Fascism, Dissent and the Outlawing of Protest

The Arizona Senate has just passed legislation to include protestors exercising First Amendment freedom of speech and association to be arrested and prosecuted under RICO laws--for protesting.

Authorities are destroying the camps at Standing Rock that were used as staging areas for the Anerican Native opposition to the North Dakota pipeline.

Trump continues his war against Muslims and immigrants.

The founders honored dissent. They were all guilty of dissent.

America was born of dissent.

Slavery in America was only abolished after a century of dissent by African-Americans, Quakers, Congregationalists and other people of faith.

Some of us have expected that Trump and his followers would bring down the Iron Heel on dissent. Now his followers in Arizona have.

Do you still doubt that we are in a dire struggle against fascism?

The ongoing assault against Muslims and immigrants is torn from the Nazi play book. Pick a minority (Jews in Germany) to blame for the woes of the majority.

We've experienced 40 years of stagnant wages and declining benefits and living standards because of unfettered and unrestrained predatory capitalism-- not because of immigrants.

One reason the predators have been able to hold us down is the dangerous weakening of the American labor movement.

I was greatly saddened to hear yesterday that the afl-cio is laying off staff in the wake of membership losses and the 2016 election debacle.

And the labor federation appears to have no strategy for growth.

Growth is possible, but it requires a strategy , resources and re-thinking.

We grew the American labor movement significantly in. 2007 and 2008 when I was the organizing director because we focused on growth.

We cannot grow without focus and without seriously engaging workers who want a better life.

Unfortunately for all of us, a vibrant democracy requires a vibrant workers movement. If the leaders of the afl- cio aren't prepared to step up to the Struggle before us, they should step aside.

Sent from my iPhone

More Republican Handouts to the Rich [feedly]

More Republican Handouts to the Rich
http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/more-republican-handouts-to-the-rich

We all know how hard it is to be rich. After all, it takes a lot of money to keep up multiple homes, pay for first class air travel, expensive cars and the like. For this reason, most people would naturally support a Republican plan to make workers pay higher fees on their retirement accounts so that the Wall Street crew is better able to maintain their standard of living.

Unfortunately, this is not a joke. One of the major problems facing workers today is the inability to save for retirement. Traditional defined benefit pensions are rapidly disappearing. Roughly half the workforce now has access to a 401(k) defined contribution plan at their workplace, but we know that these generally are not providing much support in retirement.

Most workers manage to accumulate little money in these accounts over the span of their working career. Part of this is due to the fact that they often change jobs. They may go several years without being able to contribute to a 401(k) plan at their workplace. And they often cash out the money that they saved in a plan when they leave a job.

In addition, many of these plans charge high fees. This is often overlooked by workers since the financial companies operating the plans usually don't like to advertise their fees. The average fee is close to 1.0 percent of the money saved, with many charging fees of 1.5 percent of higher.

If this sounds like a small matter, imagine that you were able to save $100,000 in a 401(k). That would put you way ahead of most workers, since the median accumulation among the 60 percent of the workforce who have 401(k)s was just $26,000 in 2015, but $100,000 is certainly a plausible amount for a worker earning $60,000 a year.

A fee of 1 percent means that this worker is giving $1,000 a year to the financial industry. If they are paying 1.5 percent, then they are giving the financial industry $1,500 a year. But this is not a single year story. Suppose you average $100,000 in your account over a 20-year period. You might have handed over $30,000 to a bank, brokerage house or insurance company for basically nothing. Feel good now?

Several states, most notably Illinois and California, are in the process of opening up their public retirement plans to workers in the private sector to  allow people to save without giving so much money to the financial industry. Under this plan, workers in private firms would have the option to contribute to a state managed system.

This would have the advantage of keeping the same plan even as someone changed jobs and the fees would be far lower. Instead of fees of 1 to 1.5 percent, workers would likely be seeing fees in the range of 0.2 to 0.3 percent. Did I mention this was voluntary?

Okay, so we're talking about giving workers the option to save for their own retirement in individual accounts. If the Republican Party stood for anything other than giving money to rich people, this would be it.

But the Republicans are up in arms against making it easier for workers to save. Paul Ryan and his gang are planning to deny states the right to offer such plans. The trick they are using is in a ruling by the Labor Department which gives the individual employers exemptions from the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) requirements when their workers contribute to the state sponsored plan. The ERISA requirements are designed to ensure that an employer operating a pension plan for their workers is doing proper bookkeeping and is handling the money appropriately.

In this case, it doesn't make sense for the ERISA rules to apply to individual employers since all they are doing is sending a check for their workers' contributions to the state-operated system. The individual employer plays zero role in what happens to the money.

This is the reason the Labor Department ruled last year that ERISA did not apply to individual employers who had workers taking part in the state-sponsored system. It is this ruling that Paul Ryan's gang wants to reverse. They argue, incredibly, that workers need safeguards with their savings and that the government must have oversight over employers sending checks to the state system.

