Showing posts with label Taxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taxes. Show all posts
Thursday, April 16, 2015
In 1952, the corporate income tax accounted for about 32 percent of all federal tax revenue
In 1952, the corporate income tax accounted for about 32 percent of all federal tax revenue. Today, despite record-breaking profits, corporate taxes bring in just 11 percent. ..
--Daily Kos
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Why are study rooms sitting empty at the new Central Library in San Diego?
Note the sign in room 853 saying, "Please do not open the windows." The windows open!? Is this the reason that I wasn't allowed to use the rooms? Is the library afraid someone will open the window and step out on the ledge? Or worse, step off the ledge? Can't the library simply lock the windows if it's afraid someone will try to commit suicide here?
Here's what the website for the library says:
Study Rooms -- 20+ rooms to choose from
Capacity* 2-6
Onsite booking for up to 2 hours, first come, first served basis at the 1st floor Computer Service Desk.
On Feb. 18, 2015 I went to the front desk and mentioned that study rooms were sitting empty while clients were being told that no rooms were available. I was told that only a group of six people could use the rooms pictured above. (The library website contradicts this claim, clearly stating that 6 is the maximum, not the minimum, number of individuals allowed in these rooms.)
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To emphasize her point, the clerk held the room 853 key card right in front of my face for over 30 seconds. Eventually her arm got tired (I was impressed with the stamina of her arm muscles; I think she works out) and she set the card down on the counter in front of me and indicated that I should keep reading it until I understood it. I took a picture of it. I'm pretty sure I understand it.
I mentioned that the taxpayers built the library and that the public was not served by having the rooms left empty. A different employee retorted that the library had been built mostly with donations!
Of course, the taxpayers are paying the salary of this employee who apparently believes that the public should have no input into how the library is used. Does this woman not know that once donations were accepted by the City of San Diego (and the donors had received their hefty tax deductions), the money belonged to the public?
I doubt that Robin and Gerald Parsky demanded that room 853 be reserved for them in case they might want to drop by with a group of friends and a burning desire to sit in a cold place. (It turns out that a concrete room exposed to the elements on two sides doesn't get much benefit from the library's heating system.) Rather, I think we have lazy library employees who use any excuse, no matter how false or ridiculous, to turn away questions about how the library is utilized.
I wrote to San Diego Public Library's Cynthia Shutler, Supervising Librarian, Central Library, 619-236-5880, cshutler@sandiego.gov. I'll report on her response.
by Maura Larkins
Patient safety and the medical device tax repeal: The good, the bad and the ugly
The medical device tax repeal: The good, the bad and the ugly
When $30 billion dollars are injected into the device industry, it will stimulate the good, the bad and the ugly all the same
Hooman Noorchashm MD, PhD and Amy J. Reed MD, PhD.
Philadelphia Enquirer
February 18, 2015
Recently we’ve been getting some feedback from medical device industry advocates.
Ironically, this feedback did not come when we started to raise an alarm about the severe patient safety hazard the device industry’s federal regulations have caused. Rather, it came when we raised a significant concern about providing this unsafe industry a tax advantage – the so-called “medical device tax repeal”.
You see, giving a financial boost to an industry whose products have virtually no standardized guarantee of safety, is wrong...
We do believe that a vast majority of
medical devices in our country are designed to be ‘life saving’ – and to
make a good profit for their manufacturers. We are not against industry
or profits. But, a minority subset of these devices are faulty, in
design or conception – as the power morcellator is.
And no real federal safety checkpoints are in place to protect
unsuspecting patients. Doctors and device reps are the only things that
stand between the patient and this monster we call “harm” – and that’s
just not acceptable.
When $30 billion dollars are injected into the device industry, it will stimulate the good, the bad and the ugly all the same. And when the bad and the ugly in the medical device realm have no real federal safety checkpoints and are stimulated to grow, they devastate unsuspecting patients’ lives in America.
The real problem in the medical device industry comes from the corrupted way in which the Food and Drug Administration is using the 510(k) law to clear the vast majority of medical devices in the United States. This legislation was never designed for this purpose and it was certainly not designed to ensure patient safety. But, with definitive certainty, the way to protect patients from an industry gone rogue due to defunct federal regulation, is not to boost it with a sizable tax advantage.
So, our response to our friends and colleagues in the medical device industry when they tell us to “keep ‘em separated” is: Help us drive a leadership overhaul of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health by congress. Help us make a “Medical Device Safety Reform Act” a reality and the law of this land. Only then can we help you achieve your tax repeal, stimulate your industry and create your jobs.
When $30 billion dollars are injected into the device industry, it will stimulate the good, the bad and the ugly all the same. And when the bad and the ugly in the medical device realm have no real federal safety checkpoints and are stimulated to grow, they devastate unsuspecting patients’ lives in America.
The real problem in the medical device industry comes from the corrupted way in which the Food and Drug Administration is using the 510(k) law to clear the vast majority of medical devices in the United States. This legislation was never designed for this purpose and it was certainly not designed to ensure patient safety. But, with definitive certainty, the way to protect patients from an industry gone rogue due to defunct federal regulation, is not to boost it with a sizable tax advantage.
So, our response to our friends and colleagues in the medical device industry when they tell us to “keep ‘em separated” is: Help us drive a leadership overhaul of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health by congress. Help us make a “Medical Device Safety Reform Act” a reality and the law of this land. Only then can we help you achieve your tax repeal, stimulate your industry and create your jobs.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Kansas Court Could Kill the Right to a Decent Public Education
I suppose we could call this the "Brown versus Brownback" debate.
California governor Jerry Brown has a very different approach from Kansas governor Sam Brownback.
The Washington Bridge scandal involving Governor Chris Christie has proven that our elected and appointed officials are willing to harm the public to advance their personal and political agendas. Schools are targets as much as bridges.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback answers questions about education funding. Brownback and legislators are waiting for a Kansas Supreme Court ruling on whether the state is spending enough money on its public schools. (AP Photo/John Milburn)
Kansas Court Could Kill the Right to a Decent Public Education
Bill Moyers and Company
January 9, 2014
In 2012, tea party-aligned legislators in the reliably red state of Kansas, backed by deep-pocketed outside groups, were able to purge Republicans they viewed as insufficiently devoted to Governor Sam Brownback’s right wing agenda. Since then, Kansas, like North Carolina, has become a test bed for conservative policy-making.
Deep spending cuts to education, health care and other social services were central to that agenda. And this month, the Kansas Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in a lawsuit precipitated by those cuts which could have profound consequences for public education in America.
In The New York Times, David Sciarra of the Education Law Center and Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights write about what’s at stake…
Budgets are a reflection of priorities, and it’s worth noting that some states are taking a very different approach. This week, California Governor Jerry Brown proposed increasing spending on pre-K education by $22 billion over the state’s 2011-2012 budget. According to the Los Angeles Times, “schools that serve low-income students and non-native English speakers will receive more money under the formula… Under Brown’s plan, LAUSD would see its per-pupil funding jump from about $7,700 per student per year to $12,750 by the end of the decade.”
California governor Jerry Brown has a very different approach from Kansas governor Sam Brownback.
