August 1-7, 2013
Aug 01 05:33 Unqualified teachers still teaching Aug 01 11:33 When will the wheels come off? Aug 02 16:51 A tale of 2 jobs reports Aug 03 09:02 Almanac Roundtable fatigue factor Aug 05 00:03 Demolishing MiningTruth's credibility Aug 05 07:39 Is libertarianism dangerous? Aug 05 08:53 Franken, PPACA frighten job creators Aug 06 01:10 Obama, Dayton chase outdated society Aug 07 12:57 Ignore conventional wisdom on PPACA
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Unqualified teachers still teaching
This article tells the story about how unqualified teachers are ruining Minnesota's education system:
More than 900 Minnesota teachers over the past five years have violated licensing rules aimed at making sure that children get a proper education, including 62 instructors who taught with no license at all, according to a Star Tribune analysis of state education records.
The violations, which mostly involved instructors teaching the wrong subject or grade level, touched as many as 57,000 students in some 300 public school districts and charter schools across Minnesota, records show.
This year, DFL pundits like Karla Bigham said that this legislature would be known as the 'education legislature'. While it's true many of these violations happened on Gov. Pawlenty's watch, it's equally true that the DFL just repealed the Basic Skills Test requirement that the GOP legislature instituted. Gov. Dayton, meanwhile, signed both the requirement and the repeal.
Here's the heart of the problem:
Despite the widespread problems, Minnesota does virtually nothing to enforce its rules. The state Board of Teaching stopped enforcing licensing violations several years ago, state officials said, partly because of the threat of costly lawsuits and time-consuming court hearings. Revoking a single license can cost close to $20,000.
Why should teachers who don't have a license have a day in court? There should be a clause in the contract that says teachers who don't have a license are automatically and immediately terminated. It isn't like they don't know the rules. After all, they sought the variances and waivers that let them keep teaching.
The total number of waivers and other exceptions granted by the state Teaching Board more than doubled over the past five years, reaching a total of 9,785 in the 2009-2010 school year, state records show. At the same time, the number of improperly licensed teachers dropped more than 40 percent.
"Districts have the ability to paperwork their violations down to zero by applying to the [Education Department] for variances," Phillips said in the e-mail to her staff. "The teachers would still be teaching without the appropriate grade level or subject area licensure, but the variance would eliminate their inclusion in the year-end [Education Department] report."
This isn't just a black stain against unqualified teachers. It's a stain against EdMinn and the administrators who sat on their thumbs and let these charlatans keep teaching.
Jeff Riley, according to the state, was not among the violators.
But the trained chef said he worked at Broadway High School in Minneapolis for six years without obtaining a license -- a step that proves instructors have passed tests and met other requirements to show they're qualified to work in the classroom. Though the Minneapolis School District dismissed him in December for working without a license, Riley never received a warning from the state about his licensing problems.
"We weren't hidden," Riley said. "People knew about us. We had a great program."
How can something be a "great program" when it's filled with unlicensed teachers? Mr. Riley is apparently a self-confident man. Self confidence isn't a job qualification. It's a character trait.
More importantly, how is it possible that entire groups of unlicensed teachers exist? Who thought it was a good idea to ignore the students' needs? This isn't a little thing. This is an example of the education establishment setting education policy that says they're concerned about the teachers, not the students.
These are just the symptoms of a bigger problem. The underlying problem is that Education Minnesota has run the schools and school boards seemingly forever. That type of unchecked authority leads to corruption. I suspect that's what happened here.
Posted Thursday, August 1, 2013 5:33 AM
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When will the wheels come off?
When Democrats pushed through the PPACA, they relied heavily on unions and government employees to provide the propaganda. Now that it's supposedly on the verge of getting implemented, many of those allies are turning on the administration. In fact, they're doing what private employers have started doing. They're limiting their employees' hours :
School districts in states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Utah, Nebraska, and Indiana are dropping to part-time status school workers such as teacher aides, administrators, secretaries, bus drivers, gym teachers, coaches and cafeteria workers. Cities or counties in states like California, Indiana, Kansas, Texas, Michigan and Iowa are dropping to part-time status government workers such as librarians, secretaries, administrators, parks and recreation officials and public works officials.
