Currently viewing the tag: “Spending”
Yeargh.
Earlier in the week, Howard Dean told an audience that Democrats should be rooting for a government shutdown rather than agree to budget cuts, because voter anger would punish Republicans. That may have been true in 1995, but as Rasmussen discovered it its latest polling, the political and fiscal environment in 2011 is far different. […]
Why are any of us not surprised … this is just like spending $ 3000 for the ceramic cat on the Wheel of Fortune.
What is wrong with these people? The Pentagon is looking to spend $ 600,000 on this so-called art of a gurgling toad sculpture. Is this going to be the centerpiece in the main lobby of the Mark Center? NOPE. To make matter worse, only an estimated 2,500 people will see this piece of art daily. This is yet just another example of what happens when people spend others peoples money. The US Treasury is going broke and we have government folks who think its a good idea to spend $ 600K on a frog. UNREAL.
A $ 600,000 frog sculpture that lights up, gurgles “sounds of nature” and carries a 10-foot fairy girl on its back could soon be greeting Defense Department employees who plan to start working at the $ 700 million Mark Center in Alexandria, Va. this fall. That is unless a new controversy over the price tag of the public art doesn’t torpedo the idea.
Decried as wasteful spending that will be seen by just a couple thousand of daily workers who arrive on bus shuttles, foes have tried to delay the decision, expected tomorrow, April 1. But in an E-mail, an Army Corps of Engineers official said that the decision can’t be held up because it would impact completion of the huge project.
Sadly, this is not an April’s Fools joke, the only fools are those that thought this was a wise purchase. All the kisses in the world will not turn this $ 600K toad into a prince.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was caught on tape plotting to label the Republicans and the tea party movement as “extreme.” But as this video tells it, the real extremists are Schumer and his fellow Democrats.
Technorati tags: 
news chuck schumer politics tea party current affairs deficit democrat
This morning, several reports said that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and the White House are close to settling on a level of spending cuts for the remainder of 2011. The so-called compromise would put spending $ 33 billion below current levels (or roughly $ 74 billion below President Obama’s 2011 budget request). However, Boehner said during a press conference today that “there is no agreement on numbers and nothing will be agreed to until everything is agreed to.”
President Obama has consistently said that he’s willing to meet the GOP halfway when it comes to the level of spending cuts. But if this is where the deal ultimately lands, Democrats will have come three-fourths of the way from the Obama budget to the $ 100 billion below that budget ($ 61 billion below current spending) that the Republicans passed in their bill, H.R. 1. Here’s a handy version of the situation, in graphic form:
Whether measuring reductions from current spending or the Obama budget, it’s clear that Democrats have moved significantly, while Republicans have offered nothing in return. As Center on Budget and Policy Priorities president Robert Greenstein wrote, “that’s been the story of the fiscal 2011 appropriations cycle — a story of the goal posts being moved by Republican demands for ever deeper cuts; Democrats moving toward these deeper cuts over time; and Republicans charging that Democrats have not offered enough by way of cuts.”
Still, Boehner today asserted that “we are going to fight for H.R. 1″ and all of its economically destructive cuts. Even at the “compromise” level, the cuts would undermine competitiveness and job creation, in an already weak economy.
Earlier this week, NY Senator Chuck Schumer got caught with his pants down. He was heard urging fellow progressives to use the word extreme for the spending cuts and the tea party’s “control” over House Republican speaker John A. Boehner, without realizing the reporters were already on the line. Today the Honorable Blowhard From the People’s Republic of New York, received a polite blasting from Senate Minority Leader Mich McConnell.
“We’ve got one Democrat leader coaching his colleagues to describe any Republican idea as ‘extreme,’” McConnell said. “That’s why other Democrats are attempting to marginalize an entire group of people in this country … I’m referring, of course, to the Tea Party.”
“Despite the Democrat leadership’s talking points, these folks are not radicals. They’re our next-door neighbors and our friends,”
The real extremists, he said, are the Democrats, who are resisting the deep cuts written into the House budget bill that would fund the rest of this year. They argue that the cuts could damage the fragile economy, leaving both sides in a standoff with federal funding set to run out April 8.
“If you ask me, the goals of the Tea Party sound pretty reasonable,” McConnell said. “What’s extreme is spending more than a trillion and a half dollars than we have in a single year. This is the Democrats’ approach. This is what’s extreme.”
