Smoke Ring Days: Thoughts

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

The Big Reveal: SEC rules unmask CEO perks

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Thanks to new SEC rules, corporations are revealing more about CEO perks than they have in the past, according to a new report from The Corporate Library.

Based on the annual proxy statements of 100 companies, the corporate watchdog group found that the average disclosed cost of perks and executive benefits for 2006 shot up drastically.

The median cost of perks was 23 percent higher, at $112,894. The median is the midpoint - meaning half of the 100 companies reported higher costs. The reason for the big increases was under-reporting in the past.

According to the report: "Poor disclosure in the past has significantly masked the levels of perquisite provisions and their associated costs."

The perks and benefits enjoyed by CEOs and a handful of other top executives may include personal use of company aircraft and cars, security provisions, legal fees, financial planning services, country club memberships, housing and relocation costs (including a company buying and selling an executive's home if he or she must relocate).

And if the perk is considered taxable income and triggers an IRS bill for the executive, the company will sometimes cover that too.

"The issue is not that the perks cost a lot of money. As an absolute number it's pretty minor," said Paul Hodgson, the report's author. "From a shareholder's perspective, it's that [CEOs are] the most highly paid guys on the planet, so why can't they pay for [these things] themselves?"

But the cost of those perks, while minor relative to an executive's pay or the company's bottom line, is easily double or more many people's annual compensation,

Of the 100 company proxies the Corporate Library examined, for example, the greatest increase in disclosed perk costs came from Merck (Charts). In 2005, the pharmaceutical company reported that its CEO, Richard Clark, received a $9,450 company match in his savings plan. In 2006, the company disclosed that he received perks totaling $210,536, which included not only a company savings match but use of the company aircraft, commuting benefits, security alarm systems and dividend equivalents on unvested restricted stock.

Some companies, such as Whole Foods (Charts), Corus Bankshares (Charts) or SYNNEX (Charts), meanwhile, reported no CEO perk compensation from last year, according to Hodgson's report. They either don't provide special perks for their executives or the perks they do pay for don't exceed $10,000 combined, which is the new reporting threshold required under the SEC's latest rules, down from the $50,000 threshold that used to be in effect.

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

Credit card companies' change of heart

Credit card companies' change of heart

Posted: Friday, March 9 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan

America's credit card companies: Champions of the poor? Apologizing to indebted consumers? Someone check the thermostat in hell.

What to make of this sudden, very public about-face by America's credit card companies since January in which they seem to be abandoning many of the outrageous penalty fees that have confused consumers and fattened bank bottom lines for years. Why the sudden change of heart? Were they visited by the ghost of Christmas past during the holidays, or at least, the ghost of Democratic-controlled Congress future?

Or are they just playing possum?

In recent months, Chase and CitiGroup both have announced they will abandon what were clearly among the most egregious fee practices by credit card issuers. But look closely, and you'll see a pattern.

In January, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., hosted a banking committee hearing on credit card fees. On the eve of that hearing, Chase announced it would discontinue two-cycle billing. That practice is so diabolical and complicated I can't really explain it here. But suffice to say that the moment you don't pay your bill in full, the card issuer will not only assess high interest rate charges on new purchases, it will actually reach one month into the past and charge interest on past purchases too. Instead of being embarrassed during the hearing by this practice, Chase was able to piously say, “We don’t do that any more.”

This week, card issuers were again hauled before the Senate, this time in front of an investigative subcommittee. Critics were licking their chops, ready to dig into a government report from last year that found heartbreaking stories of indebtedness – such as that of an Ohio man who charged $3,200 on his cards and then saw the debt mushroom to $10,700 because of fees, penalties and interest.

But just as critics began to sharpen their verbal knives, Citigroup announced it would abandon “universal default,” a means of raising credit card interest rates that has universally been decried as unfair. Card companies often pull your credit report every month. Under universal default, they reserve the right to raise your rate if you are late paying any monthly bill. Being late on your car payment shouldn't have anything to do with your credit standing with your credit card issuer, but universal default drew that connection anyway.

Credit goes to the fee-creation team

In truth, universal default was simply another excuse dreamed up by card issuers' fee-creation teams to trip consumers into the lucrative, high-interest-rate bin.