This is the predictable outcome of the PPACA. Insurance costs are exploding, causing employers to cut costs by cutting employees' hours to reduce their penalties and obligations.
Nearly three-quarters of government employers provide generous benefits to workers, funded by taxpayers, higher than any other industry, says the Kaiser Family Foundation.
But the quarter that do not are making rapid changes to the work week. To stop the wheels from coming off the school bus, school districts are doing the math, and are figuring out that cutting worker hours down to part-time status, or paying the mandate tax, or dropping part-time coverage is less expensive than offering health insurance benefits. 'School districts across the U.S. are grappling to determine how they will respond to the requirement,' says National Insurance Services, a specialist in public sector employee benefits since 1969.
The PPACA doesn't reduce costs. It increases costs. Young people especially get screwed. That's why they're electing to pay the fine rather than buying insurance. The PPACA falls apart financially without young, healthy people buying insurance. That's the only way to offset the high cost of insuring people with pre-existing conditions.
Schools throughout Indiana are cutting back the hours of teacher assistants, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and coaches to avoid having to offer them health insurance under the new federal employer mandate.
"We cannot go out and raise the price of our product to assist us covering this. We would have to go to the taxpayers and ask for some type of increase, and I just don't see that happening," said Les Huddle, superintendent of the Lafayette School Corp. This school district has cut the hours for about 600 full-time, non-certified employees in more than 150 schools to part-time status.
School districts are getting hit with higher insurance premiums. That gives them 2 options: either ask for a tax increase or cut employees' benefits. Apparently, they're choosing the latter.
Rather than admitting that the PPACA is a huge mistake, Democrats that voted for the bill that's creating tons of part-time jobs is accusing the GOP of waging war on poor people :
As we approach the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's 'War on Poverty,' Republicans are holding a hearing Wednesday in the House Budget Committee for a 'progress report.'
Democrats believe that the War on Poverty is a war worth fighting, and a war we can win. In 1964, Johnson proposed a set of policies that were a continuation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's the New Deal. Americans decided as a nation that children should not go hungry, that seniors shouldn't retire in squalor, and that job training empowered people better than any other avenue.
Apparently, Democrats believe in creating poverty. They're the people who voted for the PPACA. That's why employers are cutting employees' hours. That's why those employees are applying for food stamps and other government assistance. It's impossible to argue that the PPACA isn't leading to higher poverty rates.
In 2014, voters will have the opportunity to punish Democrats for creating this terrible economy. They'll be able to punish Democrats for stagnant wages while big corporations' profits increase. (Thank the Federal Reserve, not Obama, for Wall Street's boom.) The only people prospering, other than those on Wall Street, are federal employees in DC's suburbs.
It's time to punish Democrats for raising insurance premiums, cutting personal benefits, employees' hours and shrinking employees' wages.
Tags: President Obama , Chris van Hollen , War On Poverty , LBJ , FDR , PPACA , Part-Time Nation , School Districts , Public Employees , Insurance Premiums , Wage Stagnation , Federal Reserve , Poverty , Government Assistance , Democrats , Election 2014
Posted Thursday, August 1, 2013 11:33 AM
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A tale of 2 jobs reports
Here's Alan Krueger's post about the economy:
While more work remains to be done, today's employment report provides further confirmation that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. It is critical that we remain focused on pursuing policies to speed job creation and expand the middle class, as we continue to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that began in December 2007.
Today's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that the unemployment rate declined from 7.6 percent to 7.4 percent in July, reaching its lowest level since December 2008. The unemployment rate for African Americans fell from 13.7 percent to 12.6 percent, also its lowest level since December 2008. The unemployment rate for women fell from 7.3 percent to 7.0 percent, its lowest level since January 2009, and from 7.8 percent to 7.7 percent for men.
The establishment survey showed that private sector employers added 161,000 jobs last month (see chart below). Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 162,000 jobs in July. The economy has now added private sector jobs for 41 consecutive months, and a total of 7.3 million jobs have been added over that period. So far this year, 1.4 million private sector jobs have been added.
