FOXNews.com
Unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits will expire Sunday for millions of voters because the Senate was unable this week to pass a short-term extension, a failure that reflects partly the partisan gridlock that has stalled the Democratic legislative agenda and partly the Senate rules that allows one lawmaker to block legislation.
Unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits will expire Sunday for millions of voters because the Senate was unable this week to pass a short-term extension, a failure that reflects partly the partisan gridlock that has stalled the Democratic legislative agenda and partly the Senate rules that allows one lawmaker to block legislation.
But the Senate will likely be able to renew them with a Tuesday vote. Democrats are expected to take up a broader bill next week, the second in their “jobs agenda” that will extend the benefits, among many other provisions – including popular tax extenders – for one year.
The bill is expected to pass by the end of next week.
The latest stalemate, however, produced a rare, late-night partisan floor brawl between two scrappy senators.
In the red corner is Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., whose decision not to seek re-election this year has made him a wildcard. He has blocked a $10 billion bill that extends the benefits for 30 days because he wants to lay out how the extension will be paid for, preferably with unallocated stimulus funds.
In the blue corner is Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who, along with other Democrats told Bunning no way because the extension is an emergency and shouldn’t come with any offsets.
The battle lasted for hours Thursday when Durbin sought unanimous consent, a move that forced Bunning to object each time to uphold his filibuster.
“It is unthinkable, unforgivable that we would cut off unemployment insurance payments to these people, that we would cut off COBRA payments, which helps them to pay for their health insurance while they’re unemployed,” he said. “And yet, that’s what’s going to happen Sunday night. It’s because the senator from Kentucky has objected to extending unemployment insurance payments and COBRA health insurance payments for 30 days.”
Bunning decried the move and was joined by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who accused Democrats of a “sneak attack.” Corker vowed to stay on the floor with Bunning all night.
Durbin said he was defending out-of-work Americans, that he would love to be home because he is “no spring chicken."
Bunning told Durbin that he would not object if the senator agreed to adopt his or any amendment that would pay for the bill.
But Durbin said Bunning rejected a chance earlier in the week to offer that amendment for an up or down vote.
When Bunning tried to offer an amendment Thursday that would offset the spending, Durbin objected.
“The present level of debt is unsustainable,” Bunning said. “I have too many grandchildren that want to grow up in the same America that I grew up in,” he said.
In the end, it was a draw, although Bunning won the battle.
While Democrats have ganged up on Bunning for his actions, Republicans have blamed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the benefits expiring. Reid had a chance to renew unemployment benefits with the first jobs bill that passed before he decided to dramatically scale back the proposal.
Fox News' Trish Turner contributed to this report.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Leaked U.N. Documents Reveal Plan For "Green World Order" By 2012
Leaked policy documents reveal that the United Nations plans to create a “green world order” by 2012 which will be enforced by a structure of global governance and funded by a gargantuan $45 trillion transfer of wealth from richer countries, as the globalists’ insidious plan to centralize power, crush sovereignty while devastating the economy is exposed once again.
As we warned at the time, the failure of Copenhagen in December did not spell the end of the global warming heist, but merely a roadblock in the UN’s agenda to create a world government funded by taxes paid by you on the very substance you exhale – carbon dioxide.
Using the justification of the vehemently debunked hoax that carbon dioxide is a deadly threat to the planet, the UN is already working to resurrect the failed Copenhagen agreement, with a series of new Copenhagen process negotiations set to take place in April, May and June.
Leaked planning documents (PDF) obtained by Fox News lift the lid on the UN’s plan to impose global governance by the time of their 2012 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Rio, which will mark the 20th anniversary since the notorious “Earth Summit” held in the same city.
“The new Rio summit will end, according to U.N. documents obtained by Fox News, with a “focused political document” presumably laying out the framework and international commitments to a new Green World Order,” reports Fox News’ George Russell.
“Just exactly what that environmental order will look like, and the extent of the immense financial commitments needed to produce it, are under discussion this week at a special session in Bali, Indonesia, of the United Nations Environment Program’s 58-nation “Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environmental Forum,” which oversees UNEP’s operations.”
The document outlines the globalist’s mission to enact a “radical transformation of the world economic and social order” by putting “a new treaty in place as the capstone of the Green World Order”.
This system will be managed by “an additional governing structure composed of exactly those insiders,” writes Russell.
“Moving towards a green economy would also provide an opportunity to re-examine national and global governance structures and consider whether such structures allow the international community to respond to current and future environmental and development challenges and to capitalize on emerging opportunities,” states the white paper (emphasis mine).
The imposition of such “global governance structures” will be achieved with the help of “vast wealth transfers” from richer countries (in the form of carbon taxes levied on citizens) to poorer nations, amounting to no less than $45 trillion dollars. The paper also outlines the need to change the “consumption patterns” of people living in richer countries, which undoubtedly is a euphemism for lowering living standards.
The policy proposes that the old economic model be discarded in pursuit of a new global green economy focused around “green jobs”.
As we have previously highlighted, the promise that the creation of “green jobs” will offset the inevitable damage to the economy that a 50 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions will cause is a complete fallacy.
The implementation of so-called “green jobs” in other countries has devastated economies and cost millions of jobs. As the Seattle Times reported back in June, Spain’s staggering unemployment rate of over 18 per cent was partly down to massive job losses as a result of attempts to replace existing industry with wind farms and other forms of alternative energy.
In a so-called “green economy,” “Each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation — sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency — of capital,” states the report.
As we have documented, a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 50-80 per cent would inflict a new great depression in the United States, reducing GDP by 6.9 percent – a figure comparable with the economic meltdown of 1929 and 1930.
The UN’s mission to create a legally binding treaty on the reduction of CO2 emissions is running parallel with measures already being enforced at state level in the U.S. which bypass stuttering federal efforts to impose the cap and trade fraud.
The very foundation of the global warming argument has been completely eviscerated by the Climategate scandal, which proved that United Nations IPCC scientists forged and exaggerated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures while engaging in witch hunts to cull dissenting opinions from appearing in IPPC reports.
Despite this, control freaks intent on taxing the life-giving gas carbon dioxide have signaled that they no longer care about the truth behind man-made climate change and have resolved to slam through their totalitarian agenda anyway. EPA head Lisa Jackson told reporters this week that “The science regarding climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming,” even though she failed to refute the fact that there had been no global warming since 1995, as was admitted by CRU scientist Professor Phil Jones.
As we warned at the time, the failure of Copenhagen in December did not spell the end of the global warming heist, but merely a roadblock in the UN’s agenda to create a world government funded by taxes paid by you on the very substance you exhale – carbon dioxide.
Using the justification of the vehemently debunked hoax that carbon dioxide is a deadly threat to the planet, the UN is already working to resurrect the failed Copenhagen agreement, with a series of new Copenhagen process negotiations set to take place in April, May and June.
Leaked planning documents (PDF) obtained by Fox News lift the lid on the UN’s plan to impose global governance by the time of their 2012 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Rio, which will mark the 20th anniversary since the notorious “Earth Summit” held in the same city.
“The new Rio summit will end, according to U.N. documents obtained by Fox News, with a “focused political document” presumably laying out the framework and international commitments to a new Green World Order,” reports Fox News’ George Russell.
“Just exactly what that environmental order will look like, and the extent of the immense financial commitments needed to produce it, are under discussion this week at a special session in Bali, Indonesia, of the United Nations Environment Program’s 58-nation “Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environmental Forum,” which oversees UNEP’s operations.”
The document outlines the globalist’s mission to enact a “radical transformation of the world economic and social order” by putting “a new treaty in place as the capstone of the Green World Order”.
This system will be managed by “an additional governing structure composed of exactly those insiders,” writes Russell.
“Moving towards a green economy would also provide an opportunity to re-examine national and global governance structures and consider whether such structures allow the international community to respond to current and future environmental and development challenges and to capitalize on emerging opportunities,” states the white paper (emphasis mine).
The imposition of such “global governance structures” will be achieved with the help of “vast wealth transfers” from richer countries (in the form of carbon taxes levied on citizens) to poorer nations, amounting to no less than $45 trillion dollars. The paper also outlines the need to change the “consumption patterns” of people living in richer countries, which undoubtedly is a euphemism for lowering living standards.
The policy proposes that the old economic model be discarded in pursuit of a new global green economy focused around “green jobs”.
As we have previously highlighted, the promise that the creation of “green jobs” will offset the inevitable damage to the economy that a 50 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions will cause is a complete fallacy.
The implementation of so-called “green jobs” in other countries has devastated economies and cost millions of jobs. As the Seattle Times reported back in June, Spain’s staggering unemployment rate of over 18 per cent was partly down to massive job losses as a result of attempts to replace existing industry with wind farms and other forms of alternative energy.
In a so-called “green economy,” “Each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation — sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency — of capital,” states the report.
As we have documented, a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 50-80 per cent would inflict a new great depression in the United States, reducing GDP by 6.9 percent – a figure comparable with the economic meltdown of 1929 and 1930.
The UN’s mission to create a legally binding treaty on the reduction of CO2 emissions is running parallel with measures already being enforced at state level in the U.S. which bypass stuttering federal efforts to impose the cap and trade fraud.
The very foundation of the global warming argument has been completely eviscerated by the Climategate scandal, which proved that United Nations IPCC scientists forged and exaggerated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures while engaging in witch hunts to cull dissenting opinions from appearing in IPPC reports.
Despite this, control freaks intent on taxing the life-giving gas carbon dioxide have signaled that they no longer care about the truth behind man-made climate change and have resolved to slam through their totalitarian agenda anyway. EPA head Lisa Jackson told reporters this week that “The science regarding climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming,” even though she failed to refute the fact that there had been no global warming since 1995, as was admitted by CRU scientist Professor Phil Jones.
Friday, February 26, 2010
2009 Voting Ratings: Politicis As Usual
National Journal's annual congressional vote ratings for 2009 show that long-standing ideological divides have persisted -- and even deepened -- in President Obama's Washington.
by Richard E. Cohen and Brian Friel
• The 2009 Vote Ratings Just over a year ago, Democratic and Republican members of Congress gathered on the Capitol's West Front to hear President Obama's Inaugural Address. Like many of his predecessors, Obama called on Congress to change the way it does business. "The time has come to set aside childish things," he said, quoting scripture. "On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
But Congress didn't change for previous presidents. And it hasn't changed for this one.
Liberals, moderates, and conservatives stuck to their guns in 2009, whether for ideological, partisan, parochial, or electoral reasons, stymieing much of Obama's agenda. National Journal's annual vote ratings, which have ranked members of Congress on a conservative-to-liberal scale since 1981, found telling consistency in the long-standing ideological divides that define legislative battles on Capitol Hill. Some of those gulfs even deepened as the decades-long partisan sorting of liberals and conservatives into opposing camps continued apace last year.
"The hyperpartisanship has been getting more hyper with every passing year that I've been here," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., who ranked at the embattled center of the Senate in NJ's 2009 ratings. "Look, over American history, we've always had spirited politics, particularly in election years. But for most of our history, that partisan political stuff usually ends for a while after elections. Nowadays, the campaigns never seem to end. That makes it very hard to get anything done."
To compile the 29th annual vote ratings, National Journal used a statistical analysis designed by Bill Schneider, a political analyst and commentator, and a contributing editor to this magazine. The computer-assisted calculations rank members in each chamber along the ideological spectrum, based on how they voted on key economic, social, and foreign-policy issues selected by a panel of NJ reporters and editors. For 2009, NJ identified 99 key votes in the Senate and 92 key votes in the House.
By design, the ratings highlight ideological differences between lawmakers. The past year in Congress was defined by liberal-conservative battles over economic issues, with health care reform dominating the debate and demonstrating the philosophical chasm between the two parties on the role of government in the nation's commerce. "Health care reform was both a field on which all this partisanship that has now become ingrained played itself out, but it also made it worse," Lieberman noted.
Beyond the health care issue, the sharp divisions between liberals and conservatives in Congress could be seen in Obama's successes -- including the $862 billion economic stimulus package, the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice, new pay-discrimination rules, and a hate crimes law. These differences also helped to stall or sink Obama's legislative priorities on financial regulatory reform, higher education, and climate change.
"The hyperpartisanship has been getting more hyper with every passing year."
-- Joe Lieberman
Ironically, even as lawmakers played mostly to their typical political form in 2009, many voiced growing frustration with the gridlock that frequently resulted. "We can't effectively address any of those issues unless we change the way we do it," freshman Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, said after Obama exhorted Congress to act in his State of the Union address. Minnick is vulnerable in November's election in a district where GOP presidential nominee John McCain won 62 percent of the vote in 2008.
"We have to bring both parties together at the beginning of crafting a solution to problems, pick up the best thinking of Republicans and Democrats, and make that the core of the way we approach these issues," Minnick added. "That's the principal failure of how this Congress has operated so far, and it's what we must fundamentally change if we're going to make progress."
For many other Democrats who, like Minnick, were elected in 2006 and 2008 from Republican or swing areas, political survival dictates that they worry first about how their votes will play back home, rather than about how they will help advance the broader party agenda. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., a sophomore whose district McCain also carried, said in an interview that he believes that House Democrats' votes on two pivotal bills last year -- health care reform and climate change -- will have a significant impact on how they fare in November.
In fact, Altmire made a comparison to the 1994 election, which he said also turned on two important votes: the August 1993 approval of President Clinton's budget, including a controversial tax hike; and the May 1994 passage of the assault weapons ban. That election proved devastating for congressional Democrats, and Altmire had an inside view as a House staffer.
Of 21 centrist House Democrats who voted for both the Clinton budget and the assault weapons ban, 15 lost re-election in 1994 and three retired; only three won another term. A separate group of 20 centrist House Democrats who voted against both of those bills did far better: 17 won re-election and two retired; only one was defeated. Another three dozen centrist House Democrats who voted for only one of those two bills split about evenly in their election outcomes.
Altmire believes that his votes last year against both the health care and the cap-and-trade climate legislation provide some political insulation from GOP campaign attacks. "Republicans will try to make the case tying me to an unpopular president," he said in an interview. "But intuitively, that's a hard case to make."
Senate Democrats: Inevitable Infighting
In the summer before the Democrats' 2008 election sweep, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., offered National Journal a prescient warning about the dangers of one-party control of the White House and Congress. "The infighting is almost inevitable when you have everything," he said. "You have petty jealousies and power games that go on within the ruling party that lead to some pretty bad consequences."
NJ's vote ratings show how difficult it would have been for Senate Democratic leaders to avoid the feuding within their caucus in 2009. Democrats held 58 seats in January and 60 seats by summer, after Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania bolted the GOP on April 30 and Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota was sworn in on July 7. That huge majority -- the largest that either party enjoyed in the Senate since 1978 -- spanned a vast ideological spectrum of Democrats, from such die-hard liberals as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and four others who had perfect liberal scores in the vote ratings, to conservative Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Evan Bayh of Indiana, both of whom had scores to the right of the most liberal Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. With Senate Republicans largely united in opposition, Democratic leaders had to undertake fractious negotiations all year long to try to bring together Whitehouse, Bayh, and all their party's members in between, thus slowing progress on major legislation.
Despite their ideological breadth, Senate Democrats were, to an unprecedented extent, united on foreign policy, which accounted for only a few key votes last year. Three-quarters of the caucus had perfect liberal foreign-policy scores. Members were more divided on social-policy issues, most of which came before the Senate in the form of GOP-sponsored amendments to unrelated bills that were intended to drive a political wedge.
For example, gun-rights advocates racked up considerable victories last year, winning votes to allow guns in the District of Columbia, guns in national parks, and guns on Amtrak trains. In the process, the vote ratings of several traditionally strong liberals who have pro-gun views, such as Feingold and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., moved toward the center. Last February, Feingold was among the 22 Democrats who voted for an amendment repealing the District of Columbia's gun control laws, a poison pill that scuttled the underlying bill that would have given D.C. a voting House member.
It was economic policy, however, that dominated the 2009 agenda and formed the main ideological battleground within Senate Democratic ranks. Issues related to federal spending, the proper size and role of government, and business regulation divided the caucus.
Take the climate-change issue, one of Obama's top legislative priorities in 2009, along with health care reform and the stimulus bill. During the budget debate last spring, Republicans offered an amendment to bar the use of fast-track reconciliation procedures to pass climate-change legislation. The amendment cleaved the Democratic caucus in two; 31 Democrats voted against it and 26 joined Republicans and voted for it. Although many senators suggested at the time that regional differences were at play, the vote tracked the split between the moderate and liberal wings of the Democratic caucus in NJ's ratings: 21 of the 25 most moderate Democrats voted against fast-track climate-change legislation, and 22 of the 25 most liberal Democrats voted for it.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a liberal who voted for the fast-track option on climate change, said that the Senate must alter its rules to allow the majority party to get things done. Obama "is right to be pointing out that Congress has basically become dysfunctional," Harkin said. "It's now become tit for tat. It's almost like the Serbs and the Bosnians. They go back to the 11th century about who started what first. With every change of party power here, it ratchets up more and more and more. We've got to stop before it consumes the entire Congress."
"We can't effectively address any of those issues unless we change the way we do it."
-- Walt Minnick
Sanders also voted for the fast-track procedures. But he gave Democratic leaders headaches by voting with conservatives against the confirmation of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, against increased support for the International Monetary Fund, and against the release of bank bailout funds to the Obama administration. Sanders's renegade populist economic votes, coupled with his pro-gun votes, pushed him to a surprising 38th place among liberal senators, despite his self-proclaimed socialist preferences.
The liberal half of the Democratic caucus is dominated by senators from states that voted Democratic in most recent presidential elections, including both senators from each of the solidly blue states of California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island.
