Sunday, December 13, 2015

Tax cuts exacerbating Oklahoma's bust-driven budget crisis

By SEAN MURPHY December 12, 2015 7:19 PM                             
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Even as Oklahoma's economy was roaring thanks to an oil boom, Sarah Dougherty watched in disbelief as the Tulsa elementary school her children attend expanded class sizes and eliminated teachers because costly tax cuts and incentives ate up much of the surplus revenue.
Republican Gov. Mary Fallin and the GOP-led Legislature pushed through the latest cut, a quarter-point reduction in the top income tax rate, two years ago when $100-a-barrel crude buoyed the state's coffers. While the average tax filer will save only about $85 a year under the cut taking effect Jan. 1, it comes at a $147 million price tag to the state.
State services — including education — are feeling the pinch.
"It's insanity land," Dougherty said. "It's demoralizing to live here and see that education is not a priority. These are our children and these are our neighbors. They need to make some changes."
When the inevitable bust followed, beginning last year, oil prices slid to the $40-per-barrel range, driving up unemployment and forcing several major energy companies to lay off workers. Dwindling revenue collections coupled with a flurry of tax cuts and corporate breaks punched a huge hole in the state's budget.
Besides the drop in per-pupil spending, the Tourism Department hiked fees at some state parks and state buildings fell further into disrepair.
"We didn't create the proper tax structure to protect us from this type of boom-and-bust cycle," said Rep. Scott Inman, D-Del City. "The Republican-led Legislature just randomly cut different taxes thinking we'd benefit from it."
The production of oil has been an integral part of Oklahoma history that predates statehood, and the Sooner State has grown accustomed to the cyclical boom-and-bust nature of the industry. Booms in the 1920s, 1950s and 1980s all were followed by a bust cycle that saw unemployment rise and state revenues shrink.
Some oil states, such as North Dakota, have squirreled away billions of dollars in oil and gas production revenue to help the state prepare for the bust cycle. That state's voter-approved Legacy Fund, which includes 30 percent of taxes from oil and gas production, currently has a balance of $3.3 billion. By comparison, Oklahoma's Rainy Day Fund, which already was used to fill a hole in the current year's budget, now has a balance of about $385 million.
With the ripple effect of low oil prices now leading to dwindling income, sales and energy production tax collections, the state is looking at a potential gap of as much as 10 percent of its $7.1 billion state-appropriated budget last year, possibly more.
Fallin's Secretary of Finance, Preston Doerflinger, agrees the state's fiscal situation is not a pleasant one but said state leaders are managing it appropriately. He also defended the push by Republicans to continue reducing the state's income tax.
"I think it's incumbent upon us to continue to keep taxes as low as possible," Doerflinger said. "I can debate whether it has come at a bad time, but we should be fortunate that people are facing a little less of a tax burden when we're facing what we're facing."
Supporters of reducing Oklahoma's income tax say the cuts make the state more attractive to business and industry and spur economic growth. They point to other cuts over the last decade that were followed by increases in income tax revenue collections.
But Oklahoma's Republican Treasurer Ken Miller, an economist who has long advocated for ensuring that tax cuts are revenue-neutral, chastised his GOP colleagues in the Legislature for creating a fiscal crisis that is "self-inflicted."
"Common sense dictates that until the state proves it can live within its means, it really should stop reducing them, yet some 'thinkers' continue to advocate eliminating the state income tax — even arguing that the state's largest funding source can be vanished without a replacement and still fund needed teacher pay raises," Miller wrote in a recent commentary. "This contention would be laughable if not so devastatingly irresponsible — considering current funding status of core services. But rather than rebuke this nonsense, many in positions of responsibility actually enable it through their silence or rhetoric."
The true depth of Oklahoma's budget hole for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 is not yet known, but early predictions estimate it could range anywhere from $600 million to as much as $1 billion.
While state lawmakers prepare to return to the Capitol in February to write a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, a group of business and education leaders is launching a signature drive to place a 1-cent sales tax on the ballot in November to fund public education. If approved by voters, it would increase Oklahoma's combined state and average local sales tax rate to 9.72 percent, the highest in the nation according to The Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank.
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Bernie Sanders Will Become President, Despite Rigged Debate Schedules, Skewed Polls, and Clinton's 'Inevitability'

           
Posted: Updated:


     