Now that we've heard the administration's spin, it's time to deal with reality :
When the payroll report was released last month, the world finally noticed what we had been saying for nearly three years: that the US was slowly being converted to a part-time worker society. This slow conversion accelerated drastically in the last few months, and especially in June, when part time jobs exploded higher by 360K while full time jobs dropped by 240K. In July we are sad to report that America's conversation to a part-time worker society is not "tapering": according to the Household Survey, of the 266K jobs created (note this number differs from the establishment survey), only 35% of jobs, or 92K, were full time. The rest were... not.
These graphs, which I'm calling the King Banaian section of the post because of King's love of charts and graphs, tell a devastating story:
The reality is we're becoming a part-time nation. These graphs verify that. There can't be any questioning of that.
Krueger is right. We've turned the corner. It's just unfortunate that we've turned from being a full-time worker nation to being a part-time worker nation. This isn't a recovery. It's a stagnation. In fact, Tyler Cowen wrote a book calling President Obama's economic record the Great Stagnation . This administration, as Jim Hoft reminds us monthly , is the worst job creation administration since the Great Depression.
If we used the labor force participation rate, aka the LFPR, we had at the start of January, 2009, the real unemployment is close to 12%. Real income has dropped 5% since President Obama took office. Most of the jobs being created are part-time jobs. The only people who've gotten ahead since President Obama took office are employed by Wall Street or the federal government.
Small businesses are suffering. The middle class is getting squeezed like never before. That isn't turning the corner. That's taking a nosedive. Today's jobs report is just the latest proof that President Obama's policies have failed.
Tags: Monthly Jobs Report , Bureau of Labor Statistics , Labor Force Participation Rate , Unemployment Rate , Part-time Jobs , Median Household Income , President Obama , Middle Class Squeeze , Great Stagnation , Democrats
Posted Friday, August 2, 2013 4:51 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 03-Aug-13 02:59 PM
Where are the liberals complaining about the quality of the jobs being "created" under this administration? I mean they complained that the millions of jobs "created" under Bush's administration were low quality, low paying jobs so why not complain now when you have low quality, low paying, part-time jobs that won't provide the worker any benefits?
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 03-Aug-13 10:14 PM
Chad, silence is the rule when 'their guy' is in office.
Comment 3 by Jeff Baumann at 03-Aug-13 10:27 PM
This may prove to be a blessing in disguise.
1) Married couples (the real kind - you know, the ones that make babies) may find that 2 part time jobs eases the need for child care services and lets them spend more time raising their own kids.
2) Someone with two part-time jobs is less likely to be suddenly fully unemployed.
3) People with part time jobs will likely be more frugal and live within their means.
4) More part time jobs may offer more entry level positions for low skill workers.
5) Part time work leaves more time for volunteerism, community involvement, and entrepreneurism.
Time will tell.
Response 3.1 by Gary Gross at 04-Aug-13 10:33 AM
That's some twisted logic. Meanwhile, part-time employees make lower wages, don't get benefits like 401(k)s & can't save the money needed to start a business. Capitalism creates new capital, which is needed for creating jobs & starting businesses.
There's nothing positive about this jobs report. Nothing.
Almanac Roundtable fatigue factor
Friday night's Almanac Roundtable was noteworthy for what wasn't discussed. Dan Hofrenning, Kathryn Pearson and David Schultz delivered their usual uninformative amount of drivel. Cathy Wurzer and Eric Eskola asked the usual bland questions. Profound statements were nowhere to be found.
That isn't exactly noteworthy or surprising.
What's noteworthy, though not surprising, is the fact that the panel didn't talk about Friday morning's lackluster jobs report . Friday morning's jobs report, along with al-Qa'ida's startling resurrection and the IRS scandal widening , was the week's biggest news. Despite those important stories, the focus of last night's discussion centered on the GOP's civil war.
Watching liberals discuss conservatism is as informative as listening to 8-graders discuss Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
There's no question that Republicans are disorganized right now. The TEA Party, however, is anything but disorganized. The TEA Party, despite Charlie Rangel's racist accusations , is getting fired up.
But I digress.
It's interesting that this panel of liberals didn't find it noteworthy to highlight another lackluster jobs report. Had they taken the time to dig into yesterday's jobs report, they'd see President Obama's policies aren't working. In fact, they're predictably failing.