The Washington Bridge scandal involving Governor Chris Christie has proven that our elected and appointed officials are willing to harm the public to advance their personal and political agendas. Schools are targets as much as bridges.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback answers questions about education funding. Brownback and legislators are waiting for a Kansas Supreme Court ruling on whether the state is spending enough money on its public schools. (AP Photo/John Milburn)
Kansas Court Could Kill the Right to a Decent Public Education
Bill Moyers and Company
January 9, 2014
In 2012, tea party-aligned legislators in the reliably red state of Kansas, backed by deep-pocketed outside groups, were able to purge Republicans they viewed as insufficiently devoted to Governor Sam Brownback’s right wing agenda. Since then, Kansas, like North Carolina, has become a test bed for conservative policy-making.
Deep spending cuts to education, health care and other social services were central to that agenda. And this month, the Kansas Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in a lawsuit precipitated by those cuts which could have profound consequences for public education in America.
In The New York Times, David Sciarra of the Education Law Center and Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights write about what’s at stake…
Kansas, like every state, explicitly guarantees a free public education in its Constitution, affirming America’s founding belief that only an educated citizenry can preserve democracy and safeguard individual liberty and freedom.Read on to see what steps the Kansas legislature may take if the court rules against it.
And yet in recent years Kansas has become the epicenter of a new battle over the states’ obligation to adequately fund public education. Even though the state Constitution requires that it make “suitable provision” for financing public education, Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican-led Legislature have made draconian cuts in school spending, leading to a lawsuit that now sits before the state Supreme Court.
The outcome of that decision could resonate nationwide. Forty-five states have had lawsuits challenging the failure of governors and legislators to provide essential resources for a constitutional education. Litigation is pending against 11 states that allegedly provide inadequate and unfair school funding, including New York, Florida, Texas and California.
Many of these lawsuits successfully forced elected officials to increase school funding overall and to deliver more resources to poor students and those with special needs. If the Kansas Supreme Court rules otherwise, students in those states may begin to see the tide of education cuts return.
Kansas’ current constitutional crisis has its genesis in a series of cuts to school funding that began in 2009. The cuts were accelerated by a $1.1 billion tax break, which benefited mostly upper-income Kansans, proposed by Governor Brownback and enacted in 2012.
Overall, the Legislature slashed public education funding to 16.5 percent below the 2008 level, triggering significant program reductions in schools across the state. Class sizes have increased, teachers and staff members have been laid off, and essential services for at-risk students were eliminated, even as the state implemented higher academic standards for college and career readiness.
Budgets are a reflection of priorities, and it’s worth noting that some states are taking a very different approach. This week, California Governor Jerry Brown proposed increasing spending on pre-K education by $22 billion over the state’s 2011-2012 budget. According to the Los Angeles Times, “schools that serve low-income students and non-native English speakers will receive more money under the formula… Under Brown’s plan, LAUSD would see its per-pupil funding jump from about $7,700 per student per year to $12,750 by the end of the decade.”
Monday, December 16, 2013
Inside a School Where Teachers Pack Heat
Jonesboro superintendent packing heat?
Inside a School Where Teachers Pack Heat
A year after Newtown, schools still debate whether guns in the classroom make kids safer.
By Nicholas Kusnetz
Center for Public Integrity
Dec. 16, 2013
It wasn't quite cold enough to need a vest on a recent Texas morning, but Matt Dossey was wearing one anyway. Made of heavy canvas, the vest might have concealed a pistol. There was no way to tell. Perhaps that was the point.
Dossey is superintendent at Jonesboro Independent School District, which serves a tiny community in the rolling Texas scrubland north of Austin. In January, the district decided to arm a select group of staffers with concealed weapons.
Jonesboro straddles the border between Coryell and Hamilton counties; it's more than 15 miles to the nearest sheriff's department. The town is unincorporated, and has no government or police. If someone were to attack the school, Dossey said, no one's coming to protect the kids—not quickly, anyway.
Dossey was standing inside the school cafeteria, where students motored around a room decorated with harvest-themed paper cutouts. The district was hosting a pre-holiday Thanksgiving dinner, when parents join kids for a school lunch of turkey and stuffing. Looking around the room, Dossey, who hadn't taken off his vest, said the new policy adds a layer of security that most everyone in town is happy with.
"If somebody walked in that door and opened fire," he said, "we would have a chance."
Ever since Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, last December, school districts and state governments have searched for better ways to protect students. Lawmakers introduced hundreds of school safety bills. Many called for arming more security guards or for arming teachers. Others went the opposite direction, tightening gun laws.
In Monroe, Connecticut, just nine miles from Sandy Hook, residents supported a range of expensive measures. The town, which spreads out from a village green between two white-steepled churches, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars upgrading buildings and hiring school resource officers, town cops who are posted at schools. The move is largely in step with what happened statewide. Lawmakers passed sweeping legislation in April that included gun controls, such as expanded background checks and mandates for school security. The Legislature also funded millions of dollars in infrastructure grants and tightened state law covering guns in school so that only active or retired law enforcement officers can serve as armed guards.
"I don't believe a teacher would just kill a kid right there. I've walked up in front of a kid who had a gun. I know how it feels."
Texas, on the other hand, has not appropriated money to school security and is not creating mandates. Jonesboro is one of about 70 districts to arm staff since Sandy Hook. This year, the Legislature encouraged more to do the same, passing a bill that created a state-run training program that will allow districts to designate staff as "school marshals," an entirely new class of law enforcement (districts must pay the costs).
At first glance, the disparate approaches appear simply to reflect a stereotypical divide between two regions of America with their own closely held views of guns and their place in daily life. But a closer look shows that what's happened in Jonesboro and Monroe also reflects a broader set of beliefs about the role of government, about local control, and perhaps most importantly, about taxes...
Sunday, May 12, 2013
PIRG: States Lose $40 Billion a Year to Offshore Tax Havens
PIRG: States Lose $40 Billion a Year to Offshore Tax Havens
AFL-CIO
02/11/2013
A new report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) reveals that state governments lost $39.8 billion in revenues because corporations and wealthy individuals are using offshore tax havens to avoid paying their statutory tax rates. We've seen the devastating effects that offshoring jobs have had on America's workers, and offshoring has long been talked about in terms of lost federal revenue, where $150 billion a year goes unpaid, but little focus has been given to state losses from the practice. Federal and state tax laws allow companies to claim that at least some portion of their profits were earned in other countries, particularly those whose tax rates are low or nonexistent.
According to PIRG, such offshoring is both damaging to the states and unfair:
Tax haven abusers benefit from our markets, infrastructure, educated workforce and security, but they pay next to nothing for these benefits. Ultimately, taxpayers must pick up the tab, either in the form of higher taxes, cuts to public spending priorities or increased national debt.
While the federal government is gridlocked and has little chance for changing these tax laws right now, PIRG says it is much easier for the states to attempt to recapture this lost revenue and offers up several legislative options that could make state revenue collection more fair:
1. States can “decouple” their tax system from the federal tax system.
2. States can require worldwide combined reporting for multinational corporations.
3. States should urge their federal representatives to reject a “territorial” tax system, which would further erode state revenue.
4. States can require increased disclosure of financial information about corporations’ business presence in other countries and how they price their transfers with their own foreign subsidiaries; as well as to explain why large disparities exist between the profits corporations report to shareholders and tax authorities.