This one is too ridiculous even for Washington politics. Everyone knows that there is nothing the Republicans in Congress hate more than government regulations that protect workers. This is why they were so anxious to repeal the fiduciary rule requiring financial advisers to act in the interest of their clients. This is why they want to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The story here is about as simple as it gets. Republicans' buddies in the financial industry will lose a lot of money if workers can put their money in these state-sponsored retirement systems instead of having to rely on their rip-off outfits. The Republicans are rigging the system to transfer tens of billions of dollars a year from ordinary workers to their rich friends.  The only principle here is giving more money to the rich.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Governor Justice’s Tax Plan: Who Pays? [feedly]

Governor Justice's Tax Plan: Who Pays?
http://www.wvpolicy.org/governor-justices-tax-plan-who-pays/

Governor Jim Justice has not introduced any tax measures yet, but in his State of the State Address and his executive budget  there are plans to enact several tax increases to close the Fiscal Year 2018 budget gap of $500 million and address the state's declining road fund that pays for highway construction, maintenance, and road repairs. This includes an estimated $450.2 million in the proposed general revenue fund revenue enhancements and $177 million in new revenue for the state road fund. While Governor Justice should be commended for putting forth much-needed revenue to address the state's growing budget crisis, the combined impact of his tax increases will fall harder on low-income West Virginians. Instead of just relying on regressive tax measures, Governor Justice should include revenue enhancements that ask a little more from the folks that have received most of the income gains in the state over the last several decades.

Governor Justice's proposed revenue enhancements for FY 2018 include:

General Revenue Fund Revenue Enhancements

• Increasing the Sales & Use Tax from 6 percent to 6.5 percent ($92.7 million).
• Broadening the Sales Tax base to include some professional services ($82 million) and advertising services ($5.6 million).
• Enacting a new Commercial Activity Tax (gross receipts tax) on businesses of 0.2 percent ($214 million).
• Raising Beer Barrel Tax from $5.50 to $8.00 ($2.8 million) and Wholesale Liquor from 28 percent to 32% ($2.8 million).
• Repealing Film Tax Credit ($2.5 million in FY19), modifying Excess Acreage Tax to 5 cents per acre (unknown), and a new tiered Severance Tax rate (unknown).
• Ending a general revenue fund transfer to Division of Highways ($11.7 million) and re-directing Workers' Compensation Debt Fund revenue (onetime money) to general revenue fund in FY 2017 ($25.5 million) and FY2018 ($38.25).

State Road Fund Enhancements

• Raising the excise motor fuel tax from 20.5 cents per gallon to 30.5 cents per gallon ($144 million)
• Raise Division of Motor Vehicle registration fees from $30 to $50 ($33 million)
• Implementing a $1 toll increase on the West Virginia Turnpike ($500 million) to fund a Turnpike Bond, a voter approved general obligation bond ($400 million), and legislative approval for increasing GARVEE capacity (bond) ($500 million).

The specifics of the revenue enhancements listed above are unknown, but it is clear that the brunt of the changes will fall harder on low-income West Virginians compared to those with higher incomes. The chart below illustrates this point by looking at the tax impact of the proposed sales tax changes, enactment of a new commercial activities tax, and the 10 cent gas tax increase. For West Virginians that only make $11,000 annually (lowest 20 percent), they will pay on average 1.3 percent more of their income in additional taxes or $133 dollars. For West Virginians in the top one percent who make on average $778,000, they will pay an additional 0.2 percent of their income in taxes under Justice's revenue plan. While the amount of taxes paid by income group increases with income, the tax change as a share of income decreases – meaning that it takes a larger bit out of low and middle income taxpayers than higher income West Virginians.

Until Governor Justice's revenue plan is introduced, it will be difficult to measure exactly how it will impact working families in the state. That said, it is clear that it would fall hardest on low-income people in the state. There are number of options that exist to make his plan more balanced. This could include reinstating the business franchise tax and raising the corporate net income tax to their 2006 levels, increasing the severance tax on natural gas from 5 percent to 6.5 percent, enacting a three percent income tax surcharge on incomes above $200,000, and creating a refundable state Earned Income Tax Credit that is available in 26 other states. Lawmakers could also include expanding the sales tax base to include digital downloads and other personal services. 

Though Justice's tax plan is not perfect, it offers a real opportunity for lawmakers to include more progressive revenue enhancements that will ensure that state addresses its huge budget crisis while ensuring that it takes a balanced approach to tax increases that is more closely aligned with the ability to pay.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Jared Bernstein: If only we could apply dynamic scoring to the rest of life [feedly]

If only we could apply dynamic scoring to the rest of life
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/if-only-we-could-apply-dynamic-scoring-to-the-rest-of-life/

"Dynamic scoring" is one of those phrases that sounds way more innocent than it is. It's the process of guesstimating what impact your budget proposals will have on economic growth, and in turn, revenues flowing into the Treasury.

