Government Jobs Not Rebounding As In Past Recessions
Public-sector austerity in one graph
On Friday, I ran some numbers on public-sector employment: Since Obama was elected, the public sector has lost about 600,000 jobs. If you put those jobs back, the unemployment rate would be 7.8 percent. [SNIP]
Today, Ben Polak, chairman of the economics department at Yale University, and Peter K. Schott, professor of economics at the Yale School of Management, widen the lens, with similar results: There is something historically different about this recession and its aftermath: in the past, local government employment has been almost recession-proof. This time it’s not. [SNIP] Go to like to read the rest of Ezra Klein’s article. Thank you.
Clearing the Air – We’ve Made Progress in Fighting Pollution
Government regulation is so demonized today in part because it is a victim of its own success. Who needs air pollution standards when skies are blue and the air smells sweet? Aren’t federal government regulations just a drag on the economy? As progress is made in cleaning up the air we breath, push back to dismantle the regulations that have been working becomes greater sometimes. The same powers of industry that created unbearable air quality in the past are pressuring Congress today to ease up on clean air emissions standards. We must hold the line and, in fact, move forward with improved standards.
What Pittsburgh Looked Like When It Decided It Had a Pollution Problem

In 1941, influenced by a similar policy introduced in St. Louis four years earlier, the city of Pittsburgh passed a law designed to reduce coal production in pursuit of cleaner air. Not willing to cripple such an important part of the local economy, it promised to clean the air by using treated local coal. The new policy ended up not being fully enacted until after World War II.
While the idea was a small step in the right direction, other factors ultimately helped improvePittsburgh’s notorious air quality. Natural gas was piped into the city. Regional railroad companies switched from coal to diesel locomotives. And, ultimately, the collapse of the iron and steel production industries in the 1980s led to rapidly improved air quality leading into the 21st century. Control of coal smoke made it possible to clean soot-covered buildings and to re-plant hillsides, helping provide the city a look it could hardly envision in the depths of its industrial heyday.


[excerpt]
The year 1970 has been a year of great progress in this field. In February, you will recall that I submitted the most comprehensive message on the environment ever proposed by a President of the United States. During the year, there have been some administrative actions, some legislative actions.
Time, however, has been required for the Congress to consider the proposals of the administration and, finally, to agree on the legislation that will be sent to the President for signature.
This is the most important piece of legislation, in my opinion, dealing with the problem of clean air that we have this year and the most important in our history.
It provides, as you know, for provisions dealing with fuel emissions and also for air quality standards, and it provides for ‘the additional enforcement procedures which are absolutely important in this particular area.
How did this come about? It came about by the President proposing. It came about by a bipartisan effort represented by the Senators and Congressmen, who are here today, in acting. Senator Randolph, Senator Cooper, and Congressman Springer represent both parties and both Houses of the Congress. [snip]
And if, as we sign this bill in this room, we can look back and say, in the Roosevelt Room on the last day of 1970, we signed a historic piece of legislation that put us far down the road toward a goal that Theodore Roosevelt, 70 years ago, spoke eloquently about: a goal of clean air, clean water, and open spaces for the future generations of America.
Read more at the American Presidency Project:Richard Nixon: Remarks on Signing the Clean Air Amendments of 1970.
A Flat Tax Payroll Deduction Might Save Social Security
DATA DRIVEN POINT OF VIEW: Don’t be fooled. Discussions about raising or lowering Federal Income Taxes has little to do with Social Security and Medicare, which are separately funded by payroll deductions. Is there a funding crisis for Social Security and Medicare? A long term problem, yes. A crisis, no. Can America continue to afford these programs given the number of baby boomer retirements? The answer is yes, of course we can. We are the wealthiest county on Earth. Nations with far less wealthier already provide their citizens with much more generous benefits. The reason we feel the funding punch is that the structure we’ve enacted to pay for federal insurance benefits is so regressive.
We could institute a flat tax for Social Security and Medicare. The table below shows what this might generate in premiums at the current 7.65% rate of payroll deductions. This plan would clearly generate more revenue than needed for current benefits. A flat payroll tax of significantly less than the current 7.65% would be all that is needed to fully fund Social Security and Medicare. It would reduce payroll taxes for the majority of Americans.