In my post yesterday, I cited ZeroHedge's findings. In their post, they cite the fact that 953,000 jobs have been created this year and that 731,000 of those jobs created are part-time jobs. That 77% of the jobs created this year are part-time jobs is frightening. That's unprecedented in American history.
President Obama says he wants to grow the economy "from the middle class out." Ditto with Gov. Dayton and Democrats in the Minnesota legislature. It's impossible to grow the middle class when 77% of the jobs getting created are part-time jobs.
Despite these disturbing economic statistics, Wurzer and Eskola decided that political squabbles inside the minority party in Minnesota was the most important subject to discuss. While that's amusing, the economy is frightening. That shouldn't have been a difficult decision.
Wurzer and Eskola should've highlighted the dismal economy.
That didn't have a prayer of happening, though, because they're loyal Democrats who won't talk about anything that makes President Obama look bad.
I prevent a letdown by keeping my expectations low for Almanac. They rarely disappoint.
Tags: TPTAlmanac , Almanac Roundtable , David Schultz , Dan Hofrenning , Kathryn Pearson , Academia , Obamanomics , Monthly Jobs Report , Part-Time Nation , al-Qa'ida Protests , IRS Scandal , President Obama
Posted Saturday, August 3, 2013 9:02 AM
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Demolishing MiningTruth's credibility
Kathryn Hoffman's op-ed is littered with half-truths, irrelevancies and distortions. Here's an example:
Sulfide mines have a long record of polluting surrounding lakes, rivers, streams and groundwater with mercury, acid mine drainage and toxic metals. Mines proposed in Minnesota would pose risks to some of our most important water resources such as Lake Superior and the Boundary Waters.
Evidence shows that children in northern Minnesota already are exposed to higher levels of mercury than in other parts of the state. Any increased risk to these children would be unacceptable.
There's no question that mining disturbs the earth's natural state. Whatever the human activity is, it potentially damages the earth as defined by MiningTruth's activists. The question then becomes what society gets in exchange for temporarily disturbing the planet.
That said, the doomsday picture that MiningTruth paints isn't exactly accurate. First, recent precious metal mines don't pollute like the mines of 50 years ago. The advances have been gigantic. Second, most precious metals mining companies have to live up to the standars set by corporations like Kennecott Mining.
In this op-ed, MiningTruth proposes an impossible standard:
When a sulfide mine closes in Minnesota, the mining company is supposed to reclaim the area and leave it so that it doesn't need any additional maintenance. Will that rule be enforced?
Minnesota's government shouldn't allow mines that are likely to produce pollution and require water treatment for 50, 100, 250 or more years after they stop mining.
I said earlier that there's never been a mine that didn't produce pollution while it was in production. Saying that Minnesota shouldn't allow mines if they pollute is saying Minnesota shouldn't allow mining. Period. That's MiningTruth's goal. Their website is filled with BS, starting with this video:
The narrator's ominous-sounding voice delivers the message that "No sulfide mine has ever operated without polluting lakes and rivers." What the narrator didn't tell people is that restoration is quite possible. In fact, restoration's the norm. Kennecott Mining's website explains in detail that it's quite possible to restore the land:
In 1936, Kennecott constructed evaporation ponds to store and evaporate mine water originating from the Bingham Canyon watershed. Over time, additional ponds were constructed to increase capacity, and the area became known as the South Jordan Evaporation Ponds (SJEP). The ponds were used for mine water until 1965 and for periodic storage of runoff water until 1987. SJEP use was discontinued in 1987.
Studies in the early 1990s concluded that there were elevated levels of heavy metals in the soil where the holding ponds had been located. Kennecott took responsibility for the impacts and agreed to reclaim and remediate the SJEP area. The removal work was undertaken pursuant to an EPA Administrative Order on Consent (AOC).
A massive clean-up operation began in 1994 involving the removal of pond sediment and six additional inches of underlying native soil. The material removed from Daybreak was permanently relocated to the Kennecott Blue Water Repository as part of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) clean up. At this time, some sediment, with a low concentration of lead and arsenic but an elevated sulfate concentration were consolidated onsite and capped with topsoil and re-vegetated. In 2001, the EPA issued a Record of Decision stating that the removal action adequately satisfied the remedial objectives and EPA determined that no further action was required. An Operation and Maintenance Plan (O&M Plan) was established to address
further management of the consolidation site.