For example, if your budget includes big tax cuts, as Trump's will, that's obvious a revenue loser, which is exactly what the "static" scores show. But with dynamic scoring, you can claim to make back some share of that loss due to the growth effects spun off by your awesome, pro-growth tax-cut plan.

You see the problem. Economic models are dumb, or at least compliant, beasts who will give you whatever answer you want. Put such models in the hands of the purveyors of alternative facts, and the outcome is predictable, as the WSJ reported on Friday and budget nerd extraordinaire Stan Collender takes apart here. Depending on your willingness to torture the model, that "some share of the loss" you can allegedly get back approaches 100%.

This is a serious problem, and I'm not sure what the rest of us can do about it. In normal times, the scoring of the Trump budget by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which would surely show it to cause deep pools of red ink, would pose at least somewhat of a constraint. But expect team Trump to be closer to the heavenly figure below (h/t: R Kogan, who has this cartoon on his office wall).

Source: New Yorker

In the meanwhile, consider how great it would be if we could use dynamic scoring in the rest of our lives:

Diets: This salted caramel milkshake with extra whip cream has a static calorie score of 800. But when I factor in the efforts expended in 1) taking the paper off the straw 2) drawing the thick shake through the straw (which really is exhausting) and 3) stirring in the extra whip cream, the net caloric intake is -60.

Dating apps: "Statically scored, I probably don't seem that appealing. But once you dynamically account for certain attributes, you'll want to swipe right. I mean, who else up here is going to regale you with in-the-weeds facts on budget processes? If you're looking for a pro-growth guy, that's me!"

Sports outcomes: The static box score had us losing the basketball game 100-40, but once you dynamically model the counterfactual that their 7-foot center played for our team instead of theirs, that score flips and we win.

Elections: Yes, Trump won the electoral college, but he lost the popular vote, and if we dynamically score the possible damage to our fiscal accounts by putting him in charge, especially given the extent to which he will abuse dynamic scoring, he loses. Yes, that logic uses dynamic scoring against dynamic scoring, but what are you gonna do about it?!

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

A Thumbnail Moon Rose Over the Ridge

A thumbnail moon rose over the ridge

It's light too dim to shine away the shadows

But enough to be a beacon

For the early traveler

In his dark morning run

Sometimes the light too dim

To see the path

As night prepares for day

And the traveler makes a way

Sometimes the light stands alone

A sign in the sky

The light stays with the traveler

Tho the path is still a dark challenge to try.

Sent from my iPhone

Eastern Panhandle Independent Community (EPIC) Radio:Wonk City -- ALL Day on EPIC RAdio

John Case has sent you a link to a blog:



Blog: Eastern Panhandle Independent Community (EPIC) Radio
Post: Wonk City -- ALL Day on EPIC RAdio
Link: http://www.enlightenradio.org/2017/02/wonk-city-all-day-on-epic-radio.html

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Paul Krugman: On Economic Arrogance [feedly]

Paul Krugman: On Economic Arrogance
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2017/02/paul-krugman-on-economic-arrogance.html

Why do Republicans insist, contrary to the evidence, that tax cuts and deregulation will spur economic growth:

On Economic Arrogance, by Paul Krugman, NY Times: According to press reports, the Trump administration is basing its budget projections on the assumption that the U.S. economy will grow very rapidly over the next decade — in fact, almost twice as fast as independent institutions like the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve expect. There is, as far as we can tell, no serious analysis behind this optimism; instead, the number was plugged in to make the fiscal outlook appear better.

I guess this was only to be expected from a man who keeps insisting that crime, which is actually near record lows, is at a record high, that millions of illegal ballots were responsible for his popular vote loss, and so on: In Trumpworld, numbers are what you want them to be, and anything else is fake news. ...

The only way we could have a growth miracle now would be a huge takeoff in productivity... This could, of course, happen: maybe driverless flying cars will arrive en masse. But it's hardly something one should assume for a baseline projection.

And it's certainly not something one should count on as a result of conservative economic policies. ...

The ... belief that tax cuts and deregulation will reliably produce awesome growth isn't unique to the Trump-Putin administration. We heard the same thing from Jeb Bush (who?); we hear it from congressional Republicans like Paul Ryan. The question is why. After all, there is nothing — nothing at all — in the historical record to justify this arrogance. ...

The evidence ... is totally at odds with claims that tax-cutting and deregulation are economic wonder drugs. So why does a whole political party continue to insist that they are the answer to all problems?

It would be nice to pretend that we're still having a serious, honest discussion here, but we aren't. At this point we have to get real and talk about whose interests are being served.

Never mind whether slashing taxes on billionaires while giving scammers and polluters the freedom to scam and pollute is good for the economy as a whole; it's clearly good for billionaires, scammers, and polluters. Campaign finance being what it is, this creates a clear incentive for politicians to keep espousing a failed doctrine, for think tanks to keep inventing new excuses for that doctrine, and more.

And on such matters Donald Trump is really no worse than the rest of his party. Unfortunately, he's also no better.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed