August 14-15, 2009
Aug 14 02:28 The DFL's Failed Leadership Aug 14 08:57 Krugman's Delusions Aug 14 13:39 A Convenient Evolution? Aug 14 19:36 Vikings' Halftime Report Aug 15 02:06 Spinning Like a Top
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
The DFL's Failed Leadership
The DFL is utterly shameless when it comes to blaming others for their ineptitude. That shamelessness was on display yesterday when they grilled Dan McElroy about why Minnesota is losing jobs:
With the state hemorrhaging jobs and criticism from DFLers in the Legislature mounting, the 2009 legislative session was a tense affair for state Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Commissioner Dan McElroy.The DFL has proposed one tax increase after another and they wonder why Minnesota is losing jobs. Meanwhile, North Dakota just cut taxes and they're recruiting in other states :
Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, said at the beginning of the session that the state needed new leadership on job creation, which was seen as a criticism of McElroy in all but name.
North Dakota officials have undertaken an organized effort to persuade people from Ohio and elsewhere to move to what they bill as America's friendliest state, and go to work. North Dakota has a paltry 4.6 percent unemployment rate and 9,000 job openings , according to state officials.Here's the heart of North Dakota's appeal :
"We're looking to get the word out that there are jobs here," said Jerry Chavez, president of the Minot Area Development Corp. in North Dakota. "Good jobs, professional and nonprofessional jobs."
The Minot group recently attended job fairs in Columbus and Wilmington to pitch the city and state to central Ohioans. The group left with about 125 resumes.
North Dakota has a job base that makes it a rational template for what the Administration views as the future of the American economy. The July report on jobs from the President's Council of Economic Advisers said that the great portion of employment growth between 2008 and 2016 would be in the health care industry. The analysis projected that over three-quarters of the jobs added in the economy during that period would be in hospitals and nursing homes and among doctors, nurses, dentists, and other health care providers .North Dakota is far better positioned for a 21st Century economy than Minnesota. Minnesota's biggest employers are the federal government, the state government, the U of M system and MnSCU. As you can see in the article above, North Dakota's biggest employers are private industries in a field that's guaranteed to grow the next several decades. If I was young and just starting out, North Dakota would sound pretty appealing.
A large number of the biggest employers in North Dakota are health care companies. MeritCare in Fargo is the largest with a total of 6,400 workers. Ten of the twelve largest employers in the state are hospital groups, clinics, hospitals, or benefits firms . The other two on the list are North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota. The workers at those institutions are employed by the state.
By contrast, the DFL's agenda has been to avoid tax cuts that attract small businesses and big investments like a vampire avoids wooden stakes and holy water. That's why the DFL's jobs bills have traditionally been bonding bills. That's why the 19 Fortune 500 companies that headquarter here aren't manufacturing things here. Though Ann Lenczewski and Larry Pogemiller won't admit it, low marginal tax rates, coupled with reasonable regulations, matters to investors.
When Ann Lenczewski tried eliminating the mortgage tax deduction and raising the alcohol tax, here's what Sen. Tom Bakk said about the effect that tax increases would have on economic activity:
Senate Taxes Committee Chairman Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said eliminating the current mortgage interest deduction could hurt Minnesota's high rate of home ownership and higher alcohol taxes would drive some liquor shoppers across the Wisconsin border.Despite a DFL gubernatorial candidate's admissions, Sen. Pogemiller insisted on criticizing the Pawlenty administration. This grilling didn't have a thing to do with economic policy or job creation. It had everything to do with Sen. Pogemiller's frustration boiling over. If this was about creating a business-friendly environment and job creation, the DFL would abandon their policies that keep businesses away.
Here's the dirty little secret: The DFL cares more about "the rich" paying their "fair share" than about job creation . The proof is in their statements. When job creation is debated, DFL legislators won't mention tax cuts or reigning in regulation.
North Dakota's economy is creating jobs. No less an expert on job creation than John Kasich is running in Ohio on the platform of cutting taxes and reigning in spending in the hopes of creating jobs. Based on the fact that then-Rep. Kasich helped balance the FEDERAL budget five consecutive years while the economy created millions of jobs speaks for itself. Each year he was chairman of the Budget Committee, they had tax cuts.
Despite the tons of evidence that tax cuts work when coupled with fiscal sanity, the DFL stubbornly clings to their mantra of tax the rich. Minnesota's economy would be far better off if they changed directions from the path they're currently on.
Posted Friday, August 14, 2009 2:28 AM
Comment 1 by Aaron Brown at 14-Aug-09 08:21 AM
Let's compare population growth between Minnesota and North Dakota over the next 15 years and see who's doing better in the 21st century. I'll bet you a steak -- a North Dakota steak -- that Minnesota will be sitting in a far more competitive position, providing we can maintain our educational and infrastructure superiority. Those things have as much or more do with economic strength as taxes. That is the root of the debate for DFLers like me. Obviously you see it differently, but I think population trends will set the tone over any drummed up think tank "evidence."
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 14-Aug-09 08:41 AM
I'll bet you a steak - a North Dakota steak - that Minnesota will be sitting in a far more competitive position, providing we can maintain our educational and infrastructure superiority. Those things have as much or more do with economic strength as taxes.This is a perfect example of the DFL's delusion. A state with that many health care facilities demands a high quality education system, which ND has. The DFL thinks that Minnesota's education system is still vastly superior to any other state's education systems. HINT: We don't. Other states have caught up.
That's why high tech companies have left the state or refused to expand into the state. As for "educational and infrastructure superiority" having "as much or more do with economic strength as taxes", VitalMedix just left Minnesota over taxes. The 19 Fortune 500 companies are headquartered here but that's the extent of their relationship with Minnesota.
Based on that behavior, I'd say that you & your DFL friends are wrong in stating that.
Comment 2 by eric zaetsch at 14-Aug-09 12:14 PM
Yeah, but it's still North Dakota.
They believe snow does not fall, that it comes in sideways from Montana.
Gary, would you move there?
Comment 3 by Gary Gross at 14-Aug-09 02:22 PM
Eric, If I were younger, I wouldn't hesitate moving there. With all those medical facilities, culture will follow. Their brand of libertarianism appeals to me, too.
Krugman's Delusions
When it comes to delusional idiots, you can't go wrong picking NY Times propagandist Paul Krugman. Krugman's latest column is worthy of a quick fisk. Let's get started:
Sure enough, President Obama is now facing the same kind of opposition that President Bill Clinton had to deal with: an enraged right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency, that eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media complex.This is utter fantasy. Yes, there are birthers but hinting that they make up the majority of the GOP is wildly inaccurate. It's the type of inaccuracy that you'll only find in a Krugman or Nick Coleman column. It's embarassing that this idiot is getting paid to pump out this drivel.
Here's the next paragraph that needs correcting:
This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing.Poll after poll shows that a majority of the American people think President Obama is too liberal. Unless Mr. Krugman is willing to admit that the Republican Party is the majority party, President Obama's opposition includes more than the Republican Party.
As for Krugman's saying that the attacks on President Obama have nothing to do with the radical policies he's attempting to implement is patently absurd. When President Obama shoved ARRA down our throats without Congress being able to read the bill, people were upset. When President Obama started bullying car manufacturers into settlements that put the unions ahead of secured bondholders, people were outraged. When President Obama attempted to not let banks that had accepted TARP funds to repay their loans, people howled.
That's before talking about how Speaker Pelosi and President Obama pushed the National Energy Tax through without Congress having the opportunity to read through the bill, people were outraged.
The final straw came when President Obama tried shoving the health care 'reform' bill down our throats without the bill being read again.
Despite all those policy-related motivations, Mr. Krugman has the audacity to whine that "the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing." If that isn't a sufficiently substantial list of why the American people have turned on him for substantive reasons, then the color of the sun in Mr. Krugman's world is different than the color of our sun.