Pursuant to agreements between the EPA, UDEQ and Kennecott, Kennecott began removing the remaining sediments at the consolidation site under the guideline of the O&M Plan. In 2006, Kennecott, the EPA and the UDEQ entered into an agreement solidifying the unrestricted residential and commercial use clean-up standards for the entire site.
In early 2007, the consolidated pond sediment removal project was completed. In 2008, the EPA and UDEQ issued a Consent Decree for the ground water cleanup efforts.
Kennecott met the EPA's high standards for cleaning up the mining site. In addition to that, they initiated a plan that "integrates sustainable landscape practices into the community in a number of ways." That's only part of Kennecott's story. Here's another part of Kennecott's story:
Storm water runoff is collected in a variety of ways and filters down to recharge the aquifer beneath Daybreak. Residents are encouraged to plant a water wise landscape, limit turf areas that require a lot of supplemental water, and improve soil to better absorb water and encourage deeper roots. A list of plants that grow well at Daybreak is available through the Daybreak Community Association.
Gardening is encouraged at Daybreak as a means of producing sustainable food supplies. Gardening opportunities are available to Daybreak residents at their home or at one of the 'Community Gardens,' which have been constructed throughout Daybreak.
MiningTruth is hinting that evil multinational corporations are intent on destroying the Boundary Waters and Superior National Forest. Despite Kennecott's record of success, MiningTruth insists that "sulfide mining" will destroy the fragile BWCAW ecosystem. Kennecott's Daybreak restoration proves that restoration is quite possible.
What's noteworthy is that almost everyone on MiningTruth's Board of Directors lives in the Twin Cities. Only one member of the board lives in northern Minnesota. It's also noteworthy that a major part of MiningTruth's funding comes from Aleda Messinger, the same lady who funds the DFL and the Alliance for a Better Minnesota. ABM has a history of smearing people it disagrees with with half-truths and outright lies.
It isn't wise for MiningTruth to follow in ABM's practice of waging smear campaigns. Apparently, ABM and MiningTruth think they can continue with their smear campaigns with impunity. As I've clearly shown, MiningTruth shouldn't be trusted because they won't tell the truth.
Tags: Sulfide Mining , MiningTruth.org , Environmental Activists , Conservation Minnesota , Aleda Messinger , Alliance for a Better Minnesota , DFL , Kennecott Mining , Daybreak Mine , Restoration , EPA , CERCLA , Consent Decree , Economic Growth
Posted Monday, August 5, 2013 12:03 AM
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Is libertarianism dangerous?
Yesterday, George Will was asked about the feud between Sen. Paul and Gov. Christie. Here's his succinct response:
Here's the transcript of what Brother Will said:
'Let's be clear what libertarianism is and what it isn't: It is not anarchism; it has a role for government,' Mr. Will said.
'What libertarianism says; it comes in many flavors and many degrees of severity, and it basically says before the government, it bridges the freedom of an individual or the freedom of several individuals contracting together, that government ought to have, A) a compelling reason and B) a constitutional warrant for doing so. Now, if Mr. Christie thinks that's a dangerous thought, a number of people are going to say that Mr. Christie himself may be dangerous.'
Balancing the U.S.'s national security needs and the imperative of protecting people from government run amok is tricky on the best of days. During war, the task becomes nearly impossible. Gov. Christie's hyperemotional response is understandable, especially considering his proximity to Ground Zero.
That consideration aside, it's imperative to maintain our national vigilence against administrations from abusing their authority by collecting information it doesn't have a right to look at without a warrant. It's imperative that courts uphold the Fourth Amendment. It's imperative that the intelligence community respect the Fourth Amendment.
The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. It doesn't protect from reasonable searches or seizures.
Is Gov. Christie worried about intel agencies overstepping their authority? At this point, it's impossible to know. That's alarming considering how frequently this administration has overstepped its authority.