But late last week, Citigroup announced it had seen the light and was abandoning the practice.

Chase also offered another giveback before the hearing. It said it would stop charging over-limit fees. What are those? Remember when your card would be declined if you didn't have enough credit balance remaining to make a purchase? Fee-creation teams realized the firms weren't making any money doing that, so they quietly changed policies to allow consumers to exceed their credit limit and began tacking on a $40 fee for each month the limit was exceeded.

After that Ohio man mentioned that he was charged 47 over-limit fees on his $3,200 balance, Chase now says is will stop levying the fees after 90 days.

Of course, consumers should welcome such changes. It's good to have the big boys abandon these outrageous fees. Perhaps they have seen the light.

Or perhaps something else is going on.

Notice the timing of the announcements -- each one right before a potentially embarrassing congressional hearing. Having sat at such hearings, I can tell you that nothing blunts a good verbal bloodbath more effectively than a witness telling Congress, "Yep, we did that; we were wrong, and we don't do that any more."

Pre-hearing spin muddies story line

News stories following both hearings also were blunted. Instead of stories focused solely on egregious lending practices, journalists had to spend precious paragraphs (as I just did) explaining the card company fee polices and the recent largesse.

The message was now effectively muddied. The original message of these Senate hearings was: Half of American consumers are entangled in terrible loan arrangements with credit card firms that charge usurious interest rates, bury contractual agreements in incomprehensible small print and change those agreements at any time. The message instead became: Card companies might be coming around. Maybe they're not so bad!

Reaction to all this was mixed. Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, author of “The Two-Income Trap” and a perpetual thorn in the industry's side, was decidedly optimistic about the developments.

"This small change is important," Warren wrote on her blog on TPMCafe.com. She congratulated Congress on winning immediate concessions from the industry. "It is a powerful reminder that leadership in Congress makes a real difference."

But Robert Manning, author of Credit Card Nation, took the contrary view.

"It's a pre-emptive strike," he said. He thinks the industry has a plan: Make small concessions now to avoid big new regulations later. "They sacrificed the least-defensible policies to demonstrate that they don't need regulatory oversight. But it will be business as usual."

'Good without negative consequences'

Greg McBride, a senior analyst with Bankrate.com, offered a more down-the-middle assessment.

"I think it's a bold step but not one they are taking blindly," he said. "Lost in the shuffle is how competitive the credit card business is. ... (The new policies) could foster good will without negative consequences for the issuer.”

Also lost in the shuffle is Citigroup's rejection of its long-standing policy allowing it to raise interest rates or penalty fees "any time for any reason.”

Any time for any reason? Could they really do that? They can. In fact, it's standard credit card issuer policy. You can read about that in Citigroup's release.

I find this the most promising piece of news. The most egregious aspect of the credit card industry’s behavior is the arbitrary nature of fees and interest rates. One-sided contracts with consumers essentially gave these firms a license to change the terms at any time, which was effectively a license to print money. Citigroup says it will no longer do that. Terms will only change when a new card is issued, the firm said.

One can only hope other credit card issuers will also decide to honor their original contracts with consumers and abide by their agreements. But if past behavior is any indication of future behavior, I wouldn't count on it. What I would count on is this: War rooms full of hidden fee visionaries are right now dreaming up new ways to hit cardholders with new and even more creative tack-on charges that don't run afoul of these recent concessions.

Will those fees make it out of the war room and harm consumers? Only time will tell.
But I would bet my credit card balance on this: If Congress stops here, if consumer outrage over abusive credit card practice simmers down, these hidden fees will be back soon. And they will be bigger than ever. Credit card companies don’t deserve the privilege of voluntary compliance any more. They’ve shown reckless disregard for consumers and should face the consequences of that. Congress must pass meaningful reforms for the industry that commit this newfound fairness to law. Congress must also consider caps on interest rates and fees, strict rules on marketing to younger Americans and the deeply indebted, and mandatory transparency for penalty charge structures. Anything less will land us right back where we are today.