Payroll Taxes for Social Security and Medicare
|
||||
Total Income from Wages
|
Amount Currently Deducted
|
Contribution As a % of Income
|
Contribution if deductions were based on a flat tax
|
|
$1,000
|
$77
|
7.65%
|
$77
|
This Segment Represents 57 million households
|
$10,000
|
$765
|
7.65%
|
$765
|
|
$50,000
|
$3,825
|
7.65%
|
$3,825
|
|
$100,000
|
$7,650
|
7.65%
|
$7,650
|
|
$500,000
|
$8,423
|
1.68%
|
$38,250
|
|
$1,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.84%
|
$76,500
|
There are at least 100,000 household in this segment
|
$10,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.084%
|
$765,000
|
|
$50,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.017%
|
$3,825,000
|
|
$100,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.0084%
|
$7,650,000
|
|
$500,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.0017%
|
$38,250,000
|
|
$1,000,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.00084%
|
$76,500,000
|
|
$10,000,000,000
|
$8,423
|
0.000084%
|
$765,000,000
|
This table assumes that income from wages for the wealthy are at least $110,100, which is the income cap for 2012, and assumes they are not self-employed. Income from investments are not subject to payroll deductions. Employers pay an additional 7.65% in payroll taxes for their employees. The self employed also pay corresponding more in payroll taxes for their Social Security and Medicare benefits. Additional payroll deductions for unemployment and disability insurance may also apply in certain states and with certain individual.
These programs exist for everyone, and everyone should contribute according to their means. Those who are fortunate enough not to need the benefits still have a moral obligation to assure a minimal level of care to those less fortunate, and a social obligation to contributed to those who gave a lifetime of labor creating the fabulous wealth that the wealthy have accumulated.
Map Pinpoints Where Children Are Being Sexually Abused. Why Aren’t We INVESTIGATING?
The trial and conviction of former Penn State football coach, Jerry Sandusky, for child sexual abuse allowed many people to hear for the first time the graph details that makes these crimes so repulsive. Civil hearings on child sexual abuse cases usually take place in closed courtrooms for the protection of these young victims. In this case, however, the victims are now adults, the trial was public and very high profile. People paid attention and learned just how violent these child rapes are. This made it easy to see just how destructive these betrayals of a child’s trust are and why it scars children for life.
This may be a good point to consider the scope of the child sexual abuse problem. Perhaps the information presented below will have greater resonance than when first posted a number of months ago. Each red dot on the map below is a Sandusky type horror story for some innocent child in America. So what are we going to do about it???
Most of these children wait for a rescue that will never come. They are in extreme danger and law enforcement knows where they are. Investigators go home every night knowing there are thousands of children out there beyond their reach, because they have not been given the resources they need to rescue them.
See The Ed Show Segment on this issue
Watch a Video Plea From Children
Go to Protect for More Detailed Information
Take Action
View my post on Child Fatality Risk Factors (Because child sexual abuse is not the only problem our children face every day)
Our Long-term Debt Will Be Fixed If Congress Does Nothing – But Don’t Count On that!
According to the Congressional Budget Office information (see below), it appears that if the “do-nothing” Congress actually does nothing the nation’s long term debt outlook would significantly improve. As it stands, temporary tax cuts are set to expire and automatic budget cuts already passed by Congress with bi-partisan support are set to take effect. As a result of laws already on the books our long-term debt problem is about to be fixed. But Congress will have none of this! Nor should they!
The 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook: Infographic
The Real Lesson of the “Fast and Furious” Scandal
Thanks to the great reporting of Katherine Eban at Fortune magazine we now know that the “Fast and Furious” scandal was largely manufactured for political gain. The “Fast and Furious” operation by the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (the ATF) in Arizona was never designed to include the tactic of “gun walking”. Gun walking is the practice of intentionally not ceasing illegally purchased firearms in order to follow the subsequent chain of possession back to higher level criminals. It seems a few rogue ATF agents did engaged in an incident of this type on their own initiative, which does make it the AFT’s problem, but the specific guns the ATF is accused of allowing to walk across the border, one of which was used to kill a border guard named Brian Terry, could not be ceased by the ATF because the Arizona federal Prosecutors decided these weapons were legally purchased. Federal prosecutors in Arizona were broadly interpreting Arizona’s gun laws which are among the weakest gun laws in the nation.