So much, then, for Mr. Obama's dream of moving beyond divisive politics. The truth is that the factors that made politics so ugly in the Clinton years, the paranoia of a significant minority of Americans and the cynical willingness of leading Republicans to cater to that paranoia, are as strong as ever. In fact, the situation may be even worse than it was in the 1990s because the collapse of the Bush administration has left the G.O.P. with no real leaders other than Rush Limbaugh.You'll notice that Mr. Krugman glossed over the Bush years as though they were a time of great harmony. That doesn't match up with reality. Then again, it's rare that anything that Mr. Krugman's writings have anything to do with reality so that isn't surprising.
What, then, should Mr. Obama do? It would certainly help if he gave clearer and more concise explanations of his health care plan. To be fair, he's gotten much better at that over the past couple of weeks.What's missing is verifiable facts in President Obama's presentation. I noted here that President Obama's stump speech was deceptive:
What's still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage, passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.
At his Tuesday town hall event in New Hampshire, President Barack Obama made a point to reach out to seniors, noting the low support in polls for his health care proposals. "We are not talking about cutting Medicare benefits," Obama said, trying to assuage the audience.This requires parsing skills that I first learned during the Clinton administration. It's technically true that President Obama "isn't talking about Medicare cuts." That doesn't mean that he hasn't proposed cutting Medicare. In fact, he's proposing cutting Medicare's budget by $313,000,000,000. That isn't just opinion. That's what the LA Times is reporting :
Under pressure to pay for his ambitious reshaping of the nation's healthcare system, President Obama today will outline $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts over the next decade to help cover the cost of expanding coverage to tens of millions of America's uninsured.As I've noted before, President Obama is proposing cutting Medicare by 10 percent at the same time that Medicare enrollment is expected to increase by 30 percent. It isn't surprising that President Obama isn't interested in talking about cutting Medicare funding. (HINT: If you've noticed anything about the people getting most upset with the proposed reforms, it's that there's alot of senior citizens.)
It must be liberating working as a columnist for the NY Times. You're well-paid. Best of all, you don't need to do any fact-checking. In fact, you can make stuff up to suit your needs. It's the perfect employment for a Democratic shill.
Posted Friday, August 14, 2009 8:59 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 14-Aug-09 09:28 AM
Heh. He "isn't talking about it" because that would be honesty and condemn his program to the trash heap. Of course, it isn't really "his program," either. It's something cooked up in Mama Pelo-cchio's secret kitchen. He can say anything he wants about "his plan" because there is no real legislation with "his plan" in it! He lives in a fantasy world where good intentions can produce their object by sheer will alone, and any real-world legislation with those intentions is equally good. That's not only crazy, it's clearly dangerous.
Comment 2 by eric zaetsch at 14-Aug-09 12:15 PM
If you disagree that much, why read Krugman? Save time. Read what you enjoy.
Comment 3 by Gary Gross at 14-Aug-09 02:25 PM
I wrote about it to point out this guy's intellectual dishonesty. A lie that isn't immediately refuted might become conventional wisdom. No thanks. Swat them down ASAP.
Comment 4 by J. Ewing at 15-Aug-09 10:06 AM
Thank you! "Let no lie go unchallenged; let no truth go untold."
Comment 5 by Dave L at 16-Aug-09 04:29 AM
"Poll after poll shows that a majority of the American people think President Obama is too liberal."
Show me the polls. Why does he still have >50% approval ratings?
A Convenient Evolution?
This morning's Washington Times article quotes Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel as saying his views on killing senior citizens have evolved over time:
Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, the White House official targeted by Sarah Palin and other conservatives as an advocate for health care rationing and "death panels," said Thursday his "thinking has evolved" on the need to decide who gets treated and who does not.Forgive me but I trust Emanuel's conversion to be a little too convenient to be believed. Betsy McCaughey highlights why we should treat Dr. Emanuel's conversion with skepticism:
"When I began working in the health policy area about 20 years ago...I thought we would definitely have to ration care, that there was a need to make a decision and deny people care," said Dr. Emanuel, a health care adviser to President Obama in the Office of Management and Budget, during a phone interview.
