books of the troubled banks." They make it sound like some sort of harmless construction project where the bulldozer will just come in as the private partner financed 95% by YOUR government money and moved these assets from the pile of dirt where they are now, and transform them on the journey into gemstones by the time they reach the books of the "private investor partners." The enormous failure of this entire plan is that no one has defined the PURCHASE PRICE to be agreed upon for the purchase of these assets. In addition, what have all these "private conversations" consisted of between potential investors in the forms of private equity firms, money managers, and hedge funds (the only firms left on Wall Street with capital to invest)? Why aren't the terms and promises being defined to the lenders in this situation...the American people who will be financing 95% of each of these transactions? Should we trust the Treasury Department to oversee the paperwork for these transactions just like they did with AIG? Citibank? Goldman Sachs? Morgan Stanley? All the others? NO is clearly the answer.
The investors are asking if they are going to be subjected to executive compensation limits, new taxes on bonuses, and other controls which they currently aren't governed by. After all, they want the financing & assets at a great price with no strings attached. Isn't it predictable that when something goes wrong with this program, it will be yet another bailout that the federal government will hand out even though it's once again a supposed risk transferred to the private sector? Where are the brilliant financial minds in America to find better solutions that this. I can foresee this debt being traded on a secondary market at pennies on the dollar which is all that some of it is worth.
The price setting of this purchase is THE QUINTESSENTIAL COMPONENT of this program and it is irresponsible NOT to focus on that first. How could any investor remotely express interest or not without a price? Everything on Wall Street is driven by price. There obviously are key parts of these private conversations between the Treasury Department and the potential investors that should be disclosed to the American public prior to the implementation of ANY program. Why isn't this purchase program open to all Americans? No one is rushing to put their shekels in the stock market or real estate and they may want to be part of the program. This program and its full terms should be ironed out and disclosed in a red herring for all to view and purchase & most importantly, the PRICE needs to be on the final copy distributed. After all, we will be lending $950,000,000,000 (that's nine-hundred fifty BILLION dollars for those of you who aren't accustomed to counting with so many zeros) out of the one trillion to purchase these diamonds in the rough that will be relocated from one balance sheet to another. I can only hope these purchasers aren't deemed too big to fail.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was busy writing his press release from the Treasury Department & editorial in the Wall Street Journal, while other members of the Obama administration chattered on the Sunday political talk shows. But, they all had one goal: going to extraordinary lengths to sell the Treasury Department's new program for "taking toxic assets off the books of the troubled banks." They make it sound like some sort of harmless construction project where the bulldozer will just come in as the private partner financed 95% by YOUR government money and moved these assets from the pile of dirt where they are now, and transform them on the journey into gemstones by the time they reach the books of the "private investor partners." The enormous failure of this entire plan is that no one has defined the PURCHASE PRICE to be agreed upon for the purchase of these assets. In addition, what have all these "private conversations" consisted of between potential investors in the forms of private equity firms, money managers, and hedge funds (the only firms left on Wall Street with capital to invest)? Why aren't the terms and promises being defined to the lenders in this situation...the American people who will be financing 95% of each of these transactions? Should we trust the Treasury Department to oversee the paperwork for these transactions just like they did with AIG? Citibank? Goldman Sachs? Morgan Stanley? All the others? NO is clearly the answer.
The investors are asking if they are going to be subjected to executive compensation limits, new taxes on bonuses, and other controls which they currently aren't governed by. After all, they want the financing & assets at a great price with no strings attached. Isn't it predictable that when something goes wrong with this program, it will be yet another bailout that the federal government will hand out even though it's once again a supposed risk transferred to the private sector? Where are the brilliant financial minds in America to find better solutions that this. I can foresee this debt being traded on a secondary market at pennies on the dollar which is all that some of it is worth.
The price setting of this purchase is THE QUINTESSENTIAL COMPONENT of this program and it is irresponsible NOT to focus on that first. How could any investor remotely express interest or not without a price? Everything on Wall Street is driven by price. There obviously are key parts of these private conversations between the Treasury Department and the potential investors that should be disclosed to the American public prior to the implementation of ANY program. Why isn't this purchase program open to all Americans? No one is rushing to put their shekels in the stock market or real estate and they may want to be part of the program. This program and its full terms should be ironed out and disclosed in a red herring for all to view and purchase & most importantly, the PRICE needs to be on the final copy distributed. After all, we will be lending $950,000,000,000 (that's nine-hundred fifty BILLION dollars for those of you who aren't accustomed to counting with so many zeros) out of the one trillion to purchase these diamonds in the rough that will be relocated from one balance sheet to another. I can only hope these purchasers aren't deemed too big to fail.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Cartoon of the Day
Who would have thought a business on the brink of failure would make questionable financial decisions?
Are we calling it BonusGate yet?
Are we calling it BonusGate yet? Ugly, ugly stuff. Will the taxpayers ever know justice? So far, we’ve only gotten half-truths, lies, avoidance and finger pointing (the blaming of Treasury career civil servants by a Treasury spokesman yesterday was a particularly low point, don’t you agree?). Meanwhile, AIG executives – both those who have the gall to keep their bonuses and those who have the class to return them – are all wealthy. They were, they are and they will be.
Here’s an idea to get those executives closer to feeling the pain of being “one of us” – the rank and file taxpayers who don’t make millions of dollars a year. This might get the healing going once the last ounce of political and taxpayer blood has been drawn and dried on this terrible incident:
The Treasury department should put the executives of AIG on the federal government’s general schedule pay scale – the “GS Scale..” These folks are, after all, now government employees. They are paid by the taxpayers, just like the rest of the professionals at the Treasury Department.
Each executive can look up what their pay might be right here on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management website:
http://www.opm.gov/oca/09tables/indexGS.asp
Don’t be too discouraged, AIG guys and gals: the government also offers merit bonuses, known to sometimes be four figures for exemplary performance! Welcome to your life as a public servant. The joy of knowing that you serve the taxpayers will outweigh the pay-cut in due time, I am sure.
-Jean Card
Here’s an idea to get those executives closer to feeling the pain of being “one of us” – the rank and file taxpayers who don’t make millions of dollars a year. This might get the healing going once the last ounce of political and taxpayer blood has been drawn and dried on this terrible incident:
The Treasury department should put the executives of AIG on the federal government’s general schedule pay scale – the “GS Scale..” These folks are, after all, now government employees. They are paid by the taxpayers, just like the rest of the professionals at the Treasury Department.
Each executive can look up what their pay might be right here on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management website:
http://www.opm.gov/oca/09tables/indexGS.asp
Don’t be too discouraged, AIG guys and gals: the government also offers merit bonuses, known to sometimes be four figures for exemplary performance! Welcome to your life as a public servant. The joy of knowing that you serve the taxpayers will outweigh the pay-cut in due time, I am sure.
-Jean Card
The Day Without End
$787 billion worth of bailout money – much of it being pumped right into the already behemoth federal government. The thought of those rivers of cash going for more federal workers reminds me of my federal government tenure, which was fittingly encapsulated the day we were invited to “Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day!”
The announcement of the great day arrived in an email, fitting communication to a soulless drone glued to a screen in an office cube farm that stretched from Corridor G to Destiny. Wow, I thought, here’s the chance of a lifetime for my three sons to get a load of what the old man does every day of his moribund, monotonous life. In fact, included in the announcement was something magic: the faceless human resource bureaucrats even gave us a check list to follow while emphasizing our career failings to our kids. Here’s what happened…
“On this day, children between the ages of 8 and 12 will visit the agency with their parent to learn about our work.”
“Boys,” I said in dramatic fashion as we sat in my workspace after lurching through an endless traffic jam of public servants, “My work is about changing the world. It’s all about thinking outside and inside the box, playing in the sandbox, expanding parameters, breaking templates, modeling models, framing frameworks, having dialogues with folks above my pay grade, singing off the same sheet of music, bringing my A game, taking it to the next level with my elevator speech, cross walking when I’m not partnering, and leveraging the metrics of everything I see. Now, hand me those rubber bands and paperclips – that’s right, next to the tape dispenser -- and I’ll show you how to make a catapult.”
“Explore with them the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for the future workforce.”
“Hey guys, here’s a skill.” I log onto my computer, whisper to them the secret Caddyshack password I use, and then when presented with a prompt screen, take a short cut to get to my Outlook email box, where there are no new messages for the day as of about 10:00 a.m. “Onwards, gents.” I take a bunch of papers that I haphazardly printed out, staple them together, and place in a wooden Out Box. ”What does that box mean, Dad?” says young Darby. “That means I’m done with that little project.” “What did it do?” he presses me. “Hell if I know,” I say distractedly, checking my empty email account once more.
"Expose the participants to an environment that values the balance of work and family life."
I expose the three to my workspace – they're crowded around my dingy desk in a cube with 6-foot high partitions. “Wow, Dad, you get to have carpet on your walls.” Yep, I tell them, one of the perks of being a key employee. The eldest, Dev, squeezes into a chair, Darby sits on the floor, and Braden crouches on the desk and peers over the low walls at my coworkers. I clear my throat and brush the glazed donut flakes off my tie. “Your dad is quite aware of the balance between work and family life and how the two intersect. For example, we play basketball all the time and I help coach your teams, right? So watch this,” and I wad up a piece of paper and shoot it at the waste can down the aisle outside my work area. It goes in. “See, just like at the gym or in the driveway, I can hit the 3-pointer here at work as well. Get it?”
"Showcase the abilities needed for the future workforce. "
I point to a stapler on my desk. “Dev!” I shout suddenly, “What do you do if that runs out of staples?!” He’s frozen in shock. “C’mon pal, you don’t have an hour to chew on this!” I shriek. “Call the stapler person?” he says hurriedly. ” Exactly, man! Good job.”
“The children will be able to shadow their parent and participate in other hands on and interactive activities."
When I hear the word interactive, I think one thing. So I take them to the copier room. “10 years ago, gents, this room was the nerve center of the modern office. If you had five copies of anything, you were a hero in a meeting. I know, because I often brought seven,” I say matter-of-factly. The boys stare uncertainly at the whirring machinery. “Now listen up, you rascals, because this is important. In the old days, you didn’t have machines that could collate. Can you say that word?” They repeat it with a vapidity that bolds well for following in Dad’s footsteps. I continue: “However, today, you can program the machine to actually staple individual copies together. It remains one of the major technological breakthroughs of our time.”
"The activities will reinforce the importance of education and preparation."
“Education and Preparation are important,” I tell the guys at about 3:30 p.m., reading from the Human Resources prepared statement. By now, all three sons are in daze from the office environment. As we review the day and the numerous coffee breaks, Braden notes, “Dad, you don’t even drink much coffee. You just sit around and chat with people.” “That’s right. It’s called workforce cohesion – everyone you see is in this long, tedious haul together.” “Maybe that’s why no one is smiling around here,” he says as he periodically peers over the partition walls. “Bingo, pal,” I answer.
The theme for this Day without End is “Making Choices for a Better World.” So as the wise father, I break it down for the boys. “My three loyal, optimistic, talented sons. Please look at your old man in his element here and then review all the choices you have before you. Make the right ones and you won’t have to bring my grandsons to this kind of world.”
By Jeff Nelligan
The announcement of the great day arrived in an email, fitting communication to a soulless drone glued to a screen in an office cube farm that stretched from Corridor G to Destiny. Wow, I thought, here’s the chance of a lifetime for my three sons to get a load of what the old man does every day of his moribund, monotonous life. In fact, included in the announcement was something magic: the faceless human resource bureaucrats even gave us a check list to follow while emphasizing our career failings to our kids. Here’s what happened…
“On this day, children between the ages of 8 and 12 will visit the agency with their parent to learn about our work.”
“Boys,” I said in dramatic fashion as we sat in my workspace after lurching through an endless traffic jam of public servants, “My work is about changing the world. It’s all about thinking outside and inside the box, playing in the sandbox, expanding parameters, breaking templates, modeling models, framing frameworks, having dialogues with folks above my pay grade, singing off the same sheet of music, bringing my A game, taking it to the next level with my elevator speech, cross walking when I’m not partnering, and leveraging the metrics of everything I see. Now, hand me those rubber bands and paperclips – that’s right, next to the tape dispenser -- and I’ll show you how to make a catapult.”
“Explore with them the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for the future workforce.”
“Hey guys, here’s a skill.” I log onto my computer, whisper to them the secret Caddyshack password I use, and then when presented with a prompt screen, take a short cut to get to my Outlook email box, where there are no new messages for the day as of about 10:00 a.m. “Onwards, gents.” I take a bunch of papers that I haphazardly printed out, staple them together, and place in a wooden Out Box. ”What does that box mean, Dad?” says young Darby. “That means I’m done with that little project.” “What did it do?” he presses me. “Hell if I know,” I say distractedly, checking my empty email account once more.
"Expose the participants to an environment that values the balance of work and family life."
I expose the three to my workspace – they're crowded around my dingy desk in a cube with 6-foot high partitions. “Wow, Dad, you get to have carpet on your walls.” Yep, I tell them, one of the perks of being a key employee. The eldest, Dev, squeezes into a chair, Darby sits on the floor, and Braden crouches on the desk and peers over the low walls at my coworkers. I clear my throat and brush the glazed donut flakes off my tie. “Your dad is quite aware of the balance between work and family life and how the two intersect. For example, we play basketball all the time and I help coach your teams, right? So watch this,” and I wad up a piece of paper and shoot it at the waste can down the aisle outside my work area. It goes in. “See, just like at the gym or in the driveway, I can hit the 3-pointer here at work as well. Get it?”
