So much for the new-and-improved, "I'm not a bully," Rahm Emanuel.
Since returning to Chicago to run for mayor, Emanuel has shied away from the public outbursts and vulgar language that famously earned him the nickname "Rahmbo."
But I've learned the new-and-improved Rahm has a way to punish the press when they report on stories he doesn't like. He cuts off access.
This week NBCChicago and Ward Room published details of the Emanuel Inauguration, which includes a plan to charge donors up to $50,000 for a premium seat at the swearing-in on May 16th. While noting that there will be "free, open and accessible" events around the ceremony, our writers took him to task for being the first Chicago mayor to charge a fee of any sort for his inaugural.
The Emanuel team says that money will pay for the event and save the taxpayers.
So the day after the "Mini White House Inaugural" was reported, the Emanuel team refused to notify NBC of rare one-on-one interviews allotted to our competitors. The TV business is competitive, but typically politicians and public figures who are involved with big events grant the same access to all-comers.
When we asked why we were left out of the mix, the Emanuel communications team implied they weren't happy with the coverage of the VIP inauguration. They didn't challenge facts, but were upset with tone. So they left us out.
It's an old game ... kill the messenger not the message; cut off the access.
The story continued on Friday, when during a press conference about Chicago Public Schools changes, Emanuel abruptly left the podium before taking questions about his inaugural, nor would he comment on a report about incoming communications director Chris Mather, who has racked up nine personnel complaints during her time at the USDA (See the above video for the Emanuel reaction and how I tried to follow up him.)
Remember what outgoing Alderman Berny Stone said about preparing Emperor Emanuel? Which Rahm replied "My family says I don't look good in a toga."
I have to agree.
BY Mary Ann Ahern // Friday, Apr 15, 2011 at 03:47 CDT
Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/How-Rahm-Emanuel-Retailiates-Against-Bad-Press.html#ixzz1JerGhZtB
Friday, April 15, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Flip Flop-9/11 suspects will be tried at Guantanamo,
Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., in a major reversal for the Obama administration, 'reluctantly' announces that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other suspects in the September 11 terror attacks will be tried before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rather than in a civilian court in New York.
By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
2:11 p.m. CDT, April 4, 2011
sc-dc-0405-holder-ksm-20110404
WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced "reluctantly" that the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four other suspects will face justice before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay rather than in a civilian court in New York.
The decision marks a major reversal both for President Obama and Holder, especially since the president initially promised to shut down the prison at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay — where Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the others will now be tried.
"Sadly, this case has been marked by needless controversy since the beginning," Holder said, revealing that a 2009 indictment against Mohammed and the four others has sat for months under seal in federal court in New York, without ever proceeding. "But despite all the argument and debate it has engendered, the prosecution for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators should never have been about settling ideological arguments or scoring political points."
Republican lawmakers, and some Democrats, who vigorously opposed a federal civilian trial for the alleged Sept. 11 plotters welcomed the news that the White House and Holder had reversed their earlier decision to move the defendants from Cuba to New York.
"For the sake of the safety and security of the American people, I'm glad the president reconsidered his position,'' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor. "Going forward, this model should be the rule rather than the exception."
In late 2009, the attorney general said that the trials of the five men would be held in the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan, a decision that at first was met with general public approval.
But by early 2010, Holder and the Justice Department were running into steep opposition from New York politicians from both parties, along with much of the public, who were concerned that a civilian trial would cost too much, place New York once again in the terror spotlight, and possibly endanger the New York public. At the same time, there were mounting protests over a new Muslim mosque center near the trade center site as well.
Republicans were so incensed that on Capitol Hill, joining with a good number of Democrats, they passed legislation to prohibit spending any federal funds to move terror detainees from the Cuban prison to the U.S. for civilian trials.
That move in essence blocked the administration's attempts for civilian trials, and last month Obama announced that he was restarting the military tribunal process at Guantanamo Bay.
richard.serrano@latimes.com
By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
2:11 p.m. CDT, April 4, 2011
sc-dc-0405-holder-ksm-20110404
WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced "reluctantly" that the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four other suspects will face justice before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay rather than in a civilian court in New York.
The decision marks a major reversal both for President Obama and Holder, especially since the president initially promised to shut down the prison at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay — where Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the others will now be tried.
"Sadly, this case has been marked by needless controversy since the beginning," Holder said, revealing that a 2009 indictment against Mohammed and the four others has sat for months under seal in federal court in New York, without ever proceeding. "But despite all the argument and debate it has engendered, the prosecution for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators should never have been about settling ideological arguments or scoring political points."
Republican lawmakers, and some Democrats, who vigorously opposed a federal civilian trial for the alleged Sept. 11 plotters welcomed the news that the White House and Holder had reversed their earlier decision to move the defendants from Cuba to New York.
"For the sake of the safety and security of the American people, I'm glad the president reconsidered his position,'' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor. "Going forward, this model should be the rule rather than the exception."
In late 2009, the attorney general said that the trials of the five men would be held in the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan, a decision that at first was met with general public approval.
But by early 2010, Holder and the Justice Department were running into steep opposition from New York politicians from both parties, along with much of the public, who were concerned that a civilian trial would cost too much, place New York once again in the terror spotlight, and possibly endanger the New York public. At the same time, there were mounting protests over a new Muslim mosque center near the trade center site as well.
Republicans were so incensed that on Capitol Hill, joining with a good number of Democrats, they passed legislation to prohibit spending any federal funds to move terror detainees from the Cuban prison to the U.S. for civilian trials.
That move in essence blocked the administration's attempts for civilian trials, and last month Obama announced that he was restarting the military tribunal process at Guantanamo Bay.
richard.serrano@latimes.com
Supreme Court supports tax breaks that subsidize religious schools
The court rules, 5-4, in favor of Arizona tax credits for those who give money to parochial schools and says the credits cannot be challenged as unconstitutional. Justice Elena Kagan dissents, objecting to the court's distinction between tax breaks and tax subsidies.
By David G. Savage
1:16 p.m. CDT, April 4, 2011
sc-dc-0405-court-religion-web-20110404
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court opened the door to a new form of state support for religious schools, upholding special tax credits in Arizona for those who give money to church schools and ruling that critics may not challenge such a plan as unconstitutional.
The 5-4 decision goes further than ever before to shield government subsidies for religion from being challenged in court.
In the past, the court has said that taxpayers can go to court and sue if a state or a federal agency violates the 1st Amendment ban on subsidizing "an establishment of religion." Acting on such suits, courts struck down a series of state laws in recent decades that gave public money to parochial schools.
In Monday's decision, however, the court's conservative bloc ruled that dissenting taxpayers may not sue to challenge special tax breaks that subsidize religious teaching. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said a tax break differs from a direct subsidy because the money comes from the wallet of the person making the donation, not from the state.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sc-dc-0405-court-religion-web-20110404,0,1500419.story
By David G. Savage
1:16 p.m. CDT, April 4, 2011
sc-dc-0405-court-religion-web-20110404
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court opened the door to a new form of state support for religious schools, upholding special tax credits in Arizona for those who give money to church schools and ruling that critics may not challenge such a plan as unconstitutional.
The 5-4 decision goes further than ever before to shield government subsidies for religion from being challenged in court.
In the past, the court has said that taxpayers can go to court and sue if a state or a federal agency violates the 1st Amendment ban on subsidizing "an establishment of religion." Acting on such suits, courts struck down a series of state laws in recent decades that gave public money to parochial schools.
In Monday's decision, however, the court's conservative bloc ruled that dissenting taxpayers may not sue to challenge special tax breaks that subsidize religious teaching. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said a tax break differs from a direct subsidy because the money comes from the wallet of the person making the donation, not from the state.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sc-dc-0405-court-religion-web-20110404,0,1500419.story
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Republican Numbers in Chicago
Most Republican Wards in Chicago*
Ward Percentage Democratic voters Percentage Republican voters
41 74.3% 25.7%
42 76.3% 23.7%
43 78.8% 21.2%
38 81.1% 18.9%
45 81.4% 18.6%
Most Democratic Wards in Chicago*
Ward Percentage Democratic voters Percentage Republican voters
34 99.3% 0.7%
8 99.2% 0.8%
6 99.2% 0.8%
17 99.2% 0.8%
21 99.1% 0.9%
* based off ballots pulled during February 2010 primary election
Ward Percentage Democratic voters Percentage Republican voters
41 74.3% 25.7%
42 76.3% 23.7%
43 78.8% 21.2%
38 81.1% 18.9%
45 81.4% 18.6%
Most Democratic Wards in Chicago*
Ward Percentage Democratic voters Percentage Republican voters
34 99.3% 0.7%
8 99.2% 0.8%
6 99.2% 0.8%
17 99.2% 0.8%
21 99.1% 0.9%
* based off ballots pulled during February 2010 primary election
Monday, March 21, 2011
Rahm Emanuel nearly swept black neighborhoods in mayoral victory
Rahm Emanuel’s big victory in last month’s mayoral election was so resounding that he carried more than four out of every five precincts, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis that offers the first neighborhood-level look at how the mayor’s race was won.
Emanuel came out on top in 2,106 of the city’s 2,570 precincts, the analysis found.
Beyond that, it found that despite the presence in the mayoral election of former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who emerged as the consensus African-American candidate, nearly every majority-black precinct went for Emanuel, whose campaign got a show of support from his former boss, President Obama. That helped Emanuel win 55 percent of the votes — enough to win the mayor’s race outright and avoid a runoff.
Second-place finisher Gery Chico carried 411 precincts, while Miguel del Valle won in 52, and Braun came out on top in only one precinct.
Chico — whose paternal grandparents came from Mexico — carried heavily Mexican-American neighborhoods on the city’s Southwest Side and Southeast Side.
And Chico’s campaign promise to try to avoid cutting pension benefits for city workers in the face of severe budget problems appears to have helped deliver Beverly, Edgewater and Edison Park — each home to many police officers, firefighters and other city workers. Emanuel did not make that same campaign promise.
A cluster of largely Puerto Rican precincts helped del Valle, who was born in Puerto Rico, carry his political base of Humboldt Park. It wasn’t quite enough to win him an entire ward in the mayoral voting — but he came close.
Some nearby precincts in which Mexican Americans now outnumber Puerto Ricans went for Chico, the analysis found.
“Other than political party identification, race is the most important clue to voting,” says Dick Simpson, the former alderman who is now a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Of Braun’s fourth-place showing, Simpson says that despite the common view that “people think it’s mostly because Carol Moseley Braun ran a bad campaign, it’s not clear [U.S. Rep.] Danny Davis or [state Sen. James] Meeks” — who dropped out of the campaign and supported Braun — “would have done much better.”
Simpson says of Emanuel’s ability to carry heavily black neighborhboods, “It is progress to the extent that it is not an automatic race vote. Voters are taking into account who will best take care of their needs.”
The lone precinct carried by Braun was in the Fuller Park neighborhood around 43rd Street and Wentworth Avenue on the South Side. Most of its voters live in the Minnie Riperton apartments, a Chicago Housing Authority senior citizens mid-rise complex.
Among them: David Whitehead, 71, a retiree who was a frequent — and unsuccessful — candidate for alderman and other public offices in the1980s and 1990s, including a loss in a 1996 Illinois Senate race to Obama.
Whitehead says he worked to get out the vote for Braun at the Riperton complex.
“I told people that, with my experience and what I know about these candidates . . . that Carol would be a better person,” says Whitehead.
Braun carried the precinct with 83 votes, to Emanuel’s 59.
Whitehead figures Braun would have done even better there if his old opponent hadn’t backed Emanuel.
“The president came on the TV and WVON radio saying, ‘I support Rahm Emanuel, he’s a good guy, he’s qualified,’ ” Whitehead says.
http://www.suntimes.com/4244583-417/rahm-emanuel-nearly-swept-black-neighborhoods-in-mayoral-victory.html
Emanuel came out on top in 2,106 of the city’s 2,570 precincts, the analysis found.
Beyond that, it found that despite the presence in the mayoral election of former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who emerged as the consensus African-American candidate, nearly every majority-black precinct went for Emanuel, whose campaign got a show of support from his former boss, President Obama. That helped Emanuel win 55 percent of the votes — enough to win the mayor’s race outright and avoid a runoff.
Second-place finisher Gery Chico carried 411 precincts, while Miguel del Valle won in 52, and Braun came out on top in only one precinct.
Chico — whose paternal grandparents came from Mexico — carried heavily Mexican-American neighborhoods on the city’s Southwest Side and Southeast Side.
And Chico’s campaign promise to try to avoid cutting pension benefits for city workers in the face of severe budget problems appears to have helped deliver Beverly, Edgewater and Edison Park — each home to many police officers, firefighters and other city workers. Emanuel did not make that same campaign promise.
A cluster of largely Puerto Rican precincts helped del Valle, who was born in Puerto Rico, carry his political base of Humboldt Park. It wasn’t quite enough to win him an entire ward in the mayoral voting — but he came close.
Some nearby precincts in which Mexican Americans now outnumber Puerto Ricans went for Chico, the analysis found.
“Other than political party identification, race is the most important clue to voting,” says Dick Simpson, the former alderman who is now a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Of Braun’s fourth-place showing, Simpson says that despite the common view that “people think it’s mostly because Carol Moseley Braun ran a bad campaign, it’s not clear [U.S. Rep.] Danny Davis or [state Sen. James] Meeks” — who dropped out of the campaign and supported Braun — “would have done much better.”
Simpson says of Emanuel’s ability to carry heavily black neighborhboods, “It is progress to the extent that it is not an automatic race vote. Voters are taking into account who will best take care of their needs.”
The lone precinct carried by Braun was in the Fuller Park neighborhood around 43rd Street and Wentworth Avenue on the South Side. Most of its voters live in the Minnie Riperton apartments, a Chicago Housing Authority senior citizens mid-rise complex.
Among them: David Whitehead, 71, a retiree who was a frequent — and unsuccessful — candidate for alderman and other public offices in the1980s and 1990s, including a loss in a 1996 Illinois Senate race to Obama.
Whitehead says he worked to get out the vote for Braun at the Riperton complex.
“I told people that, with my experience and what I know about these candidates . . . that Carol would be a better person,” says Whitehead.
Braun carried the precinct with 83 votes, to Emanuel’s 59.
Whitehead figures Braun would have done even better there if his old opponent hadn’t backed Emanuel.
“The president came on the TV and WVON radio saying, ‘I support Rahm Emanuel, he’s a good guy, he’s qualified,’ ” Whitehead says.
http://www.suntimes.com/4244583-417/rahm-emanuel-nearly-swept-black-neighborhoods-in-mayoral-victory.html
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Revive Yucca Storage Facility
Before the nuclear disaster in Japan, most people probably didn't know that there is something potentially worse than a nuclear reactor core meltdown. That's the breach and exposure of containers holding hundreds of radioactive rods of spent nuclear fuel.
That's what crews are battling at the crippled Fukushima nuclear facility.
Here's why that is potentially a bigger problem than a meltdown: In the Japanese reactors — as in many U.S. reactors — the spent fuel is housed in large water-filled pools in the reactor building but outside the concrete-and-steel fortress that surrounds the reactor core.
If the core melts down, any radiation released is likely to be partly bottled up by the containment vessel.
Not so for the spent fuel pools, which often contain far more radioactive material than in the reactor. If the water that keeps those rods cool drains or boils away, the used fuel can catch fire. Result: A dangerous plume of extremely high radioactivity spewed into the air.
Obvious question: Why do nuclear plants store spent fuel that way?
Obvious answer in the U.S.: Yucca Mountain isn't open. In the 1980s, the federal government launched plans to ship nuclear waste to a storage lair carved into the mountain in Nevada and let it slowly and harmlessly decay.
But lawsuits, politics and environmental challenges stalled the project for decades.
Last year — 12 years after it was supposed to open — the Obama administration declared Yucca dead and created a panel to study "alternatives."
"We're done with Yucca," White House energy adviser Carol Browner said at the time. "We need to be looking at other alternatives."
Alternatives that, presumably, weren't in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's backyard.
The decision to mothball Yucca was a huge mistake, and the Obama administration should recognize that in the wake of the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan.
The storage caverns at Yucca would be 1,000 feet below the surface and 1,000 feet above the water table in the Nevada desert. They would be geologically stable. Water seepage from the surface is minimal.
Wake-up call: Illinois is home to more spent fuel rods than any other state in the nation.
The U.S. doesn't have another three decades to dither about where to store nuclear waste. Those spent fuel rods are piling up in reactors near major cities — including at the scuttled Zion nuclear power plant here. About 1,100 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel rods stand about a football field away from Lake Michigan. Another 6,100 tons are stored at other Illinois plants.
A breach of those fuel pools and a release of huge radioactive plumes could create a disaster as bad as, or worse than, Chernobyl.
In 1997, the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island studied the worst-case toll of a spent fuel conflagration. The scary results: 101 immediate deaths in a 500-mile range, 138,000 eventual deaths, 2,170 miles of land contaminated. Estimated economic damages: $546 billion.
Until the Japanese earthquake and tsunami ruined the Fukushima reactors, the likelihood of a spent-fuel cataclysm seemed remote. No, we're not going to have a 9.0 earthquake in Zion or tsunami on Lake Michigan. But let's not mask that there is substantial risk to stalling on a central, secure storage location for the nation's spent nuclear fuel.
In the short term, America's nuclear industry can reduce risks by moving more spent fuel from reactor buildings into dry casks — sturdy concrete and steel containers nearly the size of a truck trailer — elsewhere on site.
In the long run, however, nuclear waste shouldn't be scattered near population centers across the country. It should be entombed in Yucca Mountain.
Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune
That's what crews are battling at the crippled Fukushima nuclear facility.