BERNIE SANDERS
                                                                      
 
The American political establishment is trying desperately to shift public opinion towards the belief that voters will elect a person they don't trust and don't like. It's not a conspiracy, however, it's simply the same dynamics that allowed Enron to seduce financial markets before its epic collapse. BusinessWeek wrote a glowing cover story on Enron in February of 2001, stating "Enron's success has not gone unnoticed, but it has a few advantages that competitors would be hard pressed to match." Ten months after this glowing review of Enron's prominence within the energy field, it went bankrupt.
The same dynamics are at play with Hillary Clinton and poll numbers, as well as Clinton's "inevitability." Conventional logic is often rooted in a herd mentality, wrapped in a cloak of groupthink, and justified by doublespeak. It's the reason that television gravitates away from honest individuals and towards anyone who will sell commercials. According to a Philly.com article by Will Bunch, More Americans support Bernie than The Donald -- but he gets 1/23 the TV coverage.
To certain people, Hillary Clinton is definitely going to win, simply because of poll numbers. However, people forget that in December of 2007, Gallup reported Clinton Maintains Large Lead Over Obama Nationally. Of course, in American society today, looking back only eight years is ancient history.
This apathetic acquiescence on the part of some voters exists, even though non-traditional metrics (Tumblr has become "a giant Bernie Sanders campaign rally") show Bernie Sanders the clear favorite among a wide range Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans.
As for the non-white Democrats that Clinton supporters claim will only vote for Hillary, things will change once more media attention is given to Clinton's prison lobbyist donors, use of race and Islamophobia against Obama in 2008, and almost three week delay in addressing questions about Ferguson.
In addition, Clinton's "abysmal" racial justice record, as explained by Daunasia Yancey, the founder of Black Lives Matter in Boston, is another reason Clinton supporters shouldn't simply place African American and Latino voters into a convenient poll number.
Today's public relations spin won't work, especially since you're reading this online and Americans spend around 2 hours per day on social networking sites. Bernie Sanders now has greater control of the internet than Obama in either of his campaigns. The Washington Post writes "Sen. Bernie Sanders fares so favorably in Google searches" that "nine of his top 10 results were rated 'very pro' in the analysis." Voter sentiment after 2016 will be judged by online metrics, not landline polling data, and we're already seeing why Bernie Sanders will eventually become president.
Type "Hillary Clinton" on Google now. Before you get to type "Clinton," the words "Hillary Clinton Email" will drop down. Also, I explain in this YouTube segment what poll numbers can't, and why I will only vote for Sanders.
Social media, from the manner Sanders dominated almost every online poll after both Democratic debates, to the networking done by Sanders supporters across the nation, has undermined Clinton's advantage in fundraising. Sanders doesn't have to spend $2.5 billion convincing people that he's honest. People create the narrative around Bernie Sanders.
In contrast, mainstream pundits and public relations executives work tirelessly to make you believe Clinton is inevitability. As CNN writes, "The nation's leading Democratic PR firm will soon be owned by a private equity group run by a longtime Clinton insider." Without social media, Clinton would undoubtedly run away with the nomination, because she'd be able to control the narrative even further.
Today, however, voters can easily find out that Clinton's campaign received $133,246 from two major prison lobbyists. Or, voters inquiring about the validity of Clinton's claim to reign-in Wall Street can easily find out that four of Clinton's top five donors since 1999 have been Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley. Ending mass incarceration and Wall Street greed is difficult when you're funded by these interests.
I explain in this YouTube segment why Hillary Clinton is unelectable due to negative favorability ratings and why Americans have never elected a president they found "not honest and trustworthy" before entering the White House. Qunnipiac University, in an August report titled Trump GOP Lead Grows As Clinton Dem Lead Shrinks, explains that voters associate the word "liar" with Clinton:
Clinton tops the Democrats' "no way" list with 11 percent.
"Liar" is the first word that comes to mind more than others in an open-ended question when voters think of Clinton.
"Arrogant" is the word for Trump and voters say "Bush" when they think of Bush...
"On the Democratic side, Secretary Hillary Clinton continues her slide while Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to narrow the gap," Malloy added.
So, according to polls once explaining Clinton's shrinking lead, voters correlate the word "liar" as "the first word that comes to mind more than others ...when voters think of Clinton."
But you used a poll from August!
Actually, things haven't changed, voters still don't trust Clinton. Quinnipiac's November 4, 2015 report stated, "Clinton has the lowest rating for honesty as American voters say 60 - 36 percent she is not honest and trustworthy."
But that was in November!
Well, Quinnipiac's December 2, 2015 poll states "Clinton has a negative 44 - 51 percent favorability rating." As for trustworthiness, the poll finds "American voters say 60 - 36 percent that Clinton is not honest and trustworthy."
On Election Day, America will not elect a president whom the vast majority of voters say isn't honest, especially if this person accepted money from Donald Trump. The polls saying Clinton is leading by a wide margin overtly contradict their findings, and primarily survey people who use landlines. Time published an article titled Landline Phones Are Getting Closer to Extinction, and explains that "more than half of wireless-only adults are now 35 or older."
Despite a lack of name recognition, Sanders was the first candidate to reach a million online donations in late September, in addition to catching up to the Clinton fundraising juggernaut. According to Think Progress, "Bernie Sanders is raising a lot of money from individual donors for his presidential bid, and he's doing it even faster than President Obama did during both of his campaigns."
In September, Bernie Sanders was 7 points behind Hillary Clinton nationally, with momentum on his side and polls reflecting a genuine challenge to the former Secretary of State. Gone were the apathetic talking points about Clinton's inevitability, especially since Sanders had surpassed Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The media, and the Democratic political establishment, had no choice but to accept a genuine challenge from Bernie Sanders.
Then, the cavalry came charging to save the day, in the form of limited debates, contradictory poll numbers (claiming voters will overwhelmingly vote for someone they don't trust) and an immediate refrain by pundits from mentioning Sanders winning the presidency.
There's a reason Mediate published an article titled Did You Know There's a Dem Debate Tonight? No, Because Debbie Doesn't Want You To, explaining a rigged debate schedule:
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has made it her absolute mission to stifle the Democratic primary debates, to bury them underneath faintly-advertised headlines and shoehorn them into impossibly unrealistic time slots. Let's be honest -- Wasserman Schultz has no interest in putting on a show of the primaries.
Scheduling a debate on a Saturday, in the evening, reeks of protecting an establishment candidate from questions about endless flip flopping.
For example, it's understandable Debbie Wasserman would want to shield voters from questions like "Will you say anything to get elected?" posed by Anderson Cooper to Clinton during the first debate.
Nevertheless, Bernie Sanders won't need an acceptable number of debates to defeat Clinton. Bernie Sanders will become our next president because he's winning among normal, everyday Americans; not a select group of less than 1,000 people meant to speak for 316 million other Americans.
My first article on Bernie Sanders winning the presidency, titled It's Official -- Bernie Sanders Has Overtaken Hillary Clinton In the Hearts and Minds of Democrats is now at 695,000 Facebook Likes. Therefore, the question isn't whether or not I'm the second coming of Walter Cronkite. The real question is this: Who else could propel a piece on the 2016 election to almost 700,000 Facebook likes, other than our future president?