"Showcase the abilities needed for the future workforce. "
I point to a stapler on my desk. “Dev!” I shout suddenly, “What do you do if that runs out of staples?!” He’s frozen in shock. “C’mon pal, you don’t have an hour to chew on this!” I shriek. “Call the stapler person?” he says hurriedly. ” Exactly, man! Good job.”
“The children will be able to shadow their parent and participate in other hands on and interactive activities."
When I hear the word interactive, I think one thing. So I take them to the copier room. “10 years ago, gents, this room was the nerve center of the modern office. If you had five copies of anything, you were a hero in a meeting. I know, because I often brought seven,” I say matter-of-factly. The boys stare uncertainly at the whirring machinery. “Now listen up, you rascals, because this is important. In the old days, you didn’t have machines that could collate. Can you say that word?” They repeat it with a vapidity that bolds well for following in Dad’s footsteps. I continue: “However, today, you can program the machine to actually staple individual copies together. It remains one of the major technological breakthroughs of our time.”
"The activities will reinforce the importance of education and preparation."
“Education and Preparation are important,” I tell the guys at about 3:30 p.m., reading from the Human Resources prepared statement. By now, all three sons are in daze from the office environment. As we review the day and the numerous coffee breaks, Braden notes, “Dad, you don’t even drink much coffee. You just sit around and chat with people.” “That’s right. It’s called workforce cohesion – everyone you see is in this long, tedious haul together.” “Maybe that’s why no one is smiling around here,” he says as he periodically peers over the partition walls. “Bingo, pal,” I answer.
The theme for this Day without End is “Making Choices for a Better World.” So as the wise father, I break it down for the boys. “My three loyal, optimistic, talented sons. Please look at your old man in his element here and then review all the choices you have before you. Make the right ones and you won’t have to bring my grandsons to this kind of world.”
By Jeff Nelligan
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Short-Term Gain for Long-Term Pain
Author and National Review commentator Jonah Goldberg writes that he’s bullish on Citibank, despite the company’s recent well-publicized financial problems. Goldberg knows politics and, better yet, understands the notion that markets laid bare to bailout fever are ripe for arbitrage. Over the last week or so, he’s purchased 1,500 shares of Citibank stock for as little a dollar a share, betting that government aid and building momentum will buoy the stock and return a handsome profit. Others have placed the same wager. A good bet? That depends on your perspective.
The key lies in the federal government’s subsidy of large ailing banks like Citibank. And if the government continues to prop up Citibank, as it surely will, it is highly likely that the bank will break out of its historically low trading range. Moreover, since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has on several occasions reaffirmed a pledge that the government simply won’t let big banks fail, the downside risk on this sort of short-term trade seems rather small.
But the scenario presents a decidedly more bearish outlook for our economy. The idea that the billions spent on failing enterprises like Citibank won’t end up hurting the economy by saddling future generations with enormous debt, while simultaneously redirecting capital that might otherwise spur the sort of innovation and growth that could help bring us out of this recession and strengthen our economy in the years ahead, might not be readily apparent. But, the federal government cannot get us out of this recession with more government spending. The money has to come from somewhere, and in this case much of it will be at the expense of current and future innovators, start-up companies and entrepreneurs, and proven industry leaders.
Sadly, a profit turned on a well-timed trade of Citibank stock will have hidden costs that dwarf any such short-term gain.
John C. Kalitka
Cartoon of the Day
I'm also proposing Dick Vitale as my Deputy Secretary... can I get a "Yeah Baby?"