The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal
June 27, 2012: 5:00 AM ET
The article begins:
FORTUNE — In the annals of impossible assignments, Dave Voth’s ranked high. In 2009 the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted Voth to lead Phoenix Group VII, one of seven new ATF groups along the Southwest border tasked with stopping guns from being trafficked into Mexico’s vicious drug war.
PLEASE READ IT: http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/
Arizona’s “Papers Please” Supreme Court Ruling – An Abridged Syllabus
The Supreme Court struck down some but not all parts of SB1070, Arizona’s controversial immigration law. What follows is an abridged syllabus to help make the ruling more readable. It is re-posted here as a reference site for the day that these issues resurface during the anticipated immigration debate to come. You can read the unabridged opinion here.
An Arizona statute known as S. B. 1070 was enacted in 2010 to address pressing issues related to the large number of unlawful aliens in the State. The United States sought to enjoin the law as preempted. The District Court issued a preliminary injunction preventing four of its provisions from taking effect.
- Section 3 makes failure to comply with federal alien-registration requirements a state misdemeanor;
- Section 5(C) makes it a misdemeanor for an unauthorized alien to seek or engage in work in the State;
- Section 6 authorizes state and local officers to arrest without a warrant a person “the officer has probable cause to believe . . . has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States”; and
- Section 2(B) requires officers conducting a stop, detention, or arrest to make efforts, in some circumstances, to verify the person’s immigration status with the Federal Government.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed, agreeing that the United States had established a likelihood of success on its preemption claims.
Held:
1. The Federal Government’s broad, undoubted power over immigration and alien status rests, in part, on its constitutional power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” and on its inherent sovereign power to control and conduct foreign relations, Federal governance is extensive and complex.
Among other things,
- federal law specifies categories of aliens who are ineligible to be admitted to the United States,
- requires aliens to register with the Federal Government and to carry proof of status,
- imposes sanctions on employers who hire unauthorized workers, and
- specifies which aliens may be removed and the procedures for doing so, removal is a civil matter, and one of its principal features
2 ARIZONA v. UNITED STATES is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials, who must decide whether to pursue removal at all. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for identifying, apprehending, and removing illegal aliens. It also operates the Law Enforcement Support Center, which provides immigration status information to federal, state, and local officials around the clock.
3. The Supremacy Clause gives Congress the power to preempt state law.
A statute may contain an express preemption provision, but state law must also give way to federal law in at least two other circumstances. First, States are precluded from regulating conduct in a field that Congress has determined must be regulated by its exclusive governance. Intent can be inferred from a framework of regulation “so pervasive . . . that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it” or where a “federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject.” Second, state laws are preempted when they conflict with federal law, including when they stand “as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” (a) Section 3 intrudes on the field of alien registration, a field in which Congress has left no room for States to regulate. In Hines, a state alien-registration program was struck down on the ground that Congress intended its “complete” federal registration plan to be a “single integrated and all-embracing system.” That scheme did not allow the States to “curtail or complement” federal law or “enforce additional or auxiliary regulations.” The federal registration framework remains comprehensive. Because Congress has occupied the field, even complementary state regulation is impermissible.
Pp. 8–11. (b) Section 5(C)’s criminal penalty stands as an obstacle to the federal regulatory system.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), a comprehensive framework for “combating the employment of illegal aliens,” makes it illegal for employers to knowingly hire, recruit, refer, or continue to employ unauthorized workers, and requires employers to verify prospective employees’ employment authorization status. It imposes criminal and civil penalties on employers, but only civil penalties on aliens who seek, or engage in, unauthorized employment.
IRCA’s express preemption provision, though silent about whether additional penalties may be imposed against employees, “does not bar the ordinary working of conflict pre-emption principles” or impose a “special burden” making it more difficult to establish the preemption of laws falling outside the clause. The correct instruction to draw from the text, structure, and history of IRCA is that Congress decided it would be inappropriate to impose criminal penalties on unauthorized employees. [emphasis mine] It follows that a state law to the contrary is an obstacle to the regulatory system Congress chose.
(c) By authorizing state and local officers to make warrantless arrests of certain aliens suspected of being removable, Section 6 also creates an obstacle to federal law. As a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain in the United States. [emphasis mine]
The federal scheme instructs when it is appropriate to arrest an alien during the removal
process. The Attorney General in some circumstances will issue a warrant for trained federal immigration officers to execute. If no federal warrant has been issued, these officers have more limited authority. They may arrest an alien for being “in the United States in violation of any [immigration] law or regulation,” for example, but only where the alien “is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.” Section 6 attempts to provide state officers with even greater arrest authority, which they could exercise with no instruction from the Federal Government. This is not the system Congress created. Federal law specifies limited circumstances in which state officers may perform an immigration officer’s functions. This includes instances where the Attorney General has granted that authority in a formal agreement with a state or local government.
Although federal law permits state officers to “cooperate with the Attorney General in the identification, apprehension, detention, or removal of aliens not lawfully present in the United States, this does not encompass the unilateral decision to detain authorized by Section 6.
4. It was improper to enjoin Section 2(B) before the state courts had an
opportunity to construe it and without some showing that Section 2(B)’s enforcement in fact conflicts with federal immigration law and its objectives.
(a) The state provision has three limitations:
- A detainee is presumed not to be an illegal alien if he or she provides a valid Arizona driver’s license or similar identification;
- officers may not consider race, color, or national origin “except to the extent permitted by the United States [and] Arizona Constitution[s]”; and
- Section 2(B) must be “implemented in a manner consistent with federal law regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens.”
(b) This Court finds unpersuasive the argument that, even with those limits, Section 2(B) must be held preempted at this stage.
- The mandatory nature of the status checks does not interfere with the federal immigration scheme. Consultation between federal and state officials is an important feature of the immigration system. In fact, Congress has encouraged the sharing of information about possible immigration violations. The federal scheme thus leaves room for a policy requiring state officials to contact ICE as a routine matter.
- It is not clear at this stage and on this record that Section 2(B), in practice, will require state officers to delay the release of detainees for no reason other than to verify their immigration status. This would raise constitutional concerns. And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision. But Section §2(B) could be read to avoid these concerns. If the law only requires state officers to conduct a status check during the course of an authorized, lawful detention or after a detainee has been released, the provision would likely survive preemption—at least absent some showing that it has other consequences that are adverse to federal law and its objectives. Without the benefit of a definitive interpretation from the state courts, it would be inappropriate to assume Section 2(B) will be construed in a way that conflicts with federal law.
This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect. Pp. 22–24. 641 F. 3d 339, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J.,
THOMAS, J., and ALITO, J., filed opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part. KAGAN, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of
the case.
The Truth About the ATF Scandal Please…
The venerable New Jersey Star Ledger newspaper printed an editorial on June 30, 2012, in which it repeated as fact a purely partisan narrative known as the ATF’s “Fast and Furious” scandal. Here below is my full response:
As for the 2000 high powered weapons supposedly lost by the ATF, (as per Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa) virtually all of them were legally purchased according to Arizona’s federal prosecutors. This includes the gun later used to kill a U.S. border guard.
The hard truth is that Federal prosecutors broadly interpret Arizona’s gun laws, which are already the weakest in the nation. In Arizona, an unemployed 18 year old with no criminal record can walk into a gun shop, buy fourteen AK-47 assault rifles, certify they are for personal use, change his mind after walking out of the store and then legally sell them to anyone in the parking lot. It’s as if the gun laws in Arizona were designed for gun traffickers. Frustrated ATF agents believed the weapons in question were going to criminals but were over ruled. It is the system that allowed these guns to walk, not the AFT.
Meanwhile, 55,000 Mexican citizens have been killed in the last five years in the battle among drug cartels and Mexican police. It is estimate that 2000 weapons a day cross our Southern border into Mexico and there’s little the AFT can do about it.
I doubt Eric Holder criminally withheld documents from Congress, but the facts about this haven’t filtered out yet. The whole scandal appears to be a political witch hunt. What has become clear, however, is that the guns needed to support Mexican drug cartels are flooding over the border every day while tons of their illegal product floods back here to destroy more American lives.