Among them was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who tied with three other senators in 2009 as the 11th-most-liberal. She had perfect liberal scores in the economic and foreign-policy categories, and voted against the liberal bloc on only one key social-policy vote -- a measure reaffirming community service requirements for public housing recipients. Gillibrand previously represented a GOP-leaning upstate district in the House, and her vote ratings in 2007 and 2008 were more moderate. After her appointment to the Senate in 2009 to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gillibrand shifted dramatically to the left, reflecting the more liberal politics of New York state as a whole and her need to fend off liberal primary challengers in a special election this year.
The past two elections wiped out much of the moderate wing of the Senate GOP caucus and replaced it with a mix of Democrats. Five of the 13 Democrats who succeeded Republicans in 2006 and 2008 landed in the liberal half of the caucus in the vote ratings. Whitehouse and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who both succeeded moderate Republicans in 2006, received perfect liberal scores in 2009.
The eight other Democrats who won Republican seats in the past two cycles have settled in the more conservative half of the caucus. The class of 2008 moderates, including Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Mark Udall of Colorado, tended to stick with their liberal colleagues a bit more than the class of 2006 moderates did. Sen. Robert Casey, a 2006 winner in Pennsylvania, voted with liberals consistently on economic issues, but his anti-abortion and pro-gun views pushed his social-issues score to the right of most in the caucus. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri regularly dissented on fiscal matters, while maverick Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia had the most conservative rating among Democrats who replaced Republicans in the past two cycles.
Webb was the fifth-most-conservative Democrat overall in 2009, behind Feingold, who sided with conservatives on many fiscal matters; party-switcher Specter; and red-staters Nelson and Bayh. Specter voted with liberals 90 percent of the time on NJ's key votes after his party switch at the end of April, but before that, he split his votes evenly between the left and the right. Nelson and Bayh were the two most conservative Democrats in the 2008 ratings as well. When Bayh announced his retirement from the Senate on February 15, he cited the inability of centrists to prevail in Congress.
Given the wide range of Senate Democrats, it's a wonder that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., managed on Christmas Eve to get all 60 of them to vote for the health care reform bill, the signature achievement of the caucus's supermajority, which came to an end when Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., was elected in January to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. But it took Reid most of 2009 to get all 60 on board for that fleeting victory. By the beginning of 2010, many moderate Democrats felt that their party had gone too far to the left and had tried to do too much last year. "I have been one of the Democrats that have said some in our party overreach," said Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Senate Republicans: Solid Minority
As 2009 began, Senate Republicans were a bruised and battered bunch, down from 55 members at the end of 2006 to just 41 members. Obama, who had run on the promise of bipartisan cooperation, hoped to divide their ranks by peeling off Republicans on issue after issue. At least early on, that strategy was somewhat effective.
In January of last year, Democrats won the support of five Republicans -- including all four women GOP senators -- to support a change in pay-discrimination rules. Ten Republicans came to Obama's aid to confirm Geithner, offsetting liberal dissenters. And nine Republicans -- including Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee and Richard Lugar of Indiana -- voted with liberals to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The GOP split was even more pronounced on the February 2 vote to confirm Attorney General Eric Holder. Twenty-one of the 30 most-conservative senators in the vote ratings -- including Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Mike Crapo of Idaho -- voted against Holder. Nineteen Republicans, including the eight most-moderate GOPers such as Lugar, Snowe, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, voted for Holder.
Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona, who voted to confirm Holder, contended that such bipartisanship is normal in the chamber, especially on lower-profile issues. "There's always bipartisanship in the Senate," he said. "It is simply incorrect to believe that everything is partisan."
Nonetheless, bipartisanship went downhill from there last year. After that early support, Senate Republicans mostly unified against Obama's top legislative goals, starting with the stimulus package, which smacked against their conservative principle of limited government. As the stimulus negotiations went on, moderate Republicans backed away from the president, ultimately leaving only Snowe, Collins, and Specter (still wearing his GOP hat) to vote for the giant package of spending and tax cuts in February.
"It's almost like the Serbs and the Bosnians. They go back to the 11th century about who started what first."
-- Tom Harkin
Over the rest of the year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had much less difficulty keeping his ranks unified than did Reid -- in large part because McConnell had a much narrower ideological spectrum to bring together. The depleted GOP ranks ranged from James Inhofe of Oklahoma -- the only senator with a perfect conservative score in 2009 -- to Snowe, the most moderate Republican. For much of the year, Snowe was the only member of her caucus willing to consider supporting Obama's health care reform legislation, making McConnell's job all the easier.
The next-most-moderate Republican in the vote ratings, Lugar, made it clear early in the year that he thought Congress should focus on jobs and the economy, not health care. Lugar had been a mentor to Obama in the Senate, and his moderate scores in 2009 largely resulted from his support of the president's nominees, including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and several controversial Justice Department appointees whom conservatives tried to block.
A Lugar spokesman said that the senator tends to back the appointees of both parties' presidents. Lugar also voted against the conservative wing of his party on most foreign-policy issues, because of his willingness to work with Democrats as the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Interestingly, Lugar tied with his Democratic home-state colleague, the retiring Bayh, in the 2009 ratings.
The narrowing of the Senate Republican caucus's ideology shows up in the change in the vote ratings from 2008 to 2009. In 2008, Lugar was the 12th-most-moderate Republican and the 37th-most-conservative Republican. His ranking shifted only two places -- to 39th-most-conservative in 2009. But seven of the 11 GOPers who were more moderate than he dropped out of the rankings -- four were defeated for re-election, two retired, and Specter switched parties. The Republicans who were more moderate than he was in 2008 were replaced by Democrats in 2009.
One symbol of Senate GOP unity last year is McCain's vote rating. Although McCain was initially among the more-conservative senators after his election in 1986, his annual ratings shifted to the center from 1994 on as he developed his maverick voting pattern, culminating in his most liberal rating in 2004, when he tied with Specter as the third-most-moderate Republican. In 2009, however, McCain returned to his conservative roots. His composite score of 84.3 made him the 21st-most-conservative senator. He split with conservatives on only seven of the 99 key votes, four of which were confirmations. McCain's closest neighbors in the 2009 ratings were Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. McCain faces a primary challenge from conservative former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.
McCain argues that Democrats could have scored more bipartisan victories if they had tried harder to seek Republican input on legislation. "Their strategy has been to pick off one or two Republicans and call it bipartisan," McCain said. "That's bogus, and everybody knows it."
House Democrats: Wiggle Room
In contrast to the gridlock that often besieged Senate Democrats, their House counterparts were relatively productive and efficient in getting their work done in 2009. To be sure, House Republicans rarely offered support on the highest-profile and most-contentious legislation, and House Democrats didn't suggest even the pretense of bipartisanship on most issues.
But with the Democrats' majority reaching a high-water mark of 258 seats last year, they had the relative luxury to prevail even if as many as 40 of their members abandoned ship. Consequently, on many legislative showdowns on top party priorities, Democratic leaders focused on winning just enough support in their moderate flank to succeed while allowing other skittish centrists to take a pass and vote no, as Altmire did on the health care reform and climate-change legislation.
As a group, the 35 House Democrats with the most-conservative composite scores in the 2009 vote ratings met several common criteria. They were primarily junior (13 are serving their first full term and eight are sophomores) and primarily Southern (16 hail from Dixie). This group includes Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, who voted all year as a Democrat but announced on December 22 that he was switching to the GOP. In addition, 30 of the 35 are members of the Blue Dog Coalition, whose members style themselves as "independent voices for fiscal responsibility and accountability."
Not surprisingly, these members were a persistent source of opposition to Obama's prime agenda items. Of the 23 Democrats who voted against both the cap-and-trade bill in June and health care reform in November, 19 were to the right of the House's center in the vote ratings; the others were Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, liberal maverick Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and first-term Reps. Larry Kissell of North Carolina and Eric Massa of New York. Of these 23 dissidents, 17 are from the South and 18 represent districts that McCain won in 2008.
"I represent my district, and the district clearly didn't support health reform or cap-and-trade," said Altmire, whose suburban Pittsburgh constituents gave McCain 55 percent of their votes. "It's a hard case for my opponent to articulate that I am a lapdog for [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi.... Your voting record does matter."
But Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, cautioned that centrist Democrats might nonetheless face problems in November. "Members who constantly voted no may be criticized as part of the problem, not the solution," Lilly said. "And the big problem that Democrats may face in the election is getting Democratic voters and liberal-leaning independents to turn out to vote."
The vote ratings reveal an interesting disparity between the large freshman and sophomore Democratic classes, which have built the party's current majority. Of the 28 members who replaced Republicans and are serving their first full term, the average composite liberal score was 53.6. By contrast, the 26 sophomore Democrats who took GOP-held seats had an average composite liberal score of 60. In part, that result mirrors the greater number of second-term Democrats who have become politically secure at home.
Democrats' "strategy has been to pick off one or two Republicans and call it bipartisan. That's bogus."
-- John McCain
The freshman Democrats disproportionately filled the vote-ratings slots at the ideological center of the House in 2009. Of the 16 House members -- all Democrats -- with the most-centrist scores last year, 10 were first-termers. That result is comparable to the 2007 vote ratings, when six of the eight members at the center of the House were in that year's freshman class.
In 2008, Altmire, then a freshman, was at the precise center of the House. But with the influx of additional Democrats, he moved nearly 20 slots to the right in the 2009 vote ratings.
Two members, both New York Democrats, are tied at the dead center of the House this year: sophomore Rep. Michael Arcuri and freshman Rep. Michael McMahon. Told about the result, McMahon said he was "pleasantly surprised." He said he hopes that his votes reflect his district centered on Staten Island, where George W. Bush got 55 percent of the vote in 2004 and McCain won with 51 percent in 2008.
"It is not hard for me to figure out the right vote. But I sometimes have to explain it to my colleagues," said McMahon, who voted for last year's climate-change cap-and-trade bill but against health care reform. "Some Democrats tell me that I should vote for the greater good of the party. I tell them that I vote for my district and its interests."
With 80,000 of his constituents working on Wall Street or elsewhere in the financial industry, McMahon has been especially vigilant to represent those interests. On March 19, he was one of only six Democrats to vote against a bill to impose a 90 percent tax on some Wall Street bonuses. "Tip O'Neill's old adage that all politics is local is confirmed to me every day," McMahon said. "Sometimes I feel that I am the only one in the New York delegation who stands up for the financial industry, in making the case for reasonable legislation."
In attempting to keep these swing-district members safe, House Democratic leaders try not to press them too hard to act counter to local interests while still corralling sufficient votes to pass legislation. "If members feel that something will put them in jeopardy with their constituents, it's not my job to substitute for their judgment," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who works closely with freshman Democrats as assistant to Pelosi.
As 2009 progressed, however, the number of House Democratic defections on key votes increased. Early in 2009, only seven Democrats voted against the stimulus bill and 20 voted against the budget resolution. By December, Democratic leaders struggled to secure passage of the debt ceiling and jobs bills, which 39 and 38 Democrats opposed, respectively.
At the other end of the House Democratic spectrum, the 40 most-liberal members in the 2009 ratings had high representation from the California delegation (nine members were in this group), the Congressional Black Caucus (13 members), and the Hispanic Caucus (six members). Also among the most-liberal members were five House committee chairmen: Reps. Howard Berman of California, Foreign Affairs; Robert Brady of Pennsylvania, House Administration; Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Financial Services; Louise Slaughter of New York, Rules; and Henry Waxman of California, Energy and Commerce.
House Republicans: Lockstep Opposition
House Republicans lost 55 seats over the past two elections, which essentially decimated their moderate wing of mostly Northeastern and Midwestern members. In 2006, 14 Republicans who had composite conservative scores below 60 in that year's vote ratings left the House -- either in defeat or by choice; eight more with comparable scores exited in 2008.
In the 2009 ratings, only a handful of House Republicans had ratings to the left of the most-conservative Democrats. The most liberal Republican was Rep. Michael Castle of Delaware, who is running this year for an open Senate seat; he was followed by Reps. John McHugh of New York, who resigned in September to become Obama's Army secretary, and Dave Reichert of Washington.
Eight other Republicans are just to the left of Rep. Bobby Bright of Alabama, the House's most conservative Democrat. Seven represent states in the arc from Illinois to New Jersey, and the eighth is Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, who won what many observers contend was a fluke victory in 2008 over then-indicted Democratic Rep. William Jefferson.
The starkly conservative House GOP Conference that remained after the loss of their moderates voted in lockstep opposition against much of the White House's agenda last year. House Republicans sent a strong message in the early days of Obama's presidency in January, when they united in voting against the stimulus bill.
A few displays of bipartisanship cropped up, such as wide GOP support for funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the vote by eight Republicans -- six from the Northeast and the Midwest, plus Reichert and Rep. Mary Bono Mack of California -- for the cap-and-trade bill. Overall, though, Republicans contended that House rules and the Democrats' large majority, plus Pelosi's often ironfisted control of debate, left them little opportunity to influence what they contend has often been bad legislation.
"It's a hard case for my opponent to articulate that I am a lapdog for Nancy Pelosi."
--Jason Altmire
"It took tremendous courage to vote against the stimulus bill when our members did," said Mike Steel, the spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio. "The president was at the height of his popularity. It turned out to be the right vote, though it wasn't easy at the time." Steel cited a CBS News/New York Times poll this month showing that only 6 percent of the people believe that the stimulus bill has already created jobs.
Boehner and the two other top House GOP leaders were among the chamber's 40 most-conservative members in the 2009 ratings. This group at the conservative end of the House's ideological spectrum also includes a familiar component: 10 Texans.
Boehner, the 14th-most-conservative House member in 2009, has a reputation for occasionally moderate voting behavior, partly because of his often-bipartisan work as chairman of the since-renamed House Education and the Workforce Committee from 2001 to '06. He has been consistently conservative since taking over as minority leader in 2007, however. "Some people still ally Boehner with the centrists," a House GOP aide said. "But these results show that he is a leading conservative."
By contrast, the ranking GOP members on key House committees mostly had less conservative scores than the party leaders. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., who took over last year as the top member on Ways and Means, ranked in the one-fourth of House Republicans with the most-moderate scores; Camp has been viewed as a mainstream conservative who is comfortable with Boehner.
With their largely unified ranks, House Republicans have typically kept their eyes glued on the Democrats and their growing defections. Having suffered their own painful loss of the majority in 2006, Republicans are mindful that the political fates sometimes trump legislative machinations and independent votes. As a House GOP leadership aide noted, "Many of their freshmen know that they are in difficult districts. But their votes won't help them at the end of the day."
Research Associate Peter Bell assisted in compiling the vote ratings.
by Richard E. Cohen and Brian Friel
• The 2009 Vote Ratings Just over a year ago, Democratic and Republican members of Congress gathered on the Capitol's West Front to hear President Obama's Inaugural Address. Like many of his predecessors, Obama called on Congress to change the way it does business. "The time has come to set aside childish things," he said, quoting scripture. "On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
But Congress didn't change for previous presidents. And it hasn't changed for this one.
Liberals, moderates, and conservatives stuck to their guns in 2009, whether for ideological, partisan, parochial, or electoral reasons, stymieing much of Obama's agenda. National Journal's annual vote ratings, which have ranked members of Congress on a conservative-to-liberal scale since 1981, found telling consistency in the long-standing ideological divides that define legislative battles on Capitol Hill. Some of those gulfs even deepened as the decades-long partisan sorting of liberals and conservatives into opposing camps continued apace last year.
"The hyperpartisanship has been getting more hyper with every passing year that I've been here," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., who ranked at the embattled center of the Senate in NJ's 2009 ratings. "Look, over American history, we've always had spirited politics, particularly in election years. But for most of our history, that partisan political stuff usually ends for a while after elections. Nowadays, the campaigns never seem to end. That makes it very hard to get anything done."
To compile the 29th annual vote ratings, National Journal used a statistical analysis designed by Bill Schneider, a political analyst and commentator, and a contributing editor to this magazine. The computer-assisted calculations rank members in each chamber along the ideological spectrum, based on how they voted on key economic, social, and foreign-policy issues selected by a panel of NJ reporters and editors. For 2009, NJ identified 99 key votes in the Senate and 92 key votes in the House.
By design, the ratings highlight ideological differences between lawmakers. The past year in Congress was defined by liberal-conservative battles over economic issues, with health care reform dominating the debate and demonstrating the philosophical chasm between the two parties on the role of government in the nation's commerce. "Health care reform was both a field on which all this partisanship that has now become ingrained played itself out, but it also made it worse," Lieberman noted.
Beyond the health care issue, the sharp divisions between liberals and conservatives in Congress could be seen in Obama's successes -- including the $862 billion economic stimulus package, the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice, new pay-discrimination rules, and a hate crimes law. These differences also helped to stall or sink Obama's legislative priorities on financial regulatory reform, higher education, and climate change.
"The hyperpartisanship has been getting more hyper with every passing year."
-- Joe Lieberman
Ironically, even as lawmakers played mostly to their typical political form in 2009, many voiced growing frustration with the gridlock that frequently resulted. "We can't effectively address any of those issues unless we change the way we do it," freshman Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, said after Obama exhorted Congress to act in his State of the Union address. Minnick is vulnerable in November's election in a district where GOP presidential nominee John McCain won 62 percent of the vote in 2008.
"We have to bring both parties together at the beginning of crafting a solution to problems, pick up the best thinking of Republicans and Democrats, and make that the core of the way we approach these issues," Minnick added. "That's the principal failure of how this Congress has operated so far, and it's what we must fundamentally change if we're going to make progress."
For many other Democrats who, like Minnick, were elected in 2006 and 2008 from Republican or swing areas, political survival dictates that they worry first about how their votes will play back home, rather than about how they will help advance the broader party agenda. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., a sophomore whose district McCain also carried, said in an interview that he believes that House Democrats' votes on two pivotal bills last year -- health care reform and climate change -- will have a significant impact on how they fare in November.