Watch the video below:
McConnell’s speech defense of the tea party was seen as a welcome to the spending activists who are converging on the Capitol today to call for deeper spending cuts and defunding Obamacare.
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Quick Video Links
VIDEO: McConnell On The Tea Party: “Is It Extreme To Propose That We Cut Spending?”
Full VIDEO: McConnell To Democrats: Reducing Washington Spending and Debt Isn’t ‘Extreme’
Mid-Day Briefing
Politico writes this morning, “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell welcomed tea party members protesting in Washington in a Thursday morning floor speech in which he called the movement’s aim to cut federal spending ‘pretty reasonable.’ Just a day after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) lambasted the tea party for pulling the GOP away from deal-making efforts in Congress, the top Senate Republican pushed back with a jab against the other side.”
It was just yesterday that Reid declared on the Senate floor, “The country doesn’t care much about the tea party.” And today he said, “We can’t have what’s going on here with the tea party demonstrating, all these very harsh cuts with unrealistic riders, punishing innocent folks just for political ideology.”
In his speech this morning, Leader McConnell pushed back against Democrats’ political attacks on tea partiers saying, “Anybody who follows national politics knows that when it comes to a lot of the issues Americans care about most, Democrat leaders in Washington are pretty far outside the mainstream. That’s why we’ve got one Democrat leader coaching his colleagues to describe any Republican idea as ‘extreme.’ And that’s why other Democrats are attempting to marginalize an entire group of people in this country whose concerns about the growth of the nation’s debt, the overreach of the federal government, and last year’s health care bill are about as mainstream as it gets. . . . I’m referring of course to the Tea Party . . . Despite the Democrat leadership’s talking points, these folks are not radicals. They’re our next-door neighbors and our friends. . . .These are everyday men and women who love their country and who don’t want to see it collapse as a result of irresponsible attitudes and policies that somehow persist around here despite the warning signs we see all around us about the consequences of fiscal recklessness. And they’re being vilified because, in an effort to preserve what’s good about our country, they’re politely asking lawmakers here in Washington to change the way things are done around here.”
Indeed, both Politico and MSNBC’s First Read featured headlines this week, “Dems budget strategy: Blame the tea party,” and “Dems say Tea Party is tying Boehner’s hands,” respectively. And Fox News reported, “Democrats have put out the message that ‘extreme’ Tea Party-aligned lawmakers are preventing Republican leaders from making any headway. Though Tea Party groups indeed clamor for significant spending cuts, GOP leaders called it ridiculous to blame the Tea Party for the stalemate.”
Leader McConnell took Democrats to task for these attacks today, saying, “At a time when the national debt has reached crisis levels, members of the Tea Party are asking that we stop spending more than we take in. In other words, they’re asking that lawmakers in Washington do what any household in America already does: they want us to balance our budget. And they do this because they know their history, and that the road to decline is paved with debt. Is that extreme?
“They want us to be able to explain how any law that we pass is consistent with the Constitution.This means that as we write new laws they want us to be guided by the document that every single senator in this chamber has sworn to uphold. Is that extreme?
“They want us to cut down on the amount of money the government spends. Well, this year the federal government in Washington is projected to spend about $ 1.6 trillion dollars more than it has. That means we’ll have to borrow it from somewhere else, driving the national debt even higher than it already is. What’s more, the Obama Administration plans to continue spending like this for years. So that within five years, the debt will exceed $ 20 trillion. Given these facts, you tell me: is it extreme to propose that we cut spending?”
Leader McConnell said, “In fact, if you ask me, the goals of the Tea Party sound pretty reasonable. These folks recognize the gravity of the problems we face as a nation, and they’re doing something about it for the sake of our future. They’re engaged in the debate about spending and debt — which is a lot more than we can say about the President and many Democrats in Congress.”
He concluded, “So what’s extreme is the thought that government can just continue on this reckless path without consequence. What’s extreme is thinking we can just blithely watch the nation’s debt get bigger and pretend it doesn’t matter. What’s extreme is spending more than a trillion and a half dollars than we have in a single year. This is the Democrats’ approach. This is what’s extreme.”
On The Floor
The Senate reconvened at 9:30 AM today and began a period of morning business. Later today, the Senate could resume consideration of S. 493, the bill reauthorizing the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.