Here's why that is potentially a bigger problem than a meltdown: In the Japanese reactors — as in many U.S. reactors — the spent fuel is housed in large water-filled pools in the reactor building but outside the concrete-and-steel fortress that surrounds the reactor core.
If the core melts down, any radiation released is likely to be partly bottled up by the containment vessel.
Not so for the spent fuel pools, which often contain far more radioactive material than in the reactor. If the water that keeps those rods cool drains or boils away, the used fuel can catch fire. Result: A dangerous plume of extremely high radioactivity spewed into the air.
Obvious question: Why do nuclear plants store spent fuel that way?
Obvious answer in the U.S.: Yucca Mountain isn't open. In the 1980s, the federal government launched plans to ship nuclear waste to a storage lair carved into the mountain in Nevada and let it slowly and harmlessly decay.
But lawsuits, politics and environmental challenges stalled the project for decades.
Last year — 12 years after it was supposed to open — the Obama administration declared Yucca dead and created a panel to study "alternatives."
"We're done with Yucca," White House energy adviser Carol Browner said at the time. "We need to be looking at other alternatives."
Alternatives that, presumably, weren't in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's backyard.
The decision to mothball Yucca was a huge mistake, and the Obama administration should recognize that in the wake of the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan.
The storage caverns at Yucca would be 1,000 feet below the surface and 1,000 feet above the water table in the Nevada desert. They would be geologically stable. Water seepage from the surface is minimal.
Wake-up call: Illinois is home to more spent fuel rods than any other state in the nation.
The U.S. doesn't have another three decades to dither about where to store nuclear waste. Those spent fuel rods are piling up in reactors near major cities — including at the scuttled Zion nuclear power plant here. About 1,100 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel rods stand about a football field away from Lake Michigan. Another 6,100 tons are stored at other Illinois plants.
A breach of those fuel pools and a release of huge radioactive plumes could create a disaster as bad as, or worse than, Chernobyl.
In 1997, the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island studied the worst-case toll of a spent fuel conflagration. The scary results: 101 immediate deaths in a 500-mile range, 138,000 eventual deaths, 2,170 miles of land contaminated. Estimated economic damages: $546 billion.
Until the Japanese earthquake and tsunami ruined the Fukushima reactors, the likelihood of a spent-fuel cataclysm seemed remote. No, we're not going to have a 9.0 earthquake in Zion or tsunami on Lake Michigan. But let's not mask that there is substantial risk to stalling on a central, secure storage location for the nation's spent nuclear fuel.
In the short term, America's nuclear industry can reduce risks by moving more spent fuel from reactor buildings into dry casks — sturdy concrete and steel containers nearly the size of a truck trailer — elsewhere on site.
In the long run, however, nuclear waste shouldn't be scattered near population centers across the country. It should be entombed in Yucca Mountain.
Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune
Friday, March 18, 2011
Blacks and Republicans
Thomas Sowell
San Francisco's irrepressible former mayor, Willie Brown, was walking along one of the city's streets when he happened to run into another former city official that he knew, James McCray.
McCray's greeting to him was "You're 10."
"What are you talking about?" Willie Brown asked.
McCray replied: "I just walked from Civic Center to Third Street and you're only the 10th black person I've seen."
That is hardly surprising. The black population of San Francisco is less than half of what it was in 1970, and it fell another 19 percent in the past decade.
A few years ago, I had a similar experience in one of the other communities further down the San Francisco peninsula. As I was bicycling down the street, I saw a black man waiting at a bus stop. As I approached him, he said, "You're the first black man I have seen around here in months!"
"It will be months more before you see another one," I replied, and we both laughed.
Actually, it was no laughing matter. Blacks are being forced out of San Francisco, and out of other communities on the San Francisco peninsula, by high housing prices.
At one time, housing prices in San Francisco were much like housing prices elsewhere in the country. But the building restrictions-- and outright bans-- resulting from the political crusades of environmentalist zealots sent housing prices skyrocketing in San Francisco, San Jose and most of the communities in between. Housing prices in these communities soared to about three times the national average.
The black population in three adjacent counties on the San Francisco peninsula is just under 3 percent of the total population in the 39 communities in those counties.
It so happens that these are counties where the voters and the officials they elect are virtually all liberal Democrats. You might be hard pressed to find similarly one-sided conservative Republican communities where blacks are such small percentages of the population.
Certainly that would be hard to find in states with a substantial total population of blacks. In California, a substantial black population has simply been forced by economics to vacate many communities near the coast and move farther inland, where the environmental zealots are not yet as strong politically, and where housing prices are therefore not yet as unaffordable.
With all the Republican politicians' laments about how overwhelmingly blacks vote for Democrats, I have yet to hear a Republican politician publicly point out the harm to blacks from such policies of the Democrats as severe housing restrictions, resulting from catering to environmental extremists.
If the Republicans did point out such things as building restrictions that make it hard for most blacks to afford housing, even in places where they once lived, they would have the Democrats at a complete disadvantage.
It would be impossible for the Democrats to deny the facts, not only in coastal California but in similar affluent strongholds of liberal Democrats around the country. Moreover, environmental zealots are such an important part of the Democrats' constituencies that Democratic politicians could not change their policies.
Although Republicans would have a strong case, none of that matters when they don't make the case in the first place. The same is true of the effects of minimum wage laws on the high rate of unemployment among black youths. Again, the facts are undeniable, and the Democrats cannot change their policy, because they are beholden to labor unions that advocate higher minimum wages.
Yet another area in which Democrats are boxed in politically is their making job protection for members of teachers' unions more important than improving education for students in the public schools. No one loses more from this policy than blacks, for many of whom education is their only chance for economic advancement.
But none of this matters so long as Republicans who want the black vote think they have to devise earmarked benefits for blacks, instead of explaining how Republicans' general principles, applied to all Americans, can do more for blacks than the Democrats' welfare state approach.
San Francisco's irrepressible former mayor, Willie Brown, was walking along one of the city's streets when he happened to run into another former city official that he knew, James McCray.
McCray's greeting to him was "You're 10."
"What are you talking about?" Willie Brown asked.
McCray replied: "I just walked from Civic Center to Third Street and you're only the 10th black person I've seen."
That is hardly surprising. The black population of San Francisco is less than half of what it was in 1970, and it fell another 19 percent in the past decade.
A few years ago, I had a similar experience in one of the other communities further down the San Francisco peninsula. As I was bicycling down the street, I saw a black man waiting at a bus stop. As I approached him, he said, "You're the first black man I have seen around here in months!"
"It will be months more before you see another one," I replied, and we both laughed.
Actually, it was no laughing matter. Blacks are being forced out of San Francisco, and out of other communities on the San Francisco peninsula, by high housing prices.
At one time, housing prices in San Francisco were much like housing prices elsewhere in the country. But the building restrictions-- and outright bans-- resulting from the political crusades of environmentalist zealots sent housing prices skyrocketing in San Francisco, San Jose and most of the communities in between. Housing prices in these communities soared to about three times the national average.
The black population in three adjacent counties on the San Francisco peninsula is just under 3 percent of the total population in the 39 communities in those counties.
It so happens that these are counties where the voters and the officials they elect are virtually all liberal Democrats. You might be hard pressed to find similarly one-sided conservative Republican communities where blacks are such small percentages of the population.
Certainly that would be hard to find in states with a substantial total population of blacks. In California, a substantial black population has simply been forced by economics to vacate many communities near the coast and move farther inland, where the environmental zealots are not yet as strong politically, and where housing prices are therefore not yet as unaffordable.
With all the Republican politicians' laments about how overwhelmingly blacks vote for Democrats, I have yet to hear a Republican politician publicly point out the harm to blacks from such policies of the Democrats as severe housing restrictions, resulting from catering to environmental extremists.
If the Republicans did point out such things as building restrictions that make it hard for most blacks to afford housing, even in places where they once lived, they would have the Democrats at a complete disadvantage.
It would be impossible for the Democrats to deny the facts, not only in coastal California but in similar affluent strongholds of liberal Democrats around the country. Moreover, environmental zealots are such an important part of the Democrats' constituencies that Democratic politicians could not change their policies.
Although Republicans would have a strong case, none of that matters when they don't make the case in the first place. The same is true of the effects of minimum wage laws on the high rate of unemployment among black youths. Again, the facts are undeniable, and the Democrats cannot change their policy, because they are beholden to labor unions that advocate higher minimum wages.
Yet another area in which Democrats are boxed in politically is their making job protection for members of teachers' unions more important than improving education for students in the public schools. No one loses more from this policy than blacks, for many of whom education is their only chance for economic advancement.
But none of this matters so long as Republicans who want the black vote think they have to devise earmarked benefits for blacks, instead of explaining how Republicans' general principles, applied to all Americans, can do more for blacks than the Democrats' welfare state approach.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
College Illinois managers say prepaid tuition fund is stable
Plan projected to have 31 percent shortfall, according to news report
By Jodi S. Cohen, Tribune reporter
Officials who manage the state's prepaid tuition program assured lawmakers Wednesday that the fund is stable despite past market losses and tuition increases that have been higher than anticipated.
The $1.12 billion fund is "healthy and in good shape," Andrew Davis, executive director of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, said in a presentation to the House Higher Education Committee. The commission manages the College Illinois program.
About 33,000 families hold a total of 54,900 tuition contracts through the prepaid tuition program, which is advertised as a "worry-free way to pay for college." About 7,750 students this year are cashing in on their prepaid tuition benefits, with the fund paying out $47.7 million.
College Illinois officials were summoned to Springfield after a Crain's Chicago Business report that the plan is currently projected to have a 31 percent shortfall, and critics are questioning the agency's strategy to shift to more alternative, arguably riskier investments in hedge funds, real estate and private equity.
Davis was grilled at length Wednesday by Rep. Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, who has submitted a bill calling for an audit of the fund. Durkin said he has a College Illinois contract.
"Last week I received a few phone calls from friends and an inquiry from my wife of whether we should pull the money out of the fund," Durkin said.
He told Davis he had "grave concerns" about the portfolio's increase in alternative investments and worried that families would pull their money out of the program.
Davis countered that the investments are not risky because more than 85 percent of the assets are liquid and can be turned into cash in less than one week.
But Davis acknowledged in an earlier Tribune interview that the plan's investment assumptions — based on a predicted rate of return and tuition increases — show that it could run out of cash a decade from now. If that should occur, the agency would have to ask the governor and General Assembly for a bailout, he said.
Like other investments, the plan's health can change quickly. The fund is dependent not only on market fluctuations, but also on how much Illinois' public universities raise tuition and therefore how much the fund will have to pay out as its beneficiaries attend college. The program currently predicts that University of Illinois tuition will go up 8.5 percent indefinitely — if it goes up less, the fund does better; if it goes up more, it does worse.
"We have come through a decade where tuition has gone up a lot, three times the rate of inflation," Davis said. "I don't think they can do that for another decade."
The plan was strong in 2007, when it was only 7 percent underfunded. Since then, the fund suffered market losses during the recession and as tuition went up more than predicted.
The fund's managers have changed their investment strategy, moving from having less than 2 percent in so-called alternative investments such as hedge funds to about 40 percent currently. The target is 47 percent.
Brian Battle, a director at Performance Trust Capital Partners, told the Tribune he questioned the investment strategy and doubted that the agency can get the long-term rate of return of 8.75 percent that it's predicting. The fund this fiscal year has a 14.1 percent return.
"They are underfunded and need to make up for it, so they are going to swing for the fence," Battle said. "It looks like Illinois is taking a lot of risk, and their assumptions are very aggressive."
Battle also has a personal stake, as he has a prepaid tuition contract for one of his children.
"I am concerned that the money won't be there when I need it," he said. "The other part is that I have the presumption that the state of Illinois will feel some moral obligation" to pay.
In addition to changing its investment strategy, the agency also has worked on other ways to strengthen the fund's solvency.
Families now pay significantly more for a contract, for example. An eight-semester contract for the U. of I. purchased today for a newborn costs $95,521. Five years ago, it was $41,493. Families pay different amounts depending on the age of their child and whether the contract is for the U. of I., another state four-year university or a community college.
If a student decides to attend a private university or go out of state, the plan pays a portion of the tuition based on the current mean-weighted average tuition at all Illinois public universities. Families can get their money back at any time, minus fees.
Davis said families shouldn't worry.
"In the context of what other solutions are available to people to pay for higher education … this is a safe and secure one," Davis said.
Tribune reporter Todd Wilson contributed.
jscohen@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-college-illinois-0317-20110316,0,1639505,print.story
By Jodi S. Cohen, Tribune reporter
Officials who manage the state's prepaid tuition program assured lawmakers Wednesday that the fund is stable despite past market losses and tuition increases that have been higher than anticipated.
The $1.12 billion fund is "healthy and in good shape," Andrew Davis, executive director of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, said in a presentation to the House Higher Education Committee. The commission manages the College Illinois program.
About 33,000 families hold a total of 54,900 tuition contracts through the prepaid tuition program, which is advertised as a "worry-free way to pay for college." About 7,750 students this year are cashing in on their prepaid tuition benefits, with the fund paying out $47.7 million.
College Illinois officials were summoned to Springfield after a Crain's Chicago Business report that the plan is currently projected to have a 31 percent shortfall, and critics are questioning the agency's strategy to shift to more alternative, arguably riskier investments in hedge funds, real estate and private equity.
Davis was grilled at length Wednesday by Rep. Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, who has submitted a bill calling for an audit of the fund. Durkin said he has a College Illinois contract.
"Last week I received a few phone calls from friends and an inquiry from my wife of whether we should pull the money out of the fund," Durkin said.
He told Davis he had "grave concerns" about the portfolio's increase in alternative investments and worried that families would pull their money out of the program.
Davis countered that the investments are not risky because more than 85 percent of the assets are liquid and can be turned into cash in less than one week.
But Davis acknowledged in an earlier Tribune interview that the plan's investment assumptions — based on a predicted rate of return and tuition increases — show that it could run out of cash a decade from now. If that should occur, the agency would have to ask the governor and General Assembly for a bailout, he said.
Like other investments, the plan's health can change quickly. The fund is dependent not only on market fluctuations, but also on how much Illinois' public universities raise tuition and therefore how much the fund will have to pay out as its beneficiaries attend college. The program currently predicts that University of Illinois tuition will go up 8.5 percent indefinitely — if it goes up less, the fund does better; if it goes up more, it does worse.
"We have come through a decade where tuition has gone up a lot, three times the rate of inflation," Davis said. "I don't think they can do that for another decade."
The plan was strong in 2007, when it was only 7 percent underfunded. Since then, the fund suffered market losses during the recession and as tuition went up more than predicted.
The fund's managers have changed their investment strategy, moving from having less than 2 percent in so-called alternative investments such as hedge funds to about 40 percent currently. The target is 47 percent.
Brian Battle, a director at Performance Trust Capital Partners, told the Tribune he questioned the investment strategy and doubted that the agency can get the long-term rate of return of 8.75 percent that it's predicting. The fund this fiscal year has a 14.1 percent return.
"They are underfunded and need to make up for it, so they are going to swing for the fence," Battle said. "It looks like Illinois is taking a lot of risk, and their assumptions are very aggressive."
Battle also has a personal stake, as he has a prepaid tuition contract for one of his children.
"I am concerned that the money won't be there when I need it," he said. "The other part is that I have the presumption that the state of Illinois will feel some moral obligation" to pay.
In addition to changing its investment strategy, the agency also has worked on other ways to strengthen the fund's solvency.
Families now pay significantly more for a contract, for example. An eight-semester contract for the U. of I. purchased today for a newborn costs $95,521. Five years ago, it was $41,493. Families pay different amounts depending on the age of their child and whether the contract is for the U. of I., another state four-year university or a community college.
If a student decides to attend a private university or go out of state, the plan pays a portion of the tuition based on the current mean-weighted average tuition at all Illinois public universities. Families can get their money back at any time, minus fees.
Davis said families shouldn't worry.
"In the context of what other solutions are available to people to pay for higher education … this is a safe and secure one," Davis said.
Tribune reporter Todd Wilson contributed.
jscohen@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-college-illinois-0317-20110316,0,1639505,print.story
2012 will be about Obama
By David Hill
The greatest political deception of the month must be that PowerPoint presentation — the 10-slide deck that shows the president matched against various Republicans — that is being trundled around the country for showings to audiences of Democrat fat-cats. Naturally, I haven’t been invited to view it, but I am betting that the data shared with big donors does not show the “deserves reelection” percentage earned by the president. That would scare off the faint-hearted. So, instead, the deceivers show the head-to-head results of Obama versus Michele Bachmann. I can’t believe sophisticated contributors are falling for this.
Not only is this “data-based” sleight of hand misleading about the president’s empirical prospects — the larger strategic premise is flawed. Advisers to the president’s nascent reelection campaign keep talking about where they are today versus four years ago. Worse off, they acknowledge. But then they start criticizing the Republicans for not being where the Democrats were four years ago. It’s as if they think they (and even Republicans) are going to succeed by going back to the future.
All this logic is terribly flawed. Here’s why. The contest four years ago was for an open seat. Open-seat races are about all comers and both parties. The 2012 election will be a reelection contest. It will focus narrowly on the incumbent. Has Barack Obama handled the presidency well enough to deserve reelection? Virtually all incumbents, and even a few challengers, appear to resent this one-sided nature of reelection contests. But resentment doesn’t alter the reality.
Incumbents, including Obama, react to this certainty by doubling down on opposition research. They figure they can “make it all about the challenger” with enough dirt to induce people to forget about the incumbent’s failures. Sure, if you have pictures of the challenger committing an ax murder, you might turn the tables, but the standard oppo file doesn’t hold enough garbage to transform a reelection campaign into a referendum on the challenger. Like it or not, Jim Messina and David Axelrod, this is going to be a referendum on your administration. Get used to it. Don’t take it personally, either, like some sort of martyr. All incumbents face this judgment. If Obama had only had the wisdom to get seasoned by a Senate reelection campaign before running for the White House, he would have had some experience with this truth.