5. States could withhold taxes as part of federal FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act) withholding.
AFL-CIO
02/11/2013
A new report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) reveals that state governments lost $39.8 billion in revenues because corporations and wealthy individuals are using offshore tax havens to avoid paying their statutory tax rates. We've seen the devastating effects that offshoring jobs have had on America's workers, and offshoring has long been talked about in terms of lost federal revenue, where $150 billion a year goes unpaid, but little focus has been given to state losses from the practice. Federal and state tax laws allow companies to claim that at least some portion of their profits were earned in other countries, particularly those whose tax rates are low or nonexistent.
According to PIRG, such offshoring is both damaging to the states and unfair:
Tax haven abusers benefit from our markets, infrastructure, educated workforce and security, but they pay next to nothing for these benefits. Ultimately, taxpayers must pick up the tab, either in the form of higher taxes, cuts to public spending priorities or increased national debt.
While the federal government is gridlocked and has little chance for changing these tax laws right now, PIRG says it is much easier for the states to attempt to recapture this lost revenue and offers up several legislative options that could make state revenue collection more fair:
1. States can “decouple” their tax system from the federal tax system.
2. States can require worldwide combined reporting for multinational corporations.
3. States should urge their federal representatives to reject a “territorial” tax system, which would further erode state revenue.
4. States can require increased disclosure of financial information about corporations’ business presence in other countries and how they price their transfers with their own foreign subsidiaries; as well as to explain why large disparities exist between the profits corporations report to shareholders and tax authorities.
5. States could withhold taxes as part of federal FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act) withholding.
Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog
"...[S]tate and local government employees earn less total compensation than their private sector counterparts with similar education, training, and work experience."
Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog
August 12, 2010
by Stephanie Rozsa
Cities Speak.org
National League of Cities
Big headlines come across my desk each morning, but none more sensational than this one from Wednesday: “Bloated public sector needs a crash diet” (The Examiner). As I skimmed the article, I read: “While much of the private sector has laid off workers, frozen pay and cut capital investment, public sector employees have lived high on the tax-fattened hog.” This editorial is just one of many causing a stir about public compensation as the recession tightens its grip. The most infamous story came from Bell, California, where the city of 37,000 paid several top employees egregious salaries, including $800,000 to the chief administrative officer. While this kind of abuse is out of the ordinary, it does raise a fair question about public compensation.
In a series of articles, USA Today (most recently on August 10, 2010) similarly asserts that public sector employees are overcompensated compared with their private sector counterparts. Their analysis compares the salaries of similar occupations in each sector, accountants to accountants, for example. While this approach may seem logical, a new report, commissioned by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence (CSLGE) and the National Institute on Retirement Security, declares that the reality is that 80 percent of private positions do not have direct public sector equivalents.
For the 20 percent of occupations that allow comparison, then, USA Today relays only the raw salary differences that suggest higher earnings for state and local workers. This means that their analysis fails to factor in other qualifying factors of comparison between employees, like education level, years of experience, training, and skill sets. So while both USA Today and the new CSLGE report confirm that public employees do, in fact, earn more on average than private sector workers, the public sector workforce earns this higher average salary because the average employee is better educated and has more experience. Once these factors are included in compensation calculations, the latter explains that state and local government employees earn less total compensation than their private sector counterparts with similar education, training, and work experience.
In fact, the CSLGE report discovered that state and local sector employees are twice as likely as their private sector counterparts to have a college or advanced degree. The major driver in this pattern is that government workers have jobs that demand more education, like teachers, university professors, nurses, and social workers. In other words, state and local government employees earn less than they would if they took their skills to the private sector.
How much less?...With benefits factored in, state and local employees still earned an average of nearly 7 percent and 7.4 percent less, respectively...
Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog
August 12, 2010
by Stephanie Rozsa
Cities Speak.org
National League of Cities
Big headlines come across my desk each morning, but none more sensational than this one from Wednesday: “Bloated public sector needs a crash diet” (The Examiner). As I skimmed the article, I read: “While much of the private sector has laid off workers, frozen pay and cut capital investment, public sector employees have lived high on the tax-fattened hog.” This editorial is just one of many causing a stir about public compensation as the recession tightens its grip. The most infamous story came from Bell, California, where the city of 37,000 paid several top employees egregious salaries, including $800,000 to the chief administrative officer. While this kind of abuse is out of the ordinary, it does raise a fair question about public compensation.
In a series of articles, USA Today (most recently on August 10, 2010) similarly asserts that public sector employees are overcompensated compared with their private sector counterparts. Their analysis compares the salaries of similar occupations in each sector, accountants to accountants, for example. While this approach may seem logical, a new report, commissioned by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence (CSLGE) and the National Institute on Retirement Security, declares that the reality is that 80 percent of private positions do not have direct public sector equivalents.
For the 20 percent of occupations that allow comparison, then, USA Today relays only the raw salary differences that suggest higher earnings for state and local workers. This means that their analysis fails to factor in other qualifying factors of comparison between employees, like education level, years of experience, training, and skill sets. So while both USA Today and the new CSLGE report confirm that public employees do, in fact, earn more on average than private sector workers, the public sector workforce earns this higher average salary because the average employee is better educated and has more experience. Once these factors are included in compensation calculations, the latter explains that state and local government employees earn less total compensation than their private sector counterparts with similar education, training, and work experience.
In fact, the CSLGE report discovered that state and local sector employees are twice as likely as their private sector counterparts to have a college or advanced degree. The major driver in this pattern is that government workers have jobs that demand more education, like teachers, university professors, nurses, and social workers. In other words, state and local government employees earn less than they would if they took their skills to the private sector.
How much less?...With benefits factored in, state and local employees still earned an average of nearly 7 percent and 7.4 percent less, respectively...
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Would you spend 2 and a half years in jail to earn $104 million? The IRS hopes so
Whistle-Blower Awarded $104 Million by I.R.S.
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
New York Times
September 11, 2012
Sometimes, crime does pay.
Bradley Birkenfeld, a former banker at UBS, recently completed a 2.5-year prison sentence for conspiring with a wealthy California developer to evade United States income taxes.
But Mr. Birkenfeld, 47, has a lot to show for his time and effort: The Internal Revenue Service acknowledged Tuesday that information he provided was so helpful he would receive a $104 million whistle-blower award for revealing the secrets of the Swiss banking system.
Divulging the schemes that UBS used to encourage American citizens to dodge their taxes, Mr. Birkenfeld led to an investigation that has greatly diminished Switzerland’s status as a secret haven for American tax cheats and allowed the United States Treasury to recover billions in unpaid taxes.
In addition to the $780 million that the Swiss bank paid in 2008 to avoid criminal prosecution, the bank turned over account information regarding 4,700 American clients.
The unprecedented disclosure of Swiss banking information — which caused a fierce political debate in Switzerland before ultimately winning approval from the country’s parliament — set off such a panic among wealthy Americans that more than 14,000 of them joined a tax amnesty program. I.R.S. officials say the amnesty has helped them recover more than $5 billion in unpaid taxes.