Tax Payer Teaparty
Watch this video about taxpayers from all across the country protesting Government spending and the burden it places on future generations:
Taxpayers Gather To Protest Spending, Taxes, Growing Debt
Taxpayers Gather To Protest Spending, Taxes, Growing Debt
AIG Stands for "ALL I Get"
As if the American public wasn't horrified enough when a huge number of AIG employees jaunted off to a posh California resort on the taxpayer dime the very weekend after they got their hands on TARP funds, they are now more horrified than ever. AIG employees got their mani/pedis and hot rock massages along with fine bottles of wine and cuisine with your dollar. AIG was the same firm that whined it couldn't meet its capitalization and payroll obligations without bailout number two and then most recently bailout number three. It cried that its employees would be on the street in days if it didn't get bailout money. All together, AIG has received a total of $170 Billion in bailout funds from the American taxpayers. I'm even more horrified by the executives dragged before Congress who assured our representative that they weren't using "taxpayer dollars" for those expenses. WHAT??? They wouldn't be in business if it weren't for "taxpayer dollars" and until and unless "taxpayer dollars" are paid back in full, there should not be another boondoggle, perquisite or bonus doled out at any of these firms that these supposed financial gurus have run into the ground. There aren't separate accounts. Are these chief executives truly so stupid or think that the American public and their Congressmen and Senators are so stupid that they are going to buy this line? Yep! After all, Americans never bothered to understand what hedge funds really were, they just trusted these same people to invest them in the ones making money in the boom market. Neither shareholders nor regulators nor Congressmen, nor Senators, nor taxpayers were asking questions in the good times, they took at face value whatever the financial gurus pedaled their way. Those days are over and the executives at AIG and other financial establishments on Wall Street have the dubious distinction of having run some of the oldest and finest financial institutions into the ground because they bilked them as their personal piggy bank for years all the while deceiving regulators, shareholders, and the American public. Congratulations! Now, are you ready to Speak Out and Speak On America?
So, now AIG declares that it has "contractual obligations" in the amount of $165 million to pay out enormous supposed "performance based" bonuses to the very personnel in the firm in the credit-default swaps department who are responsible for its ruination??? When you don't perform well, you don't get paid. What you haven't read is that this is in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company's senior executives and another 6,400 employees across the organization. What's wrong with this picture? Run a firm into the ground and lose money and there is no way that you should get anything more than your salary. Before AIG employees go to bed each night, they should thank the GOD in whom we trust on our currency that pays them, along with the American taxpayer and ther future generations who provide that paycheck to them. Yet, we still hear from the bastions of AIG, "Is that All I Get?" They are so used to taking whatever they want at the expense of the firm that they just have continued it, even though the American taxpayers had to re-capitalize the firm.
Whether you are Republican or Democrat, you should be echoing the cries of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank to put a moratorium on Wall Street bonuses period until taxpayer money is completely paid back and maybe even thereafter. In fact, Senator Christopher Dodd HAD submitted legislation that would have blocked this occurance but it was ignored at the time. Are you kidding me? Contractual obligations? Legalities? Bonuses? There would be no value whatsoever to these supposed bonus contracts with the collapse of the firm without taxpayer bailout money. No taxpayer money, no firm, no bonuses. The other issue here is that it is de riguer for employees of financial services firms to sign "employment at will" paperwork upon employment. While contracts are common in other industries, they are RARE on Wall Street. We can only hope that our representative will be smart enough to truly investigate the validity of these supposed pre-existing contracts. President Obama ordered the Treasury Department to "pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses," when he sensed the rage of the American voters. SOMEONE on Capital Hill or in the Treasury Department ought to be smart enough to foresee these types of shenanigans when drawing up paperwork to dispense these bailouts. The only enforcement that we've seen so far is the New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, who wants to issue subpoenas for AIG employee names, job descriptions and evaluations of employees receiving bonuses. AIG's Mr. Liddy defended these payments as contractual obligations and further added that this is what's needed to have the talented financial employees to run the business. I highly doubt it. I think some of the 10% of unemployed Americans have a whole lot more common and uncommon sense to run a business than the group that is continuing to rape and pillage AIG now. I hope that investigators continue to look at the fraud that was perpetrated on the AIG shareholders, policyholders and the American people and spare these derivative products "gurus" no mercy.
Gee, makes you wonder who controls AIG, especially in light of the fact that the majority shareholder now, with a whopping 80% of outstanding shares, is the U.S. Federal Government -ie the American people. The answer to this hoopla is found in one simple financial equation that I suggest all executives of investment banks use for 2008 year end Wall Street bonuses: nothing form nothing yields nothing...period.
Kimberly Wilcox
So, now AIG declares that it has "contractual obligations" in the amount of $165 million to pay out enormous supposed "performance based" bonuses to the very personnel in the firm in the credit-default swaps department who are responsible for its ruination??? When you don't perform well, you don't get paid. What you haven't read is that this is in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company's senior executives and another 6,400 employees across the organization. What's wrong with this picture? Run a firm into the ground and lose money and there is no way that you should get anything more than your salary. Before AIG employees go to bed each night, they should thank the GOD in whom we trust on our currency that pays them, along with the American taxpayer and ther future generations who provide that paycheck to them. Yet, we still hear from the bastions of AIG, "Is that All I Get?" They are so used to taking whatever they want at the expense of the firm that they just have continued it, even though the American taxpayers had to re-capitalize the firm.