Tags: Chris Christie , Rand Paul , George Will , Fourth Amendment , Bill of Rights , Libertarianism , GOP , Election 2016
Posted Monday, August 5, 2013 7:39 AM
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Franken, PPACA frighten job creators
This weekend, I got this fundraising e-letter update from Sen. Franken:
Dear Gary,
Good news came in the mail for a lot of Americans recently.
Over the last couple of weeks, insurance companies mailed out more than $500 million in rebate checks to families and businesses all around the country.
Why? Because of a provision I wrote into Obamacare that requires insurers to spend a certain percentage of your premium dollars on actual health care. Not marketing, not CEO salaries, not profit -- actual health care. And if they fall short? They have to rebate back the difference.
You might have gotten a check yourself. Or, if you get your insurance through your job, you might have seen the savings through your employer. Either way, I'd like to hear from you.
Did you get a check this summer? Are your premiums going down? Let me know by clicking here -- I need your story!
Even if you didn't get a check, you're benefitting from this new rule (it's usually referred to as 'medical loss ratio' or the '80/20 rule'), because it's forcing insurance companies to be more efficient and spend your money more carefully -- which, in turn, will keep health care costs in check.
This provision -- based on an idea that came from Minnesota -- didn't get a lot of headlines during the health care debate. But it's working -- and the proof is in the mailboxes of families and businesses all over the country.
It's important that we make sure people know that this provision is making a difference. So if it's made a difference for you, I need your story.
Click here to tell me your story.
There's a lot of talk about Obamacare these days -- about the people it's already helping and also about the work we need to do to improve the law and our health care system.
But there's also a lot of nonsense out there. And if we're going to keep making progress, we have to hear from people who know first-hand that this provision we fought for is making a difference.
If you got a rebate check this summer, click here to share your story!
Thanks for all you do,
Al
P.S.: I'm really proud of the medical loss ratio provision in Obamacare, and really proud that it's already making a difference. But I didn't do this alone, not by a long shot -- and I'm going to need more help from folks like you to keep making progress. So if you have a story about how this provision has helped you, please click here and share it with me.
Paid for and authorized by Al Franken for Senate 2014
P.O. Box 583144 | Minneapolis, MN 55458-3144
Sen. Franken's spin notwithstanding, the reality is that the PPACA is hurting families, mostly with lackluster job creation reports . If Sen. Franken wants credit for the rebate checks, we should criticize him for the lackluster job creation reports that are creating hundreds of thousands of part-time jobs but few full-time jobs.
There's a new class of small businesses thanks to the PPACA. They're called 49ers, as in keeping employee counts under 50. They're doing this to avoid dealing with the PPACA's regulations.
Sen. Franken robotically talks about growing the economy "from the middle class out." It's a fine-sounding soundbit but it doesn't have anything to do with reality. It's impossible to grow the middle class when 77% of the jobs being created are part-time jobs. It's impossible to grow the middle class when wages are stagnating. It's impossible to grow the middle class when job creation figures are this paltry.
Sen. Franken has cheerfully voted for most of President Obama's failed economic policies. America's anemic economic growth can be blamed, at least partially, on Sen. Franken's rubberstamping President Obama's policies.
Sen. Franken doesn't deserve another term in office for his votes. He deserves a pink slip for what he's done to hurt the U.S. economy.
Tags: Al Franken , PPACA , Great Stagnation , Part-Time Jobs , Monthly Jobs Report , Full-Time Jobs , Democrats , Election 2014
Posted Monday, August 5, 2013 8:53 AM
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Obama, Dayton chase outdated society
Thanks to Katherine Kersten's great article , we now have the details of how President Obama and Gov. Dayton are chasing outdated models of society:
In coming months, the council will release a draft of 'Thrive MSP 2040', its comprehensive plan to shape development in the seven-county region over the next 30 years. Powerful forces are coalescing to use the document as a tool for social planners to use to design their vision of the perfect society, and to impose it on the rest of us.
A huge, unchecked power grab is about to take place beneath our noses. But mayors and city councils will find it hard to push back. That's because the Met Council will increasingly wield the power to decide which municipalities thrive and which decline. It will both write the rules for development and hold the purse strings.
I don't doubt that President Obama and Gov. Dayton have plans for building this society of the past. As certain as I am of that, I'm certain that they'll fail. Big cities are fast becoming a thing of the past.