The takeaway from this for Republicans presidential aspirants is not to get sucked into the Obama alternate-reality scenario. Don’t start too early. That only helps the Democrat snipers sighting their targets. Republicans also should drop delusions that this is about their own biographies, accomplishments and policies. They must keep the judgment focused on the incumbent. Sure, Republicans can do some touting of their pasts, but always highlighting how their own deeds compare and contrast with the failures of the incumbent. Keep the heat on. It’s how incumbents are toppled.
There’s an even more practical reason that Republicans cannot be goaded onto the playing field too early: money. To run a proper presidential campaign, even with a skeletal, pared-down organization, will cost at least $50,000 a day. I didn’t say a week. I said 50 grand every day, seven days a week. Multiply that goal times eight or nine candidates and you are chewing through more than $50 million just in the next six months. There’s simply not enough in the pockets of the Republican faithful to bankroll that kind of spending. Hold off.
The question about deserving reelection is not asked often enough by the public pollsters. The last time The Hill reported Obama’s results, in December, only 42 percent said he’s worth another term. That’s far more telling than Obama’s double-digit lead over Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin in someone’s PowerPoint presentation.
David Hill is a pollster that has worked for Republican candidates and causes since 1984.
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/david-hill/149759-2012-will-be-about-obama
The greatest political deception of the month must be that PowerPoint presentation — the 10-slide deck that shows the president matched against various Republicans — that is being trundled around the country for showings to audiences of Democrat fat-cats. Naturally, I haven’t been invited to view it, but I am betting that the data shared with big donors does not show the “deserves reelection” percentage earned by the president. That would scare off the faint-hearted. So, instead, the deceivers show the head-to-head results of Obama versus Michele Bachmann. I can’t believe sophisticated contributors are falling for this.
Not only is this “data-based” sleight of hand misleading about the president’s empirical prospects — the larger strategic premise is flawed. Advisers to the president’s nascent reelection campaign keep talking about where they are today versus four years ago. Worse off, they acknowledge. But then they start criticizing the Republicans for not being where the Democrats were four years ago. It’s as if they think they (and even Republicans) are going to succeed by going back to the future.
All this logic is terribly flawed. Here’s why. The contest four years ago was for an open seat. Open-seat races are about all comers and both parties. The 2012 election will be a reelection contest. It will focus narrowly on the incumbent. Has Barack Obama handled the presidency well enough to deserve reelection? Virtually all incumbents, and even a few challengers, appear to resent this one-sided nature of reelection contests. But resentment doesn’t alter the reality.
Incumbents, including Obama, react to this certainty by doubling down on opposition research. They figure they can “make it all about the challenger” with enough dirt to induce people to forget about the incumbent’s failures. Sure, if you have pictures of the challenger committing an ax murder, you might turn the tables, but the standard oppo file doesn’t hold enough garbage to transform a reelection campaign into a referendum on the challenger. Like it or not, Jim Messina and David Axelrod, this is going to be a referendum on your administration. Get used to it. Don’t take it personally, either, like some sort of martyr. All incumbents face this judgment. If Obama had only had the wisdom to get seasoned by a Senate reelection campaign before running for the White House, he would have had some experience with this truth.
The takeaway from this for Republicans presidential aspirants is not to get sucked into the Obama alternate-reality scenario. Don’t start too early. That only helps the Democrat snipers sighting their targets. Republicans also should drop delusions that this is about their own biographies, accomplishments and policies. They must keep the judgment focused on the incumbent. Sure, Republicans can do some touting of their pasts, but always highlighting how their own deeds compare and contrast with the failures of the incumbent. Keep the heat on. It’s how incumbents are toppled.
There’s an even more practical reason that Republicans cannot be goaded onto the playing field too early: money. To run a proper presidential campaign, even with a skeletal, pared-down organization, will cost at least $50,000 a day. I didn’t say a week. I said 50 grand every day, seven days a week. Multiply that goal times eight or nine candidates and you are chewing through more than $50 million just in the next six months. There’s simply not enough in the pockets of the Republican faithful to bankroll that kind of spending. Hold off.
The question about deserving reelection is not asked often enough by the public pollsters. The last time The Hill reported Obama’s results, in December, only 42 percent said he’s worth another term. That’s far more telling than Obama’s double-digit lead over Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin in someone’s PowerPoint presentation.
David Hill is a pollster that has worked for Republican candidates and causes since 1984.
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/david-hill/149759-2012-will-be-about-obama
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Mandatory Spending to Exceed all Federal Revenues — 50 Years Ahead of Schedule
Jeffrey H. Anderson
We have now gotten to the point — as I noted yesterday — where if national defense, interstate highways, national parks, homeland security, and all other discretionary programs somehow became absolutely free, we’d still have a budget deficit. The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that in the current fiscal year (2011), mandatory spending alone will exceed all federal receipts. So even if we didn’t spend a single cent on discretionary programs, we still wouldn’t be able to balance our budget this year — let alone pay off any of the $14 trillion in debt that we have already accumulated.
Just an Olympiad ago, in 2007, the picture was quite different. In fact, in that year, federal revenues not only exceeded mandatory spending, but they exceeded it by more than $1 trillion ($1.117 trillion, to be more exact). The next year, 2008, during which the gap fell to a still-huge $914 billion, the Bush administration released a report issuing a rather dire warning (p. 25). The report said that, “if left unchanged, mandatory spending alone is projected to exceed total projected Government receipts in approximately 50 years.” That dire prediction has now come true — about 50 years earlier than projected.
Through the years, mandatory spending has steadily increased (with some fluctuation from year to year) in relation to revenues. Here is mandatory spending as a percentage of total federal receipts, by year, according to published White House figures:
1970: roughly 33 percent
2000: 47 percent
2005: 61 percent
2010: 90 percent
2011: 101 percent
The trajectory seems clear. Meanwhile, President Obama has not proposed entitlement reform. He has, however, proposed adding a massive new entitlement: Obamacare. At the same time, the baby boomers’ retirements are looming, which means higher entitlement expenditures and a smaller proportion of the population available to finance them. In light of all of this, what do the Obama administration’s projections for mandatory spending as a percentage of total federal receipts look like, going forward? Here they are:
2012: 81 percent
2013: 73 percent
2014: 7o percent
2015: 69 percent
Seriously?
These estimates are made possible because (among other things) the Obama administration is projecting a 21 percent increase in federal receipts from 2011 to 2012. Never mind that we haven’t seen an increase like that in 40 years. In fact, the largest increase in the past 40 years has been 16 percent.
How is the Obama administration’s track record in forecasting such increases? For 2010, it projected a 9 percent increase in receipts. The actual tally was 3 percent. For 2011, it projected a 19 percent increase in receipts. Just one year later (in this year's budget), it has now modified that projection to less than 1 percent (actually, to 0.5 percent). So that’s a swing from projecting the highest increase in the past 40 years, to projecting essentially no increase at all — in just 12 months.
To tackle our very real fiscal crisis, we need serious numbers and serious leadership, not just blind hope that things will (somehow) change. Now that we are at the point where our total receipts cannot even cover our mandatory spending, entitlement reform would seem to be an obvious necessity. Yet only one house of one branch of the federal government has thus far shown any real signs of being able to see the obvious.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/mandatory-spending-exceed-all-federal-revenues-fiscal-year-2011_554659.html
We have now gotten to the point — as I noted yesterday — where if national defense, interstate highways, national parks, homeland security, and all other discretionary programs somehow became absolutely free, we’d still have a budget deficit. The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that in the current fiscal year (2011), mandatory spending alone will exceed all federal receipts. So even if we didn’t spend a single cent on discretionary programs, we still wouldn’t be able to balance our budget this year — let alone pay off any of the $14 trillion in debt that we have already accumulated.
Just an Olympiad ago, in 2007, the picture was quite different. In fact, in that year, federal revenues not only exceeded mandatory spending, but they exceeded it by more than $1 trillion ($1.117 trillion, to be more exact). The next year, 2008, during which the gap fell to a still-huge $914 billion, the Bush administration released a report issuing a rather dire warning (p. 25). The report said that, “if left unchanged, mandatory spending alone is projected to exceed total projected Government receipts in approximately 50 years.” That dire prediction has now come true — about 50 years earlier than projected.
Through the years, mandatory spending has steadily increased (with some fluctuation from year to year) in relation to revenues. Here is mandatory spending as a percentage of total federal receipts, by year, according to published White House figures:
1970: roughly 33 percent
2000: 47 percent
2005: 61 percent
2010: 90 percent
2011: 101 percent
The trajectory seems clear. Meanwhile, President Obama has not proposed entitlement reform. He has, however, proposed adding a massive new entitlement: Obamacare. At the same time, the baby boomers’ retirements are looming, which means higher entitlement expenditures and a smaller proportion of the population available to finance them. In light of all of this, what do the Obama administration’s projections for mandatory spending as a percentage of total federal receipts look like, going forward? Here they are:
2012: 81 percent
2013: 73 percent
2014: 7o percent
2015: 69 percent
Seriously?
These estimates are made possible because (among other things) the Obama administration is projecting a 21 percent increase in federal receipts from 2011 to 2012. Never mind that we haven’t seen an increase like that in 40 years. In fact, the largest increase in the past 40 years has been 16 percent.
How is the Obama administration’s track record in forecasting such increases? For 2010, it projected a 9 percent increase in receipts. The actual tally was 3 percent. For 2011, it projected a 19 percent increase in receipts. Just one year later (in this year's budget), it has now modified that projection to less than 1 percent (actually, to 0.5 percent). So that’s a swing from projecting the highest increase in the past 40 years, to projecting essentially no increase at all — in just 12 months.
To tackle our very real fiscal crisis, we need serious numbers and serious leadership, not just blind hope that things will (somehow) change. Now that we are at the point where our total receipts cannot even cover our mandatory spending, entitlement reform would seem to be an obvious necessity. Yet only one house of one branch of the federal government has thus far shown any real signs of being able to see the obvious.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/mandatory-spending-exceed-all-federal-revenues-fiscal-year-2011_554659.html
Obama the invisible
Anti-leadership amid world crises
John Podhoretz
Where is the president? The world is beset. Moammar Khadafy is moving relentlessly to crush the Libyan revolt that once promised the overthrow of one of the world's most despicable regimes.
So where is the president?
Japan may be on the verge of a disaster that dwarfs any we have yet seen. A self-governing nation like the United States needs its leader to take full measure of his position at times of crises when the path forward is no longer clear.
This is not a time for leadership; this is the time for leadership.
So where is Barack Obama?
The moment demands that he rise to the challenge of showing America and the world that he is taking the reins. How leaders act in times of unanticipated crisis, in which they do not have a formulated game plan and must instead navigate in treacherous waters, defines them.
Obama is defining himself in a way that will destroy him.
It is not merely that he isn't rising to the challenge. He is avoiding the challenge. He is Bartleby the President. He would prefer not to.
He has access to a microphone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If he tells the broadcast networks in the middle of the day that he has a major address to deliver on an unprecedented world situation, they will cancel their programming for him.
And yet, since Friday and a press conference in which he managed to leave the American position on Libya more muddled than it was before, we have not heard his voice. Except in a radio address -- he talked about education legislation.
And he appeared at a fund-raiser in DC. And sat down with ESPN to reveal his NCAA picks.
He cannot go on like this. Niall Ferguson, the very pessimis tic economic his torian, wrote the other day that the best we can now hope for is that Obama leaves the country in the same kind of shape that Jimmy Carter left it in.
That doesn't do Obama justice. Despite how disastrously he has handled the crises of the past two months, he can still turn his presidency around on a dime.
For Obama to save himself, he should be thinking about the example of an unlikely Republican predecessor: Richard Nixon.
The multifarious crises the president now faces are eerily similar to the kinds of calamities that greeted Richard Nixon in his first term from 1969-1972. Then, as now, the world was on fire. Wars erupted between China and the Soviet Union, India and Pakistan, even El Salvador and Honduras.
Jordan was nearly taken over from within by the Palestine Liberation Organization. There were humanitarian disasters in Biafra (the result of civil war), Bangladesh (due to flooding) and Nicaragua (deadly earthquake).
There was more, much more -- including a war he inherited in Vietnam, just as Obama has the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You get the point.
Nixon in 1968, unlike Obama 2008, was elected as a minority president with only 43 percent of the vote. Yet, in 1972, he won what, in some measures, was the most lopsided election in American history with 61 percent.
Nixon achieved it, in large measure, because he appeared to be a serious man grappling in deadly earnest with the serious problems presented to him by a world careening out of control.
He demonstrated high competency when it came to matters on the world stage. He and his team (primarily Henry Kissinger) developed coherent policies and strategies for coping with the world. There was no question, to friend or foe, that he was fully engaged, paying attention, deeply involved.
Nixon was an awful president in many ways, including in some of his foreign-policy choices. But he left no doubt that foreign policy and America's leadership in the world outside its borders was of paramount importance to him.
All this had the effect of elevating Nixon during his time in office, so that when it came to running against George McGovern in 1972, Nixon seemed like a Titan and McGovern a pipsqueak.
How Nixon conducted himself in office in times of crises made possible his triumphant re-election. Right now, how Obama is conducting himself in a time of crisis is having the opposite effect.
He began his presidency as a potential colossus -- but if he doesn't change, he will finish it as a pipsqueak. Pipsqueaks don't win second terms.
johnpodhoretz@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/obama_the_invisible_Ass40MBstf15MAr9DYAORK#ixzz1GmPZCNbv
John Podhoretz
Where is the president? The world is beset. Moammar Khadafy is moving relentlessly to crush the Libyan revolt that once promised the overthrow of one of the world's most despicable regimes.
So where is the president?
Japan may be on the verge of a disaster that dwarfs any we have yet seen. A self-governing nation like the United States needs its leader to take full measure of his position at times of crises when the path forward is no longer clear.
This is not a time for leadership; this is the time for leadership.
So where is Barack Obama?
The moment demands that he rise to the challenge of showing America and the world that he is taking the reins. How leaders act in times of unanticipated crisis, in which they do not have a formulated game plan and must instead navigate in treacherous waters, defines them.
Obama is defining himself in a way that will destroy him.
It is not merely that he isn't rising to the challenge. He is avoiding the challenge. He is Bartleby the President. He would prefer not to.
He has access to a microphone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If he tells the broadcast networks in the middle of the day that he has a major address to deliver on an unprecedented world situation, they will cancel their programming for him.
And yet, since Friday and a press conference in which he managed to leave the American position on Libya more muddled than it was before, we have not heard his voice. Except in a radio address -- he talked about education legislation.
And he appeared at a fund-raiser in DC. And sat down with ESPN to reveal his NCAA picks.
He cannot go on like this. Niall Ferguson, the very pessimis tic economic his torian, wrote the other day that the best we can now hope for is that Obama leaves the country in the same kind of shape that Jimmy Carter left it in.
That doesn't do Obama justice. Despite how disastrously he has handled the crises of the past two months, he can still turn his presidency around on a dime.
For Obama to save himself, he should be thinking about the example of an unlikely Republican predecessor: Richard Nixon.
The multifarious crises the president now faces are eerily similar to the kinds of calamities that greeted Richard Nixon in his first term from 1969-1972. Then, as now, the world was on fire. Wars erupted between China and the Soviet Union, India and Pakistan, even El Salvador and Honduras.
Jordan was nearly taken over from within by the Palestine Liberation Organization. There were humanitarian disasters in Biafra (the result of civil war), Bangladesh (due to flooding) and Nicaragua (deadly earthquake).
There was more, much more -- including a war he inherited in Vietnam, just as Obama has the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You get the point.
Nixon in 1968, unlike Obama 2008, was elected as a minority president with only 43 percent of the vote. Yet, in 1972, he won what, in some measures, was the most lopsided election in American history with 61 percent.
Nixon achieved it, in large measure, because he appeared to be a serious man grappling in deadly earnest with the serious problems presented to him by a world careening out of control.
He demonstrated high competency when it came to matters on the world stage. He and his team (primarily Henry Kissinger) developed coherent policies and strategies for coping with the world. There was no question, to friend or foe, that he was fully engaged, paying attention, deeply involved.
Nixon was an awful president in many ways, including in some of his foreign-policy choices. But he left no doubt that foreign policy and America's leadership in the world outside its borders was of paramount importance to him.
All this had the effect of elevating Nixon during his time in office, so that when it came to running against George McGovern in 1972, Nixon seemed like a Titan and McGovern a pipsqueak.
How Nixon conducted himself in office in times of crises made possible his triumphant re-election. Right now, how Obama is conducting himself in a time of crisis is having the opposite effect.
He began his presidency as a potential colossus -- but if he doesn't change, he will finish it as a pipsqueak. Pipsqueaks don't win second terms.
johnpodhoretz@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/obama_the_invisible_Ass40MBstf15MAr9DYAORK#ixzz1GmPZCNbv
Illinois Pension Crisis Eludes Easy Solutions .
By MICHAEL CORKERY
Lawmakers in Illinois say they may try to fix the state's ailing pension system by asking current workers to pay more into the plan, though the approach faces substantial legal and political obstacles.
The lawmakers are also entertaining the politically difficult idea of applying broader pension changes made this year for newly hired employees to current workers. Those include raising the retirement age and scaling back on annual cost-of-living raises.
Whatever approach is embraced, it remains unclear whether such strategies would fix the Illinois system, which is 45% funded. That makes it the most under-funded state plan in the U.S., according to Moody's Investor's Service.
The proposals come as Illinois focuses on home-grown solutions to its pension difficulties after Gov. Pat Quinn created a stir when he said in his budget proposal last month that the state may need a "federal guarantee" of its pension funds—a reference his office now says was a mistake.