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

10 things your hospital won't tell you

10 things your hospital won't tell you
Treatment errors are common, finding someone in charge can seem impossible, and patients sometimes wind up sicker than when they arrived. And here's a tip: Try to avoid hospitals late at night and in July.
By HYPERLINK "http://www.smartmoney.com" SmartMoney This article was reported and written by Reshma Kapadia for SmartMoney.
Published Feb. 23, 2007
In recent years, errors in treatment have become a serious problem for hospitals, ranging from operations on wrong body parts to medication mix-ups.
At least 1.5 million patients are harmed every year from being given the wrong drugs, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. That's an average of one person per U.S. hospital per day.
One reason these mistakes persist: Only 10% of hospitals are fully computerized and have a central database to track allergies and diagnoses, says Robert Wachter, the chief of medical service at UC San Francisco Medical Center.
But signs of change are emerging. More than 3,000 U.S. hospitals, or 75% of the country's beds, have signed on for a campaign by the not-for-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement to implement prevention measures such as multiple checks on drugs.
Though the system is improving, it still has a long way to go. Patients should always have a friend, relative or patient advocate from the hospital staff at their side to take notes and make sure the right medications are being dispensed.

Infections and the chain of command
"You may leave sicker than when you came in."
A week after Leandra Wiese had surgery to remove a benign tumor, the high school senior felt well enough to host a sleepover. But later that weekend she was vomiting and running a fever. Thinking it was the flu, her parents took her back to the hospital. Wiese never came home. It wasn't the flu but a deadly surgical infection.
About 2 million people a year contract hospital-related infections, and about 90,000 die, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The recent increase in antibiotic-resistant bugs and the mounting cost of health care -- to which infections add about $4.5 billion annually -- have mobilized the medical community to implement processes designed to decrease infections. These include using clippers rather than a razor to shave surgical sites and administering antibiotics before surgery but stopping them soon after to prevent drug resistance.
For all of modern medicine's advances, the best way to minimize infection risk is low-tech: Make sure any hospital staffers who touch you have washed their hands. Tubes and catheters are also a source of bugs, and patients should ask daily if they are necessary.

"Good luck finding the person in charge."
Helen Haskell repeatedly told nurses something didn't seem right with her son Lewis, who was recovering from surgery to repair a defect in his chest wall. For nearly two days she kept asking for a veteran, or "attending," doctor when the first-year resident's assessment seemed off. But Haskell couldn't convince the right people that her son was deteriorating.
"It was like an alternate reality," she says. "I had no idea where to go."
Thirty hours after her son first complained of intense pain, the South Carolina teen died of a perforated ulcer.
In a sea of blue scrubs, getting the attention of the right person can be difficult. Who's in charge? Nurses don't report to doctors but rather to a nurse supervisor. And your personal doctor has little say over radiology or the labs running your tests, which are managed by the hospital.

Some facilities employ "hospitalists" -- doctors who act as point people to conduct flows of information. Haskell urges patients to know the hospital hierarchy, read name tags, get the attending physician's phone number and, if all else fails, demand a nurse supervisor, likely the highest-ranking person who is accessible quickly.

"Everything is negotiable, even your hospital bill."
When it comes to getting paid, hospitals have their work cut out for them. Medical bills are a major cause of bankruptcy in the U.S., and when collectors are put on the case, they take up to 25% of what is reclaimed, according to Mark Friedman, the founder of billing consultant Premium HealthCare Services. That leaves room for some bargaining.
Take Logan Roberts. The 26-year-old had started work as a business analyst near Atlanta but had no insurance when he was rushed to an emergency room for an appendectomy. The uninsured can pay three times more for procedures, says Nora Johnson, the senior director of Medical Billing Advocates of America.
Roberts was billed $21,000. "I was like, holy cow!" he says. "That's four times my net worth."
After advice from advocacy group The Access Project, Roberts spoke with hospital administrators, telling them he couldn't pay in full. Hospitals frequently work with patients, offering payment plans or discounts. But to get it, you have to knock on the right door: Look for the office of patient accounts or the financial-assistance office. It paid off for Roberts, whose bill was sliced to $4,100, 20% of the original.