Still pending to S. 493 is the McConnell-Inhofe amendment, which would block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, a move that would amount to a backdoor national energy tax. Democrats have repeatedly pushed back a vote.
If an agreement on amendment votes is reached, there could be votes on the McConnell-Inhofe amendment, as many as 3 Democrat alternative amendments that would not adequately block the EPA’s regulations, and an amendment from Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) to properly repeal the onerous 1099 reporting requirement imposed on small businesses by the Democrats’ health care law.
From the Communications Center
Sen. McConnell: Reducing Washington Spending and Debt Isn’t ‘Extreme’
Around the Hill
Politico: McConnell welcomes tea partiers
The Hill: Democrats consider proposing tax hikes
Democrats still scrambling on EPA votes (from Politico Pro)
The Wall Street Journal: From Nixon to Obama
(John)
The Hill reports that Republican and Democratic negotiators may be getting close to a deal on FY 2011 spending:
A source familiar with the talks said members of the Senate and House Appropriations panels are working toward a target of $ 33 billion in spending cuts. The $ 33 billion goal splits the difference between $ 30 billion in cuts Senate Democrats have proposed and $ 36 billion in cuts Boehner suggested in talks with White House officials, according to the source.
The $ 33 billion would be close to the cuts first proposed by House GOP leaders, who moved to $ 61 billion in proposed cuts under pressure from freshmen in their conference. Policy language defunding the new healthcare law and Planned Parenthood, which conservatives have insisted should be in a final deal, remains a sticking point.
Democrats give the impression that they are salivating over the prospect of a government shutdown. That may be bluff; I haven’t seen any any poll data that suggest the Republicans would be “blamed” any more than the Democrats.
Is $ 33 billion a reasonable deal for the GOP? The answer depends mostly on political calculation. The real showdown will be over the FY 2012 budget. Paul Ryan will release the Republicans’ proposal some time next month, and the battle will then be joined. It may well be that the FY 2011 continuing resolutions are a distraction that have the potential to put the GOP in a hole for the real battle.
I don’t know about that; John Boehner and his associates can calculate the political odds much better than we can. Presumably. But I will say this: $ 33 billion in cuts represents a trivial amount. If we use the Big Mac extra value meal analogy, a $ 33 billion cut in the federal budget represents the equivalent of ordering the meal; eating the Big Mac; drinking the Coke; and eating 85 out of 87 french fries. Then you take the 86th fry, bite off one sixth of it, and put the remaining 5/6 of one fry back in the box, along with the 87th fry. Is that a substantial cut? No.
When Congress approved a $ 10 billion education jobs bill last year aimed at preserving the jobs of teachers and other public school employees, it included a clause requiring Texas to maintain its current education funding if it wanted to access its share of the money. The justification for including this provision was good: Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) took education funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but then “simultaneously slashed the state’s contributions to the education budget, allowing the state to essentially pocket the federal dollars without increasing school aid.”
Perry did not take the restriction in the education jobs bill well, saying “Texas will not surrender to Washington’s one-size-fits-all, deficit-spending mindset…We’ll continue to work with state leaders, including the attorney general, to fight this injustice.” Texas is now suing the Department of Education to release the funds, while Perry’s chief of staff said that the state will “look for ways around” actually spending the money on education.
But if House Republicans get their way, Perry won’t need to work any harder to secure his share of the money, which stands at $ 830 million. A rider included in H.R. 1 — the House Republican spending plan for the remainder of 2011 — would prohibit the Education Department from enforcing the restrictions placed into the education jobs bill:
Sec. 4051: Prohibits funds for implementing a provision specific to the State of Texas in the “Education Job Fund.”
This would be a convenient windfall for Perry, who is currently grappling with a $ 27 billion budget hole. But according to the office of Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) — who spearheaded the restrictions in the education jobs bill — the practical upshot of the rider wouldn’t be to give Perry the $ 830 million to with as he pleases, but to simply deny Texas from ever accessing any of the education jobs funding:
Defectively written, this amendment fails to repeal anything. The enforcement funds that it would limit are not in this bill. They are already appropriated…Though this is presented as an attempt to repeal our amendment, it does not repeal it. It is a meaningless gesture, though it does cloud up the possibility that some federal court may suggest that Texas is not entitled to any money.