"It should have been edited out," David Vaught, the governor's budget director, said in an interview. "We don't think we need a bailout."
The warning contained in the 472-page budget document raised fears that the state could go hat in hand to Washington, a scenario that some U.S. lawmakers have feared could spur other states to do the same.
Now in Illinois, talk of state-centered pension fixes has drowned out any whispers of a federal bailout.
"There is growing momentum for additional pension reform and this is something that definitely should be looked at," said Mr. Vaught.
He added that if the legislature voted to increase employee contributions in the current legislative session, Mr. Quinn, a Democrat, "would not stand in its way."
Those comments come as Michael Madigan, a Democrat and speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, has floated the idea of cutting pension benefits for current workers.
Several states including Illinois have already made the legally and politically expedient moves of changing new-worker benefits, such as upping the retirement age. The Illinois measure for new workers will bring some near-term savings, though much of the cost reductions don't kick in until the first wave of newly hired Illinois workers retires a few decades from now.
But rolling back benefits for current workers is likely to prove more difficult.
Illinois has stringent constitutional protections for pension benefits, according to several legal experts. A recently passed bill in nearby Wisconsin requiring employees to contribute to their pensions has already spurred talk of legal challenges there. Many employees in the Wisconsin retirement system contribute nothing to their pensions. Illinois teachers now contribute as much as 9.4%.
One proposal by Republican Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross, to increase contributions for some workers to as much as 20%, among other measures, would save an estimated $25 billion.
Critics say these proposals will go only part way in erasing the $82 billion unfunded pensions liability that is projected to grow to $139.8 billion in 2030
The recent stock rally has helped shore up many state pension funds. but Illinois's shortfall is growing. The problem is largely the result of the state's failure for years to make actuarially recommended contributions to the fund.
"Even if you pass aggressive reform, you still have to fund the current liabilities and that is a big number," said Daniel Hankiewicz, pension manager of the state Commission on Government Forecasting & Accountability.
In the past two years, Illinois has had to borrow several billion dollars to make its required contributions to the pension system. Critics say that indicates that the state's pension benefits are simply unaffordable.
Legislative leaders have asked the commission's actuaries to calculate the savings that could come from extending some of the changes the state applied to new workers in 2010 to current workers.
Others dispute a crisis exists. The Teachers Retirement System, one of five funds in the state's pension system and which has 372,000 members, is 48% funded (actuaries typically recommend that plans be at least 80% funded). Fund administrators are not concerned about meeting annual obligations to retirees, says spokesman Dave Urbanek.
"Don't confuse the mortgage with the mortgage payment," he says. "Can I make my entire mortgage payment today, no. But I can make my monthly payments. That is the same with us. We are deeply in debt, but our heads are above water."
The issue may end up being settled in the courts. The chief legal counsel to Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, a Democrat, released a long legal memo earlier this month arguing that retirement benefits cannot be altered unilaterally by the legislature.
The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a group of business leaders, asked law firm Sidley Austin LLP to look into the issue.
In a memo last year, Sidley argued that the state constitution only protects benefits that have already been accrued.
That leaves open to change benefits that will be earned through future government service, Sidley argued. The law firm has also argued in a separate memo that if the pension funds run out of money, the state does not guarantee that it will pay out benefits.
The legal memo prepared for Mr. Cullerton says the state constitution ensures pension payments will be made, even if the funds run dry.
Write to Michael Corkery at michael.corkery@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703566504576202893269340046.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5
Lawmakers in Illinois say they may try to fix the state's ailing pension system by asking current workers to pay more into the plan, though the approach faces substantial legal and political obstacles.
The lawmakers are also entertaining the politically difficult idea of applying broader pension changes made this year for newly hired employees to current workers. Those include raising the retirement age and scaling back on annual cost-of-living raises.
Whatever approach is embraced, it remains unclear whether such strategies would fix the Illinois system, which is 45% funded. That makes it the most under-funded state plan in the U.S., according to Moody's Investor's Service.
The proposals come as Illinois focuses on home-grown solutions to its pension difficulties after Gov. Pat Quinn created a stir when he said in his budget proposal last month that the state may need a "federal guarantee" of its pension funds—a reference his office now says was a mistake.
"It should have been edited out," David Vaught, the governor's budget director, said in an interview. "We don't think we need a bailout."
The warning contained in the 472-page budget document raised fears that the state could go hat in hand to Washington, a scenario that some U.S. lawmakers have feared could spur other states to do the same.
Now in Illinois, talk of state-centered pension fixes has drowned out any whispers of a federal bailout.
"There is growing momentum for additional pension reform and this is something that definitely should be looked at," said Mr. Vaught.
He added that if the legislature voted to increase employee contributions in the current legislative session, Mr. Quinn, a Democrat, "would not stand in its way."
Those comments come as Michael Madigan, a Democrat and speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, has floated the idea of cutting pension benefits for current workers.
Several states including Illinois have already made the legally and politically expedient moves of changing new-worker benefits, such as upping the retirement age. The Illinois measure for new workers will bring some near-term savings, though much of the cost reductions don't kick in until the first wave of newly hired Illinois workers retires a few decades from now.
But rolling back benefits for current workers is likely to prove more difficult.
Illinois has stringent constitutional protections for pension benefits, according to several legal experts. A recently passed bill in nearby Wisconsin requiring employees to contribute to their pensions has already spurred talk of legal challenges there. Many employees in the Wisconsin retirement system contribute nothing to their pensions. Illinois teachers now contribute as much as 9.4%.
One proposal by Republican Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross, to increase contributions for some workers to as much as 20%, among other measures, would save an estimated $25 billion.
Critics say these proposals will go only part way in erasing the $82 billion unfunded pensions liability that is projected to grow to $139.8 billion in 2030
The recent stock rally has helped shore up many state pension funds. but Illinois's shortfall is growing. The problem is largely the result of the state's failure for years to make actuarially recommended contributions to the fund.
"Even if you pass aggressive reform, you still have to fund the current liabilities and that is a big number," said Daniel Hankiewicz, pension manager of the state Commission on Government Forecasting & Accountability.
In the past two years, Illinois has had to borrow several billion dollars to make its required contributions to the pension system. Critics say that indicates that the state's pension benefits are simply unaffordable.
Legislative leaders have asked the commission's actuaries to calculate the savings that could come from extending some of the changes the state applied to new workers in 2010 to current workers.
Others dispute a crisis exists. The Teachers Retirement System, one of five funds in the state's pension system and which has 372,000 members, is 48% funded (actuaries typically recommend that plans be at least 80% funded). Fund administrators are not concerned about meeting annual obligations to retirees, says spokesman Dave Urbanek.
"Don't confuse the mortgage with the mortgage payment," he says. "Can I make my entire mortgage payment today, no. But I can make my monthly payments. That is the same with us. We are deeply in debt, but our heads are above water."
The issue may end up being settled in the courts. The chief legal counsel to Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, a Democrat, released a long legal memo earlier this month arguing that retirement benefits cannot be altered unilaterally by the legislature.
The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a group of business leaders, asked law firm Sidley Austin LLP to look into the issue.
In a memo last year, Sidley argued that the state constitution only protects benefits that have already been accrued.
That leaves open to change benefits that will be earned through future government service, Sidley argued. The law firm has also argued in a separate memo that if the pension funds run out of money, the state does not guarantee that it will pay out benefits.
The legal memo prepared for Mr. Cullerton says the state constitution ensures pension payments will be made, even if the funds run dry.
Write to Michael Corkery at michael.corkery@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703566504576202893269340046.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Atty. general: Ill. must release FOID card list
By JOHN O'CONNOR
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois State Police stood their ground Tuesday after the state's attorney general determined the agency must disclose the names of people authorized to own guns in Illinois to comply with public records law.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan's public access counselor issued a letter Monday night rejecting state police arguments that releasing the information is an unwarranted invasion of privacy prohibited by the state public records law or that its disclosure would automatically endanger the lives of gun owners or those who don't have firearms.
State police determine who gets Firearm Owners Identification cards but have always kept the information confidential.
Despite the decree, the names likely won't be uncloaked soon. A state police lawyer indicated in a letter Tuesday the agency planned to ask a judge to decide the matter. And Republican lawmakers have filed legislation to make names permanently private.
Through the Freedom of Information Act, The Associated Press requested in September the names of each FOID cardholder in the state and the expiration date of each card. State police denied the request, prompting the public access counselor's intervention.
"The General Assembly has clearly determined that it is in the public interest to provide a system for identifying those who are qualified to acquire or possess firearms through the issuance of FOID cards," assistant public access counselor Matthew Rogina wrote. "The public, therefore, has a legitimate interest in ISP's enforcement of the FOID card act."
The attorney general indicated that addresses and telephone numbers of cardholders should remain private information.
There are more than 1.3 million Illinois FOID cardholders, state police spokesman Scott Compton said.
Media interest in the issue spurred lawmakers to action. There is Republican-sponsored legislation in both the House and Senate. Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Greenville, said his bill spells out that information about who is exercising his constitutional right to own a gun should not be made public.
"You can own a handgun, and information about whether you do or don't is private information," Stephens said. "There is no reason for anyone or any government agency to make available to you or anyone else whether I have a FOID card."
Most states, unlike Illinois, allow taxpayers to carry concealed weapons. Information was public when those laws took effect, but in the past decade, an increasing number of states -- as many as three dozen -- have put it under wraps, said Brian Malte of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
"There should be public scrutiny on any licensing system, whether it's to own or to buy or to carry," Malte said. "The public has a right to know how well those systems are working, especially when it involves firearms."
Information about firearms -- and the state police enforcement of gun laws -- has been the subject of several AP requests during the past decade. In most cases, state police have denied disclosure.
In 2005, state police officials told the AP they were powerless to take action against a civilian ISP employee who had guns in his truck at the agency's training academy, where he threatened his estranged girlfriend, also an employee. He later shot her before turning the gun on himself.
A state police firearms official later testified in an unrelated court case that officials could have yanked the man's guns but chose not to.
Checking the administration and enforcement of gun laws by federal officials was the city of Chicago's intent when it sued in federal court in 2002. Because Illinois courts have not addressed the issue, Rogina crafted his decision by relying in part on the Chicago ruling, which found no privacy violation as the federal government had claimed.
The state police and gun-rights groups also argue that publicizing names of those with permission to own guns puts them and others at risk. Knowing who has guns means criminals know whom to burglarize, or worse, said Todd Vandermyde, Illinois lobbyist for the National Rifle Association.
"You potentially make us targets," Vandermyde said. "Or, on the inverse, you could say, 'These are the homes that don't have FOID cards so it's likely they don't have guns, so therefore they make better targets.'"
The state police made the same argument, but the attorney general dismissed it as "speculative and conclusory."
"ISP has offered no details to support its argument that disclosure of this information to the AP would result in a safety threat to any individual," Rogina wrote.
Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican sponsoring the Senate bill making FOID information private, called on state police interim director Patrick Keen not to release any information until the Legislature can act.
People who want guns but don't want their names publicized might choose not to comply at all with FOID laws, Dillard said.
"This is not about guns -- it's about privacy and public safety," Dillard said.
------
The bills are HB7 and SB27.
------
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-gunowners-disclos,0,5686959.story
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois State Police stood their ground Tuesday after the state's attorney general determined the agency must disclose the names of people authorized to own guns in Illinois to comply with public records law.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan's public access counselor issued a letter Monday night rejecting state police arguments that releasing the information is an unwarranted invasion of privacy prohibited by the state public records law or that its disclosure would automatically endanger the lives of gun owners or those who don't have firearms.
State police determine who gets Firearm Owners Identification cards but have always kept the information confidential.
Despite the decree, the names likely won't be uncloaked soon. A state police lawyer indicated in a letter Tuesday the agency planned to ask a judge to decide the matter. And Republican lawmakers have filed legislation to make names permanently private.
Through the Freedom of Information Act, The Associated Press requested in September the names of each FOID cardholder in the state and the expiration date of each card. State police denied the request, prompting the public access counselor's intervention.
"The General Assembly has clearly determined that it is in the public interest to provide a system for identifying those who are qualified to acquire or possess firearms through the issuance of FOID cards," assistant public access counselor Matthew Rogina wrote. "The public, therefore, has a legitimate interest in ISP's enforcement of the FOID card act."
The attorney general indicated that addresses and telephone numbers of cardholders should remain private information.
There are more than 1.3 million Illinois FOID cardholders, state police spokesman Scott Compton said.
Media interest in the issue spurred lawmakers to action. There is Republican-sponsored legislation in both the House and Senate. Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Greenville, said his bill spells out that information about who is exercising his constitutional right to own a gun should not be made public.
"You can own a handgun, and information about whether you do or don't is private information," Stephens said. "There is no reason for anyone or any government agency to make available to you or anyone else whether I have a FOID card."
Most states, unlike Illinois, allow taxpayers to carry concealed weapons. Information was public when those laws took effect, but in the past decade, an increasing number of states -- as many as three dozen -- have put it under wraps, said Brian Malte of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
"There should be public scrutiny on any licensing system, whether it's to own or to buy or to carry," Malte said. "The public has a right to know how well those systems are working, especially when it involves firearms."
Information about firearms -- and the state police enforcement of gun laws -- has been the subject of several AP requests during the past decade. In most cases, state police have denied disclosure.
In 2005, state police officials told the AP they were powerless to take action against a civilian ISP employee who had guns in his truck at the agency's training academy, where he threatened his estranged girlfriend, also an employee. He later shot her before turning the gun on himself.
A state police firearms official later testified in an unrelated court case that officials could have yanked the man's guns but chose not to.
Checking the administration and enforcement of gun laws by federal officials was the city of Chicago's intent when it sued in federal court in 2002. Because Illinois courts have not addressed the issue, Rogina crafted his decision by relying in part on the Chicago ruling, which found no privacy violation as the federal government had claimed.
The state police and gun-rights groups also argue that publicizing names of those with permission to own guns puts them and others at risk. Knowing who has guns means criminals know whom to burglarize, or worse, said Todd Vandermyde, Illinois lobbyist for the National Rifle Association.
"You potentially make us targets," Vandermyde said. "Or, on the inverse, you could say, 'These are the homes that don't have FOID cards so it's likely they don't have guns, so therefore they make better targets.'"
The state police made the same argument, but the attorney general dismissed it as "speculative and conclusory."
"ISP has offered no details to support its argument that disclosure of this information to the AP would result in a safety threat to any individual," Rogina wrote.
Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican sponsoring the Senate bill making FOID information private, called on state police interim director Patrick Keen not to release any information until the Legislature can act.
People who want guns but don't want their names publicized might choose not to comply at all with FOID laws, Dillard said.
"This is not about guns -- it's about privacy and public safety," Dillard said.
------
The bills are HB7 and SB27.
------
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-gunowners-disclos,0,5686959.story
Monday, February 28, 2011
Rasmussen-58% Favor Government Shutdown Until Spending Cuts Are Agreed Upon
Monday, February 28, 2011
As Republicans and Democrats in Congress haggle over the budget, most voters would rather have a partial shutdown of the federal government than keep its spending at current levels.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 33% of Likely U.S. Voters would rather have Congress avoid a government shutdown by authorizing spending at the same levels as last year. Fifty-eight percent (58%) says it’s better to have a partial shutdown until Democrats and Republicans can agree on what spending to cut. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The partisan differences are striking. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats prefer avoiding a shutdown by going with current spending levels. But 80% of Republicans -- and 59% of voters not affiliated with either major party -- think a shutdown is a better option until the two sides can agree on spending cuts.
Congress never passed a budget for 2011 but authorized spending for a few months. That authorization will expire soon, and Congress must act quickly or some federal government services could be shut down. Payments for things like Social Security, Medicare and unemployment benefits would continue, however.
A plurality (48%) of all voters believe that a partial government shutdown would be bad for the economy. Twenty-five percent (25%) say a shutdown would be good for the country economically, while 15% say it would have no impact.
Democrats are worried about the economic impact of a partial government shutdown. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of those in the president’s party say a shutdown would be bad for the economy. However, Republicans and unaffiliated voters are evenly divided on the topic with nearly as many saying a shutdown would be good for the economy as bad.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 24-25, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
In general, just 27% of all voters think Congress should now authorize spending for 2011 at the same levels as last year. Six percent (6%) want more government spending, but 61% say Congress should authorize less spending that there was the year before.
The majority of voters for years have said that cutting taxes and reducing government spending are best for the economy.
The federal government was last partially shutdown for five days in 1995 and 21 days in 1996. In both cases, CNN reports, the stock market moved higher on the news.
Republicans want to cut $57 billion more out of the federal budget for the current year than Democrats do. As negotiations continue on a long-term agreement, the two sides on Friday agreed to a two-week budget extension that includes $4 billion in cuts.
Eighty-four percent (84%) of voters say they are following news reports about the federal budget debate at least somewhat closely, with 49% who are following Very Closely.
Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats think Congress should authorize spending at the same levels as last year, while another 14% think there should be more spending. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans and 67% of unaffiliated voters believe Congress should approve less spending than there was the year before.
This is another issue that the Political Class and Mainstream voters don’t see eye-to-eye on. Seventy-six percent (76%) of those in the Political Class would rather see spending continue at current levels to avoid a shutdown; 70% of Mainstream voters prefer a shutdown until Democrats and Republicans can agree on spending cuts.
Voters have consistently rated cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term as the more important of several budget priorities the president listed early in 2009, but few voters expect him to hit his goal.
The documents the White House includes with the president's $3.7 trillion proposed budget for 2012 project that government spending will top $4 trillion in the next two to three years, but most voters aren't aware of that increase amidst all the talk of spending cuts.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters say, generally speaking, that the president’s new budget proposal cuts government spending too little, but despite House Republican plans to cut substantially more, a plurality of voters don’t think the GOP goes far enough either.