Be smart about bills
"Yes, we take your insurance, but we're not sure about the anesthesiologist."
The last thing on your mind before surgery is making sure every doctor involved is in your network. But since the answer is often no for anesthesiologists, pathologists and radiologists, what's a patient to do?
Los Angeles entertainment lawyer and patient advocate Michael A. Weiss repeatedly turned away out-of-network pain-management doctors on a recent visit to a hospital.
You don't necessarily need to go as far as Weiss did, but do ask for someone in your network if you're alert enough. If it's an emergency and you're stuck with an out-of-network doctor, call your insurance company to help resolve the issue. If it's elective surgery, ask a scheduling nurse in the surgeon's office to find specialists in your plan, says South Bend, Ind., billing sleuth Mary Jane Stull.
If you know your procedure will be out of network, call the hospital billing department to negotiate. It will likely point you to a patient representative or the director of billing. Once you've dealt with the hospital, then try the surgeon or other specialists involved -- some hospitals will back you in those discussions, Friedman says.

"Sometimes we bill you twice."
Crack the code of medical bills and you may find a few surprises: charges for services you never received or charges for routine items such as gowns and gloves that should not have been billed separately. Clerical errors are often the reason for mistakes. One transposed number in a billing code can result in a charge for placing a catheter in an artery versus a vein, a difference of more than $3,900, Stull says.
So how do you figure out if your bill has incorrect codes or duplicate charges? Start by asking for an itemized bill with "miscellaneous" items clearly defined. Some telltale mistakes: charging for three days when you stayed in a hospital overnight, a circumcision for your newborn girl or for drugs you never received.
Ask the hospital's billing office for a key to decipher the charges or hire an expert to spot problems and deal with the insurance company and doctors (you can find one at the HYPERLINK "http://www.billadvocates.com/" Medical Billing Advocates of America). Their expertise typically will cost up to $65 an hour, a percentage of the savings or some combination of the two.
If you want to be your own billing sleuth, talk to the highest-ranking administrator you can find in the hospital finance or accounts office to begin untangling any mistaken codes.

"All hospitals are not created equal."
How do you tell a good hospital from a bad one? For one thing, nurses. When it comes to their own families, medical workers favor institutions that attract nurses. But they're harder to find as the country's nursing shortage intensifies; by 2020, 44 states could be facing a serious deficit. Low nurse staffing directly affected patient outcomes, resulting in more problems such as urinary-tract infections, shock and gastrointestinal bleeding, according to a 2001 study by Harvard and Vanderbilt university professors.
Another thing to consider: Your local hospital may have been great for welcoming your child into the world, but that doesn't mean it's the best place to undergo open-heart surgery. Find the medical center with the longest track record, best survival rate and highest volume in the procedure. You don't want to be the team's third hip replacement, says Samantha Collier, the vice president of medical affairs at HealthGrades, which rates hospitals.

The American Nurses Association's Web site lists "magnet" hospitals -- those most attractive to nurses -- and a call to a hospital's nurse supervisor should yield the nurse-to-patient ratio, says Gail Van Kanegan, a registered nurse and a co-author of " HYPERLINK "http://www.amazon.com/Survive-Your-Hospital-Stay-Need/dp/0743233190/sr=8-1/qid=1172174380/ref=sr_1_1/102-5574510-6266551?ie=UTF8&s=books" How to Survive Your Hospital Stay." She also suggests calling the hospital's quality-control or risk-management office to get infection statistics and asking your doctor how frequently the hospital has done a certain procedure. Though reporting these statistics is still voluntary, more hospitals are doing so on sites like one of the HYPERLINK "http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/Hospital/Home2.asp?version=alternate&browser=IE%7C6%7CWinXP&language=English&defaultstatus=0&pagelist=Home" U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which compares hospitals against national averages in certain areas, including how well they follow recommended steps to treat common conditions, says Carmela Coyle, the senior vice president for policy at the American Hospital Association.