Mr. Birkenfeld’s award, the largest ever paid by the I.R.S., is also a milestone for the agency’s whistle-blower program, which offers informants rewards of up to 30 percent of any fines and unpaid taxes recouped by the government. The program was revamped in 2006, offering higher rewards and more incentives for citizens to report tax dodges, in an effort to help recover more of the estimated $100 billion a year in underpaid taxes. But the program has been dogged by bureaucratic delays and institutional resistance within the I.R.S., causing some members of Congress to publicly complain that it was being undermined.
While Mr. Birkenfeld’s $104 million award is far less than the billions he sought, its sheer size — which amounts to more than $4,600 for every hour he spent in prison — could spur a surge in new whistle-blower complaints...
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
New York Times
September 11, 2012
Sometimes, crime does pay.
Bradley Birkenfeld, a former banker at UBS, recently completed a 2.5-year prison sentence for conspiring with a wealthy California developer to evade United States income taxes.
But Mr. Birkenfeld, 47, has a lot to show for his time and effort: The Internal Revenue Service acknowledged Tuesday that information he provided was so helpful he would receive a $104 million whistle-blower award for revealing the secrets of the Swiss banking system.
Divulging the schemes that UBS used to encourage American citizens to dodge their taxes, Mr. Birkenfeld led to an investigation that has greatly diminished Switzerland’s status as a secret haven for American tax cheats and allowed the United States Treasury to recover billions in unpaid taxes.
In addition to the $780 million that the Swiss bank paid in 2008 to avoid criminal prosecution, the bank turned over account information regarding 4,700 American clients.
The unprecedented disclosure of Swiss banking information — which caused a fierce political debate in Switzerland before ultimately winning approval from the country’s parliament — set off such a panic among wealthy Americans that more than 14,000 of them joined a tax amnesty program. I.R.S. officials say the amnesty has helped them recover more than $5 billion in unpaid taxes.
Mr. Birkenfeld’s award, the largest ever paid by the I.R.S., is also a milestone for the agency’s whistle-blower program, which offers informants rewards of up to 30 percent of any fines and unpaid taxes recouped by the government. The program was revamped in 2006, offering higher rewards and more incentives for citizens to report tax dodges, in an effort to help recover more of the estimated $100 billion a year in underpaid taxes. But the program has been dogged by bureaucratic delays and institutional resistance within the I.R.S., causing some members of Congress to publicly complain that it was being undermined.
While Mr. Birkenfeld’s $104 million award is far less than the billions he sought, its sheer size — which amounts to more than $4,600 for every hour he spent in prison — could spur a surge in new whistle-blower complaints...
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Scathing report on for-profit colleges and their $32 billion in tax dollars
Scathing report on for-profit colleges and their $32 billion in tax dollars
July 30, 2012
by Maureen Downey
AJC Get Schooled blog
The for-profit colleges are taking billions in tax dollars with little to show for it, according to a report that will be issued today from a U.S. Senate committee.
Despite $32 billion in federal student aid to the colleges, most of the students never earn a degree, indicating that taxpayers are being saddled with a losing investment. However, the for-profits colleges don’t fail everyone, least of all their executives — the CEOs of the colleges were paid an average of $7.3 million, according to the report.
The scathing report states that more than 80 percent of the for-profit college revenues comes from taxpayers. Because of its larger and larger claim on tax dollars, the for-profit college industry has come under greater scrutiny. Latest numbers show that the for-profits enroll 13 percent of the nation’s college students. Yet, those students represent nearly half of all the defaults on college loans.
And government loans are the oil that keeps the for-profit college industry running. Nearly 96 percent of students at for-profit schools take out loans, compared with about 13 percent at community colleges and 48 percent at four-year public universities.
According to Sen. Tom Harkin, who led the Senate investigation:
Enrollment at for-profit schools has grown dramatically over the past decade. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of students attending for-profit schools has grown from 553,000 to 1.8 million, an increase of more than 225 percent.
In order to drive enrollment growth, for-profit schools spend heavily on television advertisements, billboards, phone solicitation, and web marketing. The pressure on recruiters to enroll as many potential students as possible can give rise to recruiting practices that are overzealous or misleading.
For-profit schools are far more expensive than comparable programs at community colleges or public universities. The average tuition for a for-profit school is about six times higher than a community college and twice as high as a 4-year public school.
For-profit schools provide access to many students who have historically not been well served by traditional institutions of higher education. But data collected by the Senate H.E.L.P. Committee shows that many for-profit schools are not providing the support structure to help these students succeed. The data shows that fifty-four percent of students who enrolled in the 2008-2009 school year withdrew by summer 2010.
Close to one in four students who attends a for-profit school defaults on his or her federal student loans within 3 years of leaving school. This high rate of default combined with the fact that nearly all students at for-profit schools must borrow money to pay the cost of tuition, has resulted in a sector that enrolls approximately 13 percent of American higher education students but accounts for nearly 50 percent of all student loan defaults.
Despite poor student outcomes, for-profit schools are highly profitable companies. Profits at 16 of the largest for-profit schools totaled $2.7 billion in 2009.
According to The New York Times:
“In this report, you will find overwhelming documentation of exorbitant tuition, aggressive recruiting practices, abysmal student outcomes, taxpayer dollars spent on marketing and pocketed as profit, and regulatory evasion and manipulation,” Mr. Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement on Sunday. “These practices are not the exception — they are the norm. They are systemic throughout the industry, with very few individual exceptions.”
In a statement on Sunday, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, the leading trade group of for-profit colleges, called the report “the result of a flawed process that has unfairly targeted private-sector schools and their students.”
Over the last 15 years, enrollment and profits have skyrocketed in the industry. Until the 1990s, the sector was made up of small independent schools offering training in fields like air-conditioning repair and cosmetology. But from 1998 to 2008, enrollment more than tripled, to about 2.4 million students. Three-quarters are at colleges owned by huge publicly traded companies — and, more recently, private equity firms — offering a wide variety of programs.
Enrolling students, and getting their federal financial aid, is the heart of the business, and in 2010, the report found, the colleges studied had a total of 32,496 recruiters, compared with 3,512 career-services staff members.
Among the 30 companies, an average of 22.4 percent of revenue went to marketing and recruiting, 19.4 percent to profits and 17.7 percent to instruction. Their chief executive officers were paid an average of $7.3 million, although Robert S. Silberman, the chief executive of Strayer Education, made $41 million in 2009, including stock options.
With the Department of Education seeking new regulations to ensure that for-profit programs provide training for “gainful employment,” the companies examined spent $8 million on lobbying in 2010, and another $8 million in the first nine months of 2011.
Many of the for-profit colleges, the report found, set tuition at almost exactly what a student could expect in maximum federal aid, including Pell grants and Stafford loans. According to a Bridgepoint Education document, when a new $400 “digital materials fee” would make students pay more than would be available from federal aid, the chief executive frantically wrote an e-mail to the finance officer to complain that the change was going to cause a “shortfall.” And documents from Alta Colleges mention restructuring schedules “so we can grab more of the students’ Stafford.”
July 30, 2012
by Maureen Downey
AJC Get Schooled blog
The for-profit colleges are taking billions in tax dollars with little to show for it, according to a report that will be issued today from a U.S. Senate committee.
Despite $32 billion in federal student aid to the colleges, most of the students never earn a degree, indicating that taxpayers are being saddled with a losing investment. However, the for-profits colleges don’t fail everyone, least of all their executives — the CEOs of the colleges were paid an average of $7.3 million, according to the report.