Then again, 70% of voters think voters are more willing to make the hard choices needed to reduce federal spending than politicians are.
Though a plurality still gives Congress a poor grade, voters are showing slightly less negativity towards the legislators than they have in several years. Now that the new Congress is fully settled in, favorability ratings have dropped for all of the top leaders except House Speaker John Boehner.
Voters now trust the GOP more than Democrats on all 10 of the most important issues regularly surveyed by Rasmussen Reports including the economy and taxes.
Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.
Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2011/58_favor_government_shutdown_until_spending_cuts_are_agreed_upon
As Republicans and Democrats in Congress haggle over the budget, most voters would rather have a partial shutdown of the federal government than keep its spending at current levels.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 33% of Likely U.S. Voters would rather have Congress avoid a government shutdown by authorizing spending at the same levels as last year. Fifty-eight percent (58%) says it’s better to have a partial shutdown until Democrats and Republicans can agree on what spending to cut. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The partisan differences are striking. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats prefer avoiding a shutdown by going with current spending levels. But 80% of Republicans -- and 59% of voters not affiliated with either major party -- think a shutdown is a better option until the two sides can agree on spending cuts.
Congress never passed a budget for 2011 but authorized spending for a few months. That authorization will expire soon, and Congress must act quickly or some federal government services could be shut down. Payments for things like Social Security, Medicare and unemployment benefits would continue, however.
A plurality (48%) of all voters believe that a partial government shutdown would be bad for the economy. Twenty-five percent (25%) say a shutdown would be good for the country economically, while 15% say it would have no impact.
Democrats are worried about the economic impact of a partial government shutdown. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of those in the president’s party say a shutdown would be bad for the economy. However, Republicans and unaffiliated voters are evenly divided on the topic with nearly as many saying a shutdown would be good for the economy as bad.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 24-25, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
In general, just 27% of all voters think Congress should now authorize spending for 2011 at the same levels as last year. Six percent (6%) want more government spending, but 61% say Congress should authorize less spending that there was the year before.
The majority of voters for years have said that cutting taxes and reducing government spending are best for the economy.
The federal government was last partially shutdown for five days in 1995 and 21 days in 1996. In both cases, CNN reports, the stock market moved higher on the news.
Republicans want to cut $57 billion more out of the federal budget for the current year than Democrats do. As negotiations continue on a long-term agreement, the two sides on Friday agreed to a two-week budget extension that includes $4 billion in cuts.
Eighty-four percent (84%) of voters say they are following news reports about the federal budget debate at least somewhat closely, with 49% who are following Very Closely.
Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats think Congress should authorize spending at the same levels as last year, while another 14% think there should be more spending. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans and 67% of unaffiliated voters believe Congress should approve less spending than there was the year before.
This is another issue that the Political Class and Mainstream voters don’t see eye-to-eye on. Seventy-six percent (76%) of those in the Political Class would rather see spending continue at current levels to avoid a shutdown; 70% of Mainstream voters prefer a shutdown until Democrats and Republicans can agree on spending cuts.
Voters have consistently rated cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term as the more important of several budget priorities the president listed early in 2009, but few voters expect him to hit his goal.
The documents the White House includes with the president's $3.7 trillion proposed budget for 2012 project that government spending will top $4 trillion in the next two to three years, but most voters aren't aware of that increase amidst all the talk of spending cuts.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters say, generally speaking, that the president’s new budget proposal cuts government spending too little, but despite House Republican plans to cut substantially more, a plurality of voters don’t think the GOP goes far enough either.
Then again, 70% of voters think voters are more willing to make the hard choices needed to reduce federal spending than politicians are.
Though a plurality still gives Congress a poor grade, voters are showing slightly less negativity towards the legislators than they have in several years. Now that the new Congress is fully settled in, favorability ratings have dropped for all of the top leaders except House Speaker John Boehner.
Voters now trust the GOP more than Democrats on all 10 of the most important issues regularly surveyed by Rasmussen Reports including the economy and taxes.
Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.
Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2011/58_favor_government_shutdown_until_spending_cuts_are_agreed_upon
Saturday, February 26, 2011
RTA hires Mike Madigan’s son-in-law for top lobbying job
BY DAVE MCKINNEY Sun-Times Springfield Bureau Chiefdmckinney@suntimes.com
SPRINGFIELD — The son-in-law of House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) has landed in a $130,000-a-year job as the chief lobbyist for the Regional Transportation Authority, the transit agency announced Friday.
Jordan Matyas was named the RTA’s deputy executive director and will oversee the agency’s government affairs section, beginning March 1.
RTA Executive Director Joe Costello said Matyas’ “extensive legal and legislative background” makes him well-suited to oversee the RTA’s lobbying at the local, state and federal levels.
“We are pleased to have Jordan join our executive team to help further solidify public transit’s role in our region,” Costello said in a prepared statement.
RTA spokeswoman Diane Palmer said the agency had multiple applicants for the position, which had been vacant since last year. She said the job was posted on the transit system’s website.
Palmer would not say whether there was any relationship between Matyas’ hiring and the demise of legislation in January that would have led to the ouster of RTA Chairman John Gates, who has had a strained relationship with the House speaker.
“It seems a little shaky this bill comes up and disappears, and then the next thing you know a relative of the speaker is getting hired in a pretty high-paying position,” said Rep. Randy Ramey (R-Carol Stream). “I’d suspect we should have an investigation, but I don’t who should do that? The attorney general? Maybe not.”
Attorney General Lisa Madigan is the speaker’s daughter and Matyas’ sister-in-law.
Michael Madigan spokesman Steve Brown defended Matyas’ hiring.
“Jordan is a talented guy. That’s a good selection the RTA made. I’m told they went through their normal hiring employment process. Beyond that I wouldn’t have any comment,” Brown said, refusing to discuss the Gates legislation.
“Ramey’s insults are typical of the Republicans. Just like the insults from billboards and other things, typical Republicans,” Brown said. “It’s why they’re the minority party more than anything else.”
Last November, the Sun-Times reported on Matyas’ lobbying efforts on behalf of Veritech Solutions, a Florida company that tracks payday loans for the state.
Legislation the company – and Matyas — pushed last year imposed new reporting requirements on the payday loan industry, meaning a windfall worth millions of dollars for the company.
Matyas, who married the speaker’s daughter Tiffany last July, helped draft the payday loan legislation with staff of Attorney General Lisa Madigan. The attorney general denied knowing anything about Matyas’ role with Veritec or his work with her office.
Matyas served as the state director for the Humane Society of the United States and last year helped bring to light controversial legislation GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady introduced involving dog euthanasia, an initiative Gov. Quinn used against Brady in the gubernatorial campaign.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/4013028-418/rta-hires-mike-madigans-son-in-law-for-top-lobbying-job.html
SPRINGFIELD — The son-in-law of House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) has landed in a $130,000-a-year job as the chief lobbyist for the Regional Transportation Authority, the transit agency announced Friday.
Jordan Matyas was named the RTA’s deputy executive director and will oversee the agency’s government affairs section, beginning March 1.
RTA Executive Director Joe Costello said Matyas’ “extensive legal and legislative background” makes him well-suited to oversee the RTA’s lobbying at the local, state and federal levels.
“We are pleased to have Jordan join our executive team to help further solidify public transit’s role in our region,” Costello said in a prepared statement.
RTA spokeswoman Diane Palmer said the agency had multiple applicants for the position, which had been vacant since last year. She said the job was posted on the transit system’s website.
Palmer would not say whether there was any relationship between Matyas’ hiring and the demise of legislation in January that would have led to the ouster of RTA Chairman John Gates, who has had a strained relationship with the House speaker.
“It seems a little shaky this bill comes up and disappears, and then the next thing you know a relative of the speaker is getting hired in a pretty high-paying position,” said Rep. Randy Ramey (R-Carol Stream). “I’d suspect we should have an investigation, but I don’t who should do that? The attorney general? Maybe not.”
Attorney General Lisa Madigan is the speaker’s daughter and Matyas’ sister-in-law.
Michael Madigan spokesman Steve Brown defended Matyas’ hiring.
“Jordan is a talented guy. That’s a good selection the RTA made. I’m told they went through their normal hiring employment process. Beyond that I wouldn’t have any comment,” Brown said, refusing to discuss the Gates legislation.
“Ramey’s insults are typical of the Republicans. Just like the insults from billboards and other things, typical Republicans,” Brown said. “It’s why they’re the minority party more than anything else.”
Last November, the Sun-Times reported on Matyas’ lobbying efforts on behalf of Veritech Solutions, a Florida company that tracks payday loans for the state.
Legislation the company – and Matyas — pushed last year imposed new reporting requirements on the payday loan industry, meaning a windfall worth millions of dollars for the company.
Matyas, who married the speaker’s daughter Tiffany last July, helped draft the payday loan legislation with staff of Attorney General Lisa Madigan. The attorney general denied knowing anything about Matyas’ role with Veritec or his work with her office.
Matyas served as the state director for the Humane Society of the United States and last year helped bring to light controversial legislation GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady introduced involving dog euthanasia, an initiative Gov. Quinn used against Brady in the gubernatorial campaign.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/4013028-418/rta-hires-mike-madigans-son-in-law-for-top-lobbying-job.html
LA Times Editorial-Day of reckoning on pensions
The housing bubble and subsequent Wall Street collapse wreaked havoc on the nation's retirement savings, as many pension funds and 401(k) plans suffered losses of 30% or more. State and local governments are now facing huge unfunded pension liabilities, prompting policymakers to scramble for ways to close the gap without slashing payrolls and services. But a new report from the Little Hoover Commission in Sacramento makes a more troubling point: Many state and local government employees have been promised pensions that the public couldn't have afforded even had there been no crash.
The commission's analysis of the problem is hotly disputed by union leaders, who contend that the financial woes of pension funds have been overblown. The commission's recommendations are equally controversial: Among other things, it urges state lawmakers to roll back the future benefits that current public employees can accrue, raise the retirement age and require employees to cover more pension costs. Given that state courts have rejected previous attempts to alter the pensions already promised to current workers, the commission's recommendation amounts to a Hail Mary pass. Yet it's one worth throwing.
A bipartisan, independent agency that promotes efficiency in government, the Little Hoover Commission studied the public pension issue for 10 months before issuing its findings Thursday. Much of the 90-page report is devoted to making the case that, to use the commission's blunt words, "pension costs will crush government." Without a "miraculous" improvement in the funds' investments, the commission states, "few government entities — especially at the local level — will be able to absorb the blow without severe cuts to services."
The problem is partly demographic. The number of people retiring from government jobs is growing rapidly, and longer life expectancies mean that a growing number of retirees will collect benefits for more years than they worked. But the report argues that political factors have been at least as important in driving up costs, starting with the Legislature's move in 1999 to reduce the retirement age for public workers, base pensions on a higher percentage of a worker's salary and increase benefits retroactively. The increases authorized by Sacramento soon spread across the 85 public pension plans in California.
Compounding the problem, the state has increased its workforce almost 40% since the pension formula was changed and boosted the average state worker's wages by 50%. Local governments, meanwhile, raised their average salaries by 60%. Much of the growth came in the ranks of police and firefighters, who increased significantly in number and in pay.
There's nothing inherently wrong with generous pension plans. Pensions, after all, are just a form of compensation that's paid after retirement, not before. The problem, particularly for local governments, is that the plans are proving to be far costlier than officials anticipated or prepared for. By their own reckoning, the 10 largest public pension systems in California had a $240-billion shortfall in 2010.
When the funds don't have enough money to cover their long-term liabilities, state and local governments are compelled to increase their contributions. In Los Angeles, the report says, the city's retirement contributions are projected to double by 2015, taking up a third of the city's operating budget. It projects that governments throughout the state will have to raise their contributions by 40% to 80% over the next few years, then maintain that higher rate for three decades.
The more tax dollars governments have to devote to pensions, the more they'll have to take from other programs or from taxpayers. That means more layoffs or pay cuts for public employees, higher taxes, fewer services, or all of the above.
The situation won't be so dire if the plans earn more on their investments than expected. But with the plans typically counting on annual returns near 8%, or twice the "risk-free" level suggested by some analysts, it seems just as likely that they'll earn less than that, forcing local governments to contribute even more.
The Legislature and some local governments have sought to ameliorate the situation by reducing benefits for new hires and persuading current workers to contribute more to their pension funds. The commission's report, however, argues that these moves aren't sufficient. The savings from the lower pensions for new employees won't be realized for many years, and the increased contributions aren't nearly enough to close the funding gap.
The only real solution, the report contends, is to reduce the benefits that current employees are slated to earn in the coming years. That's hard to do. California courts have held that pensions for current employees can be increased without their approval, but not decreased unless they're given a comparable benefit in exchange. Nevertheless, the commission calls on the Legislature to give itself and local governments explicit authority to trim the benefits that current employees have not yet accrued, without touching the amounts they have already earned. It also calls for a hybrid retirement plan that combines a smaller pension with a 401(k) plan and Social Security benefits, as well as the elimination of a variety of loopholes used to inflate pensions.
The commission is right about the importance of reducing the liabilities posed by current employees. And though picking a fight with unions over unilateral reductions in pensions probably isn't the solution, the report should persuade both sides to do more at the negotiating table to prevent pension costs from swamping state and local budgets. As the commission notes, public employees in California enjoy some of the most generous pension plans in the country. Those plans won't do them much good, however, if their employer can't afford to keep them on the payroll.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
The commission's analysis of the problem is hotly disputed by union leaders, who contend that the financial woes of pension funds have been overblown. The commission's recommendations are equally controversial: Among other things, it urges state lawmakers to roll back the future benefits that current public employees can accrue, raise the retirement age and require employees to cover more pension costs. Given that state courts have rejected previous attempts to alter the pensions already promised to current workers, the commission's recommendation amounts to a Hail Mary pass. Yet it's one worth throwing.
A bipartisan, independent agency that promotes efficiency in government, the Little Hoover Commission studied the public pension issue for 10 months before issuing its findings Thursday. Much of the 90-page report is devoted to making the case that, to use the commission's blunt words, "pension costs will crush government." Without a "miraculous" improvement in the funds' investments, the commission states, "few government entities — especially at the local level — will be able to absorb the blow without severe cuts to services."
The problem is partly demographic. The number of people retiring from government jobs is growing rapidly, and longer life expectancies mean that a growing number of retirees will collect benefits for more years than they worked. But the report argues that political factors have been at least as important in driving up costs, starting with the Legislature's move in 1999 to reduce the retirement age for public workers, base pensions on a higher percentage of a worker's salary and increase benefits retroactively. The increases authorized by Sacramento soon spread across the 85 public pension plans in California.
Compounding the problem, the state has increased its workforce almost 40% since the pension formula was changed and boosted the average state worker's wages by 50%. Local governments, meanwhile, raised their average salaries by 60%. Much of the growth came in the ranks of police and firefighters, who increased significantly in number and in pay.
There's nothing inherently wrong with generous pension plans. Pensions, after all, are just a form of compensation that's paid after retirement, not before. The problem, particularly for local governments, is that the plans are proving to be far costlier than officials anticipated or prepared for. By their own reckoning, the 10 largest public pension systems in California had a $240-billion shortfall in 2010.
When the funds don't have enough money to cover their long-term liabilities, state and local governments are compelled to increase their contributions. In Los Angeles, the report says, the city's retirement contributions are projected to double by 2015, taking up a third of the city's operating budget. It projects that governments throughout the state will have to raise their contributions by 40% to 80% over the next few years, then maintain that higher rate for three decades.
The more tax dollars governments have to devote to pensions, the more they'll have to take from other programs or from taxpayers. That means more layoffs or pay cuts for public employees, higher taxes, fewer services, or all of the above.
The situation won't be so dire if the plans earn more on their investments than expected. But with the plans typically counting on annual returns near 8%, or twice the "risk-free" level suggested by some analysts, it seems just as likely that they'll earn less than that, forcing local governments to contribute even more.
The Legislature and some local governments have sought to ameliorate the situation by reducing benefits for new hires and persuading current workers to contribute more to their pension funds. The commission's report, however, argues that these moves aren't sufficient. The savings from the lower pensions for new employees won't be realized for many years, and the increased contributions aren't nearly enough to close the funding gap.
The only real solution, the report contends, is to reduce the benefits that current employees are slated to earn in the coming years. That's hard to do. California courts have held that pensions for current employees can be increased without their approval, but not decreased unless they're given a comparable benefit in exchange. Nevertheless, the commission calls on the Legislature to give itself and local governments explicit authority to trim the benefits that current employees have not yet accrued, without touching the amounts they have already earned. It also calls for a hybrid retirement plan that combines a smaller pension with a 401(k) plan and Social Security benefits, as well as the elimination of a variety of loopholes used to inflate pensions.
The commission is right about the importance of reducing the liabilities posed by current employees. And though picking a fight with unions over unilateral reductions in pensions probably isn't the solution, the report should persuade both sides to do more at the negotiating table to prevent pension costs from swamping state and local budgets. As the commission notes, public employees in California enjoy some of the most generous pension plans in the country. Those plans won't do them much good, however, if their employer can't afford to keep them on the payroll.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
Tribune Editorial- Democrats GO HOME
In the far northwest corner of Wisconsin, state troopers staked out the home of a local legislator, knocking on his door but failing to find him and return him to his job at the Capitol. They came up similarly empty in their search for the rest of 14 Democratic state senators who fled Madison to block a vote that would curtail bargaining rights for public unions.
With their showy boycott, though, the Democrats are merely doing what countless lawmakers of all political persuasions, at all levels of government, have done less explicitly for decades: They have run away from the mathematical certainty that this much revenue can pay for only that much spending.