Thanks to the great reporting of Katherine Eban at Fortune magazine
Note: Many newspapers around the country are probably relying on Congressman Issa’s partisan narrative when reporting on this story. His commentary has been around for months while the Eban report is just days old. Even so, it is revealing how much journalists must depend on the messages politicians give them. Enterprise journalism (or investigative journalism), is what we need to verify what politicians say. This type of journalism is labor intensive and expensive. Eban’s investigation took six months. Corporate media outlets are profit driven, not truth driven enterprises. Newspapers in particular are in financial trouble. Readership and advertising sales are down. I sometimes wonder if readership is down in part because newspapers no longer provide us with trusted, independently verified news?
A Billionaire to Regulate Billionaires at the SEC
A TALE OF TWO NORMS
NORM AS DIRECTOR:
SEC Names Norm Champ as Director of Division of Investment Management
2012-129
Over Population is Key to Understanding Our World
Over population is the elephant in the room than nobody talks about. Take most any crisis we face today, shrink it by 3 or 4 billion people and the problem goes away. Global population has doubled, and just about doubled again in my lifetime. It has fundamentally altered everything. It’s been estimated that there are as many people alive today as have ever lived before. Given our reproductive success as a species, it is easy to forget that population constrain is an unavoidable force of nature. Every species that ever was or ever will be is brought into natures balance. This WILL happen to humans with or without our planning. If we don’t take responsibility for a sustainable world the natural consequence could include human extinction. Natural consequences are seldom humane. Our intelligence has made us successful up till now, but if we don’t apply our ability to reason on this problem we won’t look so smart in the future. (selected reading below)
In the time it takes you to read this post there will be 2,000 more people in the world.
Graph of human population from 10,000 BC – 2,000 AD showing the unprecedented population growth since the 19th century
HERE IS A WORLD POPULATION CLOCK
Work to curb world overpopulation must begin now
Published July 11, 2012
http://www.theolympian.com/2012/07/11/2169964/work-to-curb-world-overpopulation.html
Tuesday morning, the world’s population stood at 7,025,367,636. Some believe that’s already a billion more than the planet can ultimately sustain, but the number is growing annually by 80 million people.
At that rate – about 9,100 new people per hour – the world population increases by roughly the size of Thurston County [Washington State] every day.
This morning, in London, on World Population Day, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation brought world leaders together to kick off a $4 billion fundraising campaign to provide contraceptives for 120 million women who do not have access to birth control, all of them in the poorest countries. [snip]
Overpopulation Problems; Lack of Resources
The World’s New Numbers
by Martin Walker
OVERPOPULATION: A KEY FACTOR IN SPECIES EXTINCTION
As the world’s population grows unsustainably, so do its unyielding demands for water, land, trees and fossil fuels — all of which come at a steep price for already endangered plants and animals. Most biologists agree we’re in the midst of the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event; species are disappearing about 1,000 times faster than is typical of the planet’s history. This time, though, it isn’t because of geologic or cosmic forces but unsustainable human population growth.
Today’s global human population is over 7 billion. Every day, the planet sees a net gain of roughly 250,000 people. If the pace continues, we’ll be on course to reach 8 billion by 2020 and 9 billion by 2050.
By any ecological measure, Homo sapiens sapiens has exceeded its sustainable population size. Just a single human waste product — greenhouse gas — has drastically altered the chemistry of the planet’s atmosphere and oceans, causing global warming and ocean acidification.
In the United States, which has the world’s third largest population after China and India, the fertility rate peaked in 2007 at its highest level since 1971 before dropping off slightly due to the recent economic recession. At 2.1 children per woman, the U.S. fertility rate remains the highest among developed nations, which average around 1.6. The current U.S. population exceeds 300 million and is projected to grow 50 percent by 2050.
The mission of the Center for Biological Diversity is to stop the planetary extinction crisis wiping out rare plants and animals around the world. Explosive, unsustainable human population growth is an essential root cause of this crisis.
We can reduce our own population to an ecologically sustainable level in a number of ways, including the empowerment of women, education of all people, universal access to birth control and a societal commitment to ensuring that all species are given a chance to live and thrive. All of these steps will decrease human poverty and overcrowding, raise our standard of living and sustain the lives of plants, animals and ecosystems everywhere.