The scathing report states that more than 80 percent of the for-profit college revenues comes from taxpayers. Because of its larger and larger claim on tax dollars, the for-profit college industry has come under greater scrutiny. Latest numbers show that the for-profits enroll 13 percent of the nation’s college students. Yet, those students represent nearly half of all the defaults on college loans.
And government loans are the oil that keeps the for-profit college industry running. Nearly 96 percent of students at for-profit schools take out loans, compared with about 13 percent at community colleges and 48 percent at four-year public universities.
According to Sen. Tom Harkin, who led the Senate investigation:
Enrollment at for-profit schools has grown dramatically over the past decade. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of students attending for-profit schools has grown from 553,000 to 1.8 million, an increase of more than 225 percent.
In order to drive enrollment growth, for-profit schools spend heavily on television advertisements, billboards, phone solicitation, and web marketing. The pressure on recruiters to enroll as many potential students as possible can give rise to recruiting practices that are overzealous or misleading.
For-profit schools are far more expensive than comparable programs at community colleges or public universities. The average tuition for a for-profit school is about six times higher than a community college and twice as high as a 4-year public school.
For-profit schools provide access to many students who have historically not been well served by traditional institutions of higher education. But data collected by the Senate H.E.L.P. Committee shows that many for-profit schools are not providing the support structure to help these students succeed. The data shows that fifty-four percent of students who enrolled in the 2008-2009 school year withdrew by summer 2010.
Close to one in four students who attends a for-profit school defaults on his or her federal student loans within 3 years of leaving school. This high rate of default combined with the fact that nearly all students at for-profit schools must borrow money to pay the cost of tuition, has resulted in a sector that enrolls approximately 13 percent of American higher education students but accounts for nearly 50 percent of all student loan defaults.
Despite poor student outcomes, for-profit schools are highly profitable companies. Profits at 16 of the largest for-profit schools totaled $2.7 billion in 2009.
According to The New York Times:
“In this report, you will find overwhelming documentation of exorbitant tuition, aggressive recruiting practices, abysmal student outcomes, taxpayer dollars spent on marketing and pocketed as profit, and regulatory evasion and manipulation,” Mr. Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement on Sunday. “These practices are not the exception — they are the norm. They are systemic throughout the industry, with very few individual exceptions.”
In a statement on Sunday, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, the leading trade group of for-profit colleges, called the report “the result of a flawed process that has unfairly targeted private-sector schools and their students.”
Over the last 15 years, enrollment and profits have skyrocketed in the industry. Until the 1990s, the sector was made up of small independent schools offering training in fields like air-conditioning repair and cosmetology. But from 1998 to 2008, enrollment more than tripled, to about 2.4 million students. Three-quarters are at colleges owned by huge publicly traded companies — and, more recently, private equity firms — offering a wide variety of programs.
Enrolling students, and getting their federal financial aid, is the heart of the business, and in 2010, the report found, the colleges studied had a total of 32,496 recruiters, compared with 3,512 career-services staff members.
Among the 30 companies, an average of 22.4 percent of revenue went to marketing and recruiting, 19.4 percent to profits and 17.7 percent to instruction. Their chief executive officers were paid an average of $7.3 million, although Robert S. Silberman, the chief executive of Strayer Education, made $41 million in 2009, including stock options.
With the Department of Education seeking new regulations to ensure that for-profit programs provide training for “gainful employment,” the companies examined spent $8 million on lobbying in 2010, and another $8 million in the first nine months of 2011.
Many of the for-profit colleges, the report found, set tuition at almost exactly what a student could expect in maximum federal aid, including Pell grants and Stafford loans. According to a Bridgepoint Education document, when a new $400 “digital materials fee” would make students pay more than would be available from federal aid, the chief executive frantically wrote an e-mail to the finance officer to complain that the change was going to cause a “shortfall.” And documents from Alta Colleges mention restructuring schedules “so we can grab more of the students’ Stafford.”
Friday, July 20, 2012
Ann Romney: "We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation"
““We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life.”
She won’t release tax returns to “you people”
Ann Romney loses patience, while a blogger wonders if Mitt's mistake was simply loving to pay his taxes too much
BY ALEX PAREENE
JUL 19, 2012
What’s Mitt Romney hiding, exactly? Why won’t he release hislong-form birth certificate college transcripts tax returns? Well, his tax returns are probably just the words “I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS PEASANT WORK I’M QUITE RICH YOU SEE” scrawled in a Montblanc on an otherwise blank 1040EZ, but we’ll likely never know: He refuses to release any returns from prior to 2010 (he claims he’ll get around to showing us his 2011 return), which is all sort of weird because the guy has been planning on running for president for a while, and one thing presidential candidates do is release a whole bunch of tax returns, a practice pioneered by this guy named George Romney, the kindly puppeteer/scientist who crafted/programmed young Willard.
Ann Romney, whose horse is competing in the Olympics, went on the TV to patiently explain that, no, the Romneys would not be sharing any more information on their finances. This is an actual thing she said, on ABC: ““We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life.”
Whoa, there, Ann. When you’re being painted as a living embodiment of out-of-touch plutocratic wealth, maybe avoid the construction “you people.” Even if you just mean it to refer to “the press,” which it seems like you probably did.
People have some theories about what is so bad in Romney’s tax returns. Some people think he might not have paid any taxes at all one year, which Romney’s campaign denies. (But how do we know?) Matt Yglesias, who points out that the guy already ran for president once so you’d think he’d have cleaned his tax situation up a bit, says maybe there’s something in the very recent past that Mitt doesn’t want exposed (like his disclosing his secret Swiss bank account to the IRS to avoid criminal prosecution in 2009?).
There are a bunch of other reasons, too, and all of them can be summarized as “he won’t release them because they will confirm what we already basically know about Romney’s wealth and business practices.”
But Ben Domenech and Erick Erickson have a different idea of exactly what Romney’s hiding. A brilliant, counterintuitive idea. This is for real their actual theory:
Ben Domenech has been doing some pretty solid reporting in The Transom (you’ve subscribed, haven’t you?) about what might be in Mitt Romney’s taxes. He offers this morning the best and most informed theory.
Why most informed? Well, he talked to people who were familiar with the veep vetting process for McCain in 2008.
Here’s what he reports:
So what about the years before 2009? We know he turned over more than two decades of returns to the McCain campaign during the veepstakes vetting process. What was in them? “Mitt’s taxes were complex, but clean. He overpaid his taxes…”
That’s so simple, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Mitt Romney doesn’t want anyone to know that he… overpaid his taxes. The guy whose effective rate was 14 percent in 2010, the one return he released to the public, definitely paid way more than that in his secret, hidden, earlier returns. He is embarrassed, I guess. He doesn’t want his rich financier friends to laugh at him.
She won’t release tax returns to “you people”
Ann Romney loses patience, while a blogger wonders if Mitt's mistake was simply loving to pay his taxes too much
BY ALEX PAREENE
JUL 19, 2012
What’s Mitt Romney hiding, exactly? Why won’t he release his
Ann Romney, whose horse is competing in the Olympics, went on the TV to patiently explain that, no, the Romneys would not be sharing any more information on their finances. This is an actual thing she said, on ABC: ““We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life.”