The consequences of their boycott will ratchet up early next week. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that a refinancing of state debt must be accomplished by then to free up $165 million. If the Legislature fails to approve that, it will have to come up with more budget cuts.
The Wisconsinites should go home. So should the Indiana lawmakers who abandoned their Legislature in copycat fashion. They need to show they can be responsible stewards of the public purse.
But that responsibility is what they're really hiding from, just as their counterparts in local, state and federal governments have done for decades before them.
And that's the overarching wrong here: Our public officials — Washington, Springfield, City Hall, are you there? — need to stop hiding from the raw arithmetic of unsustainable spending. They need to emerge from their burrows, admit that taxpayers have caught them with red ink all over their hands, and firmly align government expenses with revenues.
Protesters complain — many from afar — that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has gone beyond budget needs and set out to bust public-employee unions. If the people of Wisconsin feel that way, they surely will punish Walker and his fellow Republicans at the ballot box.
But remember, Wisconsin just had an election, and the voters picked Walker. He did not mask his politics — or his intent to reduce state spending on personnel. Just as voters in many states yanked from office many politicians who have spent their careers taxing, borrowing and spending with little attention to how much government citizens want and can afford.
We'll all learn together when and how the Wisconsin and Indiana melodramas end. And while we don't applaud people who collect paychecks for jobs they shirk, all of us owe measured thanks to the carpetbagging legislators — or, as critics call them, the flee-baggers.
These lawmakers on the lam unwittingly have reminded us that elections have consequences. And the consequences Americans evidently want in 2011 involve making all manner of governments live within their means.
From that emphatic sentiment, no public officials should run and hide — by leaving town or, as is more common, by delaying difficult decisions about how much to spend.
With their showy boycott, though, the Democrats are merely doing what countless lawmakers of all political persuasions, at all levels of government, have done less explicitly for decades: They have run away from the mathematical certainty that this much revenue can pay for only that much spending.
The consequences of their boycott will ratchet up early next week. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that a refinancing of state debt must be accomplished by then to free up $165 million. If the Legislature fails to approve that, it will have to come up with more budget cuts.
The Wisconsinites should go home. So should the Indiana lawmakers who abandoned their Legislature in copycat fashion. They need to show they can be responsible stewards of the public purse.
But that responsibility is what they're really hiding from, just as their counterparts in local, state and federal governments have done for decades before them.
And that's the overarching wrong here: Our public officials — Washington, Springfield, City Hall, are you there? — need to stop hiding from the raw arithmetic of unsustainable spending. They need to emerge from their burrows, admit that taxpayers have caught them with red ink all over their hands, and firmly align government expenses with revenues.
Protesters complain — many from afar — that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has gone beyond budget needs and set out to bust public-employee unions. If the people of Wisconsin feel that way, they surely will punish Walker and his fellow Republicans at the ballot box.
But remember, Wisconsin just had an election, and the voters picked Walker. He did not mask his politics — or his intent to reduce state spending on personnel. Just as voters in many states yanked from office many politicians who have spent their careers taxing, borrowing and spending with little attention to how much government citizens want and can afford.
We'll all learn together when and how the Wisconsin and Indiana melodramas end. And while we don't applaud people who collect paychecks for jobs they shirk, all of us owe measured thanks to the carpetbagging legislators — or, as critics call them, the flee-baggers.
These lawmakers on the lam unwittingly have reminded us that elections have consequences. And the consequences Americans evidently want in 2011 involve making all manner of governments live within their means.
From that emphatic sentiment, no public officials should run and hide — by leaving town or, as is more common, by delaying difficult decisions about how much to spend.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Reagan in Chicago (IV)
Thomas F. Roeser 10 February 2011
Some people think there’s been a Parson Weems flavor to the buildup of Ronald Reagan. Yes, it’s true– but it’s by no means comparable to that of JFK. We live now in a purposely engendered romanticized bubble invented by liberaldom’s twisted historian-hack, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. where everything about John Kennedy is pronounced great. His womanizing hasn’t dented his stature at all—whereas Richard Nixon who accomplished the major coup of splitting the Sino-Soviet bloc, a major turning-point in the Cold War—is regarded as evil, corrupt and a disgrace.
Why is that? Liberal media? Sure. But also style. Nixon’s was a hyper-aggressive style. Kennedy’s was relaxed, filled with surety but low-key.
Just recently the Kennedy family women, dominated by Maria Shriver has driven out of circulation a Kennedy documentary that is unfavorable.
But Parson Weems, who told saccharine little stories about how George Washington owned up to cutting down the cherry tree and how the 1st president threw a silver dollar across the Potomac was not much different: his goal was to build a godly image of Washington. Ridiculous fellow. Washington couldn’t have thrown a silver dollar across the Potomac because one wasn’t coined until shortly before his death. Besides , the Potomac’s width made it impossible. Others correcting Weems said it was more likely that he threw a hunk of slate across the Rapahonnock which at its narrowest point was about a hundred feet wide.
My point is: who cares? Bonnie Rockne, the widow of Knute, cared and she made sure that the 1940 script “Knute Rockne: All American” showed a man flawless in every way. Actually if she had allowed the real Rockne to emerge, the stature of the great coach wouldn’t have been diminished.
As the immaculately researched “Shake Down the Thunder” [by Dr. Murray Sperber: 20303] shows, Rockne…who lived as a kid in Logan Square…invented his own rules because when he coached there were very few. Sperber went to the basement of the athletic department and unearthed Rockne’s correspondence.
He was no saint nor was he a devil. He was a wildly successful football coach at a small cow college. Catholics disappointed by the defeat of Al Smith…feeling bigotry had something to do with it…turned to huzza’ing for the cow college. Rockne was a sharpie who played all the odds and got away with it since there was no NCAA but there was a Carnegie Foundation which inspected but had no power to enforce. Carnegie frequently called Rockne for hyper-aggressive recruiting, paying athletes under the table and winking when they ditched classes.
Nobody got away with more derelictions than George Gipp who was an outstanding baseball player. He didn’t have enough high school credits to qualify but he got in anyhow. He was 20, started in as a school waiter but quit, inventing a unique jobs program—earning money shooting pool (a real pool shark) and playing cards with professional gamblers traveling salesmen and hangers-on around the bars in South Bend. He made so much money that he could afford to move out of the dorm and take up lodging at the Oliver Hotel in South Bend, the best residence hotel in the city and home to business travelers who played high-stakes billiards and pool well into every night.
Rockne knew about it; he didn’t snitch to the priests—but then they’d have to be blind, deaf and mute not to know. He knew he had a goldmine in Gipp from the day the kid…who never played football before…drop-kicked a 62-yard field goal into the wind against Western State Normal of Michigan in a freshman game on Oct. 7, 1916. Gipp’s transcript shows that for two of his four full school years he received no grades whatever.
Finally the priests couldn’t stand it and expelled Gipp. Every big school bid for him. Rockne fended them off but the toughest time he had was with West Point which offered many more bucks than anyone else—the school’s head being none other than Douglas MacArthur. All the while, Rockne lobbied the South Bend business community and wealthy alumni to get the school to re-admit Gipp. The Notre Dame president yielded, gave Gipp an oral examination which to nobody’s surprise the kid passed.
Rockne’s scheme for getting the school publicity was ingenious. He knew that sportswriters in Chicago and elsewhere were underpaid so he hired them as part-time referees. Again, there were no conflict of interest rules. Rockne made sure that if the sportswriter didn’t praise Notre Dame he’d never get hired again.
After reading the 635-page book I think if Warner Brothers had made the true film about Gipp it’d have been more of a winner than it had with the heavily romanticized version. But of course Bonnie Rockne wanted her dead husband to go down as a Catholic saint. Now we get to Ronald Reagan’s portrayal of Gipp.
“Did you ever see the film `Knute Rockne All American’?” Reagan asked me after I told him I doubted he could cut it for the presidency both for his then rightist philosophy and his largely non-fact-filled speaking style. I said yes—usually on the Night Owl movie programs.
Reagan was by no means a big name when he landed the part of George Gipp….a part he incessantly lobbied for—including making a personal visit to Bonnie Rockne. His very first film was shot only three years earlier—a clunker called “Love is On the Air.” By the time he got her approval for Gipp he had done 19 films—including “Dark Victory” where his role was far down the list…topped by Bette Davis, George Brent and Humphrey Bogart. But Bonnie Rockne saw it and she approved Reagan.
Interestingly enough, the part of George Gipp lasted only ten minutes in the 97-minute movie. Lloyd Bacon, the director, wanted to show Gipp was a novice in football, was a baseball player—which was accurate.
“The script writer would do the script over and over,” he told me. “It would have to pass muster with Mrs. Rockne. We actually shot some rushes which after she saw, she vetoed. She had complete control of the script.”
Then he told me of a scene that was shot which she vetoed for one reason or another. Gipp is pictured throwing a baseball to another guy—a very impressive toss that went far-far down the baseball field. Rockne—played by veteran actor Pat O’Brien [1899-1983] fitted with a plastic nose to resemble Rockne’s—is drilling his squad and sees this kid through the baseball far down the field. After the rush was filmed she vetoed it….wanting Gipp to kick a football a huge distance instead. That was a big fight. Gipp authenticists insisted he throw a baseball; she wanted a football. She won as she did every other disagreement.
But the failed baseball take was the one that Reagan said was most meaningful to him, even though it wasn’t used.
“Pat O’ had the nickname `One Take O’Brien’” said Reagan. “He was a big star—having done `Angels with Dirty Faces’ with Cagney. I was just beginning and if I didn’t do well, they could get rid of me for another replacement—providing Mrs. Rockne approved, of course.
“The original script called for him to dazzled by how far Gipp through the baseball. So in this take O’Brien walks over to me and this was his line: `Hey, kid—if you can throw a football like you threw that baseball, you’ve got a job on my team: are you game?’
“My line was to be, `Gee, Rock I sure would like to try.’”
Reagan said he did the line at least ten times. Each time O’Brien would have to walk over to him and toss out the same line…following which Reagan would deliver the line with different inflections and each time the director would shout “cut!” At least ten times.
Finally the sun went down and shooting was over for the day. Lloyd Bacon, the director, called both Reagan and O’Brien to his office.
“He said to me `Reagan, we don’t have to stick with you in this picture! In fact, after seeing those takes I’m ready to ditch you right now! But we’ll try again tomorrow!. O’Brien, take him out and show him what I want! You know what I want! Show him! If it doesn’t work on the second or third try, he’s out!.`”
Reagan said O’Brien took him to a bar with a full mirror behind the bartender where the bottles were lined up.
“Reagan,” said O’Brien, “how old are you anyway?”
Twenty-nine.
“Gipp is supposed to be nineteen…ten years younger than you. Reagan, you come across as a cocky Irish kid—know-it-all. Gipp is supposed to be a shy, humble kid, impressed with Rockne. Unsure of himself—which is what you’re not. Reagan, Bacon wants you to look…what’s the word?…deferential. Now here’s how to do it. You’ve always heard that the camera tells the truth. I’m here to say the camera is…seducible! It can be fooled! The way to show deferential…meaning you have a lot to learn…is to bob your head how can I say it…bob your head humbly. I can’t think of any other word but deferential. You bob your head and say `Gee, Rock, I sure would like to try.’ Incidentally Reagan, you have a lot to learn too. Keep that style—head bobbed, deferential. Make it your mark. It’ll serve you well. Now while I drink this bourbon practice it over and over in front of this mirror—bob your head deferentially and say `gee Rock, I sure would like to try’”
Reagan said they stood at the bar, O’Brien ordering one after another saying “again…again….again.”
After the fifth drink, O’Brien said “it’s getting better. Now go home and stand in front of your bathroom mirror and do it a hundred times and hope you’ll remember how to do it tomorrow.”
Reagan said he did—and on the second take Bacon said “excellent.” He said he had to abandon the style for his next film “Santa Fe Trail” where he played the headstrong George Custer (with Errol Flynn as J.E.B.Stuart) but practiced it again for other films, especially his one masterwork…that of a youth maimed by a sadistic surgeon “King’s Row.”
“The reason I learned from that one is this,” he told me. “When I was running against Pat Brown for governor I had to debate him and our research people delivered a book this thick”—extending his two hands—“for me to memorize about the details of California government. Brown was a kind of walking encyclopedia of state government since he had been there so long and I was running as a citizen, non-politician.
“Well I prepared for that debate but details wouldn’t stick which was funny because I never had any trouble memorizing before. So I called O’Brien. He came over and said, `Ron, your role is to be the good-hearted guy coming in as a citizen not a politician. Remember your old line, `Gee Rock, I sure would like to try’? You know what you want to do with California government don’t you? You got to go back to basics, show the camera you’re humble, have a lot to learn but want to learn it. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to match Brown on details. Give `em three or four points—tell the camera `I sure would like to try.’”
When he finished, the two cops and I agreed: he had the formula.
“So,” he said, unconsciously bobbing his head deferentially, “when I have to debate John Anderson or Bush or Carter who have all these statistics in their head….I remember the four or five points I want to make—and…”
It was time to put him on the plane for Santa Barbara.
When he flew off I experienced a strange sense of loss—knowing I’d never see him up close again. But through the years whenever he’d have a news conference and an obnoxious guy like Sam Donaldson would raise his hand and say:”Mr. President….you were wrong about such-and-such..”
Details.
And I’d see him standing at the podium, head lowered slightly, saying “well…”
Gee Rock, I sure would like to try.
It presaged a new turn in political forensics. The old wise-guy Hubert Humphrey rat-a-tat-tat rhetoric was over…supplanted by a reasonable, humble, twinkling civility. The only time I saw him flummoxed as president was after Iran-Contra. And even then the style eventually returned to serve his needs.
That’s why what I learned that day with him has made all the difference.
Style.
**
Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Chicago Daily Observer
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/reagan-in-chicago-iv/
Some people think there’s been a Parson Weems flavor to the buildup of Ronald Reagan. Yes, it’s true– but it’s by no means comparable to that of JFK. We live now in a purposely engendered romanticized bubble invented by liberaldom’s twisted historian-hack, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. where everything about John Kennedy is pronounced great. His womanizing hasn’t dented his stature at all—whereas Richard Nixon who accomplished the major coup of splitting the Sino-Soviet bloc, a major turning-point in the Cold War—is regarded as evil, corrupt and a disgrace.
Why is that? Liberal media? Sure. But also style. Nixon’s was a hyper-aggressive style. Kennedy’s was relaxed, filled with surety but low-key.
Just recently the Kennedy family women, dominated by Maria Shriver has driven out of circulation a Kennedy documentary that is unfavorable.
But Parson Weems, who told saccharine little stories about how George Washington owned up to cutting down the cherry tree and how the 1st president threw a silver dollar across the Potomac was not much different: his goal was to build a godly image of Washington. Ridiculous fellow. Washington couldn’t have thrown a silver dollar across the Potomac because one wasn’t coined until shortly before his death. Besides , the Potomac’s width made it impossible. Others correcting Weems said it was more likely that he threw a hunk of slate across the Rapahonnock which at its narrowest point was about a hundred feet wide.
My point is: who cares? Bonnie Rockne, the widow of Knute, cared and she made sure that the 1940 script “Knute Rockne: All American” showed a man flawless in every way. Actually if she had allowed the real Rockne to emerge, the stature of the great coach wouldn’t have been diminished.
As the immaculately researched “Shake Down the Thunder” [by Dr. Murray Sperber: 20303] shows, Rockne…who lived as a kid in Logan Square…invented his own rules because when he coached there were very few. Sperber went to the basement of the athletic department and unearthed Rockne’s correspondence.
He was no saint nor was he a devil. He was a wildly successful football coach at a small cow college. Catholics disappointed by the defeat of Al Smith…feeling bigotry had something to do with it…turned to huzza’ing for the cow college. Rockne was a sharpie who played all the odds and got away with it since there was no NCAA but there was a Carnegie Foundation which inspected but had no power to enforce. Carnegie frequently called Rockne for hyper-aggressive recruiting, paying athletes under the table and winking when they ditched classes.
Nobody got away with more derelictions than George Gipp who was an outstanding baseball player. He didn’t have enough high school credits to qualify but he got in anyhow. He was 20, started in as a school waiter but quit, inventing a unique jobs program—earning money shooting pool (a real pool shark) and playing cards with professional gamblers traveling salesmen and hangers-on around the bars in South Bend. He made so much money that he could afford to move out of the dorm and take up lodging at the Oliver Hotel in South Bend, the best residence hotel in the city and home to business travelers who played high-stakes billiards and pool well into every night.
Rockne knew about it; he didn’t snitch to the priests—but then they’d have to be blind, deaf and mute not to know. He knew he had a goldmine in Gipp from the day the kid…who never played football before…drop-kicked a 62-yard field goal into the wind against Western State Normal of Michigan in a freshman game on Oct. 7, 1916. Gipp’s transcript shows that for two of his four full school years he received no grades whatever.
Finally the priests couldn’t stand it and expelled Gipp. Every big school bid for him. Rockne fended them off but the toughest time he had was with West Point which offered many more bucks than anyone else—the school’s head being none other than Douglas MacArthur. All the while, Rockne lobbied the South Bend business community and wealthy alumni to get the school to re-admit Gipp. The Notre Dame president yielded, gave Gipp an oral examination which to nobody’s surprise the kid passed.
Rockne’s scheme for getting the school publicity was ingenious. He knew that sportswriters in Chicago and elsewhere were underpaid so he hired them as part-time referees. Again, there were no conflict of interest rules. Rockne made sure that if the sportswriter didn’t praise Notre Dame he’d never get hired again.
After reading the 635-page book I think if Warner Brothers had made the true film about Gipp it’d have been more of a winner than it had with the heavily romanticized version. But of course Bonnie Rockne wanted her dead husband to go down as a Catholic saint. Now we get to Ronald Reagan’s portrayal of Gipp.