"I think that over the last five to seven years...I've come to the conclusion that in our system we are spending way more money than we need to, a lot of it on unnecessary care," he said. "If we got rid of that care we would have absolutely no reason to even consider rationing except in a few cases."
THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.What recent event caused the final evolution away from Dr. Emanuel's previously held beliefs? His supposedly newfound beliefs have been dramatic and recent. What major piece of information did Dr. Emanuel discover since February, 2008, that changed his opinion that dramatically?
Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power.
Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year ( Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008 ).
Did Dr. Emanuel's conversion have more to do with political considerations than with science? I've seen nothing that suggests Dr. Emanuel's 'transformation' was based on scientific considerations. Dr. Emanuel's 'transformation' is an attempt to limit the damage that Sarah Palin has caused to President Obama's health care reform plans.
Here's what Sarah Palin is asking of Dr. Emanuel:
The rationing system proposed by one of President Obama's key health care advisors is particularly disturbing. I'm speaking of the "Complete Lives System" advocated by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the president's chief of staff. President Obama has not yet stated any opposition to the "Complete Lives System," a system which, if enacted, would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential. [1] Why the silence from the president on this aspect of his nationalization of health care? Does he agree with the "Complete Lives System"? If not, then why is Dr. Emanuel his policy advisor? What is he advising the president on? I just learned that Dr. Emanuel is now distancing himself from his own work and claiming that his "thinking has evolved" on the question of rationing care to benefit the strong and deny the weak. [2] How convenient that he disavowed his own work only after the nature of his scholarship was revealed to the public at large.Convenient is a good word for it. Suspicious is a better adjective for the situation. That's putting it politely. I suspect that Dr. Emanuel's transformation has more to do with brother Rahm's suggestion that he fall on his sword for the good of health care reform than on Dr. Emanuel's sudden change of heart.
Posted Friday, August 14, 2009 1:45 PM
Comment 1 by The Lady Logician at 16-Aug-09 03:08 PM
"I think that over the last five to seven years ... I've come to the conclusion that in our system we are spending way more money than we need to, a lot of it on unnecessary care," he said. "If we got rid of that care we would have absolutely no reason to even consider rationing except in a few cases."
Based on this one quote alone I don't believe a word he says. First who is to define "unnecessary care" and second if we quit spending money on "unnecessary care" is that not automatically defined as RATIONING?????
LL
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 16-Aug-09 04:21 PM
There you go again, applying logic. Shame, Shame.
Vikings' Halftime Report
The Vikings preseason opener is now in the third quarter & it's clear who should be the Vikings starting QB. HINT: It isn't anyone who was on their roster last season.
Seriously, the first quarter was a strong quarter for the Vikings. Their starting defensive line sacked Peyton Manning 3 times in 2 series. The special teams looked solid both in coverage and returning the ball. Jaymar Johnson looked particularly solid in returning punts.
Phil Loadholt will have difficulties with speed rushers but this kid's the real deal. He's a dominant run blocker . He gets upfield well & he's great picking out targets once he gets there.
Adrian didn't play that much but he looks good. He had a couple of nice blocks in blitz pickups, which is an improvement from last year. Chester Taylor played, too, but he's out. IMO, Chester is the best backup RB in the league & it isn't really that close. The other impressive RB tonight is Albert Young, who had 10 carries for 43 yards.
Shiancoe looked good during his time in the game. He finished the game with 4 catches for 55 yards & a pair of first downs.
Defensively, Marcus McCauley looked good, as did Asher Allen. Fred Evans, Jared Allen & Ray Edwards recorded sacks against the Colts' first team offensive line. The Colts' offensive line has alot of improving to do. They looked ordinary, frankly.
All in all, it's been a good opener for the Vikings. The only negative from tonight is TJax was 4 of 10 for 15 yards. He was clearly pressing, causing his throws to sail. he also missed a timing route to Jaymar Johnson. He didn't get the ball out before Johnson made his break. When he did finally get it out, it was too far behind for Johnson to make the catch.