Whether you are Republican or Democrat, you should be echoing the cries of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank to put a moratorium on Wall Street bonuses period until taxpayer money is completely paid back and maybe even thereafter. In fact, Senator Christopher Dodd HAD submitted legislation that would have blocked this occurance but it was ignored at the time. Are you kidding me? Contractual obligations? Legalities? Bonuses? There would be no value whatsoever to these supposed bonus contracts with the collapse of the firm without taxpayer bailout money. No taxpayer money, no firm, no bonuses. The other issue here is that it is de riguer for employees of financial services firms to sign "employment at will" paperwork upon employment. While contracts are common in other industries, they are RARE on Wall Street. We can only hope that our representative will be smart enough to truly investigate the validity of these supposed pre-existing contracts. President Obama ordered the Treasury Department to "pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses," when he sensed the rage of the American voters. SOMEONE on Capital Hill or in the Treasury Department ought to be smart enough to foresee these types of shenanigans when drawing up paperwork to dispense these bailouts. The only enforcement that we've seen so far is the New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, who wants to issue subpoenas for AIG employee names, job descriptions and evaluations of employees receiving bonuses. AIG's Mr. Liddy defended these payments as contractual obligations and further added that this is what's needed to have the talented financial employees to run the business. I highly doubt it. I think some of the 10% of unemployed Americans have a whole lot more common and uncommon sense to run a business than the group that is continuing to rape and pillage AIG now. I hope that investigators continue to look at the fraud that was perpetrated on the AIG shareholders, policyholders and the American people and spare these derivative products "gurus" no mercy.
Gee, makes you wonder who controls AIG, especially in light of the fact that the majority shareholder now, with a whopping 80% of outstanding shares, is the U.S. Federal Government -ie the American people. The answer to this hoopla is found in one simple financial equation that I suggest all executives of investment banks use for 2008 year end Wall Street bonuses: nothing form nothing yields nothing...period.
Kimberly Wilcox
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Give Me My Bonus!
It has always be a right of passage for investment bankers on Wall Street and with other financial service industries tied to it to give year end bonuses in February, yes, I said, February. Why you ask February? Because by then, the year end numbers are crunched, documents filed with the SEC and earnings reported to shareholders so that the overall performance for the year prior has been firmly established before the compensation process begins. Meanwhile, over Christmas vacation or when they returned at the beginning of the year, everyone on the professional staff whose work revenue contribution to the firm is not commission-based, but rather some vague definition of "performance based" will be accumulating a list of all the deals that they worked on throughout the year and the commensurate revenue that the sum total of all of those deals contributed to the overall bottom line of the firm financially. The Department Heads usually fight for their share of the bonus pool from the Directors allotting it and then they distribute it accordingly amongst the members of their departments. Salaries are considered to be "low" on Wall Street to ensure that professional employees put out and THEN and only THEN and IF and ONLY IF the firm does well overall, are bonuses to be considered and allocated. Somewhere in the Techboom of the 1990's bonuses began to be seen as more of a "God-given annual right" than earned compensation by the "Big Swinging Dicks," of Wall Street, as they were referred to in Michael Lewis' 1985 book. As the new millennium came and Y2K was something that they had "overcome" and not merely survived like everyone else, bonuses and other perks began to get even more astronomical. In fact, it spread to executives in other industries who prior, were not compensated on the same level. Neither shareholders' value nor dividends, nor consumer pricing was put first, it was ME FIRST from the BABY BOOM GENERATION and it doesn't matter what it does to anyone below me on the compensation food chain. The attitude was feed by greed, immorality and what seemed like endlessly profitably deals and increasing firm stock price. What was underlying all this increase in "supposed capitalization" of these firms which allowed them to do more deals, purchase more risky assets for their own portfolios and continuing supremely compensating, not only executives, but all the professional staff, was the BIG LIE OF DERIVATIVE PRODUCTS. Many on the capital markets desks of these firms knew the truth of the lies underlying these pooled assets, but lived on the high horse in denial and milked that cow until it dried up. Now, the American taxpayer has been bailing out the industry since last year.
Unfortunately, despite cries from the American public and the New York State Attorney General and some members of the Financial Services Committee, evidently with TARP, there weren't safeguards put in place to prohibit the practice of giving bonuses during bad times. Meaning, ok, the firm hasn't performed, therefore there will be no bonus pool and hence no individual executive bonuses from the bonus pool. Makes sense to anyone with a head on their shoulders, except the good men of Wall Street have still maintained this sickening attitude of entitlement that has allowed them once again to overcompensate themselves by paying themselves bonuses for driving companies into the ground. Directors of these firms came begging to Capital Hill for bailouts, claiming that if they didn't get TARP (bailout #1) they would be bankrupt tomorrow and tens of thousands of employees would be spilling onto the unemployment rolls. Both Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch poured millions out to employees in bonuses while they bankrupted the companies over their own greed. AIG employees have yet to pay for their trip to California and spa services they received. For bonuses to be paid to any investment or commercial bank employee in this financial environment is clearly WRONG. There is no spectrum of grey within which to debate the merits, it simply is WRONG. SINFUL. GREEDY. NOT RIGHT. Add your own adjectives. It is black and white, no firm who has accepted funds from taxpayer bailout number one or number two should be paying employees any compensation other than salaries. Perquisites should have been terminated entirely in the conditions of the loan documents in order to get these funds. If the best and the brightest were running the Treasury last year, why didn't they protect American taxpayer interests better? Congress and our President need to intervene on behalf of the American Shareholder/taxpayer immediately to stop these payouts however they have too.
Kimberly Wilcox
Unfortunately, despite cries from the American public and the New York State Attorney General and some members of the Financial Services Committee, evidently with TARP, there weren't safeguards put in place to prohibit the practice of giving bonuses during bad times. Meaning, ok, the firm hasn't performed, therefore there will be no bonus pool and hence no individual executive bonuses from the bonus pool. Makes sense to anyone with a head on their shoulders, except the good men of Wall Street have still maintained this sickening attitude of entitlement that has allowed them once again to overcompensate themselves by paying themselves bonuses for driving companies into the ground. Directors of these firms came begging to Capital Hill for bailouts, claiming that if they didn't get TARP (bailout #1) they would be bankrupt tomorrow and tens of thousands of employees would be spilling onto the unemployment rolls. Both Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch poured millions out to employees in bonuses while they bankrupted the companies over their own greed. AIG employees have yet to pay for their trip to California and spa services they received. For bonuses to be paid to any investment or commercial bank employee in this financial environment is clearly WRONG. There is no spectrum of grey within which to debate the merits, it simply is WRONG. SINFUL. GREEDY. NOT RIGHT. Add your own adjectives. It is black and white, no firm who has accepted funds from taxpayer bailout number one or number two should be paying employees any compensation other than salaries. Perquisites should have been terminated entirely in the conditions of the loan documents in order to get these funds. If the best and the brightest were running the Treasury last year, why didn't they protect American taxpayer interests better? Congress and our President need to intervene on behalf of the American Shareholder/taxpayer immediately to stop these payouts however they have too.
Kimberly Wilcox
Monday, March 16, 2009
Cartoon of the Day: Speaker of the House Treatment
The Nancy is currently headlining a tour of fiscal irresponsibility.
Small Businesses Shoulder Burdens
Submitted by ASO member: Tom Sullivan
Today, President Obama announced some of his plans to help small business. It will be difficult to distract people from pouring over NCAA tournament brackets, but it is worth directing some attention to how the President approaches the sector which we are all counting on to rescue our economy.
Well before newspapers were carrying news of the economic collapse, large companies were shedding jobs and out of the wreckage grew newly self-employed entrepreneurs. This is not a description of some job-layoff silver lining. Rather, it is a statement of what employment data show over the past several years. Now that small and large businesses alike are deep in the trench of an economic recession, the national focus is appropriately how to climb out.
Small businesses have rescued the economy from past recessions. Entrepreneurs grow businesses through innovation, ingenuity, creativity and unbridled energy. Businesses grow as entrepreneurs succeed. As small business goes, so goes the economy. My advice to the President is to carefully examine what policies stimulate entrepreneurial activity and what policies stifle that activity. And, I advise, go full steam ahead with the policies in the “stimulate” category.
Health care and taxes should be the top two issues of focus for President Obama as he details his plans for the entrepreneurial sector. Small businesses will applaud a concentrated effort to address costs when re-shaping the health insurance system. The top question that needs to be answered is, “how do we make it easier for small employers to provide health insurance?” On taxes, the President should acknowledge that the more cash small business has, the more likely those profits will result in new hires. Postpone the rhetoric of “tax the rich” until those wealthy employers hire more people.