“Did you ever see the film `Knute Rockne All American’?” Reagan asked me after I told him I doubted he could cut it for the presidency both for his then rightist philosophy and his largely non-fact-filled speaking style. I said yes—usually on the Night Owl movie programs.
Reagan was by no means a big name when he landed the part of George Gipp….a part he incessantly lobbied for—including making a personal visit to Bonnie Rockne. His very first film was shot only three years earlier—a clunker called “Love is On the Air.” By the time he got her approval for Gipp he had done 19 films—including “Dark Victory” where his role was far down the list…topped by Bette Davis, George Brent and Humphrey Bogart. But Bonnie Rockne saw it and she approved Reagan.
Interestingly enough, the part of George Gipp lasted only ten minutes in the 97-minute movie. Lloyd Bacon, the director, wanted to show Gipp was a novice in football, was a baseball player—which was accurate.
“The script writer would do the script over and over,” he told me. “It would have to pass muster with Mrs. Rockne. We actually shot some rushes which after she saw, she vetoed. She had complete control of the script.”
Then he told me of a scene that was shot which she vetoed for one reason or another. Gipp is pictured throwing a baseball to another guy—a very impressive toss that went far-far down the baseball field. Rockne—played by veteran actor Pat O’Brien [1899-1983] fitted with a plastic nose to resemble Rockne’s—is drilling his squad and sees this kid through the baseball far down the field. After the rush was filmed she vetoed it….wanting Gipp to kick a football a huge distance instead. That was a big fight. Gipp authenticists insisted he throw a baseball; she wanted a football. She won as she did every other disagreement.
But the failed baseball take was the one that Reagan said was most meaningful to him, even though it wasn’t used.
“Pat O’ had the nickname `One Take O’Brien’” said Reagan. “He was a big star—having done `Angels with Dirty Faces’ with Cagney. I was just beginning and if I didn’t do well, they could get rid of me for another replacement—providing Mrs. Rockne approved, of course.
“The original script called for him to dazzled by how far Gipp through the baseball. So in this take O’Brien walks over to me and this was his line: `Hey, kid—if you can throw a football like you threw that baseball, you’ve got a job on my team: are you game?’
“My line was to be, `Gee, Rock I sure would like to try.’”
Reagan said he did the line at least ten times. Each time O’Brien would have to walk over to him and toss out the same line…following which Reagan would deliver the line with different inflections and each time the director would shout “cut!” At least ten times.
Finally the sun went down and shooting was over for the day. Lloyd Bacon, the director, called both Reagan and O’Brien to his office.
“He said to me `Reagan, we don’t have to stick with you in this picture! In fact, after seeing those takes I’m ready to ditch you right now! But we’ll try again tomorrow!. O’Brien, take him out and show him what I want! You know what I want! Show him! If it doesn’t work on the second or third try, he’s out!.`”
Reagan said O’Brien took him to a bar with a full mirror behind the bartender where the bottles were lined up.
“Reagan,” said O’Brien, “how old are you anyway?”
Twenty-nine.
“Gipp is supposed to be nineteen…ten years younger than you. Reagan, you come across as a cocky Irish kid—know-it-all. Gipp is supposed to be a shy, humble kid, impressed with Rockne. Unsure of himself—which is what you’re not. Reagan, Bacon wants you to look…what’s the word?…deferential. Now here’s how to do it. You’ve always heard that the camera tells the truth. I’m here to say the camera is…seducible! It can be fooled! The way to show deferential…meaning you have a lot to learn…is to bob your head how can I say it…bob your head humbly. I can’t think of any other word but deferential. You bob your head and say `Gee, Rock, I sure would like to try.’ Incidentally Reagan, you have a lot to learn too. Keep that style—head bobbed, deferential. Make it your mark. It’ll serve you well. Now while I drink this bourbon practice it over and over in front of this mirror—bob your head deferentially and say `gee Rock, I sure would like to try’”
Reagan said they stood at the bar, O’Brien ordering one after another saying “again…again….again.”
After the fifth drink, O’Brien said “it’s getting better. Now go home and stand in front of your bathroom mirror and do it a hundred times and hope you’ll remember how to do it tomorrow.”
Reagan said he did—and on the second take Bacon said “excellent.” He said he had to abandon the style for his next film “Santa Fe Trail” where he played the headstrong George Custer (with Errol Flynn as J.E.B.Stuart) but practiced it again for other films, especially his one masterwork…that of a youth maimed by a sadistic surgeon “King’s Row.”
“The reason I learned from that one is this,” he told me. “When I was running against Pat Brown for governor I had to debate him and our research people delivered a book this thick”—extending his two hands—“for me to memorize about the details of California government. Brown was a kind of walking encyclopedia of state government since he had been there so long and I was running as a citizen, non-politician.
“Well I prepared for that debate but details wouldn’t stick which was funny because I never had any trouble memorizing before. So I called O’Brien. He came over and said, `Ron, your role is to be the good-hearted guy coming in as a citizen not a politician. Remember your old line, `Gee Rock, I sure would like to try’? You know what you want to do with California government don’t you? You got to go back to basics, show the camera you’re humble, have a lot to learn but want to learn it. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to match Brown on details. Give `em three or four points—tell the camera `I sure would like to try.’”
When he finished, the two cops and I agreed: he had the formula.
“So,” he said, unconsciously bobbing his head deferentially, “when I have to debate John Anderson or Bush or Carter who have all these statistics in their head….I remember the four or five points I want to make—and…”
It was time to put him on the plane for Santa Barbara.
When he flew off I experienced a strange sense of loss—knowing I’d never see him up close again. But through the years whenever he’d have a news conference and an obnoxious guy like Sam Donaldson would raise his hand and say:”Mr. President….you were wrong about such-and-such..”
Details.
And I’d see him standing at the podium, head lowered slightly, saying “well…”
Gee Rock, I sure would like to try.
It presaged a new turn in political forensics. The old wise-guy Hubert Humphrey rat-a-tat-tat rhetoric was over…supplanted by a reasonable, humble, twinkling civility. The only time I saw him flummoxed as president was after Iran-Contra. And even then the style eventually returned to serve his needs.
That’s why what I learned that day with him has made all the difference.
Style.
**
Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Chicago Daily Observer
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/reagan-in-chicago-iv/
Debt-ceiling debate stirs up speculation
Fiscal disaster or political theater?
By Patrice Hill- The Washington Times
The White House is warning of financial Armageddon this spring if Congress fails to raise the Treasury's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, but many on Wall Street are skeptical that the looming spending clash will produce anything but riveting political theater.
Wall Street ratings agencies are not particularly worried that the U.S. Treasury will be forced into default, and some traders and investors say they are less concerned about the market impact of an extended partisan spending war than its potentially adverse effect on the economy and the nation's social fabric.
Republicans, though far from united over what to do about the debt ceiling, nearly all want to couple the measure with some kind of major spending cuts or reforms.
Some freshman Republicans backed by the tea party say they will not vote for any increase in the debt ceiling at all, in a bid to force draconian, immediate spending cuts. Others are drafting a plan that would allow selective increases in the debt to finance Social Security payments, military spending and interest payments to Treasury's bondholders.
A leading Senate conservative and tea party favorite, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, wants to attach a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution on legislation that would increase the debt limit.
The proliferation of Republican plans to try to force major spending cuts and reforms as their price for raising the debt ceiling has prompted dire White House warnings that such plans risk forcing the Treasury into default and setting off financial turmoil in markets worldwide.
But to David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's Corp., both sides are manufacturing an "artificial crisis."
He expects the clash over the debt limit to be mostly "high-octane political theater" rather than a major market-moving event. But he said there's a small chance the highly charged political atmosphere could produce a real blowup.
"It's a political game of chicken — a way of making the other side flinch," he said, adding that credit agencies take a dim view of what has become a ritual fight over the debt limit that occurs each time it is put before Congress.
"The problem with games of chicken, of course, is that there is always the risk that neither side flinches," however "irresponsible" that might be since Congress already has approved the spending increases and tax cuts that caused the debt to rise, Mr. Wyss said.
The Treasury can employ a number of "exceptional measures" that would extend the deadline for passing a debt-ceiling increase by some estimates into July or August. Once the limit is reached, the government would either have to cut spending immediately or put off paying its debt obligations in a first-ever default on U.S. government securities.
"Default by the U.S. Treasury could cause significant and long-lasting financial and economic disruption," Mr. Wyss said, but "we don't believe there is a significant chance of this occurring, as implied by our 'AAA' U.S. sovereign credit rating and its stable outlook."
Mr. Wyss added that "temporary delays in raising the debt ceiling will most likely have no effect because such delays have occurred many times before."
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke was not so nonchalant about the looming spending clash in an appearance before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday. He stressed the danger of letting Treasury's borrowing authority lapse and sought to discourage Republicans from crossing that threshold.
"Failure to pay interest on the debt would create an enormous crisis in financial markets," would raise the interest rates that Treasury pays for years to come, and would make reducing the deficit much harder because of the higher debt payments, he said. "We could have a seizing of the system that would be quite detrimental to the economy."
Mr. Bernanke also was cool to the strategy championed by some Republicans to enable the Treasury to keep making debt payments and payments on a few politically favored programs while prohibiting borrowing for other spending programs. He said that plan would present "technical" difficulties that would have to be worked out, at a minimum.
Mr. Bernanke's warnings about letting the debt ceiling lapse echoed Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner's prediction earlier this year of "catastrophic damage to the economy" that would be "potentially much more harmful than the effects of the financial crises of 2008 and 2009."
On Wednesday, Mr. Geithner conceded that "there's always a little political theater" over the debt legislation and expressed greater confidence that Congress "will act as it always has to meet its obligation."
David Greenlaw, an economist with Morgan Stanley, said he expects only a "modest impact" on financial markets from a "major political battle" peaking in July and August, when the ceiling is close to being reached after Treasury exercises various stalling measures and accounting gimmicks to delay the crunch.
Mr. Greenlaw said no one can be sure how the political drama will play out.
House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, has said he will use the debt-ceiling resolution as a vehicle to try to force spending cuts. At other times, however, he has said that legislators will act like "adults" and raise Congress' self-imposed debt ceiling when needed.
Among other things, "it's not clear that his message is getting through to the rank and file," Mr. Greenlaw said, noting that Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican, is leading the charge for the tea party in circulating a petition opposing any further hikes in the debt ceiling.
The tea party plans are reminiscent of a move by House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the GOP's 1995-96 standoff with President Clinton, in which he declared that it was better to default on the debt than to not balance the budget. He relented after his stance became a political liability for the GOP.
The 1990s confrontation, which produced extended government shutdowns as well as threats of default, had "noticeable spillover effects on the bond and currency markets," Mr. Greenlaw said.
"We expect to see an extended period of threats and counterthreats play out over the course of the spring and summer, leading to auction delays … and investor uncertainty," Mr. Greenlaw said. The "showdown could rattle investor confidence" a bit.
But after much storming about, he predicted the debt ceiling would be raised and the confrontation would accomplish little in terms of forcing significant spending cuts or budget reforms.
The $50 billion to $100 billion of discretionary spending cuts demanded by House Republicans, for example, would do little to lower $1 trillion deficits for long, he said.
"What's really needed from the standpoint of fiscal reform are long-term measures to reign in the deficit" such as the reforms in Social Security, Medicare and taxes recommended by President Obama's deficit commission in December, he said.
That point was made by the Fed chairman and Mr. Wyss as well.
Robert Dugger, managing partner at Hanover investments, expects this year's debt-limit confrontation to cause a few ripples in the markets. But he said it will mostly serve to highlight that the country is in a period of civil strife as it moves toward a period of budget austerity.
"Civil tension is rising," he said. "Budgets contain the fabric of civil commitments that hold us together."
Mr. Dugger thinks the drastic budget cuts being pushed by conservatives will bring out resistance from the left wing and result in strikes and labor stoppages as seen among New York City sanitation workers and government employees in Greece when confronted with draconian budget cuts last year.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/10/debt-ceiling-debate-stirs-up-speculation/print/
By Patrice Hill- The Washington Times
The White House is warning of financial Armageddon this spring if Congress fails to raise the Treasury's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, but many on Wall Street are skeptical that the looming spending clash will produce anything but riveting political theater.
Wall Street ratings agencies are not particularly worried that the U.S. Treasury will be forced into default, and some traders and investors say they are less concerned about the market impact of an extended partisan spending war than its potentially adverse effect on the economy and the nation's social fabric.
Republicans, though far from united over what to do about the debt ceiling, nearly all want to couple the measure with some kind of major spending cuts or reforms.
Some freshman Republicans backed by the tea party say they will not vote for any increase in the debt ceiling at all, in a bid to force draconian, immediate spending cuts. Others are drafting a plan that would allow selective increases in the debt to finance Social Security payments, military spending and interest payments to Treasury's bondholders.
A leading Senate conservative and tea party favorite, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, wants to attach a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution on legislation that would increase the debt limit.
The proliferation of Republican plans to try to force major spending cuts and reforms as their price for raising the debt ceiling has prompted dire White House warnings that such plans risk forcing the Treasury into default and setting off financial turmoil in markets worldwide.
But to David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's Corp., both sides are manufacturing an "artificial crisis."
He expects the clash over the debt limit to be mostly "high-octane political theater" rather than a major market-moving event. But he said there's a small chance the highly charged political atmosphere could produce a real blowup.
"It's a political game of chicken — a way of making the other side flinch," he said, adding that credit agencies take a dim view of what has become a ritual fight over the debt limit that occurs each time it is put before Congress.
"The problem with games of chicken, of course, is that there is always the risk that neither side flinches," however "irresponsible" that might be since Congress already has approved the spending increases and tax cuts that caused the debt to rise, Mr. Wyss said.
The Treasury can employ a number of "exceptional measures" that would extend the deadline for passing a debt-ceiling increase by some estimates into July or August. Once the limit is reached, the government would either have to cut spending immediately or put off paying its debt obligations in a first-ever default on U.S. government securities.
"Default by the U.S. Treasury could cause significant and long-lasting financial and economic disruption," Mr. Wyss said, but "we don't believe there is a significant chance of this occurring, as implied by our 'AAA' U.S. sovereign credit rating and its stable outlook."
Mr. Wyss added that "temporary delays in raising the debt ceiling will most likely have no effect because such delays have occurred many times before."
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke was not so nonchalant about the looming spending clash in an appearance before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday. He stressed the danger of letting Treasury's borrowing authority lapse and sought to discourage Republicans from crossing that threshold.
"Failure to pay interest on the debt would create an enormous crisis in financial markets," would raise the interest rates that Treasury pays for years to come, and would make reducing the deficit much harder because of the higher debt payments, he said. "We could have a seizing of the system that would be quite detrimental to the economy."
Mr. Bernanke also was cool to the strategy championed by some Republicans to enable the Treasury to keep making debt payments and payments on a few politically favored programs while prohibiting borrowing for other spending programs. He said that plan would present "technical" difficulties that would have to be worked out, at a minimum.
Mr. Bernanke's warnings about letting the debt ceiling lapse echoed Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner's prediction earlier this year of "catastrophic damage to the economy" that would be "potentially much more harmful than the effects of the financial crises of 2008 and 2009."
On Wednesday, Mr. Geithner conceded that "there's always a little political theater" over the debt legislation and expressed greater confidence that Congress "will act as it always has to meet its obligation."
David Greenlaw, an economist with Morgan Stanley, said he expects only a "modest impact" on financial markets from a "major political battle" peaking in July and August, when the ceiling is close to being reached after Treasury exercises various stalling measures and accounting gimmicks to delay the crunch.
Mr. Greenlaw said no one can be sure how the political drama will play out.
House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, has said he will use the debt-ceiling resolution as a vehicle to try to force spending cuts. At other times, however, he has said that legislators will act like "adults" and raise Congress' self-imposed debt ceiling when needed.
Among other things, "it's not clear that his message is getting through to the rank and file," Mr. Greenlaw said, noting that Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican, is leading the charge for the tea party in circulating a petition opposing any further hikes in the debt ceiling.
The tea party plans are reminiscent of a move by House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the GOP's 1995-96 standoff with President Clinton, in which he declared that it was better to default on the debt than to not balance the budget. He relented after his stance became a political liability for the GOP.
The 1990s confrontation, which produced extended government shutdowns as well as threats of default, had "noticeable spillover effects on the bond and currency markets," Mr. Greenlaw said.
"We expect to see an extended period of threats and counterthreats play out over the course of the spring and summer, leading to auction delays … and investor uncertainty," Mr. Greenlaw said. The "showdown could rattle investor confidence" a bit.
But after much storming about, he predicted the debt ceiling would be raised and the confrontation would accomplish little in terms of forcing significant spending cuts or budget reforms.
The $50 billion to $100 billion of discretionary spending cuts demanded by House Republicans, for example, would do little to lower $1 trillion deficits for long, he said.
"What's really needed from the standpoint of fiscal reform are long-term measures to reign in the deficit" such as the reforms in Social Security, Medicare and taxes recommended by President Obama's deficit commission in December, he said.
That point was made by the Fed chairman and Mr. Wyss as well.
Robert Dugger, managing partner at Hanover investments, expects this year's debt-limit confrontation to cause a few ripples in the markets. But he said it will mostly serve to highlight that the country is in a period of civil strife as it moves toward a period of budget austerity.
"Civil tension is rising," he said. "Budgets contain the fabric of civil commitments that hold us together."