Whoa, there, Ann. When you’re being painted as a living embodiment of out-of-touch plutocratic wealth, maybe avoid the construction “you people.” Even if you just mean it to refer to “the press,” which it seems like you probably did.
People have some theories about what is so bad in Romney’s tax returns. Some people think he might not have paid any taxes at all one year, which Romney’s campaign denies. (But how do we know?) Matt Yglesias, who points out that the guy already ran for president once so you’d think he’d have cleaned his tax situation up a bit, says maybe there’s something in the very recent past that Mitt doesn’t want exposed (like his disclosing his secret Swiss bank account to the IRS to avoid criminal prosecution in 2009?).
There are a bunch of other reasons, too, and all of them can be summarized as “he won’t release them because they will confirm what we already basically know about Romney’s wealth and business practices.”
But Ben Domenech and Erick Erickson have a different idea of exactly what Romney’s hiding. A brilliant, counterintuitive idea. This is for real their actual theory:
Ben Domenech has been doing some pretty solid reporting in The Transom (you’ve subscribed, haven’t you?) about what might be in Mitt Romney’s taxes. He offers this morning the best and most informed theory.
Why most informed? Well, he talked to people who were familiar with the veep vetting process for McCain in 2008.
Here’s what he reports:
So what about the years before 2009? We know he turned over more than two decades of returns to the McCain campaign during the veepstakes vetting process. What was in them? “Mitt’s taxes were complex, but clean. He overpaid his taxes…”
That’s so simple, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Mitt Romney doesn’t want anyone to know that he… overpaid his taxes. The guy whose effective rate was 14 percent in 2010, the one return he released to the public, definitely paid way more than that in his secret, hidden, earlier returns. He is embarrassed, I guess. He doesn’t want his rich financier friends to laugh at him.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
COMPETITION HEATS UP FOR SCHOOL TAX MEASURES
COMPETITION HEATS UP FOR SCHOOL TAX MEASURES
Analysts say three initiatives could confuse voters
Michael Gardner
Union-Tribune
Feb. 21, 2012
Tax initiatives at a glance
• Brown’s initiative would temporarily increase the state sales tax by a half-cent on the dollar and hike the personal income tax rate for those earning more than $250,000. The money would go to schools, public safety and other services.
• Molly Munger, a wealthy civil rights attorney and Pasadena resident, has collaborated with the California PTA to propose an income tax rate increase for nearly every Californian that would gradually escalate depending on earnings. Those revenues would be sent directly to local boards, avoiding the Legislature’s grasp. Most of the increase is dedicated to K-12 and 15 percent for preschools and child care programs. It would expires in 12 years. Munger actually has two similar measures pending and her team will decide later which one to push.
• The California Federation of Teachers, joined by the California Nurses Association, targets the wealthy by raising tax rates by 3 percent for those earning $1 million and 5 percent for filers with incomes of more than $2 million. Revenues would go to schools, colleges, senior programs, roads and public safety. It, too, bypasses Sacramento by sending the money to school boards and other local governing bodies. The increase would be permanent.
SACRAMENTO - Unless someone blinks, voters could face three competing measures on the November ballot that will ask them to raise taxes in the name of schools.
The individual merits of each have been largely overshadowed by growing warnings that the powerful sponsors — Gov. Jerry Brown, teacher unions and the PTA among them — must either coalesce behind a single initiative or risk having voters turn down all three.
Better one than none is the advice.
“The more measures on the ballot, the greater the chance for voter confusion. And confused voters tend to vote no,” Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, said in an email.
Added Larry Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State University: “The anti-tax folks are going to let the three sides duke it out and take great glee in knowing they will confuse everyone so much that the ‘no’ side won’t have to work very hard.”
So far, admonitions urging compromise have not been heeded by Brown and supporters of the other measures who have deep convictions and, in some cases, deep pockets to finance the looming campaigns.
“The question is what’s best for our kids,” said Bey-Ling Sha, a San Carlos mother of two boys and the executive vice president of the San Diego Unified Council of PTAs who backs an initiative to increase the income tax on almost everyone, but which puts the biggest bite on the wealthy. The measure is being spearheaded by attorney Molly Munger, a civil rights advocate.
“If a deal could be cut that would be better for kids, sure. But I don’t see that happening. At some point, you have to trust the democratic process,” added Sha, a San Diego State University professor.
Jim Groth, the San Diego-based representative on the California Teachers Association board, said there is still time to reach a deal. But Brown’s supporters, such as the CTA, are convinced their measure — which raises the sales and upper income taxes — will have the broadest coalition because it also helps public safety and social services. While the other measures fund programs beyond K-12, Brown’s has the most diverse distribution list...
Analysts say three initiatives could confuse voters
Michael Gardner
Union-Tribune
Feb. 21, 2012
Tax initiatives at a glance
• Brown’s initiative would temporarily increase the state sales tax by a half-cent on the dollar and hike the personal income tax rate for those earning more than $250,000. The money would go to schools, public safety and other services.
• Molly Munger, a wealthy civil rights attorney and Pasadena resident, has collaborated with the California PTA to propose an income tax rate increase for nearly every Californian that would gradually escalate depending on earnings. Those revenues would be sent directly to local boards, avoiding the Legislature’s grasp. Most of the increase is dedicated to K-12 and 15 percent for preschools and child care programs. It would expires in 12 years. Munger actually has two similar measures pending and her team will decide later which one to push.
• The California Federation of Teachers, joined by the California Nurses Association, targets the wealthy by raising tax rates by 3 percent for those earning $1 million and 5 percent for filers with incomes of more than $2 million. Revenues would go to schools, colleges, senior programs, roads and public safety. It, too, bypasses Sacramento by sending the money to school boards and other local governing bodies. The increase would be permanent.
SACRAMENTO - Unless someone blinks, voters could face three competing measures on the November ballot that will ask them to raise taxes in the name of schools.
The individual merits of each have been largely overshadowed by growing warnings that the powerful sponsors — Gov. Jerry Brown, teacher unions and the PTA among them — must either coalesce behind a single initiative or risk having voters turn down all three.
Better one than none is the advice.
“The more measures on the ballot, the greater the chance for voter confusion. And confused voters tend to vote no,” Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, said in an email.
Added Larry Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State University: “The anti-tax folks are going to let the three sides duke it out and take great glee in knowing they will confuse everyone so much that the ‘no’ side won’t have to work very hard.”
So far, admonitions urging compromise have not been heeded by Brown and supporters of the other measures who have deep convictions and, in some cases, deep pockets to finance the looming campaigns.
“The question is what’s best for our kids,” said Bey-Ling Sha, a San Carlos mother of two boys and the executive vice president of the San Diego Unified Council of PTAs who backs an initiative to increase the income tax on almost everyone, but which puts the biggest bite on the wealthy. The measure is being spearheaded by attorney Molly Munger, a civil rights advocate.
“If a deal could be cut that would be better for kids, sure. But I don’t see that happening. At some point, you have to trust the democratic process,” added Sha, a San Diego State University professor.
Jim Groth, the San Diego-based representative on the California Teachers Association board, said there is still time to reach a deal. But Brown’s supporters, such as the CTA, are convinced their measure — which raises the sales and upper income taxes — will have the broadest coalition because it also helps public safety and social services. While the other measures fund programs beyond K-12, Brown’s has the most diverse distribution list...
Thursday, May 19, 2011
New poll: Californians would rather tax rich than cut schools, services
New poll: Californians would rather tax rich than cut schools, services
March 31, 2011
A new poll of likely California voters has found that 78% believes that people who make at least $500,000 per year should pay an extra one percent of taxes rhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifather than see further cuts to the state's schools and social services. The poll, commissioned by the CFT, shows strong sentiment for the rich to pay their fair share of taxes across the board, including all areas of the state, all ethnic groups, ages, and political persuasions. One interesting finding is that 60% of Republicans agree.
March 31, 2011
A new poll of likely California voters has found that 78% believes that people who make at least $500,000 per year should pay an extra one percent of taxes rhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifather than see further cuts to the state's schools and social services. The poll, commissioned by the CFT, shows strong sentiment for the rich to pay their fair share of taxes across the board, including all areas of the state, all ethnic groups, ages, and political persuasions. One interesting finding is that 60% of Republicans agree.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
It's time to tax the rich: Clinton did it and the economy took off
It's time to tax the rich
Contrary to the Republican mantra, Clinton did it and the economy took off.
LA Times
By Moshe Adler
November 17, 2010
The final two years of the George H.W. Bush presidency brought a creeping recession, with an unemployment rate that increased from 5.6% in 1990 to 7.5% in 1992. In June 1992, just five months before the elections, the rate reached 7.8%, and Bush lost his reelection bid ("It's the economy, stupid").
What did the new president do about the economy? President Clinton in 1993 proposed to raise the highest marginal tax rate immediately from 31% to 39.6%. In a Wall Street Journal article, Martin Feldstein, the former chief economic advisor to President Reagan and then as well as now a professor of economics at Harvard, opined that "Mr. Clinton's proposal to raise the marginal tax rates of high-income individuals would hurt incentives, weaken the economy and waste investment dollars."
This was, of course, a reincarnation of the GOP's trickle-down theory — tax cuts for the rich would eventually benefit the middle and lower classes. But Republicans did not let the fact that the Reagan tax cuts had decimated government services and created huge deficits stand in their way. Claiming that it was wrong to raise taxes on the rich in the middle of a recession, every one of them, in both houses, voted against it. Forty-one Democratic representatives and six Democratic senators joined them. The tax increase passed by only the narrowest of margins. In the House the vote was 218 to 216, while in the Senate the increase passed with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Al Gore.
And what were the consequences? In the seven years that followed, the unemployment rate decreased steadily, every single year, until it reached 4% in 2000...
Contrary to the Republican mantra, Clinton did it and the economy took off.
LA Times
By Moshe Adler
November 17, 2010
The final two years of the George H.W. Bush presidency brought a creeping recession, with an unemployment rate that increased from 5.6% in 1990 to 7.5% in 1992. In June 1992, just five months before the elections, the rate reached 7.8%, and Bush lost his reelection bid ("It's the economy, stupid").
What did the new president do about the economy? President Clinton in 1993 proposed to raise the highest marginal tax rate immediately from 31% to 39.6%. In a Wall Street Journal article, Martin Feldstein, the former chief economic advisor to President Reagan and then as well as now a professor of economics at Harvard, opined that "Mr. Clinton's proposal to raise the marginal tax rates of high-income individuals would hurt incentives, weaken the economy and waste investment dollars."
This was, of course, a reincarnation of the GOP's trickle-down theory — tax cuts for the rich would eventually benefit the middle and lower classes. But Republicans did not let the fact that the Reagan tax cuts had decimated government services and created huge deficits stand in their way. Claiming that it was wrong to raise taxes on the rich in the middle of a recession, every one of them, in both houses, voted against it. Forty-one Democratic representatives and six Democratic senators joined them. The tax increase passed by only the narrowest of margins. In the House the vote was 218 to 216, while in the Senate the increase passed with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Al Gore.
And what were the consequences? In the seven years that followed, the unemployment rate decreased steadily, every single year, until it reached 4% in 2000...
Monday, November 08, 2010
States face huge deficits; Now in Power, G.O.P. Vows Cuts in State Budgets
Now in Power, G.O.P. Vows Cuts in State Budgets
By MONICA DAVEY and MICHAEL LUO
November 7, 2010
New York Times
States face huge deficits, even after several grueling years of them, and just as billions of dollars in stimulus money from Washington is drying up.
With some of these new Republican state leaders having taken the possibility of tax increases off the table in their campaigns, deep cuts in state spending will be needed...
Doing It Again
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
November 7, 2010
“You’re right,” said Mr. Bernanke, “we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”
Famous last words. For we are, in fact, doing it again.
It’s true that things aren’t as bad as they were during the worst of the Depression. But that’s not saying much. And as in the 1930s, every proposal to do something to improve the situation is met with a firestorm of opposition and criticism. As a result, by the time the actual policy emerges, it’s watered down to such an extent that it’s almost guaranteed to fail.
We’ve already seen this happen with fiscal policy: fearing opposition in Congress, the Obama administration offered an inadequate plan, only to see the plan weakened further in the Senate. In the end, the small rise in federal spending was effectively offset by cuts at the state and local level, so that there was no real stimulus to the economy.
Now the same thing is happening to monetary policy.
The case for a more expansionary policy by the Fed is overwhelming. Unemployment is disastrously high, while U.S. inflation data over the past few years almost perfectly match the early stages of Japan’s relentless slide into corrosive deflation...
By MONICA DAVEY and MICHAEL LUO
November 7, 2010
New York Times
States face huge deficits, even after several grueling years of them, and just as billions of dollars in stimulus money from Washington is drying up.
With some of these new Republican state leaders having taken the possibility of tax increases off the table in their campaigns, deep cuts in state spending will be needed...
Doing It Again
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
November 7, 2010
“You’re right,” said Mr. Bernanke, “we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”
Famous last words. For we are, in fact, doing it again.
It’s true that things aren’t as bad as they were during the worst of the Depression. But that’s not saying much. And as in the 1930s, every proposal to do something to improve the situation is met with a firestorm of opposition and criticism. As a result, by the time the actual policy emerges, it’s watered down to such an extent that it’s almost guaranteed to fail.
We’ve already seen this happen with fiscal policy: fearing opposition in Congress, the Obama administration offered an inadequate plan, only to see the plan weakened further in the Senate. In the end, the small rise in federal spending was effectively offset by cuts at the state and local level, so that there was no real stimulus to the economy.
Now the same thing is happening to monetary policy.
The case for a more expansionary policy by the Fed is overwhelming. Unemployment is disastrously high, while U.S. inflation data over the past few years almost perfectly match the early stages of Japan’s relentless slide into corrosive deflation...
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Obama is now willing to compromise on tax cuts for the wealthy
November 7, 2010
Obama on "60 Mins": "Basis for Conversation" to Extend Tax Cuts for Wealthy
CBS News
Days after the Republican Party regained the House majority, President Barack Obama tells "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft that there is now "a basis for a conversation" over extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy...