Big metropolises were created when we transitioned from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy. Industry found it advantageous to have large numbers of potential employees within a short distance of their factories. That model is disappearing because we're transitioning from an industrial economy to an information-based economy. There just isn't a need for the city-based infrastructure that this plan envisions.
In the coming information-based economy, the infrastructure that'll most likely be needed is high speed internet and extensive satellite networks. People will be able to do business from pretty much anywhere. The Met Council might control the purse strings on an outdated system but that doesn't mean they'll have an effective method of controlling people's lives.
People might choose to pay higher taxes in order to escape the urban jungle. They're already voting with their mortgages to escape lousy schools, crime-riddled neighborhoods, spendaholic liberal politicians and panels like the Met Council. There's no reason to think "Thrive MSP 2040" won't accelerate that flight.
When the 2010 Census results were issued, it was clear people left the Twin Cities. MN-6 was the congressional district that needed the biggest changes, with CD-2 right behind. That will continue as long as lefties like Keith Ellison, R.T. Rybak and John Marty continue to represent the people.
If President Obama and Gov. Dayton continue pursuing Thrive MSP 2040, they'll alienate people while motivating voters to push back against their plans.
Tags: President Obama , Mark Dayton , Met Council , MSP 2040 , Keith Ellison , John Marty , R.T. Rybak , DFL
Posted Tuesday, August 6, 2013 1:10 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 06-Aug-13 09:10 AM
I'm not sure whether "continue to represent the people" is the problem. Sure, it's liberal politicians, but if they really DO represent their constituents, then our society has a bigger problem. Liberal politicians can be deposed every two years or so, but liberal electorates (call them the misinformed voters if you wish) cannot be simply replaced, would that we could.
Ignore conventional wisdom on PPACA
Jonah Goldberg's op-ed is the most well-thought-out argument for Republicans to trust their instincts about the PPACA. Here's a healthy dose of Jonah's thinking on the matter:
Republicans should have a little more confidence in their own arguments. If you believe that ObamaCare can't work, you should expect that it won't.
I haven't found a single Republican, even amongst the RINOs, that thinks the PPACA will work. The number of people that'll get hooked on their premium support payments isn't equal to the number of people who'll get upset about high premiums.
Make no mistake, either, about whether people will feel the pain from higher premiums. Nearly two-thirds of the states have refused to create state-run exchanges. People living in states that don't run their exchanges aren't eligible for federal premium support. They'll be the hardest hit with premium increases.
When Sen. Lee and Sen. Cruz say that this might be the last opportunity to defund the PPACA, there's no doubt that they sincerely believe that. I simply disagree with their opinion. Here's why:
Once government expands, goes the theory, reversing that expansion is nearly impossible. Liberals have their own version. They point out that once Americans get an entitlement, Social Security, Medicare, etc., they never want to lose it. They hope that if they can just get Americans hooked on the goodies in ObamaCare, they'll overlook all the flaws.
There's a lot of truth here, to be sure. But it's not an iron law either. Sometimes, bad laws get fixed. It happened with Medicare in 1989 and welfare reform in 1995. Many of the boneheaded laws of the early New Deal were scrapped as well.
Thinking that people will "overlook the flaws" is like believing unicorns and rainbows will suddenly appear. Anything's possible but it isn't likely.
Rather than shutting down government, Republicans should get out of the way and let America see that there's a slow-motion trainwreck happening right before their eyes and that trainwreck is called the PPACA. Jonah's final point might be the most powerful:
Forcing a debt crisis or government shutdown won't kill ObamaCare, but it will give Democrats a lifeline heading into the 2014 elections, which could have the perverse effect of delaying the day Republicans have the political clout to actually succeed in repealing this unworkable and unpopular law.
I totally agree. I'd rather pick fights I can win rather than picking fights that feel good momentarily.
Tags: PPACA , Premium Support , Government Shutdown , Repeal , Mike Lee , Ted Cruz , Marco Rubio , Rand Paul , Debt Crisis , GOP , President Obama , Democrats , Election 2014 , Election 2016
Posted Wednesday, August 7, 2013 12:57 PM
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