In fact, Altmire made a comparison to the 1994 election, which he said also turned on two important votes: the August 1993 approval of President Clinton's budget, including a controversial tax hike; and the May 1994 passage of the assault weapons ban. That election proved devastating for congressional Democrats, and Altmire had an inside view as a House staffer.
Of 21 centrist House Democrats who voted for both the Clinton budget and the assault weapons ban, 15 lost re-election in 1994 and three retired; only three won another term. A separate group of 20 centrist House Democrats who voted against both of those bills did far better: 17 won re-election and two retired; only one was defeated. Another three dozen centrist House Democrats who voted for only one of those two bills split about evenly in their election outcomes.
Altmire believes that his votes last year against both the health care and the cap-and-trade climate legislation provide some political insulation from GOP campaign attacks. "Republicans will try to make the case tying me to an unpopular president," he said in an interview. "But intuitively, that's a hard case to make."
Senate Democrats: Inevitable Infighting
In the summer before the Democrats' 2008 election sweep, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., offered National Journal a prescient warning about the dangers of one-party control of the White House and Congress. "The infighting is almost inevitable when you have everything," he said. "You have petty jealousies and power games that go on within the ruling party that lead to some pretty bad consequences."
NJ's vote ratings show how difficult it would have been for Senate Democratic leaders to avoid the feuding within their caucus in 2009. Democrats held 58 seats in January and 60 seats by summer, after Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania bolted the GOP on April 30 and Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota was sworn in on July 7. That huge majority -- the largest that either party enjoyed in the Senate since 1978 -- spanned a vast ideological spectrum of Democrats, from such die-hard liberals as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and four others who had perfect liberal scores in the vote ratings, to conservative Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Evan Bayh of Indiana, both of whom had scores to the right of the most liberal Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. With Senate Republicans largely united in opposition, Democratic leaders had to undertake fractious negotiations all year long to try to bring together Whitehouse, Bayh, and all their party's members in between, thus slowing progress on major legislation.
Despite their ideological breadth, Senate Democrats were, to an unprecedented extent, united on foreign policy, which accounted for only a few key votes last year. Three-quarters of the caucus had perfect liberal foreign-policy scores. Members were more divided on social-policy issues, most of which came before the Senate in the form of GOP-sponsored amendments to unrelated bills that were intended to drive a political wedge.
For example, gun-rights advocates racked up considerable victories last year, winning votes to allow guns in the District of Columbia, guns in national parks, and guns on Amtrak trains. In the process, the vote ratings of several traditionally strong liberals who have pro-gun views, such as Feingold and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., moved toward the center. Last February, Feingold was among the 22 Democrats who voted for an amendment repealing the District of Columbia's gun control laws, a poison pill that scuttled the underlying bill that would have given D.C. a voting House member.
It was economic policy, however, that dominated the 2009 agenda and formed the main ideological battleground within Senate Democratic ranks. Issues related to federal spending, the proper size and role of government, and business regulation divided the caucus.
Take the climate-change issue, one of Obama's top legislative priorities in 2009, along with health care reform and the stimulus bill. During the budget debate last spring, Republicans offered an amendment to bar the use of fast-track reconciliation procedures to pass climate-change legislation. The amendment cleaved the Democratic caucus in two; 31 Democrats voted against it and 26 joined Republicans and voted for it. Although many senators suggested at the time that regional differences were at play, the vote tracked the split between the moderate and liberal wings of the Democratic caucus in NJ's ratings: 21 of the 25 most moderate Democrats voted against fast-track climate-change legislation, and 22 of the 25 most liberal Democrats voted for it.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a liberal who voted for the fast-track option on climate change, said that the Senate must alter its rules to allow the majority party to get things done. Obama "is right to be pointing out that Congress has basically become dysfunctional," Harkin said. "It's now become tit for tat. It's almost like the Serbs and the Bosnians. They go back to the 11th century about who started what first. With every change of party power here, it ratchets up more and more and more. We've got to stop before it consumes the entire Congress."
"We can't effectively address any of those issues unless we change the way we do it."
-- Walt Minnick
Sanders also voted for the fast-track procedures. But he gave Democratic leaders headaches by voting with conservatives against the confirmation of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, against increased support for the International Monetary Fund, and against the release of bank bailout funds to the Obama administration. Sanders's renegade populist economic votes, coupled with his pro-gun votes, pushed him to a surprising 38th place among liberal senators, despite his self-proclaimed socialist preferences.
The liberal half of the Democratic caucus is dominated by senators from states that voted Democratic in most recent presidential elections, including both senators from each of the solidly blue states of California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island.
Among them was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who tied with three other senators in 2009 as the 11th-most-liberal. She had perfect liberal scores in the economic and foreign-policy categories, and voted against the liberal bloc on only one key social-policy vote -- a measure reaffirming community service requirements for public housing recipients. Gillibrand previously represented a GOP-leaning upstate district in the House, and her vote ratings in 2007 and 2008 were more moderate. After her appointment to the Senate in 2009 to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gillibrand shifted dramatically to the left, reflecting the more liberal politics of New York state as a whole and her need to fend off liberal primary challengers in a special election this year.
The past two elections wiped out much of the moderate wing of the Senate GOP caucus and replaced it with a mix of Democrats. Five of the 13 Democrats who succeeded Republicans in 2006 and 2008 landed in the liberal half of the caucus in the vote ratings. Whitehouse and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who both succeeded moderate Republicans in 2006, received perfect liberal scores in 2009.
The eight other Democrats who won Republican seats in the past two cycles have settled in the more conservative half of the caucus. The class of 2008 moderates, including Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Mark Udall of Colorado, tended to stick with their liberal colleagues a bit more than the class of 2006 moderates did. Sen. Robert Casey, a 2006 winner in Pennsylvania, voted with liberals consistently on economic issues, but his anti-abortion and pro-gun views pushed his social-issues score to the right of most in the caucus. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri regularly dissented on fiscal matters, while maverick Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia had the most conservative rating among Democrats who replaced Republicans in the past two cycles.
Webb was the fifth-most-conservative Democrat overall in 2009, behind Feingold, who sided with conservatives on many fiscal matters; party-switcher Specter; and red-staters Nelson and Bayh. Specter voted with liberals 90 percent of the time on NJ's key votes after his party switch at the end of April, but before that, he split his votes evenly between the left and the right. Nelson and Bayh were the two most conservative Democrats in the 2008 ratings as well. When Bayh announced his retirement from the Senate on February 15, he cited the inability of centrists to prevail in Congress.
Given the wide range of Senate Democrats, it's a wonder that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., managed on Christmas Eve to get all 60 of them to vote for the health care reform bill, the signature achievement of the caucus's supermajority, which came to an end when Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., was elected in January to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. But it took Reid most of 2009 to get all 60 on board for that fleeting victory. By the beginning of 2010, many moderate Democrats felt that their party had gone too far to the left and had tried to do too much last year. "I have been one of the Democrats that have said some in our party overreach," said Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Senate Republicans: Solid Minority
As 2009 began, Senate Republicans were a bruised and battered bunch, down from 55 members at the end of 2006 to just 41 members. Obama, who had run on the promise of bipartisan cooperation, hoped to divide their ranks by peeling off Republicans on issue after issue. At least early on, that strategy was somewhat effective.
In January of last year, Democrats won the support of five Republicans -- including all four women GOP senators -- to support a change in pay-discrimination rules. Ten Republicans came to Obama's aid to confirm Geithner, offsetting liberal dissenters. And nine Republicans -- including Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee and Richard Lugar of Indiana -- voted with liberals to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The GOP split was even more pronounced on the February 2 vote to confirm Attorney General Eric Holder. Twenty-one of the 30 most-conservative senators in the vote ratings -- including Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Mike Crapo of Idaho -- voted against Holder. Nineteen Republicans, including the eight most-moderate GOPers such as Lugar, Snowe, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, voted for Holder.
Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona, who voted to confirm Holder, contended that such bipartisanship is normal in the chamber, especially on lower-profile issues. "There's always bipartisanship in the Senate," he said. "It is simply incorrect to believe that everything is partisan."
Nonetheless, bipartisanship went downhill from there last year. After that early support, Senate Republicans mostly unified against Obama's top legislative goals, starting with the stimulus package, which smacked against their conservative principle of limited government. As the stimulus negotiations went on, moderate Republicans backed away from the president, ultimately leaving only Snowe, Collins, and Specter (still wearing his GOP hat) to vote for the giant package of spending and tax cuts in February.
"It's almost like the Serbs and the Bosnians. They go back to the 11th century about who started what first."
-- Tom Harkin
Over the rest of the year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had much less difficulty keeping his ranks unified than did Reid -- in large part because McConnell had a much narrower ideological spectrum to bring together. The depleted GOP ranks ranged from James Inhofe of Oklahoma -- the only senator with a perfect conservative score in 2009 -- to Snowe, the most moderate Republican. For much of the year, Snowe was the only member of her caucus willing to consider supporting Obama's health care reform legislation, making McConnell's job all the easier.
The next-most-moderate Republican in the vote ratings, Lugar, made it clear early in the year that he thought Congress should focus on jobs and the economy, not health care. Lugar had been a mentor to Obama in the Senate, and his moderate scores in 2009 largely resulted from his support of the president's nominees, including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and several controversial Justice Department appointees whom conservatives tried to block.
A Lugar spokesman said that the senator tends to back the appointees of both parties' presidents. Lugar also voted against the conservative wing of his party on most foreign-policy issues, because of his willingness to work with Democrats as the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Interestingly, Lugar tied with his Democratic home-state colleague, the retiring Bayh, in the 2009 ratings.
The narrowing of the Senate Republican caucus's ideology shows up in the change in the vote ratings from 2008 to 2009. In 2008, Lugar was the 12th-most-moderate Republican and the 37th-most-conservative Republican. His ranking shifted only two places -- to 39th-most-conservative in 2009. But seven of the 11 GOPers who were more moderate than he dropped out of the rankings -- four were defeated for re-election, two retired, and Specter switched parties. The Republicans who were more moderate than he was in 2008 were replaced by Democrats in 2009.
One symbol of Senate GOP unity last year is McCain's vote rating. Although McCain was initially among the more-conservative senators after his election in 1986, his annual ratings shifted to the center from 1994 on as he developed his maverick voting pattern, culminating in his most liberal rating in 2004, when he tied with Specter as the third-most-moderate Republican. In 2009, however, McCain returned to his conservative roots. His composite score of 84.3 made him the 21st-most-conservative senator. He split with conservatives on only seven of the 99 key votes, four of which were confirmations. McCain's closest neighbors in the 2009 ratings were Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. McCain faces a primary challenge from conservative former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.
McCain argues that Democrats could have scored more bipartisan victories if they had tried harder to seek Republican input on legislation. "Their strategy has been to pick off one or two Republicans and call it bipartisan," McCain said. "That's bogus, and everybody knows it."
House Democrats: Wiggle Room
In contrast to the gridlock that often besieged Senate Democrats, their House counterparts were relatively productive and efficient in getting their work done in 2009. To be sure, House Republicans rarely offered support on the highest-profile and most-contentious legislation, and House Democrats didn't suggest even the pretense of bipartisanship on most issues.
But with the Democrats' majority reaching a high-water mark of 258 seats last year, they had the relative luxury to prevail even if as many as 40 of their members abandoned ship. Consequently, on many legislative showdowns on top party priorities, Democratic leaders focused on winning just enough support in their moderate flank to succeed while allowing other skittish centrists to take a pass and vote no, as Altmire did on the health care reform and climate-change legislation.
As a group, the 35 House Democrats with the most-conservative composite scores in the 2009 vote ratings met several common criteria. They were primarily junior (13 are serving their first full term and eight are sophomores) and primarily Southern (16 hail from Dixie). This group includes Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, who voted all year as a Democrat but announced on December 22 that he was switching to the GOP. In addition, 30 of the 35 are members of the Blue Dog Coalition, whose members style themselves as "independent voices for fiscal responsibility and accountability."
Not surprisingly, these members were a persistent source of opposition to Obama's prime agenda items. Of the 23 Democrats who voted against both the cap-and-trade bill in June and health care reform in November, 19 were to the right of the House's center in the vote ratings; the others were Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, liberal maverick Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and first-term Reps. Larry Kissell of North Carolina and Eric Massa of New York. Of these 23 dissidents, 17 are from the South and 18 represent districts that McCain won in 2008.
"I represent my district, and the district clearly didn't support health reform or cap-and-trade," said Altmire, whose suburban Pittsburgh constituents gave McCain 55 percent of their votes. "It's a hard case for my opponent to articulate that I am a lapdog for [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi.... Your voting record does matter."
But Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, cautioned that centrist Democrats might nonetheless face problems in November. "Members who constantly voted no may be criticized as part of the problem, not the solution," Lilly said. "And the big problem that Democrats may face in the election is getting Democratic voters and liberal-leaning independents to turn out to vote."
The vote ratings reveal an interesting disparity between the large freshman and sophomore Democratic classes, which have built the party's current majority. Of the 28 members who replaced Republicans and are serving their first full term, the average composite liberal score was 53.6. By contrast, the 26 sophomore Democrats who took GOP-held seats had an average composite liberal score of 60. In part, that result mirrors the greater number of second-term Democrats who have become politically secure at home.
Democrats' "strategy has been to pick off one or two Republicans and call it bipartisan. That's bogus."
-- John McCain
The freshman Democrats disproportionately filled the vote-ratings slots at the ideological center of the House in 2009. Of the 16 House members -- all Democrats -- with the most-centrist scores last year, 10 were first-termers. That result is comparable to the 2007 vote ratings, when six of the eight members at the center of the House were in that year's freshman class.
In 2008, Altmire, then a freshman, was at the precise center of the House. But with the influx of additional Democrats, he moved nearly 20 slots to the right in the 2009 vote ratings.
Two members, both New York Democrats, are tied at the dead center of the House this year: sophomore Rep. Michael Arcuri and freshman Rep. Michael McMahon. Told about the result, McMahon said he was "pleasantly surprised." He said he hopes that his votes reflect his district centered on Staten Island, where George W. Bush got 55 percent of the vote in 2004 and McCain won with 51 percent in 2008.
"It is not hard for me to figure out the right vote. But I sometimes have to explain it to my colleagues," said McMahon, who voted for last year's climate-change cap-and-trade bill but against health care reform. "Some Democrats tell me that I should vote for the greater good of the party. I tell them that I vote for my district and its interests."
With 80,000 of his constituents working on Wall Street or elsewhere in the financial industry, McMahon has been especially vigilant to represent those interests. On March 19, he was one of only six Democrats to vote against a bill to impose a 90 percent tax on some Wall Street bonuses. "Tip O'Neill's old adage that all politics is local is confirmed to me every day," McMahon said. "Sometimes I feel that I am the only one in the New York delegation who stands up for the financial industry, in making the case for reasonable legislation."
In attempting to keep these swing-district members safe, House Democratic leaders try not to press them too hard to act counter to local interests while still corralling sufficient votes to pass legislation. "If members feel that something will put them in jeopardy with their constituents, it's not my job to substitute for their judgment," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who works closely with freshman Democrats as assistant to Pelosi.
As 2009 progressed, however, the number of House Democratic defections on key votes increased. Early in 2009, only seven Democrats voted against the stimulus bill and 20 voted against the budget resolution. By December, Democratic leaders struggled to secure passage of the debt ceiling and jobs bills, which 39 and 38 Democrats opposed, respectively.
At the other end of the House Democratic spectrum, the 40 most-liberal members in the 2009 ratings had high representation from the California delegation (nine members were in this group), the Congressional Black Caucus (13 members), and the Hispanic Caucus (six members). Also among the most-liberal members were five House committee chairmen: Reps. Howard Berman of California, Foreign Affairs; Robert Brady of Pennsylvania, House Administration; Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Financial Services; Louise Slaughter of New York, Rules; and Henry Waxman of California, Energy and Commerce.
House Republicans: Lockstep Opposition
House Republicans lost 55 seats over the past two elections, which essentially decimated their moderate wing of mostly Northeastern and Midwestern members. In 2006, 14 Republicans who had composite conservative scores below 60 in that year's vote ratings left the House -- either in defeat or by choice; eight more with comparable scores exited in 2008.
In the 2009 ratings, only a handful of House Republicans had ratings to the left of the most-conservative Democrats. The most liberal Republican was Rep. Michael Castle of Delaware, who is running this year for an open Senate seat; he was followed by Reps. John McHugh of New York, who resigned in September to become Obama's Army secretary, and Dave Reichert of Washington.
Eight other Republicans are just to the left of Rep. Bobby Bright of Alabama, the House's most conservative Democrat. Seven represent states in the arc from Illinois to New Jersey, and the eighth is Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, who won what many observers contend was a fluke victory in 2008 over then-indicted Democratic Rep. William Jefferson.
The starkly conservative House GOP Conference that remained after the loss of their moderates voted in lockstep opposition against much of the White House's agenda last year. House Republicans sent a strong message in the early days of Obama's presidency in January, when they united in voting against the stimulus bill.
A few displays of bipartisanship cropped up, such as wide GOP support for funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the vote by eight Republicans -- six from the Northeast and the Midwest, plus Reichert and Rep. Mary Bono Mack of California -- for the cap-and-trade bill. Overall, though, Republicans contended that House rules and the Democrats' large majority, plus Pelosi's often ironfisted control of debate, left them little opportunity to influence what they contend has often been bad legislation.
"It's a hard case for my opponent to articulate that I am a lapdog for Nancy Pelosi."
--Jason Altmire
"It took tremendous courage to vote against the stimulus bill when our members did," said Mike Steel, the spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio. "The president was at the height of his popularity. It turned out to be the right vote, though it wasn't easy at the time." Steel cited a CBS News/New York Times poll this month showing that only 6 percent of the people believe that the stimulus bill has already created jobs.