Mr. Dugger thinks the drastic budget cuts being pushed by conservatives will bring out resistance from the left wing and result in strikes and labor stoppages as seen among New York City sanitation workers and government employees in Greece when confronted with draconian budget cuts last year.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/10/debt-ceiling-debate-stirs-up-speculation/print/
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Pat O’Brien Instruction for Ronald Reagan
Thomas F. Roeser 9 February 2011
Probably the most interesting thing I learned from Ronald Reagan in the four hours I spent with him before getting him to the plane to Santa Barbara in 1979 was not his Chicago abode or watching him fix the bathroom plumbing in the O’Hare Hilton room but his genius for soft theatricality in politics.
For the hard-arguments were not on his side.
You must remember the political conditions that existed then. A major conservative columnist was James J. Kilpatrick, 59, a syndicated columnist who tangled each Sunday for nine straight years as the crotchety rightwing voice paired against Shana Alexander every Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” This was before cable, before the Internet. There was only broadcast television and Kilpatrick…formidable and convincing (living down the fact that he had been a forceful even racist segregationist in the `50s) …syndicated to 172 papers…was the most prominent right-wing voice of the time—far more powerful than George Will has come to be. Or William F. Buckley for that matter. Buckley had an elite conservative magazine. Will was a bow-tied intellectual, a columnist, with the maddening proclivity to trace tax policy back to an offhand remark made by William the Conqueror to his mistress in 1066.
Kilpatrick was the average guy conservative.
Kilpatrick made all kinds of news in 1979 when he pronounced that for the upcoming election of 1980 “Ronald Reagan is a little long in the tooth,” saying he missed his chance by inches in losing the nomination to Jerry Ford—but the future demanded somebody more viable than a 68-year-old ex-movie actor and governor. Sixty-eight was then fearfully old to run for president, as medicine was not so advanced; there were no heart bypasses such as saved me from death in 2004; no operations for subdural hematoma, the delicate brain operation which spared me from certain death–after a four-hour surgery in 1985. People checked out regularly in their late `60s with no weeping or gnashing of teeth. For proof check the obits today. People are in their late `80s, mid-`90s.
So Kilpatrick’s sentence of Reagan as too old was devastating. Not only that but in January of 1979 Reagan’s longtime adversary, Nelson Rockefeller, died of a massive heart attack at 71. It did not assuage things that Rocky was engaged in a strenuously amorous physical pursuit at the apartment of a 27-year-old girl devotee research assistant who at his command did not call 911 but helped the old codger dress and cabbed him to his Manhattan office before she made the call whereby by the time the wagon came the billionaire philanthropist was dead. (She doesn’t have to worry about her old age now by the way—her finances are all taken care of. So long as she doesn’t write a book.)
I was far from a close Reagan operative in 1979…although the only Quaker officer to be for him—the remainder following the CEO and playing it safe by being for John Connally… but I was close enough that I could perceive the Reaganites were gravely shaken by Rocky’s death. Besides there were a whole younger crop—Connally who for the life of me I never saw the attraction although that year he graciously lectured at my Kellogg school class at Northwestern…Poppy Bush (GHW) former CIA director, UN ambassador and China emissary…white-thatched, self-righteous John B. Anderson later to bolt the party and run as an independent…the ever-present Bob Dole, then as ever unburdened by ideological conviction…Howard Baker who was a prominent Republican Senator…and Phil Crane who was running to Reagan’s right. And a host of little guys.
Social conservatives like me really had no choice but Reagan although intriguingly he had signed the most liberal abortion bill in the U. S. as California governor (almost but not quite tied by Rocky in New York). But Reagan had hit the sawdust trail and became an outstandingly articulate advocate for pro-life with an evangelist’s fervor. Connally was pro-abort as were Baker and Bush (known as “rubber George” because he urged the government to dispense far more condoms than they had been to developing nations). Anderson was an angry fire-eating patriarch about “a woman’s right to choose.”
Dole was on the issue as he was on everything else. He had beaten an abortionist doctor in a close race in Kansas where he became an instant pro-lifer but after being returned to the Senate had shut up about it. Crane…then probably the handsomest dog running with jet black hair and flashing smile… gave lip-service to it but he really was more of a libertarian and as with everything else in the House was inactive…”he comes down to take his meals” Henry Hyde said of him… being content to while away his time on frivolities…for which he ultimately whizzed away his solid district.
Reagan was not only the most viable pro-lifer and excepting Crane a sort of walking Cato Institute…to the right of everyone else. People were still rubbing their scabs about Vietnam and everybody was skittish of undue foreign entanglements…were talking détente… but Reagan was touting “why not victory?” Everybody was generally in favor of ERA (except Crane of course) but not Reagan. The Watergate scandal was still resonating and Republicans were flirting with more and more 1st amendment control over campaign donations—but not Reagan. He wanted unlimited campaign donations so long as they were made public right away.
Everybody was for gun control—but not Reagan.
*********************************************************
When he finally fixed the plumbing in the room and sat down to the steak sandwich, I said this:
“I’m really for you but for the life of me I don’t see how you’re going to win. We have a lady in this state, Phyllis Schlafly…”
He said, “I know and like Phyllis very much.”
“So do I,” I said….”but she ran twice for Congress and couldn’t get elected.
Now when he was sensible and a conservative, I was very much for John Anderson…until he got goofy. He’s one hell of a debater. What I want to know is…you’re going to have to debate these guys. Your positions are the same as mine. And given the prevailing temper of this country for liberal ideas, how are you going to sound different than Phyllis Schlafly? The other thing is one guy who is just your age and who co-founded ADA with you when you were a Democrat, Hubert Humphrey is rat-a-tat a walking encyclopedia. You’re not.
“ What I’m getting at is this: Are you just a cult figure of the right…making great speeches…a movie actor who happened to hit it right in California with a vibrant Orange county conservatism and an inept governor in Pat Brown? In essence how do you sell this thing?”
The cops in the room were aghast at my frankness but this is what I did all the time. Fortunately for me, at Quaker they liked it and not only tolerated it but welcomed it…and even encouraged me to get on the radio and WTTW as a commentator and write for the Sun-Times—so long as I didn’t identify Quaker with my views.
Digression: I was usually identified on WBEZ as “a corporate executive.” Bruce DuMont almost upended me years down the road by identifying me as “a cereal executive with offices in Quaker Tower.” End of digression.
I added: “For example, Carter is a detail man….Connally is a former treasury secretary. He can talk debentures that sound persuasive even though most people think he’s talking dentures. John B. Anderson…a longshot… is a student of legislative policy. He talks about a bill and how it appeared in subcommittee …how it was changed in full House committee…how the Senate fooled around with it and changed it such-and-such…how the conference committee rectified this and that—adding a section saying this and that.
“Bush gives off a séance about national security stuff he can’t tell us about because he headed the CIA. Then when he talks about foreign policy it’s stuff he picked up at the UN. Ask about China and he’s been our emissary.
“ I guess I’ve only heard you give exhortatory speeches but how are you going to make out in the scuffle of debates in primaries leading up to the convention?”
This was too much for one cop who went to the bathroom and stayed there for awhile.
Reagan said: “I learned something when I did `Knute Rockne’. Did you ever see it?”
I said I see it regularly when I’m up at midnight every Saturday.
He said: “Let me tell you that I think the answer to your question I learned when I made the film.”
Inwardly I groaned. But he told me something that changed me from that time on…convincing me that I was munching steak with a political genius…one who could well change the dynamics of Republican politics from then on.
**
Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Chicago Daily Observer
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/the-pat-obrien-instruction-for-ronald-reagan/
Probably the most interesting thing I learned from Ronald Reagan in the four hours I spent with him before getting him to the plane to Santa Barbara in 1979 was not his Chicago abode or watching him fix the bathroom plumbing in the O’Hare Hilton room but his genius for soft theatricality in politics.
For the hard-arguments were not on his side.
You must remember the political conditions that existed then. A major conservative columnist was James J. Kilpatrick, 59, a syndicated columnist who tangled each Sunday for nine straight years as the crotchety rightwing voice paired against Shana Alexander every Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” This was before cable, before the Internet. There was only broadcast television and Kilpatrick…formidable and convincing (living down the fact that he had been a forceful even racist segregationist in the `50s) …syndicated to 172 papers…was the most prominent right-wing voice of the time—far more powerful than George Will has come to be. Or William F. Buckley for that matter. Buckley had an elite conservative magazine. Will was a bow-tied intellectual, a columnist, with the maddening proclivity to trace tax policy back to an offhand remark made by William the Conqueror to his mistress in 1066.
Kilpatrick was the average guy conservative.
Kilpatrick made all kinds of news in 1979 when he pronounced that for the upcoming election of 1980 “Ronald Reagan is a little long in the tooth,” saying he missed his chance by inches in losing the nomination to Jerry Ford—but the future demanded somebody more viable than a 68-year-old ex-movie actor and governor. Sixty-eight was then fearfully old to run for president, as medicine was not so advanced; there were no heart bypasses such as saved me from death in 2004; no operations for subdural hematoma, the delicate brain operation which spared me from certain death–after a four-hour surgery in 1985. People checked out regularly in their late `60s with no weeping or gnashing of teeth. For proof check the obits today. People are in their late `80s, mid-`90s.
So Kilpatrick’s sentence of Reagan as too old was devastating. Not only that but in January of 1979 Reagan’s longtime adversary, Nelson Rockefeller, died of a massive heart attack at 71. It did not assuage things that Rocky was engaged in a strenuously amorous physical pursuit at the apartment of a 27-year-old girl devotee research assistant who at his command did not call 911 but helped the old codger dress and cabbed him to his Manhattan office before she made the call whereby by the time the wagon came the billionaire philanthropist was dead. (She doesn’t have to worry about her old age now by the way—her finances are all taken care of. So long as she doesn’t write a book.)
I was far from a close Reagan operative in 1979…although the only Quaker officer to be for him—the remainder following the CEO and playing it safe by being for John Connally… but I was close enough that I could perceive the Reaganites were gravely shaken by Rocky’s death. Besides there were a whole younger crop—Connally who for the life of me I never saw the attraction although that year he graciously lectured at my Kellogg school class at Northwestern…Poppy Bush (GHW) former CIA director, UN ambassador and China emissary…white-thatched, self-righteous John B. Anderson later to bolt the party and run as an independent…the ever-present Bob Dole, then as ever unburdened by ideological conviction…Howard Baker who was a prominent Republican Senator…and Phil Crane who was running to Reagan’s right. And a host of little guys.
Social conservatives like me really had no choice but Reagan although intriguingly he had signed the most liberal abortion bill in the U. S. as California governor (almost but not quite tied by Rocky in New York). But Reagan had hit the sawdust trail and became an outstandingly articulate advocate for pro-life with an evangelist’s fervor. Connally was pro-abort as were Baker and Bush (known as “rubber George” because he urged the government to dispense far more condoms than they had been to developing nations). Anderson was an angry fire-eating patriarch about “a woman’s right to choose.”
Dole was on the issue as he was on everything else. He had beaten an abortionist doctor in a close race in Kansas where he became an instant pro-lifer but after being returned to the Senate had shut up about it. Crane…then probably the handsomest dog running with jet black hair and flashing smile… gave lip-service to it but he really was more of a libertarian and as with everything else in the House was inactive…”he comes down to take his meals” Henry Hyde said of him… being content to while away his time on frivolities…for which he ultimately whizzed away his solid district.
Reagan was not only the most viable pro-lifer and excepting Crane a sort of walking Cato Institute…to the right of everyone else. People were still rubbing their scabs about Vietnam and everybody was skittish of undue foreign entanglements…were talking détente… but Reagan was touting “why not victory?” Everybody was generally in favor of ERA (except Crane of course) but not Reagan. The Watergate scandal was still resonating and Republicans were flirting with more and more 1st amendment control over campaign donations—but not Reagan. He wanted unlimited campaign donations so long as they were made public right away.
Everybody was for gun control—but not Reagan.
*********************************************************
When he finally fixed the plumbing in the room and sat down to the steak sandwich, I said this:
“I’m really for you but for the life of me I don’t see how you’re going to win. We have a lady in this state, Phyllis Schlafly…”
He said, “I know and like Phyllis very much.”
“So do I,” I said….”but she ran twice for Congress and couldn’t get elected.
Now when he was sensible and a conservative, I was very much for John Anderson…until he got goofy. He’s one hell of a debater. What I want to know is…you’re going to have to debate these guys. Your positions are the same as mine. And given the prevailing temper of this country for liberal ideas, how are you going to sound different than Phyllis Schlafly? The other thing is one guy who is just your age and who co-founded ADA with you when you were a Democrat, Hubert Humphrey is rat-a-tat a walking encyclopedia. You’re not.
“ What I’m getting at is this: Are you just a cult figure of the right…making great speeches…a movie actor who happened to hit it right in California with a vibrant Orange county conservatism and an inept governor in Pat Brown? In essence how do you sell this thing?”
The cops in the room were aghast at my frankness but this is what I did all the time. Fortunately for me, at Quaker they liked it and not only tolerated it but welcomed it…and even encouraged me to get on the radio and WTTW as a commentator and write for the Sun-Times—so long as I didn’t identify Quaker with my views.
Digression: I was usually identified on WBEZ as “a corporate executive.” Bruce DuMont almost upended me years down the road by identifying me as “a cereal executive with offices in Quaker Tower.” End of digression.
I added: “For example, Carter is a detail man….Connally is a former treasury secretary. He can talk debentures that sound persuasive even though most people think he’s talking dentures. John B. Anderson…a longshot… is a student of legislative policy. He talks about a bill and how it appeared in subcommittee …how it was changed in full House committee…how the Senate fooled around with it and changed it such-and-such…how the conference committee rectified this and that—adding a section saying this and that.
“Bush gives off a séance about national security stuff he can’t tell us about because he headed the CIA. Then when he talks about foreign policy it’s stuff he picked up at the UN. Ask about China and he’s been our emissary.
“ I guess I’ve only heard you give exhortatory speeches but how are you going to make out in the scuffle of debates in primaries leading up to the convention?”
This was too much for one cop who went to the bathroom and stayed there for awhile.
Reagan said: “I learned something when I did `Knute Rockne’. Did you ever see it?”
I said I see it regularly when I’m up at midnight every Saturday.
He said: “Let me tell you that I think the answer to your question I learned when I made the film.”
Inwardly I groaned. But he told me something that changed me from that time on…convincing me that I was munching steak with a political genius…one who could well change the dynamics of Republican politics from then on.
**
Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Chicago Daily Observer
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/the-pat-obrien-instruction-for-ronald-reagan/
Emanuel resurfaces in Blagojevich case
Ousted governor claims prosecutors have withheld recordings of calls between his chief of staff and Emanuel
By John Chase and Annie Sweeney, Tribune reporters
The specter of Rod Blagojevich resurfaced Tuesday in Rahm Emanuel's run for Chicago mayor, thanks to a court filing by the ousted governor, who faces a retrial on federal corruption charges.
Emanuel caught a public relations break when the second trial for Blagojevich, a former political ally, was moved back from its scheduled January start to April 20. That has made it easier for Emanuel to sidestep questions about his role as an intermediary in late 2008 between Blagojevich and then-President-elect Barack Obama over whom the governor should appoint to succeed Obama in the U.S. Senate.
In a court filing late Monday, Blagojevich's legal team claimed prosecutors have withheld recordings of alleged telephone calls that would show the former governor was not trying to sell Obama's seat for personal gain, including at least one call between Emanuel and Blagojevich's former chief of staff, John Harris.
The calls would help prove Blagojevich was simply orchestrating a legal political deal to name Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to the post, his attorneys argued. Blagojevich believed Emanuel could help him broker the Madigan deal, according to the filings.
Emanuel and Obama were mentioned repeatedly in the first Blagojevich trial, but evidence suggested they were wary of the former governor and there was no suggestion they did anything wrong. Blagojevich was convicted of lying to federal investigators but the jury deadlocked on more serious corruption charges.
After a campaign speech Tuesday, Emanuel said he wasn't concerned the matter could hurt him in the Fed. 22 election. He noted a widely publicized report by the Obama administration detailed contacts between Emanuel, Blagojevich and Harris and noted nothing improper occurred.
"The report of over two years ago indicates there were about four conversations and it also indicates a conversation about Lisa Madigan," Emanuel said.
The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-chicago-mayor-race-0209-20110208,0,1900439.story
By John Chase and Annie Sweeney, Tribune reporters
The specter of Rod Blagojevich resurfaced Tuesday in Rahm Emanuel's run for Chicago mayor, thanks to a court filing by the ousted governor, who faces a retrial on federal corruption charges.
Emanuel caught a public relations break when the second trial for Blagojevich, a former political ally, was moved back from its scheduled January start to April 20. That has made it easier for Emanuel to sidestep questions about his role as an intermediary in late 2008 between Blagojevich and then-President-elect Barack Obama over whom the governor should appoint to succeed Obama in the U.S. Senate.
In a court filing late Monday, Blagojevich's legal team claimed prosecutors have withheld recordings of alleged telephone calls that would show the former governor was not trying to sell Obama's seat for personal gain, including at least one call between Emanuel and Blagojevich's former chief of staff, John Harris.
The calls would help prove Blagojevich was simply orchestrating a legal political deal to name Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to the post, his attorneys argued. Blagojevich believed Emanuel could help him broker the Madigan deal, according to the filings.
Emanuel and Obama were mentioned repeatedly in the first Blagojevich trial, but evidence suggested they were wary of the former governor and there was no suggestion they did anything wrong. Blagojevich was convicted of lying to federal investigators but the jury deadlocked on more serious corruption charges.
After a campaign speech Tuesday, Emanuel said he wasn't concerned the matter could hurt him in the Fed. 22 election. He noted a widely publicized report by the Obama administration detailed contacts between Emanuel, Blagojevich and Harris and noted nothing improper occurred.
"The report of over two years ago indicates there were about four conversations and it also indicates a conversation about Lisa Madigan," Emanuel said.
The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-chicago-mayor-race-0209-20110208,0,1900439.story
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