There are plenty of riders attached to H.R. 1 that would increase federal spending, even as Republicans use the deficit as justification to cut scores of vital and popular programs. But this particular provision is an attempt to force the federal government into throwing money to Perry without any oversight, when his past actions show that such oversight is sorely needed.
Washington (CNN) – Democratic and Republican negotiators are moving closer to a tentative agreement on how much spending to slash from the budget and have begun drawing up a list of specific cuts, according to sources familiar with the talks.
Sources from both parties-who would not speak on the record about the closed-door talks-emphasized the numbers were not set in stone and could change as negotiators hammer out details of which programs and agencies to cut and whether a number of controversial policy provisions are included in the agreement.
“There is no agreement on a number for the spending cuts. Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to,” warned Kevin Smith, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.
Informal negotiations have been going on in fits and starts. Despite the newfound progress, the government runs out of money April 8, and House Republicans Wednesday moved to deflect blame for a possible government shutdown.
House GOP leaders announced they would vote this week on a bill enacting their proposed cuts, if there is no agreement before next week’s deadline.
The vote would be symbolic, since the Senate already rejected the House-passed bill that would cut $ 61 billion in government spending, and President Obama said he would veto it. But House Republicans vowed to move ahead with the vote, dubbed the “Prevention of a Government Shutdown Act,” should discussions among Speaker John Boehner, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, and the White House fail.
“We are serious. We want to take care of this problem and so that we can get on about the business of this nation and get Americans back to work.” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told reporters. Cantor said the bill would also mandate that Members of Congress not get paid if there is a government shutdown.
Reid said Tuesday that Senate Democrats are offering to cut another $ 19 billion in spending cuts, on top of the $ 10 billion that was cut in two stopgap bills passed to keep the government running. But when asked by CNN about Reid’s offer House Speaker John Boehner maintained “it doesn’t exist.” Pressed about Reid’s invitation to review additional cuts, Boehner said, “It’s nonsense.”
House Republican leaders know full well many of their rank-and-file conservatives will not be happy with any compromise on spending cuts beyond the $ 61 billion the House passed last month. One senior House GOP leadership aide indicated that the proposed $ 19 billion in cuts was unlikely to be enough to satisfy House Republicans.
That’s why despite the behind-the-scenes talks, public posturing in this highly political drama continues.
At a news conference, Boehner continued to press Senate Democrats to act soon, telling reporters “We’ve done our job. Now the Senate says we have a plan. Well great! Pass the damn thing and send it over here and let’s have real negotiations instead of sitting over there rooting for a government shutdown.”
Talks had broken down last week when House Republicans insisted the Senate use the House passed package of $ 61 billion in cuts as a starting point to develop a compromise, but top officials say they have continued to have informal discussions.
Those informal discussions set the stage for more concrete negotiations Wednesday about specific spending cuts.
And Wednesday evening, in a late addition to his schedule, Vice President Biden was to head to Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Democratic leadership.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and a small group of conservative House lawmakers are pushing House Republicans to go after all of the mandatory spending in the Affordable Care Act, claiming that Democrats snuck in $ 105 billion in hidden mandatory spending into the health care law. “This is something that wasn’t known,” Bachmann said on Meet The Press earlier this month. “This money was broken up, hidden in various parts of the bill.”
I’ve argued that this spending had been widely publicized during the health care debate and this morning, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf admitted that the information was, in fact, widely known:
REP. FRANK PALLONE (D-NJ): We considered a bill that would repeal funding for section 1311, the health insurance exchange planning and establishment grants. Did you know about that funding stream?
ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.
PALLONE: Okay, so it wasn’t hidden. What about section 4002, the prevention and public health fund. Did you know about that?
ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.
PALLONE: So that wasn’t hidden either. And what about funding for school based health centers? Did you know about that?
ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.
Watch it:
Bachmann is still fundraising off the “discovery,” however. “As I continue to fight against President Obama’s far-left agenda in Washington, the liberal left has stepped up their attacks against me,” Bachmann wrote in a March 29th email to constituents. “But, despite these attacks I am committed to…repealing Obamacare, and exposing government corruption like the $ 105 billion the Democrats appropriated toward funding Obamacare. This was a complete circumvention of the legislative process and I am working stop your tax dollars from being spent on an unconstitutional law.” “That’s why any amount you can donate to my campaign today – up to the $ 2,500 legal limit – is appreciated,” she added.