Boehner and the two other top House GOP leaders were among the chamber's 40 most-conservative members in the 2009 ratings. This group at the conservative end of the House's ideological spectrum also includes a familiar component: 10 Texans.
Boehner, the 14th-most-conservative House member in 2009, has a reputation for occasionally moderate voting behavior, partly because of his often-bipartisan work as chairman of the since-renamed House Education and the Workforce Committee from 2001 to '06. He has been consistently conservative since taking over as minority leader in 2007, however. "Some people still ally Boehner with the centrists," a House GOP aide said. "But these results show that he is a leading conservative."
By contrast, the ranking GOP members on key House committees mostly had less conservative scores than the party leaders. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., who took over last year as the top member on Ways and Means, ranked in the one-fourth of House Republicans with the most-moderate scores; Camp has been viewed as a mainstream conservative who is comfortable with Boehner.
With their largely unified ranks, House Republicans have typically kept their eyes glued on the Democrats and their growing defections. Having suffered their own painful loss of the majority in 2006, Republicans are mindful that the political fates sometimes trump legislative machinations and independent votes. As a House GOP leadership aide noted, "Many of their freshmen know that they are in difficult districts. But their votes won't help them at the end of the day."
Research Associate Peter Bell assisted in compiling the vote ratings.
DNC Instructs Obamaites To Call Conservative Talk Radio
Instructions have come down from the Obama Borg hive in regard to talk radio.
“The fate of health reform has been a focus of debate in living rooms and offices, on TV and online — and on talk radio,” states Obama’s activism website. “And since millions of folks turn to talk radio as a trusted source of news and opinions, we need to make sure OFA supporters are calling in with a pro-reform message.”
Organizing for America is a netroots project of the Democratic National Committee and establishment Democrats.
Most of the talk shows recommended are hosted by the usual neocons and faux conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Neil Boortz, Dennis Miller, and the Watergate era criminal G. Gordon Liddy.
“Be polite, respectful, and clear. Remember, you represent Organizing for America,” Obama’s site instructs.
Organizing for America is a netroots project of the Democratic National Committee and establishment Democrats who are itching to force “health care reform” on you at gunpoint.
Obama’s site encourages MoveOn (a George Soros project) and other globalist organizations to “get involved locally.”
“Some hosts may challenge your views,” the marching orders continue. “Stay calm and firm. Sharing a personal story about how health reform affects you and your family is a great way to show the importance and urgency of health reform.”
No doubt the suggested neocon talk show hosts will respond in predictable left versus right fashion and call Obama’s proposed “mandate” socialism.
In fact, the only relevant argument against health care “reform” at gunpoint is that the debt creation plan is an egregious violation of the Constitution (under the Commerce clause) and the Tenth Amendment, specifically: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Once upon a time, this was accepted as a truism.
Thankfully, as of October 2009, five states have introduced legislation that would declare certain provisions of any proposed national health care bill to be null and void within the state under State Sovereignty Resolutions and Nullification Acts. On February 1, 2010, the Virginia Senate took a stand against a key provision of a proposed federal health care overhaul, passing legislation declaring that Virginia residents cannot be forced to buy health insurance.
More states need to follow suit before the Democrats finagle this monstrosity into law.
“The fate of health reform has been a focus of debate in living rooms and offices, on TV and online — and on talk radio,” states Obama’s activism website. “And since millions of folks turn to talk radio as a trusted source of news and opinions, we need to make sure OFA supporters are calling in with a pro-reform message.”
Organizing for America is a netroots project of the Democratic National Committee and establishment Democrats.
Most of the talk shows recommended are hosted by the usual neocons and faux conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Neil Boortz, Dennis Miller, and the Watergate era criminal G. Gordon Liddy.
“Be polite, respectful, and clear. Remember, you represent Organizing for America,” Obama’s site instructs.
Organizing for America is a netroots project of the Democratic National Committee and establishment Democrats who are itching to force “health care reform” on you at gunpoint.
Obama’s site encourages MoveOn (a George Soros project) and other globalist organizations to “get involved locally.”
“Some hosts may challenge your views,” the marching orders continue. “Stay calm and firm. Sharing a personal story about how health reform affects you and your family is a great way to show the importance and urgency of health reform.”
No doubt the suggested neocon talk show hosts will respond in predictable left versus right fashion and call Obama’s proposed “mandate” socialism.
In fact, the only relevant argument against health care “reform” at gunpoint is that the debt creation plan is an egregious violation of the Constitution (under the Commerce clause) and the Tenth Amendment, specifically: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Once upon a time, this was accepted as a truism.
Thankfully, as of October 2009, five states have introduced legislation that would declare certain provisions of any proposed national health care bill to be null and void within the state under State Sovereignty Resolutions and Nullification Acts. On February 1, 2010, the Virginia Senate took a stand against a key provision of a proposed federal health care overhaul, passing legislation declaring that Virginia residents cannot be forced to buy health insurance.
More states need to follow suit before the Democrats finagle this monstrosity into law.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
U.S. Job Claims Rise to 496,000
Blame it on the weather.
The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance surged to just below the 500,000 level last week, and have climbed more than 12 percent over the past two weeks, according to government data.
There were 496,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Feb. 20, up 22,000 from a revised 474,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in its weekly report. Unemployment claims in Michigan decreased by 1,621.
"This is certainly not surprising given the very adverse weather conditions for the eastern half of the country, especially in the major population areas," said Robert Dye, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services. "Weather has a huge impact, particularly with things like construction, which remains very soft."
He expects employment to pick up in the next couple of months as private sector hiring continues and the government boosts its hiring of temporary census workers.
"I would expect that once we get into March and get beyond the weather-related effects, we'll see continued improvement in overall jobless claims," said Dye.
The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance surged to just below the 500,000 level last week, and have climbed more than 12 percent over the past two weeks, according to government data.
There were 496,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Feb. 20, up 22,000 from a revised 474,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in its weekly report. Unemployment claims in Michigan decreased by 1,621.
"This is certainly not surprising given the very adverse weather conditions for the eastern half of the country, especially in the major population areas," said Robert Dye, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services. "Weather has a huge impact, particularly with things like construction, which remains very soft."
He expects employment to pick up in the next couple of months as private sector hiring continues and the government boosts its hiring of temporary census workers.
"I would expect that once we get into March and get beyond the weather-related effects, we'll see continued improvement in overall jobless claims," said Dye.
Greenspan: Worst Financial Crisis Ever Including, The Great Depression
Greenspan just said that the current credit crunch is “by far the greatest financial crisis, globally, ever” — including the 1930s Great Depression.
Bloomberg notes:
Greenspan said that while the economy was in worse shape in the Great Depression, the recent financial crisis was potentially more harmful than that in the 1930s because “never had short-term credit literally withdrawn.”
Greenspan also said “fiscal affairs are threatening this outlook” for recovery.
As I pointed out last May:
The following experts have said that the economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression:
• Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
• Economics professors Barry Eichengreen and and Kevin H. O’Rourke (updated here)
• Investment advisor, risk expert and “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker
• Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
• Economics scholar and former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin
• Well-known PhD economist Marc Faber
• Former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead
• Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker
• Former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae Edward J. Pinto
• Billionaire investor George Sorors
• Senior British minister Ed Balls
Unfortunately, virtually everything the American government has done since the crisis started has been counterproductive. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
The same is true of most other governments.
In the understatement of the day, Greenspan also called the recovery “extremely unbalanced,” driven largely by high earners benefiting from recovering stock markets and large corporations.
Bloomberg notes:
Greenspan said that while the economy was in worse shape in the Great Depression, the recent financial crisis was potentially more harmful than that in the 1930s because “never had short-term credit literally withdrawn.”
Greenspan also said “fiscal affairs are threatening this outlook” for recovery.
As I pointed out last May:
The following experts have said that the economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression:
• Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
• Economics professors Barry Eichengreen and and Kevin H. O’Rourke (updated here)
• Investment advisor, risk expert and “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker
• Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
• Economics scholar and former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin
• Well-known PhD economist Marc Faber
• Former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead
• Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker
• Former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae Edward J. Pinto
• Billionaire investor George Sorors
• Senior British minister Ed Balls
Unfortunately, virtually everything the American government has done since the crisis started has been counterproductive. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
The same is true of most other governments.
In the understatement of the day, Greenspan also called the recovery “extremely unbalanced,” driven largely by high earners benefiting from recovering stock markets and large corporations.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Mass Layoffs By U.S. Manufactures Surge In January 2010
By definition, a mass layoff in the United States is those job cuts that involve 50 or more workers from the same company. Those types of events increased by 35 in January 2010 to 1,761, according to data released.
This is odd in that it has been asserted by government officials that we're on the edge of new jobs being created in the U.S. economy. That doesn't seem likely in the light of the real numbers and not just wishful thinking by politicians.
I believe the reason for the discrepancy is that companies were replenishing supplies, as I've mentioned before here, and those needs have probably been met in general, so as expected, the manufacturing jobs to produce them are no longer needed. At least that would be part of the reason for increase in mass layoffs.
The fact that there was an increase in mass layoffs shows there is a decline in demand for products; it's as simple as that. So that means in a number of industries people and companies are tightening up again.
My view and the data so far seem to confirm it, is there is nothing in the numbers that confirm we're on the verge of jobs being created in the United States any time soon.
In the manufacturing sector, there were 486 mass layoffs in January, with the consequences of 62,556 workers filing claims for unemployment.
I think one reason officials believed there was going to be an increase in jobs creation was because mass layoffs had been receding since August, giving the illusion that things had turned around. But, again, it's the replenishment which was the major factor in the mix, not a real and sustainable change in the economy.
Since the latter part of 2007, jobs in the United States have been lost to the tune of 8.4 million.
Over the last 26 months, the Labor Department says mass layoffs have been at a huge 53,739 during that period of time to January, with 5,425,101 workers losing their jobs as a result.
This is odd in that it has been asserted by government officials that we're on the edge of new jobs being created in the U.S. economy. That doesn't seem likely in the light of the real numbers and not just wishful thinking by politicians.
I believe the reason for the discrepancy is that companies were replenishing supplies, as I've mentioned before here, and those needs have probably been met in general, so as expected, the manufacturing jobs to produce them are no longer needed. At least that would be part of the reason for increase in mass layoffs.
The fact that there was an increase in mass layoffs shows there is a decline in demand for products; it's as simple as that. So that means in a number of industries people and companies are tightening up again.
My view and the data so far seem to confirm it, is there is nothing in the numbers that confirm we're on the verge of jobs being created in the United States any time soon.
In the manufacturing sector, there were 486 mass layoffs in January, with the consequences of 62,556 workers filing claims for unemployment.
I think one reason officials believed there was going to be an increase in jobs creation was because mass layoffs had been receding since August, giving the illusion that things had turned around. But, again, it's the replenishment which was the major factor in the mix, not a real and sustainable change in the economy.
Since the latter part of 2007, jobs in the United States have been lost to the tune of 8.4 million.
Over the last 26 months, the Labor Department says mass layoffs have been at a huge 53,739 during that period of time to January, with 5,425,101 workers losing their jobs as a result.
Ed Schultz Uses Cheney's Heart Condition To Pass Health Care Reform
MSNBC Host Ed Schultz Said Tuesday during his that Vice President Dick Cheney was the so-called poster boy for nationalized health care in America. Ed Schultz said, in a sarcastic way that he, wished the former Vice President had a speedy recovery becasue he is now the poster child for health Care in America said Ed Schultz to the Huffington Post's Sekoff. "I mean, five deferments and five heart attacks," Schultz continued. "That's a hell of a life, isn't it, Roy?" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):
ED SCHULTZ, HOST: Dick Cheney going to be released from a hospital in a day or two after suffering a minor heart attack. I wish the former Vice President a speedy recovery because he is now the poster child for healthcare in this country. Americans would love to have the same healthcare coverage that Dick Cheney has. Joining me now for all of that is Roy Sekoff, founding editor of the Huffington Post. I mean, five deferments and five heart attacks. That's a hell of a life, isn't it, Roy?
ROY SEKOFF, HUFFINGTON POST: You nailed it, Ed. He's now matched the deferments as he has with the heart attacks. But, as you say, you know, the average American, if Dick Cheney was Joe Schmoe, you know, he would have lost his insurance a long time ago. He would have lost his house, he would have lost his job, he would have lost his car, he would have lost his credit cards. You know, because we know that 50% of all bankruptcies are the result of a medical emergency like this. So, you can imagine. Could you imagine if Cheney if he was an average guy trying to get insurance? Can you imagine that call, Ed? "Yeah, I'm 69. I have had five heart attacks. I have had quadruple bypass, two angioplasties, and I've had a defibrillator stuck. Hello? Hello?" You know, not going to happen.
SCHULTZ: Roy, I think that the Democrats should use Dick Cheney as the example as to what the Republicans have been voting against all along. This is the kind of healthcare Americans could have if we went with President Obama's plan. Thanks to Newsbusters.com for transcripts.
ED SCHULTZ, HOST: Dick Cheney going to be released from a hospital in a day or two after suffering a minor heart attack. I wish the former Vice President a speedy recovery because he is now the poster child for healthcare in this country. Americans would love to have the same healthcare coverage that Dick Cheney has. Joining me now for all of that is Roy Sekoff, founding editor of the Huffington Post. I mean, five deferments and five heart attacks. That's a hell of a life, isn't it, Roy?
ROY SEKOFF, HUFFINGTON POST: You nailed it, Ed. He's now matched the deferments as he has with the heart attacks. But, as you say, you know, the average American, if Dick Cheney was Joe Schmoe, you know, he would have lost his insurance a long time ago. He would have lost his house, he would have lost his job, he would have lost his car, he would have lost his credit cards. You know, because we know that 50% of all bankruptcies are the result of a medical emergency like this. So, you can imagine. Could you imagine if Cheney if he was an average guy trying to get insurance? Can you imagine that call, Ed? "Yeah, I'm 69. I have had five heart attacks. I have had quadruple bypass, two angioplasties, and I've had a defibrillator stuck. Hello? Hello?" You know, not going to happen.
SCHULTZ: Roy, I think that the Democrats should use Dick Cheney as the example as to what the Republicans have been voting against all along. This is the kind of healthcare Americans could have if we went with President Obama's plan. Thanks to Newsbusters.com for transcripts.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Underemployment Near 20% In U.S.
Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. workforce lacked adequate employment in January and struggled to make ends meet with reduced resources and bleak job prospects, according to a Gallup poll released on Tuesday.
In findings that appear to paint a darker employment picture than official U.S. data, Gallup estimated that about 30 million Americans are underemployed, meaning either jobless or able to find only part-time work.
Underemployed people spent 36 percent less on household purchases than their fully employed neighbors in January, while six out of 10 were not hopeful about their chances of finding adequate work in the coming month, the poll said.
Gallup surveyed more than 20,000 U.S. adults from January 2 to 31. The results have a 1 percentage point margin of error.
The poll comes at a time when voter anger over the slow economic recovery is running high and President Barack Obama's hopes of boosting employment through government programs have been frustrated by partisan rancor in Congress.
The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent in January but remains near record highs.
Gallup found that underemployed Americans were more likely to have a favorable view of Obama, with 55 percent approving of his performance as president against 49 percent of the public.
The poll's estimate of U.S. underemployment is higher than official statistics. The Labor Department says 16.5 percent of American workers were without employment or worked part-time for economic reasons in January against Gallup's 19.9 percent.
A Labor Department official said the government rate may be lower because it factors out temporary seasonal changes in employment to better reflect the underlying economy.
In findings that appear to paint a darker employment picture than official U.S. data, Gallup estimated that about 30 million Americans are underemployed, meaning either jobless or able to find only part-time work.
Underemployed people spent 36 percent less on household purchases than their fully employed neighbors in January, while six out of 10 were not hopeful about their chances of finding adequate work in the coming month, the poll said.
Gallup surveyed more than 20,000 U.S. adults from January 2 to 31. The results have a 1 percentage point margin of error.
The poll comes at a time when voter anger over the slow economic recovery is running high and President Barack Obama's hopes of boosting employment through government programs have been frustrated by partisan rancor in Congress.
The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent in January but remains near record highs.
Gallup found that underemployed Americans were more likely to have a favorable view of Obama, with 55 percent approving of his performance as president against 49 percent of the public.
The poll's estimate of U.S. underemployment is higher than official statistics. The Labor Department says 16.5 percent of American workers were without employment or worked part-time for economic reasons in January against Gallup's 19.9 percent.
A Labor Department official said the government rate may be lower because it factors out temporary seasonal changes in employment to better reflect the underlying economy.
White House Health Care Summit is A Excuse to Pass Health Care Via Reconciliation Bill
The game of chicken commenceth — right now.
In the course of unveiling Obama’s new health reform proposal on a conference call with reporters this morning, White House advisers made it clearer than ever before: If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.
The assertion, which is likely to spark an angry response from GOP leaders, ups the stakes in advance of the summit by essentially daring Republicans to try to block reform.
“The President expects and believes the American people deserve an up or down vote on health reform,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said on the call.
Pfeiffer said no decision had been made how to proceed, pending the outcome of the summit. But he added that Obama’s proposal is designed to have “maximum flexibility to ensure that we can get an up or down vote if the opposition decides to take the extraordinary step of filibustering health reform.”
Translation: If the GOP doesn’t cooperate with us in any meaningful sense, we’re moving forward on our own.
Also on the call, White House advisers detailed Obama’s new proposal, which was just posted on the White House web site, and discussed the ways it seeks a compromise between the Senate and House proposals. Among the details:
* As expected, the plan has no public option — but this does not preclude a reconciliation vote on the public option later.
* The proposal boosts the threshold for the “Cadillac” tax on the most expensive health plans from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500. That’s actually a better deal than some labor officials were expecting, though some House Dems will still be angry that the tax is being included at all.