Next, I advise the President to focus on how government agencies treat entrepreneurs. Small businesses shoulder a disproportionately high percentage of regulatory burden compared to their larger business competitors. The cost of keeping up with the massive amount of federal rules, regulations, standards, guidance, filings, reports, and permits is 45 percent more for very small businesses compared to businesses with 500 or more employees. Federal regulatory costs for small businesses total $7,647 per employee per year. On a per-household basis, this cost exceeds the cost of healthcare. The President’s small business plan should start with a pronouncement that his White House will hold regulatory agencies directly accountable to small businesses. He can do that by adding a small business empowerment section to President Clinton’s executive order on regulatory planning and review. The small business section should stop federal mandates that unnecessarily stifle entrepreneurial growth and should encourage regulatory actions that unleash the economic potential of small enterprise.
Today, President Obama announced some of his plans to help small business. It will be difficult to distract people from pouring over NCAA tournament brackets, but it is worth directing some attention to how the President approaches the sector which we are all counting on to rescue our economy.
Well before newspapers were carrying news of the economic collapse, large companies were shedding jobs and out of the wreckage grew newly self-employed entrepreneurs. This is not a description of some job-layoff silver lining. Rather, it is a statement of what employment data show over the past several years. Now that small and large businesses alike are deep in the trench of an economic recession, the national focus is appropriately how to climb out.
Small businesses have rescued the economy from past recessions. Entrepreneurs grow businesses through innovation, ingenuity, creativity and unbridled energy. Businesses grow as entrepreneurs succeed. As small business goes, so goes the economy. My advice to the President is to carefully examine what policies stimulate entrepreneurial activity and what policies stifle that activity. And, I advise, go full steam ahead with the policies in the “stimulate” category.
Health care and taxes should be the top two issues of focus for President Obama as he details his plans for the entrepreneurial sector. Small businesses will applaud a concentrated effort to address costs when re-shaping the health insurance system. The top question that needs to be answered is, “how do we make it easier for small employers to provide health insurance?” On taxes, the President should acknowledge that the more cash small business has, the more likely those profits will result in new hires. Postpone the rhetoric of “tax the rich” until those wealthy employers hire more people.
Next, I advise the President to focus on how government agencies treat entrepreneurs. Small businesses shoulder a disproportionately high percentage of regulatory burden compared to their larger business competitors. The cost of keeping up with the massive amount of federal rules, regulations, standards, guidance, filings, reports, and permits is 45 percent more for very small businesses compared to businesses with 500 or more employees. Federal regulatory costs for small businesses total $7,647 per employee per year. On a per-household basis, this cost exceeds the cost of healthcare. The President’s small business plan should start with a pronouncement that his White House will hold regulatory agencies directly accountable to small businesses. He can do that by adding a small business empowerment section to President Clinton’s executive order on regulatory planning and review. The small business section should stop federal mandates that unnecessarily stifle entrepreneurial growth and should encourage regulatory actions that unleash the economic potential of small enterprise.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Cartoon of the Day
In light of the recent stock market bounce, we can see that Obama is sure trying hard... if only that was enough.
The Reluctant Optimist
This would all be the height of hilarity if it wasn’t actually happening. When the screaming in my head stops, I have quiet time to imagine all these budget-, policy-, and financial services-types in Washington running around like a hundred Charlie Chaplains: leaderless, directionless, and ridiculous. What are they doing?!?! I don’t at all claim to have the answers to these economic problems, but it certainly can’t be the death-by-a-thousand-cuts profligate spending of which we’re suddenly so fond.
Many seem to be saying (you know who you are: thank you) that we can’t simply resolve this situation by throwing money at it, but no one is closing the spending floodgates. I’m as scared as the next person of a prolonged recession, or (God forbid) a full-blown depression, but I’m more afraid of weathering this storm only to face 50 percent income taxes and so much government intervention and regulation that capitalists and entrepreneurs flee for the hills. We can’t afford for the engines of American ingenuity to decide to shut down to avoid conflict with our government.
I wrote last time about the importance of us learning our collective lessons from this crisis. The government is doing us no favors in that regard. We’re being scolded for having spent beyond our means and buying homes our incomes couldn’t support. We’re also being told that only our spending as consumers keeps the economy growing, and until we start doing that again, they’re going to do it for us. That causes me to wonder: when we start spending again, will they stop? And if they stop (or especially if they don’t), how much of our paychecks will be devoured by taxes to pay for it all (including the interest on our national debt)? It already feels like a vicious cycle, and it’s barely begun. Hilarious, huh?
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