Obama on "60 Mins": "Basis for Conversation" to Extend Tax Cuts for Wealthy
CBS News
Days after the Republican Party regained the House majority, President Barack Obama tells "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft that there is now "a basis for a conversation" over extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy...
Thursday, August 12, 2010
GOP plan to extend tax cuts for rich adds $36 billion to deficit, panel finds
GOP plan to extend tax cuts for rich adds $36 billion to deficit, panel finds
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post
August 12, 2010
A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year -- and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation's millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday...
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post
August 12, 2010
A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year -- and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation's millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday...
Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog
"...[S]tate and local government employees earn less total compensation than their private sector counterparts with similar education, training, and work experience."
Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog
August 12, 2010
by Stephanie Rozsa
Cities Speak.org
National League of Cities
Big headlines come across my desk each morning, but none more sensational than this one from Wednesday: “Bloated public sector needs a crash diet” (The Examiner). As I skimmed the article, I read: “While much of the private sector has laid off workers, frozen pay and cut capital investment, public sector employees have lived high on the tax-fattened hog.” This editorial is just one of many causing a stir about public compensation as the recession tightens its grip. The most infamous story came from Bell, California, where the city of 37,000 paid several top employees egregious salaries, including $800,000 to the chief administrative officer. While this kind of abuse is out of the ordinary, it does raise a fair question about public compensation.
In a series of articles, USA Today (most recently on August 10, 2010) similarly asserts that public sector employees are overcompensated compared with their private sector counterparts. Their analysis compares the salaries of similar occupations in each sector, accountants to accountants, for example. While this approach may seem logical, a new report, commissioned by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence (CSLGE) and the National Institute on Retirement Security, declares that the reality is that 80 percent of private positions do not have direct public sector equivalents.
For the 20 percent of occupations that allow comparison, then, USA Today relays only the raw salary differences that suggest higher earnings for state and local workers. This means that their analysis fails to factor in other qualifying factors of comparison between employees, like education level, years of experience, training, and skill sets. So while both USA Today and the new CSLGE report confirm that public employees do, in fact, earn more on average than private sector workers, the public sector workforce earns this higher average salary because the average employee is better educated and has more experience. Once these factors are included in compensation calculations, the latter explains that state and local government employees earn less total compensation than their private sector counterparts with similar education, training, and work experience.
In fact, the CSLGE report discovered that state and local sector employees are twice as likely as their private sector counterparts to have a college or advanced degree. The major driver in this pattern is that government workers have jobs that demand more education, like teachers, university professors, nurses, and social workers. In other words, state and local government employees earn less than they would if they took their skills to the private sector.
How much less?...With benefits factored in, state and local employees still earned an average of nearly 7 percent and 7.4 percent less, respectively...
Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog
August 12, 2010
by Stephanie Rozsa
Cities Speak.org
National League of Cities
Big headlines come across my desk each morning, but none more sensational than this one from Wednesday: “Bloated public sector needs a crash diet” (The Examiner). As I skimmed the article, I read: “While much of the private sector has laid off workers, frozen pay and cut capital investment, public sector employees have lived high on the tax-fattened hog.” This editorial is just one of many causing a stir about public compensation as the recession tightens its grip. The most infamous story came from Bell, California, where the city of 37,000 paid several top employees egregious salaries, including $800,000 to the chief administrative officer. While this kind of abuse is out of the ordinary, it does raise a fair question about public compensation.
In a series of articles, USA Today (most recently on August 10, 2010) similarly asserts that public sector employees are overcompensated compared with their private sector counterparts. Their analysis compares the salaries of similar occupations in each sector, accountants to accountants, for example. While this approach may seem logical, a new report, commissioned by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence (CSLGE) and the National Institute on Retirement Security, declares that the reality is that 80 percent of private positions do not have direct public sector equivalents.
For the 20 percent of occupations that allow comparison, then, USA Today relays only the raw salary differences that suggest higher earnings for state and local workers. This means that their analysis fails to factor in other qualifying factors of comparison between employees, like education level, years of experience, training, and skill sets. So while both USA Today and the new CSLGE report confirm that public employees do, in fact, earn more on average than private sector workers, the public sector workforce earns this higher average salary because the average employee is better educated and has more experience. Once these factors are included in compensation calculations, the latter explains that state and local government employees earn less total compensation than their private sector counterparts with similar education, training, and work experience.
In fact, the CSLGE report discovered that state and local sector employees are twice as likely as their private sector counterparts to have a college or advanced degree. The major driver in this pattern is that government workers have jobs that demand more education, like teachers, university professors, nurses, and social workers. In other words, state and local government employees earn less than they would if they took their skills to the private sector.
How much less?...With benefits factored in, state and local employees still earned an average of nearly 7 percent and 7.4 percent less, respectively...
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Americans hate taxes--we'd rather turn out the lights and fire the teachers
America Goes Dark
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
August 8, 2010
The lights are going out all over America — literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.
Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.
And a nation that once prized education — that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children — is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.
We’re told that we have no choice, that basic government functions — essential services that have been provided for generations — are no longer affordable. And it’s true that state and local governments, hit hard by the recession, are cash-strapped. But they wouldn’t be quite as cash-strapped if their politicians were willing to consider at least some tax increases...
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
August 8, 2010
The lights are going out all over America — literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.
Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.
And a nation that once prized education — that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children — is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.
We’re told that we have no choice, that basic government functions — essential services that have been provided for generations — are no longer affordable. And it’s true that state and local governments, hit hard by the recession, are cash-strapped. But they wouldn’t be quite as cash-strapped if their politicians were willing to consider at least some tax increases...
Sunday, June 20, 2010
51 German millionaires offer to pay more taxes
German Millionaires Volunteer to Pay More Tax
Sticky Feet blog
JUNE 18, 2010
CNN and CNBC are reporting a story about a group of German millionaires who are volunteering to pay an additional 10% in income taxes for 10 years to help the German government meet its budget needs in a time of austerity.
The movement, known as the Club of the Wealthy, was formed in 2009 and now 51 German millionaires have written a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposing their idea. It would not actually be voluntary - the idea is to have the government impose a temporary 10% charge on income. It's unclear whether the proposal has much support among the broader circle of Germany's élite - there are 800,000 German millionaires, so if only 51 have signed the letter after a year's efforts, that may signal its lack of support. But the movement is gaining momentum and is underpinned by Germany's longstanding social democracy framework...
Sticky Feet blog
JUNE 18, 2010
CNN and CNBC are reporting a story about a group of German millionaires who are volunteering to pay an additional 10% in income taxes for 10 years to help the German government meet its budget needs in a time of austerity.
The movement, known as the Club of the Wealthy, was formed in 2009 and now 51 German millionaires have written a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposing their idea. It would not actually be voluntary - the idea is to have the government impose a temporary 10% charge on income. It's unclear whether the proposal has much support among the broader circle of Germany's élite - there are 800,000 German millionaires, so if only 51 have signed the letter after a year's efforts, that may signal its lack of support. But the movement is gaining momentum and is underpinned by Germany's longstanding social democracy framework...
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Congress should close the hedge fund manager loophole
What's wrong with this picture?
MoveOn.com Political Action
Hedge fund managers make billions but pay lower tax rates than teachers. Hard to believe, right? Congress is considering fixing the loophole, but Wall Street is pushing back hard.
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