* The proposal also preserves the Senate bill’s state-based exchanges, and does not have a national exchange, as the House bill did.
* However, House Dems will be cheered by the fact that Obama’s compromise closes the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap.
* Also, the bill nixes Ben Nelson’s Nebraska deal and boosts Federal financing for Medicaid expansion in all states.
* And finally, as expected, Obama’s proposal creates a Federal panel to monitor and block exorbitant rate hikes and other unfair practices by the insurance industry.
One final note: On the call, Pfeiffer was careful to note that the proposal is not the product of an agreement between the House and Senate, but rather is “the President’s bill.” This is meant to preclude GOP efforts to cast the proposal as the product of a backroom deal. The lines are drawn.
In the course of unveiling Obama’s new health reform proposal on a conference call with reporters this morning, White House advisers made it clearer than ever before: If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.
The assertion, which is likely to spark an angry response from GOP leaders, ups the stakes in advance of the summit by essentially daring Republicans to try to block reform.
“The President expects and believes the American people deserve an up or down vote on health reform,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said on the call.
Pfeiffer said no decision had been made how to proceed, pending the outcome of the summit. But he added that Obama’s proposal is designed to have “maximum flexibility to ensure that we can get an up or down vote if the opposition decides to take the extraordinary step of filibustering health reform.”
Translation: If the GOP doesn’t cooperate with us in any meaningful sense, we’re moving forward on our own.
Also on the call, White House advisers detailed Obama’s new proposal, which was just posted on the White House web site, and discussed the ways it seeks a compromise between the Senate and House proposals. Among the details:
* As expected, the plan has no public option — but this does not preclude a reconciliation vote on the public option later.
* The proposal boosts the threshold for the “Cadillac” tax on the most expensive health plans from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500. That’s actually a better deal than some labor officials were expecting, though some House Dems will still be angry that the tax is being included at all.
* The proposal also preserves the Senate bill’s state-based exchanges, and does not have a national exchange, as the House bill did.
* However, House Dems will be cheered by the fact that Obama’s compromise closes the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap.
* Also, the bill nixes Ben Nelson’s Nebraska deal and boosts Federal financing for Medicaid expansion in all states.
* And finally, as expected, Obama’s proposal creates a Federal panel to monitor and block exorbitant rate hikes and other unfair practices by the insurance industry.
One final note: On the call, Pfeiffer was careful to note that the proposal is not the product of an agreement between the House and Senate, but rather is “the President’s bill.” This is meant to preclude GOP efforts to cast the proposal as the product of a backroom deal. The lines are drawn.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Only 21% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed
Rassmussen-The founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, states that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Today, however, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% disagree and say the government does not have the necessary consent. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters are not sure.
However, 63% of the Political Class think the government has the consent of the governed, but only six percent (6%) of those with Mainstream views agree.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters now view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.
That helps explain why 75% of voters are angry at the policies of the federal government, and 63% say it would be better for the country if most members of Congress are defeated this November. Just 27% believe their own representative in Congress is the best person for the job.
Among voters under 40, 25% believe government has the consent of the governed. That compares to 19% of those ages 50 to 64 and 16% of the nation’s senior citizens.
Those who earn more than $100,000 a year are more narrowly divided on the question, but those with lower incomes overwhelming reject the notion that today’s government has the consent from which to derive its just authority. Those with the lowest incomes are the most skeptical.
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans say the government does not have the consent of the governed, and that view is shared by 65% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties. A plurality of Democrats (44%) agrees, but 32% of those in President Obama’s party believe the government has the necessary consent.
From an ideological perspective, most moderate and conservative voters say the government lacks the consent of the governed. Liberals are evenly divided.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% disagree and say the government does not have the necessary consent. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters are not sure.
However, 63% of the Political Class think the government has the consent of the governed, but only six percent (6%) of those with Mainstream views agree.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters now view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.
That helps explain why 75% of voters are angry at the policies of the federal government, and 63% say it would be better for the country if most members of Congress are defeated this November. Just 27% believe their own representative in Congress is the best person for the job.
Among voters under 40, 25% believe government has the consent of the governed. That compares to 19% of those ages 50 to 64 and 16% of the nation’s senior citizens.
Those who earn more than $100,000 a year are more narrowly divided on the question, but those with lower incomes overwhelming reject the notion that today’s government has the consent from which to derive its just authority. Those with the lowest incomes are the most skeptical.
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans say the government does not have the consent of the governed, and that view is shared by 65% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties. A plurality of Democrats (44%) agrees, but 32% of those in President Obama’s party believe the government has the necessary consent.
From an ideological perspective, most moderate and conservative voters say the government lacks the consent of the governed. Liberals are evenly divided.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Millions Of Unemployed Americans Face Years Without Any Jobs
Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.
Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.
Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.
Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.
Here in Southern California, Jean Eisen has been without work since she lost her job selling beauty salon equipment more than two years ago. In the several months she has endured with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check, she has relied on local food banks for her groceries.
She has learned to live without the prescription medications she is supposed to take for high blood pressure and cholesterol. She has become effusively religious — an unexpected turn for this onetime standup comic with X-rated material — finding in Christianity her only form of health insurance.
“I pray for healing,” says Ms. Eisen, 57. “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got to go with what you know.”
Warm, outgoing and prone to the positive, Ms. Eisen has worked much of her life. Now, she is one of 6.3 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer, the largest number since the government began keeping track in 1948. That is more than double the toll in the next-worst period, in the early 1980s.
Men have suffered the largest numbers of job losses in this recession. But Ms. Eisen has the unfortunate distinction of being among a group — women from 45 to 64 years of age — whose long-term unemployment rate has grown rapidly.
In 1983, after a deep recession, women in that range made up only 7 percent of those who had been out of work for six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. Last year, they made up 14 percent.
Twice, Ms. Eisen exhausted her unemployment benefits before her check was restored by a federal extension. Last week, her check ran out again. She and her husband now settle their bills with only his $1,595 monthly disability check. The rent on their apartment is $1,380.
“We’re looking at the very real possibility of being homeless,” she said.
Every downturn pushes some people out of the middle class before the economy resumes expanding. Most recover. Many prosper. But some economists worry that this time could be different. An unusual constellation of forces — some embedded in the modern-day economy, others unique to this wrenching recession — might make it especially difficult for those out of work to find their way back to their middle-class lives.
Labor experts say the economy needs 100,000 new jobs a month just to absorb entrants to the labor force. With more than 15 million people officially jobless, even a vigorous recovery is likely to leave an enormous number out of work for years.
Some labor experts note that severe economic downturns are generally followed by powerful expansions, suggesting that aggressive hiring will soon resume. But doubts remain about whether such hiring can last long enough to absorb anywhere close to the millions of unemployed.
A new scarcity of jobs
Some labor experts say the basic functioning of the American economy has changed in ways that make jobs scarce — particularly for older, less-educated people like Ms. Eisen, who has only a high school diploma.
Large companies are increasingly owned by institutional investors who crave swift profits, a feat often achieved by cutting payroll. The declining influence of unions has made it easier for employers to shift work to part-time and temporary employees. Factory work and even white-collar jobs have moved in recent years to low-cost countries in Asia and Latin America. Automation has helped manufacturing cut 5.6 million jobs since 2000 — the sort of jobs that once provided lower-skilled workers with middle-class paychecks.
“American business is about maximizing shareholder value,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics. “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.”
During periods of American economic expansion in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the number of private-sector jobs increased about 3.5 percent a year, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a research firm. During expansions in the 1980s and ’90s, jobs grew just 2.4 percent annually. And during the last decade, job growth fell to 0.9 percent annually.
“The pace of job growth has been getting weaker in each expansion,” Mr. Achuthan said. “There is no indication that this pattern is about to change.”
Before 1990, it took an average of 21 months for the economy to regain the jobs shed during a recession, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by the National Employment Law Project and the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented research group in Washington.
After the recessions in 1990 and in 2001, 31 and 46 months passed before employment returned to its previous peaks. The economy was growing, but companies remained conservative in their hiring.
Some 34 million people were hired into new and existing private-sector jobs in 2000, at the tail end of an expansion, according to Labor Department data. A year later, in the midst of recession, hiring had fallen off to 31.6 million. And as late as 2003, with the economy again growing, hiring in the private sector continued to slip, to 29.8 million.
It was a jobless recovery: Business was picking up, but it simply did not translate into more work. This time, hiring may be especially subdued, labor economists say.
Traditionally, three sectors have led the way out of recession: automobiles, home building and banking. But auto companies have been shrinking because strapped households have less buying power. Home building is limited by fears about a glut of foreclosed properties. Banking is expanding, but this seems largely a function of government support that is being withdrawn.
At the same time, the continued bite of the financial crisis has crimped the flow of money to small businesses and new ventures, which tend to be major sources of new jobs.
All of which helps explain why Ms. Eisen — who has never before struggled to find work — feels a familiar pain each time she scans job listings on her computer: There are positions in health care, most requiring experience she lacks. Office jobs demand familiarity with software she has never used. Jobs at fast food restaurants are mostly secured by young people and immigrants.
If, as Mr. Sinai expects, the economy again expands without adding many jobs, millions of people like Ms. Eisen will be dependent on an unemployment insurance already being severely tested.
“The system was ill prepared for the reality of long-term unemployment,” said Maurice Emsellem, a policy director for the National Employment Law Project. “Now, you add a severe recession, and you have created a crisis of historic proportions.”
Fewer protections
Some poverty experts say the broader social safety net is not up to cushioning the impact of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Social services are less extensive than during the last period of double-digit unemployment, in the early 1980s.
On average, only two-thirds of unemployed people received state-provided unemployment checks last year, according to the Labor Department. The rest either exhausted their benefits, fell short of requirements or did not apply.
“You have very large sets of people who have no social protections,” said Randy Albelda, an economist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “They are landing in this netherworld.”
When Ms. Eisen and her husband, Jeff, applied for food stamps, they were turned away for having too much monthly income. The cutoff was $1,570 a month — $25 less than her husband’s disability check.
Reforms in the mid-1990s imposed time limits on cash assistance for poor single mothers, a change predicated on the assumption that women would trade welfare checks for paychecks.
Yet as jobs have become harder to get, so has welfare: as of 2006, 44 states cut off anyone with a household income totaling 75 percent of the poverty level — then limited to $1,383 a month for a family of three — according to an analysis by Ms. Albel.
“We have a work-based safety net without any work,” said Timothy M. Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “People with more education and skills will probably figure something out once the economy picks up. It’s the ones with less education and skills: that’s the new poor.”
Here in Orange County, the expanse of suburbia stretching south from Los Angeles, long-term unemployment reaches even those who once had six-figure salaries. A center of the national mortgage industry, the area prospered in the real estate boom and suffered with the bust.
Until she was laid off two years ago, Janine Booth, 41, brought home roughly $10,000 a month in commissions from her job selling electronics to retailers. A single mother of three, she has been living lately on $2,000 a month in child support and about $450 a week in unemployment insurance — a stream of checks that ran out last week.
For Ms. Booth, work has been a constant since her teenage years, when she cleaned houses under pressure from her mother to earn pocket money. Today, Ms. Booth pays her $1,500 monthly mortgage with help from her mother, who is herself living off savings after being laid off.
“I don’t want to take money from her,” Ms. Booth said. “I jMs. Booth, with a résumé full of well-paid sales jobs, seems the sort of person who would have little difficulty getting work. Yet two years of looking have yielded little but anxiety.
She sends out dozens of résumés a week and rarely hears back. She responds to online ads, only to learn they are seeking operators for telephone sex lines or people willing to send mysterious packages from their homes.
She spends weekdays in a classroom in Anaheim, in a state-financed training program that is supposed to land her a job in medical administration. Even if she does find a job, she will be lucky if it pays $15 an hour.
“What is going to happen?” she asked plaintively. “I worry about my kids. I just don’t want them to think I’m a failure.”
On a recent weekend, she was running errands with her 18-year-old son when they stopped at an A.T.M. and he saw her checking account balance: $50.
“He says, ‘Is that all you have?’ ” she recalled. “ ‘Are we going to be O.K.?’ ”
Yes, she replied — and not only for his benefit.
“I have to keep telling myself it’s going to be O.K.,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d go into a deep depression.”
Last week, she made up fliers advertising her eagerness to clean houses — the same activity that provided her with spending money in high school, and now the only way she sees fit to provide for her kids. She plans to place the fliers on porches in some other neighborhood.
“I don’t want to clean my neighbors’ houses,” she said. “I know I’m going to come out of this. There’s no way I’m going to be homeless and poverty-stricken. But I am scared. I have a lot of sleepless nights.”
For the Eisens, poverty is already here. In the two years Ms. Eisen has been without work, they have exhausted their savings of about $24,000. Their credit card balances have grown to $15,000.
“I don’t know how we’re still indoors,” she said.
Her 1994 Dodge Caravan broke down in January, leaving her to ask for rides to an employment center.
She does not have the money to move to a cheaper apartment.
“You have to have money for first and last month’s rent, and to open utility accounts,” she said.
What she has is personality and presence — two traits that used to seem enough. She narrates her life in a stream of self-deprecating wisecracks, her punch lines tinged with desperation.
“See that,” she said, spotting a man dressed as the Statue of Liberty. Standing on a sidewalk, he waved at passing cars with a sign advertising a tax preparation business. “That will be me next week. Do you think this guy ever thought he’d be doing this?”
And yet, she would gladly do this. She would do nearly anything.
“There are no bad jobs now,” she says. “Any job is a good job.”
Two incomes, then none
Ms. Eisen grew up poor, in Flatbush in Brooklyn. Her father was in maintenance. Her mother worked part time at a company that made window blinds.
She married Jeff when she was 19, and they soon moved to California, where he had grown up. He worked in sales for a chemical company. They rented an apartment in Buena Park, a growing spread of houses filling out former orange groves. She stayed home and took care of their daughter.
“I never asked him how much he earned,” Ms. Eisen said. “I was of the mentality that the husband took care of everything. But we never wanted.”
By the early 1980s, gas and rent strained their finances. So she took a job as a quality assurance clerk at a factory that made aircraft parts. It paid $13.50 an hour and had health insurance.
When the company moved to Mexico in the early 1990s, Ms. Eisen quickly found a job at a travel agency. When online booking killed that business, she got the job at the beauty salon equipment company. It paid $13.25 an hour, with an annual bonus — enough for presents under the Christmas tree.
But six years ago, her husband took a fall at work and then succumbed to various ailments — diabetes, liver disease, high blood pressure — leaving him confined to the couch. Not until 2008 did he secure his disability check.
And now they find themselves in this desert of joblessness, her paycheck replaced by a $702 unemployment check every other week. She received 14 weeks of benefits after she lost her job, and then a seven-week extension.
For most of October through December 2008, she received nothing, as she waited for another extension. The checks came again, then ran out in September 2009. They were restored by an extension right before Christmas.
Their daughter has back problems and is living on disability checks, making the church their ultimate safety net.
“I never thought I’d be in the position where I had to go to a food bank,” Ms. Eisen said. But there she is, standing in the parking lot of the Calvary Chapel church, chatting with a half-dozen women, all waiting to enter the Bread of Life Food Pantry.
When her name is called, she steps into a windowless alcove, where a smiling woman hands her three bags of groceries: carrots, potatoes, bread, cheese and a hunk of frozen meat.
“Haven’t we got a lot to be thankful for?” Ms. Eisen asks.
For one thing, no pinto beans.
“I’ve got 10 bags of pinto beans,” she says. “And I have no clue how to cook a pinto bean.”
Local job listings are just as mysterious. On a bulletin board at the county-financed ProPath Business and Career Services Center, many are written in jargon hinting of accounting or computers.
“Nothing I’m qualified for,” Ms. Eisen says. “When you can’t define what it is, that’s a pretty good indication.”
Her counselor has a couple of possibilities — a cashier at a supermarket and a night desk job at a motel.
“I’ll e-mail them,” Ms. Eisen promises. “I’ll tell them what a shining example of humanity I am.”
This article first appeared as Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs in The New York Times.
She has applied everywhere she can think of — at offices, at gas stations. Nothing.
“I’m being seen as a person who is no longer viable,” she said. “I’m chalking it up to my age and my weight. Blame it on your most prominent insecurity.” Two incomes, then noneust want to find a job.”
Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.
Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.
Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.
Here in Southern California, Jean Eisen has been without work since she lost her job selling beauty salon equipment more than two years ago. In the several months she has endured with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check, she has relied on local food banks for her groceries.
She has learned to live without the prescription medications she is supposed to take for high blood pressure and cholesterol. She has become effusively religious — an unexpected turn for this onetime standup comic with X-rated material — finding in Christianity her only form of health insurance.
“I pray for healing,” says Ms. Eisen, 57. “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got to go with what you know.”
Warm, outgoing and prone to the positive, Ms. Eisen has worked much of her life. Now, she is one of 6.3 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer, the largest number since the government began keeping track in 1948. That is more than double the toll in the next-worst period, in the early 1980s.
Men have suffered the largest numbers of job losses in this recession. But Ms. Eisen has the unfortunate distinction of being among a group — women from 45 to 64 years of age — whose long-term unemployment rate has grown rapidly.
In 1983, after a deep recession, women in that range made up only 7 percent of those who had been out of work for six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. Last year, they made up 14 percent.
Twice, Ms. Eisen exhausted her unemployment benefits before her check was restored by a federal extension. Last week, her check ran out again. She and her husband now settle their bills with only his $1,595 monthly disability check. The rent on their apartment is $1,380.
“We’re looking at the very real possibility of being homeless,” she said.
Every downturn pushes some people out of the middle class before the economy resumes expanding. Most recover. Many prosper. But some economists worry that this time could be different. An unusual constellation of forces — some embedded in the modern-day economy, others unique to this wrenching recession — might make it especially difficult for those out of work to find their way back to their middle-class lives.