The ongoing budget negotiations between the House Republican leadership and Senate Democrats has broken down, as Republicans continue to insist that their spending bill — H.R. 1 — “serve as a starting point for all negotiations.” House Republicans “have demanded everything: not just some of their cuts but almost all of them, and not just a reduction in spending but a reduction only in the programs they don’t like,” the New York Times notes today. In fact, many are “insisting Democrats also agree to nonbudgetary riders, like ending the financing of Planned Parenthood or health care reform.”
But a closer examination of the at least 81 riders from OMB Watch reveals that many would have the opposite of the GOP’s intended effect and actually increase federal spending. For instance, a CBO analysis of Sec. 4017 of H.R. 1 — which would strip funding for any provisions in the Affordable Care Act — argues that partially defunding the law increases costs “by $ 3.1 billion in fiscal year 2012 and by smaller amounts in each of the fiscal years 2013 through 2021.” The same may be true for the following riders:
Sec. 4013 — Prohibits funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Planned parenthood provides services more efficiently and each dollar spent on contraception saves taxpayers multiple dollars down the line. For instance, it’s estimated that pushing contraceptive care patients from Planned Parenthood to other clinics would “cost the government an additional $ 174 million a year.”
Sec. 1591 — Prohibits funding for needle exchange programs: As an example, the cost to prevent a single HIV infection by needle exchange “has been calculated at $ 4,000 to $ 12,000, considerably less than the estimated $ 190,000 (listed in 1997 dollars) medical costs of treating a person infected with HIV.”
Sec. 4020 — Prohibits funds to take any action to effect or implement the disestablishment, closure or realignment of the US Joint Forces Command: Closing the Joint Forces Command, which “employs more contractors than troops” and which Defense Secretary Gates says is no longer necessary, could save up to $ 240 million per year.
Sec. 4051 — Prohibits funds for implementing a provision specific to the State of Texas in the “Education Job Fund”: This provision prevents Texas from collecting money from the education jobs bill passed last year unless it maintains its own rate of current education funding. Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) has previously stuck federal education money into his state’s Rainy Day Fund. Blocking the provision amounts to giving Texas more than $ 800 million with no oversight.
Sec. 4012 — Bans funding for the Department of Education regulations on Gainful Employment: These regulations would restrict federal funding for subprime schools, many of which make 90 percent of their revenue from the federal government, while accounting for nearly half of student loan defaults.
Earlier this month, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) insisted that riders would not be part of a budgetary agreement. “[W]e’re not going to have any riders,” Harkin told Politico. “So, that’s just not going to happen. It won’t be part of the deal.”
– Pat Garofalo and Igor Volsky
By Pat Garofalo and Igor Volsky
The ongoing budget negotiations between the House Republican leadership and Senate Democrats has broken down, as Republicans continue to insist that their spending bill — H.R. 1 — “serve as a starting point for all negotiations.” House Republicans “have demanded everything: not just some of their cuts but almost all of them, and not just a reduction in spending but a reduction only in the programs they don’t like,” the New York Times notes today. In fact, many are “insisting Democrats also agree to nonbudgetary riders, like ending the financing of Planned Parenthood or health care reform.”
But a closer examination of the at least 81 riders from OMB Watch reveals that many would have the opposite of the GOP’s intended effect and actually increase federal spending. For instance, a CBO analysis of Sec. 4017 of H.R. 1 — which would strip funding for any provisions in the Affordable Care Act — argues that partially defunding the law increases costs “by $ 3.1 billion in fiscal year 2012 and by smaller amounts in each of the fiscal years 2013 through 2021.” The same may be true for the following riders:
Sec. 4013 — Prohibits funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Planned parenthood provides services more efficiently and each dollar spent on contraception saves taxpayers multiple dollars down the line. For instance, it’s estimated that pushing contraceptive care patients from Planned Parenthood to other clinics would “cost the government an additional $ 174 million a year.”
Sec. 1591 — Prohibits funding for needle exchange programs: As an example, the cost to prevent a single HIV infection by needle exchange “has been calculated at $ 4,000 to $ 12,000, considerably less than the estimated $ 190,000 (listed in 1997 dollars) medical costs of treating a person infected with HIV.”
Sec. 4020 — Prohibits funds to take any action to effect or implement the disestablishment, closure or realignment of the US Joint Forces Command: Closing the Joint Forces Command, which “employs more contractors than troops” and which Defense Secretary Gates says is no longer necessary, could save up to $ 240 million per year.
Sec. 4051 — Prohibits funds for implementing a provision specific to the State of Texas in the “Education Job Fund”: This provision prevents Texas from collecting money from the education jobs bill passed last year unless it maintains its own rate of current education funding. Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) has previously stuck federal education money into his state’s Rainy Day Fund. Blocking the provision amounts to giving Texas more than $ 800 million with no oversight.
Sec. 4012 — Bans funding for the Department of Education regulations on Gainful Employment: These regulations would restrict federal funding for subprime schools, many of which make 90 percent of their revenue from the federal government, while accounting for nearly half of student loan defaults.
Earlier this month, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) insisted that riders would not be part of a budgetary agreement. “[W]e’re not going to have any riders,” Harkin told Politico. “So, that’s just not going to happen. It won’t be part of the deal.”
After two years, let’s check and see what we got for our money regarding Comrade Obama’s budget-busting “stimulus” spending:
Nearly a trillion dollars have been poured into the U.S. economy, courtesy of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Result? Unemployment has barely budged, housing prices continue to fall in many markets and more mortgages slip into foreclosure.
How can this be happening when so many people in government assure us that government spending spurs the economy? Because it’s not true. For government to pour money into the economy, it must take money out of the economy in the first place. To hand out money, government must first take money from taxpayers.
It’s like moving money from the left pocket to the right pocket. It doesn’t make us any wealthier. What it really stimulates is more government, not more economic activity.
In the short term, “stimulus” spending does nothing but enrich the crony capitalist collaborators of our bureaucratic overlords. Long term, it hurts the economy by driving up inflation and causing Big Government — the source of our economic problems — to grow even bigger.
Democrats love Keynesian economics because this long-discredited ideology offers a justification to steal massive amounts of our money and spend it in a never-ending drunken binge. But if government spending had a beneficial effect, we would all be riding as high on the gravy train as public sector union members. After all,
When George W. Bush became president, total federal spending was $ 1.8 trillion. When he left office eight years later in January 2009, federal spending topped $ 3.4 trillion.
Since then, government spending has exploded at a rate likely to bankrupt the country within a few years. Yet no beneficial effects are to be seen.
If they really wanted to improve the economy rather than loot us and grow their power, our statist rulers know just what to do:
The way to end this recession is for government to cut spending, shrink the deficit, end corporate welfare, stop using taxpayer money to bail out politically connected businesses and industries, and reduce regulations that make investing for the future more difficult.
That is, Big Government needs to acknowledge that it is the problem, not the solution, and get out of the way. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
Hardly likely to help.
On a tip from Dave H.
New York Times reporter Jennifer Medina’s Sunday story from Sacramento focused on the state’s cute political couple, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and his young budget director Ana Matosantos: “Political Odd Couple, United by Crisis In California Budget.”
They are a constant if unlikely pair these days: the oldest man elected governor of California and the woman who is its youngest budget director, shuttling from office to office as they meet with lawmakers, confer quietly in the Capitol hallways and fend off reporters and lobbyists.
Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, lived through another fiscal crisis when he was governor 30 years ago. The budget director, Ana Matosantos, 35, was barely able to do addition back then, but she has the experience that comes with having served under the last governor and through three years of California fiscal crises.
Medina painted Matosantos as a budgetary whiz (who, conveniently, is also opposed to Republican spending cuts):
And now the two of them are at the center of what has become the critical battle in Mr. Brown’s first few months on the job, as he tries to push through a budget that would almost certainly define much of his remaining years here. And for all of Mr. Brown’s knowledge and self-assurance, it is this unlikely budget director — a Republican appointee — to whom the governor keeps turning to help him navigate this treacherous terrain….Without hesitating, she explained how the state made up for services that local governments could not afford.