Above is from:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/bernie-sanders-will-become-president_b_8780730.html

After court loss, Illinois Policy Institute levels false attacks against SEIU Healthcare



 
On Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, a column appeared on the Opinion page of The Herald-News entitled “Political sweetheart deals are questionable” – written by the Illinois Policy Institute’s Scott Reeder. Mr. Reeder bills himself as a “journalist” for IPI – an anti-union policy organization that has received significant funding from Gov. Bruce Rauner himself. He is not a journalist.
Reeder makes numerous unfounded attacks on a contract that provides health insurance to some 5,250 home health care workers across the state of Illinois. The central claim in his piece is that taxpayers are being compelled to contribute to a union health care fund from which many people are not actually collecting benefits.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Under the contract, which Mr. Reeder obviously did not bother to read or willfully chose to distort, the state contributes funding to a small portion – approximately 20 percent – of home health care workers who work full time or close to full time, with a specific numerical cap of 5,250 workers covered under the program. To be clear, that’s out of approximately 25,000 such workers statewide.
Under a different contract, all 25,000 workers might qualify for the program, which provides lifesaving health care to relatively low-wage workers in an industry with an incredibly high rate of turnover. But the contract stipulates that the state fund will cover only up to a maximum of 5,250 workers.
Here’s where the sleight of hand by Mr. Reeder begins. The state’s preferred method of accounting is to add the amount necessary to provide health insurance to these 5,250 individuals to the hourly rate that all 25,000 home health care workers are paid, as opposed to paying a lump sum per individual who is covered by the program.
Because of this accounting method, it may appear to those who don’t understand the contract – or are seeking to deceive an audience for partisan political purposes – that everyone is being charged for health insurance. Indeed, Reeder concludes by noting, “At least on the surface, it would appear the contract has the state paying 80 percent more than it should.”
And in fact, if one were willfully trying to distort the truth to smear organized labor, as it is apparent that Mr. Reeder and the Illinois Policy Institute want to do, it could be made to appear that way in print – as Mr. Reeder convinced a number of media outlets to allow him to do in his column.

Independently, the widely-respected Illinois political reporter and author of the blog Capitol Fax, Rich Miller, took a closer look at Mr. Reeder’s claims and found them to be entirely without merit. (See Mr. Miller's comments below) **
Unfortunately, these attacks against our workers by Gov. Rauner and IPI are not isolated incidents, nor is their timing a mere coincidence. A St. Clair County judge recently ruled that Rauner was illegally denying $13 million in payments for these workers’ health insurance and issued an order requiring immediate payment.
And despite his efforts to appear to be negotiating in good faith with state workers, Rauner continues privately to attack these very health benefits at the bargaining table. Columns like Mr. Reeder’s only seek to supplement those attacks in public. It should be no surprise at this point that Illinoisans distrust this governor and his agenda, which is having devastating effects on working families.
•by  James Muhammad is the vice president of the Service Employees International Union for Illinois.

Above is from:  http://www.theherald-news.com/2015/12/11/guest-view-after-court-loss-illinois-policy-institute-levels-false-attacks-against-seiu-healthcare/aex1068/?page=2

 
* The Illinois Policy Institute’s Scott Reeder
And while Quinn was governor, the state entered into a contract with SEIU to contribute money for each hour worked by home care workers represented by the union toward health insurance.
The state is paying $1.11 an hour.
But here is the rub: Fewer than one-fifth of the home care workers actually accepted the insurance offered by the health care fund administered by SEIU.
So instead of the state just contributing toward the 5,000 employees accepting the insurance, taxpayers are paying for those employees and an extra 20,000 workers who said they didn’t want it.
Wouldn’t it be better if workers declining the insurance got a pay raise instead?
Why would Quinn negotiate a contract like that?
At least on the surface, it would appear the contract has the state paying 80 percent more than it should.