Labor experts say the economy needs 100,000 new jobs a month just to absorb entrants to the labor force. With more than 15 million people officially jobless, even a vigorous recovery is likely to leave an enormous number out of work for years.
Some labor experts note that severe economic downturns are generally followed by powerful expansions, suggesting that aggressive hiring will soon resume. But doubts remain about whether such hiring can last long enough to absorb anywhere close to the millions of unemployed.
A new scarcity of jobs
Some labor experts say the basic functioning of the American economy has changed in ways that make jobs scarce — particularly for older, less-educated people like Ms. Eisen, who has only a high school diploma.
Large companies are increasingly owned by institutional investors who crave swift profits, a feat often achieved by cutting payroll. The declining influence of unions has made it easier for employers to shift work to part-time and temporary employees. Factory work and even white-collar jobs have moved in recent years to low-cost countries in Asia and Latin America. Automation has helped manufacturing cut 5.6 million jobs since 2000 — the sort of jobs that once provided lower-skilled workers with middle-class paychecks.
“American business is about maximizing shareholder value,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics. “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.”
During periods of American economic expansion in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the number of private-sector jobs increased about 3.5 percent a year, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a research firm. During expansions in the 1980s and ’90s, jobs grew just 2.4 percent annually. And during the last decade, job growth fell to 0.9 percent annually.
“The pace of job growth has been getting weaker in each expansion,” Mr. Achuthan said. “There is no indication that this pattern is about to change.”
Before 1990, it took an average of 21 months for the economy to regain the jobs shed during a recession, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by the National Employment Law Project and the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented research group in Washington.
After the recessions in 1990 and in 2001, 31 and 46 months passed before employment returned to its previous peaks. The economy was growing, but companies remained conservative in their hiring.
Some 34 million people were hired into new and existing private-sector jobs in 2000, at the tail end of an expansion, according to Labor Department data. A year later, in the midst of recession, hiring had fallen off to 31.6 million. And as late as 2003, with the economy again growing, hiring in the private sector continued to slip, to 29.8 million.
It was a jobless recovery: Business was picking up, but it simply did not translate into more work. This time, hiring may be especially subdued, labor economists say.
Traditionally, three sectors have led the way out of recession: automobiles, home building and banking. But auto companies have been shrinking because strapped households have less buying power. Home building is limited by fears about a glut of foreclosed properties. Banking is expanding, but this seems largely a function of government support that is being withdrawn.
At the same time, the continued bite of the financial crisis has crimped the flow of money to small businesses and new ventures, which tend to be major sources of new jobs.
All of which helps explain why Ms. Eisen — who has never before struggled to find work — feels a familiar pain each time she scans job listings on her computer: There are positions in health care, most requiring experience she lacks. Office jobs demand familiarity with software she has never used. Jobs at fast food restaurants are mostly secured by young people and immigrants.
If, as Mr. Sinai expects, the economy again expands without adding many jobs, millions of people like Ms. Eisen will be dependent on an unemployment insurance already being severely tested.
“The system was ill prepared for the reality of long-term unemployment,” said Maurice Emsellem, a policy director for the National Employment Law Project. “Now, you add a severe recession, and you have created a crisis of historic proportions.”
Fewer protections
Some poverty experts say the broader social safety net is not up to cushioning the impact of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Social services are less extensive than during the last period of double-digit unemployment, in the early 1980s.
On average, only two-thirds of unemployed people received state-provided unemployment checks last year, according to the Labor Department. The rest either exhausted their benefits, fell short of requirements or did not apply.
“You have very large sets of people who have no social protections,” said Randy Albelda, an economist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “They are landing in this netherworld.”
When Ms. Eisen and her husband, Jeff, applied for food stamps, they were turned away for having too much monthly income. The cutoff was $1,570 a month — $25 less than her husband’s disability check.
Reforms in the mid-1990s imposed time limits on cash assistance for poor single mothers, a change predicated on the assumption that women would trade welfare checks for paychecks.
Yet as jobs have become harder to get, so has welfare: as of 2006, 44 states cut off anyone with a household income totaling 75 percent of the poverty level — then limited to $1,383 a month for a family of three — according to an analysis by Ms. Albel.
“We have a work-based safety net without any work,” said Timothy M. Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “People with more education and skills will probably figure something out once the economy picks up. It’s the ones with less education and skills: that’s the new poor.”
Here in Orange County, the expanse of suburbia stretching south from Los Angeles, long-term unemployment reaches even those who once had six-figure salaries. A center of the national mortgage industry, the area prospered in the real estate boom and suffered with the bust.
Until she was laid off two years ago, Janine Booth, 41, brought home roughly $10,000 a month in commissions from her job selling electronics to retailers. A single mother of three, she has been living lately on $2,000 a month in child support and about $450 a week in unemployment insurance — a stream of checks that ran out last week.
For Ms. Booth, work has been a constant since her teenage years, when she cleaned houses under pressure from her mother to earn pocket money. Today, Ms. Booth pays her $1,500 monthly mortgage with help from her mother, who is herself living off savings after being laid off.
“I don’t want to take money from her,” Ms. Booth said. “I jMs. Booth, with a résumé full of well-paid sales jobs, seems the sort of person who would have little difficulty getting work. Yet two years of looking have yielded little but anxiety.
She sends out dozens of résumés a week and rarely hears back. She responds to online ads, only to learn they are seeking operators for telephone sex lines or people willing to send mysterious packages from their homes.
She spends weekdays in a classroom in Anaheim, in a state-financed training program that is supposed to land her a job in medical administration. Even if she does find a job, she will be lucky if it pays $15 an hour.
“What is going to happen?” she asked plaintively. “I worry about my kids. I just don’t want them to think I’m a failure.”
On a recent weekend, she was running errands with her 18-year-old son when they stopped at an A.T.M. and he saw her checking account balance: $50.
“He says, ‘Is that all you have?’ ” she recalled. “ ‘Are we going to be O.K.?’ ”
Yes, she replied — and not only for his benefit.
“I have to keep telling myself it’s going to be O.K.,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d go into a deep depression.”
Last week, she made up fliers advertising her eagerness to clean houses — the same activity that provided her with spending money in high school, and now the only way she sees fit to provide for her kids. She plans to place the fliers on porches in some other neighborhood.
“I don’t want to clean my neighbors’ houses,” she said. “I know I’m going to come out of this. There’s no way I’m going to be homeless and poverty-stricken. But I am scared. I have a lot of sleepless nights.”
For the Eisens, poverty is already here. In the two years Ms. Eisen has been without work, they have exhausted their savings of about $24,000. Their credit card balances have grown to $15,000.
“I don’t know how we’re still indoors,” she said.
Her 1994 Dodge Caravan broke down in January, leaving her to ask for rides to an employment center.
She does not have the money to move to a cheaper apartment.
“You have to have money for first and last month’s rent, and to open utility accounts,” she said.
What she has is personality and presence — two traits that used to seem enough. She narrates her life in a stream of self-deprecating wisecracks, her punch lines tinged with desperation.
“See that,” she said, spotting a man dressed as the Statue of Liberty. Standing on a sidewalk, he waved at passing cars with a sign advertising a tax preparation business. “That will be me next week. Do you think this guy ever thought he’d be doing this?”
And yet, she would gladly do this. She would do nearly anything.
“There are no bad jobs now,” she says. “Any job is a good job.”
Two incomes, then none
Ms. Eisen grew up poor, in Flatbush in Brooklyn. Her father was in maintenance. Her mother worked part time at a company that made window blinds.
She married Jeff when she was 19, and they soon moved to California, where he had grown up. He worked in sales for a chemical company. They rented an apartment in Buena Park, a growing spread of houses filling out former orange groves. She stayed home and took care of their daughter.
“I never asked him how much he earned,” Ms. Eisen said. “I was of the mentality that the husband took care of everything. But we never wanted.”
By the early 1980s, gas and rent strained their finances. So she took a job as a quality assurance clerk at a factory that made aircraft parts. It paid $13.50 an hour and had health insurance.
When the company moved to Mexico in the early 1990s, Ms. Eisen quickly found a job at a travel agency. When online booking killed that business, she got the job at the beauty salon equipment company. It paid $13.25 an hour, with an annual bonus — enough for presents under the Christmas tree.
But six years ago, her husband took a fall at work and then succumbed to various ailments — diabetes, liver disease, high blood pressure — leaving him confined to the couch. Not until 2008 did he secure his disability check.
And now they find themselves in this desert of joblessness, her paycheck replaced by a $702 unemployment check every other week. She received 14 weeks of benefits after she lost her job, and then a seven-week extension.
For most of October through December 2008, she received nothing, as she waited for another extension. The checks came again, then ran out in September 2009. They were restored by an extension right before Christmas.
Their daughter has back problems and is living on disability checks, making the church their ultimate safety net.
“I never thought I’d be in the position where I had to go to a food bank,” Ms. Eisen said. But there she is, standing in the parking lot of the Calvary Chapel church, chatting with a half-dozen women, all waiting to enter the Bread of Life Food Pantry.
When her name is called, she steps into a windowless alcove, where a smiling woman hands her three bags of groceries: carrots, potatoes, bread, cheese and a hunk of frozen meat.
“Haven’t we got a lot to be thankful for?” Ms. Eisen asks.
For one thing, no pinto beans.
“I’ve got 10 bags of pinto beans,” she says. “And I have no clue how to cook a pinto bean.”
Local job listings are just as mysterious. On a bulletin board at the county-financed ProPath Business and Career Services Center, many are written in jargon hinting of accounting or computers.
“Nothing I’m qualified for,” Ms. Eisen says. “When you can’t define what it is, that’s a pretty good indication.”
Her counselor has a couple of possibilities — a cashier at a supermarket and a night desk job at a motel.
“I’ll e-mail them,” Ms. Eisen promises. “I’ll tell them what a shining example of humanity I am.”
This article first appeared as Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs in The New York Times.
She has applied everywhere she can think of — at offices, at gas stations. Nothing.
“I’m being seen as a person who is no longer viable,” she said. “I’m chalking it up to my age and my weight. Blame it on your most prominent insecurity.” Two incomes, then noneust want to find a job.”
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Census Will Create 635,000 Government Jobs
Temporary help is on the way for the country's battered job market, thanks to the upcoming U.S. Census.
Job searchers interview with personnel from the 2010 Census during a career fair at the Convention...
Job searchers interview with personnel from the 2010 Census during a career fair at the Convention Center San Diego, Calif. , Feb. 5, 2010. According to a new study released today by the Commerce Department, the government effort will add up to 635,000 temporary new jobs in May to the nation's employment reports.
(Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)According to a new study released today by the Commerce Department, which includes the Census Bureau the survey will add up to 635,000 temporary jobs by May to the nation's employment reports.
The study also predicts that Census Bureau hiring will cause the country's unemployment rate to drop by several-tenths of a percentage point this spring. Census spending, the report also forecasts, will boost the nation's gross domestic product by 1/10 of a percentage point during the first quarter of this year and by 2/10 of a percentage point during the second quarter.
Related
Obama Touts Housing Success, GOP BalksWill Good News Temper Bailout Outrage?Empty Office Buildings Threaten Economy"The Census has a very positive effect on the economy," Rebecca Blank, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Commerce Department, said in an interview with ABC News. "And the hope, of course, is that this is going to be hitting just as the prime economic growth and employment are picking up, so that it will help that acceleration."
In all, the Census Bureau is hiring about 1.2 million temporary workers this year, with 800,000 of those people coming onboard in April and May. Due to the short-term nature of these jobs, not all of them will show up in the Labor Department's employment reports, but the $14.7 billion once-a-decade project is still poised to provide a big boost – albeit temporarily – to a nation currently grappling with a 9.7 unemployment rate.
"With the unemployment rate expected to be well above those witnessed during the previous Census," the report says, "the effect of large changes in temporary 2010 Census employment on the unemployment rate may be more noticeable in 2010."
However some analysts are preaching caution.
"With the government set to create some one million temp jobs to conduct the 2010 Census in the next few months, it's hard to see how job growth won't resume soon," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, noted recently. "Yet there are reasons to be nervous that job growth won't revive in earnest or may even peter out after Census temp jobs fade this summer."
"A lack of credit, particularly among small businesses, and a loss of confidence across all businesses threaten to short-circuit the job machine," Zandi stated. "The lack of credit is evident in the collapse in credit-card lending, commercial and industrial loans outstanding, and surveys of small businesses and bank lenders. Large businesses can tap the commercial bond market, where issuance is about as strong as it has ever been, but many small businesses can't obtain loans while their community banks remain under severe capital constraints and tight regulatory oversight."
Related
'Outrageous'? AIG Aims for $100M Bonuses AIG to Dish Out $100 Million in Bonuses Geithner Defends Small Business Proposal to Skeptical DemsEarlier this week a government watchdog found that the Census Bureau had squandered around $5.6 million dollars in the build-up to this spring's nationwide count by paying over 15,000 employees who never worked even a full day for the government.
When the Bureau sent out over 140,000 workers last fall to update mailing lists and maps, 10,235 of them did not work at all but earned about $3.4 million for attending training and another 5,028 employees raked in $2.2 million but worked less than a single day, according to the Commerce Department's inspector general Todd Zinser in a report released Tuesday.
A Census Bureau spokesperson responded that "recruits showed up for training at rates much higher than experienced in the 2000 census and fewer quit work after the first few days on the job." The spokesperson said the Bureau has since made changes to procedures and controls to better manage census-taker training, staffing needs, and travel expenses.
Job searchers interview with personnel from the 2010 Census during a career fair at the Convention...
Job searchers interview with personnel from the 2010 Census during a career fair at the Convention Center San Diego, Calif. , Feb. 5, 2010. According to a new study released today by the Commerce Department, the government effort will add up to 635,000 temporary new jobs in May to the nation's employment reports.
(Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)According to a new study released today by the Commerce Department, which includes the Census Bureau the survey will add up to 635,000 temporary jobs by May to the nation's employment reports.
The study also predicts that Census Bureau hiring will cause the country's unemployment rate to drop by several-tenths of a percentage point this spring. Census spending, the report also forecasts, will boost the nation's gross domestic product by 1/10 of a percentage point during the first quarter of this year and by 2/10 of a percentage point during the second quarter.
Related
Obama Touts Housing Success, GOP BalksWill Good News Temper Bailout Outrage?Empty Office Buildings Threaten Economy"The Census has a very positive effect on the economy," Rebecca Blank, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Commerce Department, said in an interview with ABC News. "And the hope, of course, is that this is going to be hitting just as the prime economic growth and employment are picking up, so that it will help that acceleration."
In all, the Census Bureau is hiring about 1.2 million temporary workers this year, with 800,000 of those people coming onboard in April and May. Due to the short-term nature of these jobs, not all of them will show up in the Labor Department's employment reports, but the $14.7 billion once-a-decade project is still poised to provide a big boost – albeit temporarily – to a nation currently grappling with a 9.7 unemployment rate.
"With the unemployment rate expected to be well above those witnessed during the previous Census," the report says, "the effect of large changes in temporary 2010 Census employment on the unemployment rate may be more noticeable in 2010."
However some analysts are preaching caution.
"With the government set to create some one million temp jobs to conduct the 2010 Census in the next few months, it's hard to see how job growth won't resume soon," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, noted recently. "Yet there are reasons to be nervous that job growth won't revive in earnest or may even peter out after Census temp jobs fade this summer."
"A lack of credit, particularly among small businesses, and a loss of confidence across all businesses threaten to short-circuit the job machine," Zandi stated. "The lack of credit is evident in the collapse in credit-card lending, commercial and industrial loans outstanding, and surveys of small businesses and bank lenders. Large businesses can tap the commercial bond market, where issuance is about as strong as it has ever been, but many small businesses can't obtain loans while their community banks remain under severe capital constraints and tight regulatory oversight."
Related
'Outrageous'? AIG Aims for $100M Bonuses AIG to Dish Out $100 Million in Bonuses Geithner Defends Small Business Proposal to Skeptical DemsEarlier this week a government watchdog found that the Census Bureau had squandered around $5.6 million dollars in the build-up to this spring's nationwide count by paying over 15,000 employees who never worked even a full day for the government.
When the Bureau sent out over 140,000 workers last fall to update mailing lists and maps, 10,235 of them did not work at all but earned about $3.4 million for attending training and another 5,028 employees raked in $2.2 million but worked less than a single day, according to the Commerce Department's inspector general Todd Zinser in a report released Tuesday.
A Census Bureau spokesperson responded that "recruits showed up for training at rates much higher than experienced in the 2000 census and fewer quit work after the first few days on the job." The spokesperson said the Bureau has since made changes to procedures and controls to better manage census-taker training, staffing needs, and travel expenses.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Obama Supporters Blame Tea Party Activist For Terrorist Attack
In anticipation of evening cable news shows exploiting one man’s grievances against the IRS to smear the entire liberty movement, websites on both sides of the political equation are being flooded with messages from what appear to be Obama supporters calling the Austin plane crash an act of “right-wing domestic terror” committed by Tea Party activists.
Comments on both Democratic Underground and Fox Nation are blaming the attack on Tea Party activists and others in the freedom movement. They appear to be coming mainly from Obama supporters and liberals.
A selection of comments appears below.
————————————-
“This is a right-wing domestic terror act. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY – THIS SHOULD CONCERN YOU!”
————————————-
“Looks like one of the Teabaggers woke up on the wrong side of the bed. LOL. You nuts better not start doing this regularly.”
————————————-
“Not a single one of you is concerned that one of your own just committed an act of domestic terror. You are already attacking the messenger and they have not even brought the message in yet.”
————————————-
“YOU need to take an ounce of responsibility. All you repubbers are complaining about Bush but still putting all the blame for Bush’s errors on Obama or “The Government”. This plane guy decided to attack the Government. Pilot-guy sounds like a thousand posts I have read on thee boards.”