How to improve your odds
"Most ERs are in need of some urgent care themselves."
A new study from the Institute of Medicine found that hospital emergency departments are overburdened, underfunded and ill-prepared to handle disasters as the number of people turning to ERs for primary care keeps rising.
An ambulance is turned away from an ER once every minute due to overcrowding, according to the study; the situation is exacerbated by shortages in many of the "on call" backup services for cardiologists, orthopedists and neurosurgeons. And it's getting worse. Currently, 73% of ER directors report inadequate coverage by on-call specialists, versus 67% in 2004, according to a survey conducted by the American College of Emergency Physicians.
If you can, avoid the ER between 3 p.m. and 1 a.m., the busiest shift. For the shortest wait, early morning -- anywhere from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. -- is your best bet. If you are having severe symptoms, such as the worst headache of your life or chest pains, alert the triage nurse manager, not just the person checking you in, so that you get seen sooner, says David Sherer, an anesthesiologist and author of " HYPERLINK "http://www.amazon.com/David-Sherers-Hospital-Survival-Guide/dp/0972373608/sr=8-1/qid=1172174078/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5574510-6266551?ie=UTF8&s=books" Dr. David Sherer's Hospital Survival Guide." Triage nurses are the traffic cops of the ER and your ticket to getting seen as quickly as possible.

"Avoid hospitals in July like the plague."
If you can, stay out of the hospital during the summer, especially July. That's the month when medical students become interns, interns become residents, and residents become fellows and full-fledged doctors. In other words, a good portion of the staff at any given teaching hospital is new on the job.
Summer hospital horror stories aren't just medical lore: The adjusted mortality rate rises 4% in July and August for the average major teaching hospital, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. That means eight to 14 more deaths occur at major teaching hospitals than would normally without the turnover.
Another scheduling tip: Try to book surgeries first thing in the morning and preferably early in the week, when doctors are at their best and before schedules get backed up, Sherer says.

"Sometimes we don't keep our mouths zipped."
Contrary to what you might think, sharing patient information with a third party is often perfectly legal. In certain cases, the law allows your medical records to be disclosed without asking or even notifying you. For example, hospitals will hand over information regarding your treatment to other doctors, and it will readily share those details with insurance companies for payment purposes.
That means roughly 600,000 entities that are loosely involved in the health-care system have access to that information. These parties may even pass on the data to their business partners, says Deborah Peel, the founder of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation in Austin, Texas.
If you want to access your medical records, you don't have to steal them like Elaine did on "Seinfeld" after she learned a doctor had marked her as a difficult patient. You are legally entitled to see, copy and ask for corrections to your medical records.

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

The Deficit Lie

Republican budget cuts will drive college students deeper into debt and deny child support to poor kids -- all to pay for more tax cuts for the rich.

Vice President Dick Cheney was on a rare mission abroad, expressing his support for the millions left homeless by a massive earthquake in Pakistan, when he received a summons to return to Washington immediately. His vote was needed to break a tie on the Senate floor, where five Republicans had broken ranks to oppose the president's Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.
Racing halfway around the world on a trans-hemispheric red-eye, Cheney arrived on December 21st, just in time to cast the decisive vote. His "aye" gave Republicans a 51-50 victory on the budget cuts -- a measure that will saddle low-income college students with debt, cheat poor kids out of $8 billion in child support and deny medical care to as many as 100,000 people living in poverty.

In public, Republican budget hawks insisted that they made these "tough choices" to stem the "rising tide of red ink in Washington." But, in November, behind closed doors, House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas confided to a group of lobbyists that the GOP slashed social programs for the poor by $40 billion to help pay for $90 billion in new tax cuts -- almost half of which will go to wealthy Americans with incomes in excess of $1 million. The net result of the Deficit Reduction Act will be a $50 billion increase in the deficit. In the bizarro world of President Bush's doublespeak bills, the new spending measure takes its place alongside the Clear Skies Act, which sought to increase air pollution, and the Healthy Forests Initiative, which opened America's woodlands to more clear-cutting. "If this is deficit reduction," says Bob McIntyre, director of the nonpartisan advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice, "then up is down, down is up and George Orwell is president."