Months later, Bill Emmerson, a Republican state senator, asked for similar information in a private meeting. Ms. Matosantos ticked off the information without looking at any notes, convincing Mr. Emmerson that an inflexible spending cap would not work. A few weeks later, Mr. Emmerson could not remember the details himself. But he was certain that Ms. Matosantos had given them the right guidance.So why would the Times bother to butter up a relatively obscure political figure in the bowels of the California state bureaucracy? Maybe because her pull may help push up state taxes and reduce spending cuts:
While the Legislature has moved forward in approving more than $ 11 billion in cuts, parallel negotiations to put a tax extension up for a statewide vote have sputtered and stalled. Now Ms. Matosantos is going through marathon meetings with Mr. Brown, as well as painstaking, occasionally painful sessions with Senate Republicans, whose votes are needed to get the tax initiative on a June ballot. Without those taxes, Mr. Brown has said, the cuts to the state’s budget will need to be even more draconian.
Medina even made politically correct points out of Matosantos’s gay relationship.
Ms. Matosantos seems unconcerned about her status as a first in so many categories — in addition to being the youngest, she is the first Latina and the first openly gay person to hold the job — and likes to keep her matter-of-fact tone on any topic. “At the end of the day, what matters is the numbers: this all has to add up and make sense.”
(Back in June 2007, Medina fretted that after arrests of illegals immigrants in New Haven, Conn, “any sense of sanctuary that the city and advocates for immigrants had developed over the years was turned upside down, replaced with fear.")
More New York Times' s crusading against state spending cuts in Tuesday's edition. Reporter Michael Cooper’s “Michigan, With Persistent Unemployment, Cuts Jobless Benefit by Six Weeks” raised quite a grand commotion out of a small cut in Michigan’s unemployment benefit plan: The state will now pay only 20 weeks of benefits to the jobless, instead of the standard 26 weeks (and even those come before federal unemployment benefits kick in, which now run for up to 99 weeks).
The story’s text box implied bad faith on the part of new Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. “A surprise inside a bill whose purpose was to extend federal benefits.”
Michigan, whose unemployment rate has topped 10 percent longer than that of any other state, is about to set another record: its new Republican governor, Rick Snyder, signed a law Monday that will lead the state to pay fewer weeks of unemployment benefits next year than any other state.
Democrats and advocates for the unemployed expressed outrage that such a hard-hit state will become the most miserly when it comes to how long it pays benefits to those who have lost their jobs. All states currently pay 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, before extended benefits paid by the federal government kick in. Michigan’s new law means that starting next year, when the federal benefits are now set to end, the state will stop paying benefits to the jobless after just 20 weeks. The shape of future extensions is unclear.
Cooper overlooked an argument: Perhaps one factor in why unemployment rates are so high is that unemployment benefits are so generous. The idea that unemployment benefits can reduce workers's incentive to work has been advanced by such right-wingers as Paul Krugman, economist turned left-wing columnist for the Times (though when Republicans made the same argument he called them crazy).
Cooper implied ulterior motives on the part of “business groups,” and later threw in an anti-business aside:
Advocates for the unemployed called it a bad trade. “We have a temporary change to help some jobless workers that is imposing an indefinite or permanent cost on future jobless workers,” said Rick McHugh, a staff lawyer for the National Employment Law Project, which opposed the law. “And that does seem doubly unfair when the temporary help for current jobless workers is almost totally paid for by the federal government.”
But business groups saw the state’s need to change its unemployment law as an opportunity to make the cuts to benefits that they have long sought.
….
More than half the states together owe the federal government more than $ 46 billion that they borrowed to pay for their unemployment programs during the downturn. Many states had salted away too little money in their unemployment trust funds during good times — often because they cut taxes on employers — and saw their funds depleted by the length and depth of the recession, and the slow pace at which businesses have begun hiring again. Now some other states are thinking about reducing unemployment benefits.
Cooper used still more loaded language, accusing a similar bill in Florida of threatening to "undo a consensus” (so what?) of generous state unemployment benefits, which are in addition to the 99 possible weeks of federal unemployment benefits.
In Florida, where the unemployment rate hovers at 11.5 percent, even higher than Michigan’s current rate of 10.4 percent, lawmakers are zeroing in on a similar bill. The Florida House also approved a bill this month to reduce the number of weeks unemployed workers could receive benefits to 20 weeks, from 26, and make it easier for businesses to deny benefits to applicants. A Senate bill takes a less stringent approach and does not cut the number of weeks workers can receive benefits. (It is unclear how the differences will be resolved.) Doing so would undo a consensus that emerged in the years after World War II that states should pay up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. And it would come as the average length of unemployment has risen.