————————————-
“His “manifesto” is rank and file conservative/tea party/ repub rhetoric. I’ve read the same thing on these since before Obama was inaugurated. That dude would fit right in here, and maybe he did.”
————————————-
“These “anti-government” right wing hate machines really need to realize that violence will be done by their followers. People like Beck think about ratings, but when you tell enough people that the “government is out to get them” , sooner or later some of these people will decide to strike first.
We will see more domestic terrorism. People like the posters here need to accept responsibility to police themselves. You preach hate and destroying your enemies “foreign or domestic” and people will start blowing up innocent people because of the message you preach.
YOU did this, and I;ve no doubt more blood will be spilled because of you. Right wingers have a terrible (actually worse the dems) record of fiscal responsibility, small government, and unobtrusive gov: yet you are yelling that America is being attacked by democrats in this area.
STOP IT!
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There is no point in “dialogue” with you right wingers, you guys are the taliban of america.”
“Accept responsibility. One of YOU committed a domestic terror act. You should be thinking about that rather than insulting democrats as usual.”
“Another terrorist attack by the GOP/FOXZI/Aryan Nation, and there Teabagger storm troopers.”
Comments on both Democratic Underground and Fox Nation are blaming the attack on Tea Party activists and others in the freedom movement. They appear to be coming mainly from Obama supporters and liberals.
A selection of comments appears below.
————————————-
“This is a right-wing domestic terror act. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY – THIS SHOULD CONCERN YOU!”
————————————-
“Looks like one of the Teabaggers woke up on the wrong side of the bed. LOL. You nuts better not start doing this regularly.”
————————————-
“Not a single one of you is concerned that one of your own just committed an act of domestic terror. You are already attacking the messenger and they have not even brought the message in yet.”
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“YOU need to take an ounce of responsibility. All you repubbers are complaining about Bush but still putting all the blame for Bush’s errors on Obama or “The Government”. This plane guy decided to attack the Government. Pilot-guy sounds like a thousand posts I have read on thee boards.”
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“His “manifesto” is rank and file conservative/tea party/ repub rhetoric. I’ve read the same thing on these since before Obama was inaugurated. That dude would fit right in here, and maybe he did.”
————————————-
“These “anti-government” right wing hate machines really need to realize that violence will be done by their followers. People like Beck think about ratings, but when you tell enough people that the “government is out to get them” , sooner or later some of these people will decide to strike first.
We will see more domestic terrorism. People like the posters here need to accept responsibility to police themselves. You preach hate and destroying your enemies “foreign or domestic” and people will start blowing up innocent people because of the message you preach.
YOU did this, and I;ve no doubt more blood will be spilled because of you. Right wingers have a terrible (actually worse the dems) record of fiscal responsibility, small government, and unobtrusive gov: yet you are yelling that America is being attacked by democrats in this area.
STOP IT!
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There is no point in “dialogue” with you right wingers, you guys are the taliban of america.”
“Accept responsibility. One of YOU committed a domestic terror act. You should be thinking about that rather than insulting democrats as usual.”
“Another terrorist attack by the GOP/FOXZI/Aryan Nation, and there Teabagger storm troopers.”
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Debt Commission A Cover For Massive Tax Hikes On The Middle Class
The new so called Bipartisan National Commission On Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is a scam, sham and license to steal taxpayers dollars. This Debt Commission will be used as a cover to raise taxes on middle class Americans during a recession. The President will hold up and present the Debt Commission proposals to the American people. Obama will tout Debt Commission findings across the country saying that the only way we can balance our country budget is by raising taxes on all Americans. Therefore, this means that the average middle class taxpayer will be hit with two tax hikes in 2011. The first tax hike will come when the Bush Tax Cuts expire at the end of the year. The second tax hike will probably be a national sales tax similar to a Goods And Services Tax they have in Canada. The President does not need a debt commission to regin in spending all he, has to do is not submit a $3.8 trillion dollar budget to Congress. The President could use the unspent $500 million from failed Stimulus Plan and TARP money not spent as a down payment on the federal deficit. The President could have cut each department in the federal budget by 15% with a stroke of his Presidential pen. President Obama is a coward and he needs cover to get in the taxpayers pockets. I am surprised that former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson would fall for this typical Washington scam on the American people. The President has the majority in both Houses of Congress he can pass any fiscally responsible budget he wants at anytime.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman Snubs Obama
When President Obama visits Sin City Thursday and Friday, Mayor Oscar Goodman says he will not bother to greet him.
Said Goodman, "I've got other things to do quite frankly…my constituents who rely on me to do the right thing as mayor."
Mayor Goodman says he's still steamed at the President after President Obama made comments earlier this year and last February about how people shouldn't spend money in Las Vegas.
The mayor and others viewed them as derogatory, and say they cost the city millions in tourism dollars, though White House has since apologized.
Said Goodman, "I've got other things to do quite frankly…my constituents who rely on me to do the right thing as mayor."
Mayor Goodman says he's still steamed at the President after President Obama made comments earlier this year and last February about how people shouldn't spend money in Las Vegas.
The mayor and others viewed them as derogatory, and say they cost the city millions in tourism dollars, though White House has since apologized.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Stimulus Plan Anniversary I Would Like To Forget
February 17 marks the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s “stimulus” bill. While it has been a year since the Democrats in Congress and the President rammed through their ill-conceived plan, the effects of their deficit spending will be felt for generations to come.
Following enactment of the stimulus, the White House trumpeted its predicted effect on our economy. In a statement dated February 17, 2009, the Obama Administration asserted: “The American economy is in the midst of a crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime. The economy lost 3.6 million jobs in the last 13 months, the biggest job loss since the end of World War II. Many experts believe unemployment could reach double digits if no action is taken. In light of this historic economic weakness, President Obama is signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a nationwide effort to create jobs and transform our economy to compete in the 21st century.”
So, what has been “recovered?” As of January 2010, more than 16 million Americans are out of work with “real unemployment” exceeding 17%. Small businesses have seen little to no relief with “Stimulus/Recovery” funding only finding its way into state budgets and federal projects.
In other words, we now have a monument that should forever remind us of the failed policy of redistributing wealth and the truth that only a very limited government is effective.
I propose an immediate “Stimulus” package utilizing the unspent $500 billion: immediately eliminate capital gains taxes, the death tax, and the alternative minimum tax. Small businesses and those who will invest capital will do what they do best, create jobs.
The American people are right in clamoring for less spending and greater government accountability. The Washington spending spree has not helped our struggling families; instead, the deficit has gorged to historically critical levels at the hands of elitist politicians who don’t trust Americans with our own money.
It’s time for the federal government to live within its budget and its Constitutional bounds.
Following enactment of the stimulus, the White House trumpeted its predicted effect on our economy. In a statement dated February 17, 2009, the Obama Administration asserted: “The American economy is in the midst of a crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime. The economy lost 3.6 million jobs in the last 13 months, the biggest job loss since the end of World War II. Many experts believe unemployment could reach double digits if no action is taken. In light of this historic economic weakness, President Obama is signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a nationwide effort to create jobs and transform our economy to compete in the 21st century.”
So, what has been “recovered?” As of January 2010, more than 16 million Americans are out of work with “real unemployment” exceeding 17%. Small businesses have seen little to no relief with “Stimulus/Recovery” funding only finding its way into state budgets and federal projects.
In other words, we now have a monument that should forever remind us of the failed policy of redistributing wealth and the truth that only a very limited government is effective.
I propose an immediate “Stimulus” package utilizing the unspent $500 billion: immediately eliminate capital gains taxes, the death tax, and the alternative minimum tax. Small businesses and those who will invest capital will do what they do best, create jobs.
The American people are right in clamoring for less spending and greater government accountability. The Washington spending spree has not helped our struggling families; instead, the deficit has gorged to historically critical levels at the hands of elitist politicians who don’t trust Americans with our own money.
It’s time for the federal government to live within its budget and its Constitutional bounds.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
White House Projects Long-Term Unemployment
The White House Council of Economic Advisers released its Economic Report to the President on Thursday, outlining the administration’s economic projections and policies. The report shows that the White House is expecting mass unemployment to continue for years, with only minor decreases from the current rate of nearly 10 percent through 2012.
According to the report, the official unemployment rate—which does not include those who have given up looking for work—will remain at 10 percent this year, slightly higher than its current 9.7 percent. In 2011, it is expected to fall to 9.2 percent, and in 2012 to 8.2 percent. Official unemployment is not expected to fall below 6 percent until 2015, and will remain above 5 percent through 2020.
The projections are in fact optimistic. They are based on the assumption that real GDP will grow by 3.0 percent this year (4th quarter to 4th quarter), and 4.3 percent in 2011. This compares to real GDP growth of -1.9 percent in 2008 and -0.5 percent in 2009.
The administration notes in a side comment that the high unemployment will keep wages low, stating, “Traditionally, the large amount of slack would be expected to put substantial downward pressure on wage and price inflation.”
The proposals that the report outlines to address the crisis are derisory, focusing largely on tax breaks, continuing the administration’s policy of rejecting any direct government hiring. High unemployment makes “a compelling case for additional measures to spur private sector job creation,” the report states.
Any measures must take into account that “the country faces significant long-run fiscal challenges,” the report stresses. It proposes tax breaks for small business and “additional steps to increase the availability of loans backed by the Small Business Administration.”
This latter proposal will do little to revive small business hiring. Large banks, the recipients of trillions of dollars of loans from the government, have squeezed off financing. The administration has proposed no measures to force banks to lend, the nominal purpose of the bank bailouts.
Other proposals include “initiatives to encourage energy efficiency” and the possibility of an additional $50 billion in infrastructure spending, funneled through private companies.
A significant portion of the 458-page report is dedicated to discussing the administration’s plans for cost-cutting, particularly with regard to health care spending, restating Obama’s position that “the projection of steadily increasing future deficits is largely due to the continuation of the decades-long trend of rising health care costs.”
Underscoring the long-term plans of the government to drive down the living standards of American workers, it stresses the need for a “transition from consumption-driven growth to a greater emphasis on investment and exports.”
The White House report comes as Senate Democrats are preparing to push through a “jobs” bill that largely follows the prescriptions set out by the administration. There has been some political infighting within the Democratic Party and between leading Democrats and Republicans over the precise scope of the bill and what assortment of tax breaks will be included, but none of the proposals contain any serious measures to alleviate unemployment.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surprised some leading Democrats when he announced that he was not supporting a bipartisan bill worked out by Senate Democrat Max Baucus and Republican Charles Grassley, but was instead advancing a more pared-down version.
Liberal Democrats have hailed Reid’s move because it throws out certain tax breaks for Republicans. However, it also removes an extension on unemployment benefits and subsidies to help the jobless keep their health insurance.
Reid’s proposal would amount to $15 billion over 10 years, a sum that hardly rises to the level of paltry in comparison to the level of unemployment. Its centerpiece is a tax break for businesses that hire unemployed workers, waiving the 6.2 percent Social Security tax. The measure would provide a perverse incentive for employers to lay off older workers and hire those who have been out of work. Another component would give a $1,000 credit for business that retain new employees for at least one year.
Reid’s bill would also allow businesses to accelerate the tax write-off for capital investments. It would reauthorize spending on some ongoing construction projects and would give a small federal subsidy to states to help cover interest on loans for public works projects.
This last measure only serves to underscore the determination of the federal government to force states to balance their budgets by slashing jobs and social programs. In January alone, 40,000 local and state government jobs were eliminated.
The projected budget deficit for the states in the coming fiscal year is $142 billion, exceeding the $125 billion gap last year. These deficits are many times the amount the Democrats propose to spend on jobs over the next ten years.
The broader bill agreed by Baucus and Grassley was estimated to cost $85 billion over ten years and included a number of additional tax breaks, mainly for corporations, as well as the extension of unemployment benefits.
The move by Reid to scuttle the Baucus/Grassley bill, which was reportedly supported by the White House, reflects various conflicts over specific proposals. One significant factor, however, appears to be Reid’s concern that the Democrats be positioned to run in the November elections as the party of “fiscal austerity.” He told Politico, “Grassley and three to four Republicans would have voted for it, but all the other Republicans would have beaten the living s—t out of us [during the 2010 midterm elections], claiming the bill was too bloated.”
The Associated Press, in a report published on Wednesday (“Promises, Promises: Jobs bill won’t add many jobs”), commented that the broader Senate bill “has a problem: It won’t create many jobs.”
“Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece—a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers—would work only on the margins,” the AP reported.
The AP cited a report from the Congressional Budget Office that estimated that the Social Security tax break would generate only 18 full-time jobs per $1 million spent. Some 14.8 million Americans are presently unemployed, and 8.4 million jobs have been wiped out since December 2007.
The jobs proposals are part of a deliberate policy of the Obama administration, supported by Congressional Democrats and Republicans. The bailout of the banks has created conditions for record bonuses and profits for Wall Street firms, while massively increasing government debt. Not only will there be no measures taken to alleviate the jobs crisis; the government is determined to pay off these debts at the expense of the working class.
According to the report, the official unemployment rate—which does not include those who have given up looking for work—will remain at 10 percent this year, slightly higher than its current 9.7 percent. In 2011, it is expected to fall to 9.2 percent, and in 2012 to 8.2 percent. Official unemployment is not expected to fall below 6 percent until 2015, and will remain above 5 percent through 2020.
The projections are in fact optimistic. They are based on the assumption that real GDP will grow by 3.0 percent this year (4th quarter to 4th quarter), and 4.3 percent in 2011. This compares to real GDP growth of -1.9 percent in 2008 and -0.5 percent in 2009.
The administration notes in a side comment that the high unemployment will keep wages low, stating, “Traditionally, the large amount of slack would be expected to put substantial downward pressure on wage and price inflation.”
The proposals that the report outlines to address the crisis are derisory, focusing largely on tax breaks, continuing the administration’s policy of rejecting any direct government hiring. High unemployment makes “a compelling case for additional measures to spur private sector job creation,” the report states.
Any measures must take into account that “the country faces significant long-run fiscal challenges,” the report stresses. It proposes tax breaks for small business and “additional steps to increase the availability of loans backed by the Small Business Administration.”
This latter proposal will do little to revive small business hiring. Large banks, the recipients of trillions of dollars of loans from the government, have squeezed off financing. The administration has proposed no measures to force banks to lend, the nominal purpose of the bank bailouts.
Other proposals include “initiatives to encourage energy efficiency” and the possibility of an additional $50 billion in infrastructure spending, funneled through private companies.
A significant portion of the 458-page report is dedicated to discussing the administration’s plans for cost-cutting, particularly with regard to health care spending, restating Obama’s position that “the projection of steadily increasing future deficits is largely due to the continuation of the decades-long trend of rising health care costs.”
Underscoring the long-term plans of the government to drive down the living standards of American workers, it stresses the need for a “transition from consumption-driven growth to a greater emphasis on investment and exports.”
The White House report comes as Senate Democrats are preparing to push through a “jobs” bill that largely follows the prescriptions set out by the administration. There has been some political infighting within the Democratic Party and between leading Democrats and Republicans over the precise scope of the bill and what assortment of tax breaks will be included, but none of the proposals contain any serious measures to alleviate unemployment.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surprised some leading Democrats when he announced that he was not supporting a bipartisan bill worked out by Senate Democrat Max Baucus and Republican Charles Grassley, but was instead advancing a more pared-down version.
Liberal Democrats have hailed Reid’s move because it throws out certain tax breaks for Republicans. However, it also removes an extension on unemployment benefits and subsidies to help the jobless keep their health insurance.
Reid’s proposal would amount to $15 billion over 10 years, a sum that hardly rises to the level of paltry in comparison to the level of unemployment. Its centerpiece is a tax break for businesses that hire unemployed workers, waiving the 6.2 percent Social Security tax. The measure would provide a perverse incentive for employers to lay off older workers and hire those who have been out of work. Another component would give a $1,000 credit for business that retain new employees for at least one year.
Reid’s bill would also allow businesses to accelerate the tax write-off for capital investments. It would reauthorize spending on some ongoing construction projects and would give a small federal subsidy to states to help cover interest on loans for public works projects.
This last measure only serves to underscore the determination of the federal government to force states to balance their budgets by slashing jobs and social programs. In January alone, 40,000 local and state government jobs were eliminated.
The projected budget deficit for the states in the coming fiscal year is $142 billion, exceeding the $125 billion gap last year. These deficits are many times the amount the Democrats propose to spend on jobs over the next ten years.
The broader bill agreed by Baucus and Grassley was estimated to cost $85 billion over ten years and included a number of additional tax breaks, mainly for corporations, as well as the extension of unemployment benefits.
The move by Reid to scuttle the Baucus/Grassley bill, which was reportedly supported by the White House, reflects various conflicts over specific proposals. One significant factor, however, appears to be Reid’s concern that the Democrats be positioned to run in the November elections as the party of “fiscal austerity.” He told Politico, “Grassley and three to four Republicans would have voted for it, but all the other Republicans would have beaten the living s—t out of us [during the 2010 midterm elections], claiming the bill was too bloated.”
The Associated Press, in a report published on Wednesday (“Promises, Promises: Jobs bill won’t add many jobs”), commented that the broader Senate bill “has a problem: It won’t create many jobs.”
“Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece—a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers—would work only on the margins,” the AP reported.
The AP cited a report from the Congressional Budget Office that estimated that the Social Security tax break would generate only 18 full-time jobs per $1 million spent. Some 14.8 million Americans are presently unemployed, and 8.4 million jobs have been wiped out since December 2007.