UPDATE: TJax finished the night with 7 completions in 15 attempts for 39 yards & a 53.5 passer rating.
Posted Friday, August 14, 2009 7:59 PM
No comments.
Spinning Like a Top
In recent days, the Obama administration, the DNC and Speaker Pelosi have tried painting rowdy townhall participants as myth-tellers, angry mobs and Nazis. Their most recent tactic has been to start wondering aloud about President Obama's safety . This spin shouldn't be taken seriously.
While officials told ABC News that the President's daily threat matrix has yet to reflect a sharp increase in threats, White House officials privately admit deep concern and have told the Secret Service to keep security tight, even if Obama objects.Regrettably, it's a fact that every president has received death threats. I won't dispute that. Still, this administration's attempt to blame Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for these death threats isn't persuasive.
"I think the president has, in effect, triggered fears amongst fairly large numbers of white people in this country that they are somehow losing their country, that the battle is lost," Potok told ABC News. "The nation that their Christian white forefathers created has somehow been taken from them."
I'd also ask why ABC News didn't blame Chris Matthews, Cindy Sheehan and Air America for the times when protesters hung President Bush in effigy. Their anti-Bush diatribes were more vitriolic and more widespread than what we're seeing now. The difference is that the idiots that are talking about directing violence at President Obama would be immediately rejected by Republicans. That type of behavior simply isn't acceptable. PERIOD. Matthews, David Shuster, Sheehan, Keith Olbermann and others comprise the heart of the Democratic Party's lunatic fringe base.
This is the 21st Century equivalent of President Clinton's nuts or sluts tactic for dealing with the endless stream of scandals he created. Guys who opposed President Clinton were characterized as nuts. Women who opposed President Clinton got characterized as sluts and trailerpark trash.
The thing we can't lose sight of is the fact that there is video of President Obama admitting that he prefers a single-payer system. Another thing we shouldn't lose sight of are the provisions in H.R. 3200. Still another thing that we shouldn't lose sight of is the removal of the end-of-life provision that the Obama administration says wasn't in the bill in the first place:
Key senators are excluding a provision on end-of-life care from health overhaul legislation after language in a House bill caused a furor. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly.I can't wait to hear Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod explain how the provision that they said didn't exist was dropped from the Baucus bill. Should we attribute that to this administration's not knowing what's in the bills or should that be attributed to their perpetual dishonesty?
A health care bill passed by three House committees allows Medicare to reimburse doctors for voluntary counseling sessions about end-of-life decisions. But critics have claimed the provision could lead to death panels and euthanasia for seniors. The Senate Finance Committee is still working to complete a bill.
Either way, this administration's credibility is shrinking fast. Once a politician loses that, it's essentially over.
Posted Saturday, August 15, 2009 2:09 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 15-Aug-09 07:14 AM
They're getting away with this traveling snake-oil show because Obama constantly talks only about "his plan." That plan, which manages to accomplish the impossible feat of delivering more care, of better quality and at lower cost, exists only in his socialist-muddled imagination. It has no bearing on the actual legislation under consideration which, try as it might, Congress cannot manage to do. It's impossible.
Comment 2 by Walter Hanson at 15-Aug-09 08:42 AM
gary:
This is just how crazy and out of tune the media is. A couple of days ago wasn't Sarah Pallin being attacked as "Nuts", as a "Liar", and other terms because she made a comment about how death care shouldn't take place.
How can the US Senate remove something isn't there. Yet these same people now what to take these allegled death threats seriously?
It was even worse during the Bush adminstration than you described. Students were asked to write about how it will be better with Bush dead and there was a movie done about Bush being assasinated. How about these media people show us those examples using Obama.
But you're right about one point. If we're forced to waste any time talking about this we're distracted from telling the people how bad this health care plan is.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 3 by eric zaetsch at 15-Aug-09 05:35 PM
Gary, that's only your spin on things.
Comment 4 by Gary Gross at 15-Aug-09 06:27 PM
Let's be specific, Eric. If I'm to refute what you said, I need to know what you think is my spin.