The jobs proposals are part of a deliberate policy of the Obama administration, supported by Congressional Democrats and Republicans. The bailout of the banks has created conditions for record bonuses and profits for Wall Street firms, while massively increasing government debt. Not only will there be no measures taken to alleviate the jobs crisis; the government is determined to pay off these debts at the expense of the working class.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Conservative Democrats Keep Distance From Obama
As President Obama's approval ratings sag and the mood of voters sours, some Democratic congressional candidates are distancing themselves from the White House, with the back-channel blessing of party officials.
The candidates are positioning themselves as independent voices no less frustrated with the Obama administration than people back home.
Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat who represents a California Central Valley district burdened by high unemployment and home foreclosures, said in an interview: "The Obama administration has failed miserably in trying to solve the problem."
Rep. Jim Costa, a Democrat who also represents California's Central Valley, blames Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for not doing enough to alleviate a drought that has hobbled farmers. Costa said his phone calls to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have gone unreturned.
"They're not listening carefully enough to the people I represent," Costa said.
Asked whether he wants the president to campaign for him, Costa said: "I'm more popular in my district than the president."
Far from discouraging an independent stance, the White House political operation and the Democratic congressional leadership are tacitly putting out word that the strategy may be a useful one, according to party campaign operatives.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview: "Our candidates need to reflect the values and priorities of their districts. And that means on some issues they'll support the Obama administration's position, and on some issues they'll oppose it."
Moving in lock step with the White House poses risks for certain Democrats. Some 49 House Democrats serve in districts that Republican John McCain won in the 2008 presidential election.
In this climate, an array of Democrats are confronting the administration in unusually blunt terms.
Cardoza's district went heavily for Obama, but it has been devastated by the recession. One county he represents, Stanislaus, has the highest foreclosure rate in the state, with 1 out of every 107 homes receiving a foreclosure notice last month. Cardoza has suggested that Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan needs to resign for failing to deliver needed financial assistance.
In a letter to Donovan last month, Cardoza wrote: "If you can't turn your department around then you should do the honorable thing."
Cardoza said in an interview, "The president isn't welcome to campaign with me right now. He is welcome to come to my district and help me do my job, which is providing relief to my constituents."
A moment for embattled party members to showcase their differences with Obama came during his appearance before Senate Democrats this month. Democrats in tough reelection campaigns posed questions that in some cases reflected profound differences with the administration.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who is running for reelection in a state won by McCain, urged Obama to "push back against people in our own party that want extremes." In short order, her campaign website featured a report: "Lincoln challenges Obama on liberal 'extremes.' "
Lincoln's campaign manager, Steve Patterson, said that Obama's limited ground operation in Arkansas in the presidential election suggests that he would not be a huge help.
"If I'm sitting back to think about the best draws to raise money in Arkansas, I don't think it would be President Obama," Patterson said.
Some party veterans cautioned that it is futile for Democrats to create a separate identity from that of the White House. Midterm elections are invariably a referendum on the president's performance, said former Sen. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, who once chaired the Democrats' Senate election committee.
"Everybody is in one boat," Torricelli said in an interview. "I'd recommend correcting the course of the boat rather than swimming away from it."
peter.nicholas@ latimes.com
Janet Hook in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
The candidates are positioning themselves as independent voices no less frustrated with the Obama administration than people back home.
Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat who represents a California Central Valley district burdened by high unemployment and home foreclosures, said in an interview: "The Obama administration has failed miserably in trying to solve the problem."
Rep. Jim Costa, a Democrat who also represents California's Central Valley, blames Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for not doing enough to alleviate a drought that has hobbled farmers. Costa said his phone calls to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have gone unreturned.
"They're not listening carefully enough to the people I represent," Costa said.
Asked whether he wants the president to campaign for him, Costa said: "I'm more popular in my district than the president."
Far from discouraging an independent stance, the White House political operation and the Democratic congressional leadership are tacitly putting out word that the strategy may be a useful one, according to party campaign operatives.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview: "Our candidates need to reflect the values and priorities of their districts. And that means on some issues they'll support the Obama administration's position, and on some issues they'll oppose it."
Moving in lock step with the White House poses risks for certain Democrats. Some 49 House Democrats serve in districts that Republican John McCain won in the 2008 presidential election.
In this climate, an array of Democrats are confronting the administration in unusually blunt terms.
Cardoza's district went heavily for Obama, but it has been devastated by the recession. One county he represents, Stanislaus, has the highest foreclosure rate in the state, with 1 out of every 107 homes receiving a foreclosure notice last month. Cardoza has suggested that Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan needs to resign for failing to deliver needed financial assistance.
In a letter to Donovan last month, Cardoza wrote: "If you can't turn your department around then you should do the honorable thing."
Cardoza said in an interview, "The president isn't welcome to campaign with me right now. He is welcome to come to my district and help me do my job, which is providing relief to my constituents."
A moment for embattled party members to showcase their differences with Obama came during his appearance before Senate Democrats this month. Democrats in tough reelection campaigns posed questions that in some cases reflected profound differences with the administration.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who is running for reelection in a state won by McCain, urged Obama to "push back against people in our own party that want extremes." In short order, her campaign website featured a report: "Lincoln challenges Obama on liberal 'extremes.' "
Lincoln's campaign manager, Steve Patterson, said that Obama's limited ground operation in Arkansas in the presidential election suggests that he would not be a huge help.
"If I'm sitting back to think about the best draws to raise money in Arkansas, I don't think it would be President Obama," Patterson said.
Some party veterans cautioned that it is futile for Democrats to create a separate identity from that of the White House. Midterm elections are invariably a referendum on the president's performance, said former Sen. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, who once chaired the Democrats' Senate election committee.
"Everybody is in one boat," Torricelli said in an interview. "I'd recommend correcting the course of the boat rather than swimming away from it."
peter.nicholas@ latimes.com
Janet Hook in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Black Caucus Foundation Spent More On Catering Than College Scholarships
NYT WASHINGTON — When the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to pay off the mortgage on its foundation’s stately 1930s redbrick headquarters on Embassy Row, it turned to a familiar roster of friends: corporate backers like Wal-Mart, AT&T, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company.
Caucus members accepting a donation to the foundation from Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant and a major contributor.
Soon enough, in 2008, a jazz band was playing at what amounted to a mortgage-burning party for the $4 million town house.
Most political groups in Washington would have been barred by law from accepting that kind of direct aid from corporations. But by taking advantage of political finance laws, the caucus has built a fund-raising juggernaut unlike anything else in town.
It has a traditional political fund-raising arm subject to federal rules. But it also has a network of nonprofit groups and charities that allow it to collect unlimited amounts of money from corporations and labor unions.
From 2004 to 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political and charitable wings took in at least $55 million in corporate and union contributions, according to an analysis by The New York Times, an impressive amount even by the standards of a Washington awash in cash. Only $1 million of that went to the caucus’s political action committee; the rest poured into the largely unregulated nonprofit network. (Data for 2009 is not available.)
The caucus says its nonprofit groups are intended to help disadvantaged African-Americans by providing scholarships and internships to students, researching policy and holding seminars on topics like healthy living.
But the bulk of the money has been spent on elaborate conventions that have become a high point of the Washington social season, as well as the headquarters building, golf outings by members of Congress and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.
In 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation spent more on the caterer for its signature legislative dinner and conference — nearly $700,000 for an event one organizer called “Hollywood on the Potomac” — than it gave out in scholarships, federal tax records show.
At the galas, lobbyists and executives who give to caucus charities get to mingle with lawmakers. They also get seats on committees the caucus has set up to help members of Congress decide what positions to take on the issues of the day. Indeed, the nonprofit groups and the political wing are so deeply connected it is sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Even as it has used its status as a civil rights organization to become a fund-raising power in Washington, the caucus has had to fend off criticism of ties to companies whose business is seen by some as detrimental to its black constituents.
These include cigarette companies, Internet poker operators, beer brewers and the rent-to-own industry, which has become a particular focus of consumer advocates for its practice of charging high monthly fees for appliances, televisions and computers.
Caucus leaders said the giving had not influenced them.
“We’re unbossed and unbought,” said Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the caucus. “Historically, we’ve been known as the conscience of the Congress, and we’re the ones bringing up issues that often go unnoticed or just aren’t on the table.”
But many campaign finance experts question the unusual structure.
“The claim that this is a truly philanthropic motive is bogus — it’s beyond credulity,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, a nonpartisan group that monitors campaign finance and ethics issues. “Members of Congress should not be allowed to have these links. They provide another pocket, and a very deep pocket, for special-interest money that is intended to benefit and influence officeholders.”
Not all caucus members support the donors’ goals, and some issues, like a debate last year over whether to ban menthol cigarettes, have produced divisions.
But caucus members have attracted increasing scrutiny from ethics investigators. All eight open House investigations involve caucus members, and most center on accusations of improper ties to private businesses.
And an examination by The Times shows what can happen when companies offer financial support to caucus members.
For instance, Representative Danny K. Davis, Democrat of Illinois, once backed legislation that would have severely curtailed the rent-to-own industry, criticized in urban districts like his on the West Side of Chicago. But Mr. Davis last year co-sponsored legislation supported by the stores after they led a well-financed campaign to sway the caucus, including a promise to provide computers to a jobs program in Chicago named for him. He denies any connection between the industry’s generosity and his shift.
Growing Influence
The caucus started out 40 years ago as a political club of a handful of black members of Congress. Now it is at the apex of its power: President Obama is a former member, though he was never very active.
Its members, all Democrats, include the third-ranking House member, Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina; 4 House committee chairmen; and 18 subcommittee leaders. Among those are Representative Charles E. Rangel, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Representative John Conyers Jr., chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
There are hundreds of caucuses in Congress, representing groups as disparate as Hispanic lawmakers and those with an interest in Scotland. And other members of Congress have nonprofit organizations.
But the Congressional Black Caucus stands alone for its money-raising prowess. As it has gained power, its nonprofit groups — one an outright charity, the other a sort of research group — have seen a surge in contributions, nearly doubling from 2001 to 2008.
Besides the caucus charities, many members — including Mr. Clyburn and Representative William Lacy Clay Jr. of Missouri — also have personal or family charities, which often solicit donations from companies that give to the caucus. And spouses have their own group that sponsors a golf and tennis fund-raiser.
The board of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation includes executives and lobbyists from Boeing, Wal-Mart, Dell, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Verizon, Heineken, Anheuser-Busch and the drug makers Amgen and GlaxoSmithKline. All are hefty donors to the caucus.
Some of the biggest donors also have seats on the second caucus nonprofit organization — one that can help their businesses. This group, the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute, drafts positions on issues before Congress, including health care and climate change.
This means, for example, that the lobbyists and executives from coal, nuclear and power giants like Peabody Energy and Entergy helped draft a report in the caucus’s name that includes their positions on controversial issues. One policy document issued by the Black Caucus Institute last year asserted that the financial impact of climate change legislation should be weighed before it is passed, a major industry stand.
Officials from the Association of American Railroads, another major donor, used their board positions to urge the inclusion of language recommending increased spending on the national freight rail system. A lobbyist for Verizon oversaw a debate on a section that advocated increased federal grants to expand broadband Internet service.
And Larry Duncan, a Lockheed Martin lobbyist, served on a caucus institute panel that recommended that the United States form closer ties with Liberia, even as his company was negotiating a huge airport contract there.
The companies say their service to the caucus is philanthropic.
“Our charitable donations are charitable donations,” said David Sylvia, a spokesman for Altria, which has given caucus charities as much as $1.3 million since 2004, the Times analysis shows, including a donation to a capital fund used to pay off the mortgage of the caucus headquarters.
Elsie L. Scott, chief executive of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, acknowledged that the companies want to influence members. In fact, the fund-raising brochures make clear that the bigger the donation, the greater the access, like a private reception that includes members of Congress for those who give more than $100,000.
“They are trying to get the attention of the C.B.C. members,” Ms. Scott said. “And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. They’re in business, and they want to deal with people who have influence and power.”
She also acknowledged that if her charity did not have “Congressional Black Caucus” in its name, it would gather far less money. “If it were just the Institute for the Advancement of Black People — you already have the N.A.A.C.P.,” she said.
Ms. Scott said she, too, had heard criticism that the caucus foundation takes too much from companies seen as hurting blacks . But she said she was still willing to take their money.
“Black people gamble. Black people smoke. Black people drink,” she said in an interview. “And so if these companies want to take some of the money they’ve earned off of our people and give it to us to support good causes, then we take it.”
Big Parties, Big Money
The biggest caucus event of the year is held each September in Washington.
The 2009 event began with a rooftop party at the new W Hotel, with the names of the biggest sponsors, the pharmaceutical companies Amgen and Eli Lilly, beamed in giant letters onto the walls, next to the logo of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. A separate dinner party and ceremony, sponsored by Disney at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, featured the jazz pianist Marcus Johnson.
The next night, AT&T sponsored a dinner reception at the Willard InterContinental Washington, honoring Representative Bobby L. Rush, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees consumer protection issues.
The Southern Company, the dominant electric utility in four Southeastern states, spent more than $300,000 to host an awards ceremony the next night honoring Ms. Lee, the black caucus chairwoman, with Shaun Robinson, a TV personality from “Access Hollywood,” as a co-host. The bill for limousine services — paid by Southern — exceeded $11,000.
A separate party, sponsored by Macy’s, featured a fashion show and wax models of historic African-American leaders.
All of this was just a buildup for the final night and the biggest event — a black-tie dinner for 4,000, which included President Obama, the actor Danny Glover and the musician Wyclef Jean.
Annual spending on the events, including an annual prayer breakfast that Coca-Cola sponsors and several dozen policy workshops typically sponsored by other corporations, has more than doubled since 2001, costing $3.9 million in 2008. More than $350,000 went to the official decorator and nearly $400,000 to contractors for lighting and show production, according to tax records. (By comparison, the caucus spent $372,000 on internships in 2008, tax records show.)
The sponsorship of these parties by big business is usually counted as a donation in the caucus books. But sometimes the corporations pay vendors directly and simply name the caucus or an individual caucus member as an “honoree” in disclosure records filed with the Senate.
(The New York Times Company is listed as having paid the foundation $5,000 to $15,000 in 2008. It was the cost of renting a booth to sell newspapers at the annual conference.)
Foundation officials say profit from the event is enough to finance programs like seminars on investments, home ownership and healthy living; housing for Washington interns; and about $600,000 in scholarships.
Interns and students interviewed praised the caucus.
“The internship for me came at a very critical moment in my life,” said Ervin Johnson, 24, an intern in 2007, placed by the Justice Department. “Most people don’t have that opportunity.”
Still, Ms. Scott, the foundation’s chief executive, said that members of the caucus’s board had complained about the ballooning bills for the annual conference. And some donors have asked that their money go only toward programs like scholarships. She blamed the high prices charged by vendors mandated by the Washington Convention Center.
Legislative Interests
The companies that host events at the annual conference are engaged in some of the hottest battles in Washington, and they frequently turn to caucus members for help.
Internet poker companies have been big donors, fighting moves to restrict their growth. Caucus members have been among their biggest backers.
Amgen and DaVita, which dominate the kidney treatment and dialysis business nationwide, have donated as much as $1.5 million over the last five years to caucus charities, and the caucus has been one of their strongest allies in a bid to win broader federal reimbursements.
AT&T and Verizon, sponsors of the caucus charities for years, have turned to the caucus in their effort to prevent new federal rules governing how cellphone carriers operate Internet services on their wireless networks.
But few of these alliances have paid off like the caucus’s connection to rent-to-own stores.
Some Democrats in Congress have tried to limit fees charged to consumers who rent televisions or appliances, with critics saying the industry’s advertisements prey on low-income consumers, offering the short-term promise of walking away with a big-screen TV while hiding big long-term fees. Faced with rules that could destroy their business, the industry called on the caucus.
In 2007, it retained Zehra Buck, a former aide to Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and a caucus member, to help expand a lobbying campaign. Its trade association in 2008 became the exclusive sponsor of an annual caucus foundation charity event where its donated televisions, computers and other equipment were auctioned, with the proceeds going to scholarships. It donated to the campaigns of at least 10 caucus members, and to political action committees run by the caucus and its individual members.
It also encouraged member stores to donate to personal charities run by caucus members or to public schools in their districts. Mr. Clay, the Missourian, received $14,000 in industry contributions in 2008 for the annual golf tournament his family runs in St. Louis. The trade association also held a fund-raising event for him in Reno, Nev.
“I’ll always do my best to protect what really matters to you,” Mr. Clay told rent-to-own executives, who agreed to hold their 2008 annual convention in St. Louis, his home district. Mr. Clay declined a request for an interview.
On a visit to Washington, Larry Carrico, then president of the rent-to-own trade association, offered to donate computers and other equipment to a nonprofit job-training group in Chicago named in honor of Mr. Davis, the Illinois congressman who in 2002 voted in favor of tough restrictions on the industry.
Mr. Davis switched sides. Mr. Carrico traveled to Chicago to hand over the donations, including a van with “Congressman Danny K. Davis Job Training Program” painted on its side, all of which helped jump-start a charity run by Lowry Taylor, who also works as a campaign aide to Mr. Davis.
In an interview, Mr. Carrico said support from caucus members came because they understood that his industry had been unfairly criticized and that it provided an important service to consumers in their districts.
While some caucus members still oppose the industry, 13 are co-sponsors of the industry-backed legislation that would ward off tough regulatory restrictions — an alliance that has infuriated consumer advocates.
“It is unfortunate that the members of the black caucus who are supporting this bill did not check with us first,” said Margot Saunders, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center. “Because the legislation they are supporting would simply pre-empt state laws that are designed to protect consumers against an industry that rips them off.”
The industry’s own bill, introduced by a caucus member, has not been taken up, but it does not really matter because the move to pass stricter legislation has ground to a halt.
“Without the support of the C.B.C.,” John Cleek, the president of the rent-to-own association, acknowledged in an industry newsletter in 2008, “our mission in Washington would fail.”
Ron Nixon and Griffin Palmer contributed reporting.
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