It wasn't easy for Republicans to get the measure through Congress. The final bill was hammered out in a closed-door, GOP-only session. Then -- when the spending plan was finally released to Democrats and the media after midnight on Sunday, December 18th -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert invoked "martial law" in the chamber, forcing representatives to pull an all-nighter and vote on the 774-page act after only forty minutes of debate. "Here you have one of the most consequential pieces of domestic legislation in years, with profound effects on millions of low-income Americans, and members of Congress were required to vote on it without even having a chance to read it," says Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

In the Senate, the measure seemed headed for defeat when a handful of moderate Republicans refused to support the cuts, which GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine blasted as "draconian." Majority Leader Bill Frist was forced to give Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota a $30 million subsidy for his state's sugar-beet industry, essentially bribing him to back the bill. "They have no shame," Minority Leader Harry Reid tells Rolling Stone. "These cuts are simply un-American."

Sen. Kent Conrad, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, decried the dearth of public scrutiny for a bill "written behind closed doors, filed in the dead of night and voted on at the crack of dawn." But Rep. Dave Obey, ranking Democrat of the House Appropriations Committee, isn't angry with his Republican colleagues for operating in the dark. "I don't blame them," he says. "If I put together a bill like this, I'd do it with the lights out too."

The extent of the budget cuts caught even veteran Democrats off guard. "In all my time in the Senate," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, "I cannot remember a time when we have considered such drastic cuts to safety-net programs that threaten to devastate working families." Consider who will pay the price for the Republican budget crunch:

College Students Nearly a third of the cuts -- $12.7 billion -- affect student-loan programs. And a full seventy percent of those cuts, the largest in history, fall squarely on the backs of students and their parents. Rather than slashing aid directly, Congress simply raised the interest on student loans, replacing a lower variable rate with a higher fixed rate. As a result, students leaving college with $17,500 in loans will have to cough up an additional $5,800 to pay off their debt. The change will increase the cost of higher education for American families by $8 billion -- at a time when public universities have already raised their prices by forty percent.

"The Republican Congress is paying for tax cuts for the wealthy, making student loans more expensive for middle- and low-income families," says House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Adds Rep. Obey, "They think they can pretty much do whatever they want to students, because they think that students will march but they won't vote."

Single Moms The bill cuts nearly $5 billion in funding to state agencies responsible for tracking down deadbeat dads and collecting child-support payments. With fewer state and local officials available to enforce the law, an estimated $8 billion in payments will go uncollected -- money that single mothers rely on to feed and clothe their kids. "Congress should be fighting for the rights and well-being of children who depend on child-support payments, not against them," says Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican who opposed the measure. "I couldn't, in good conscience, vote for any bill that would cut this funding."

The Sick Medicaid has traditionally provided health coverage to the nation's poorest citizens -- including some 28 million children -- for as little as three dollars. But the GOP bill hikes premiums and co-payments, forcing low-income patients to pay as much as $100 to visit a doctor or obtain an asthma inhaler. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the added costs will prevent many patients from seeking treatment or, in the case of new monthly premiums, even enrolling in Medicaid. That's just what Republicans are counting on: Eighty percent of the projected $16 billion savings in Medicaid will result from a decline in poor people seeking medical care.

Republicans insist that the co-payments are necessary to "reduce the rate of growth of government." But the GOP showed no interest in cutting federal subsidies to Big Pharma. Lawmakers eliminated provisions in the original Senate bill that would have required pharmaceutical companies to discount the drugs they sell through Medicaid and ended a slush fund for insurers that a nonpartisan advisory commission declared a complete waste of money. The two measures would have produced a combined savings of $20.5 billion -- making the cuts to Medicaid unnecessary. "The priorities of the majority party consistently lie with the powerful special interests and big drug companies," declared Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. "The Republican leadership has had to choose between supporting the American people or wealthy corporate interests -- and they have sided with the corporate interests."

Foster Parents So much for family values -- the bill not only cuts $343 million from foster care, it specifically overturns a federal ruling that granted foster-care funds to low-income grandparents who take in their own grandchildren rather than sloughing them off on strangers. The cuts convinced Sen. Mike DeWine, a Republican from Ohio, to vote against the measure. "I felt that the bill hurt Ohioans who most need our assistance," he says, "whether it is poor children and seniors affected by cuts to Medicaid or families hurt by cuts in foster care."

The Working Poor Under tough new rules created by the bill, families on welfare will have to work longer hours to qualify for federal assistance. In two-parent families, both the mother and father must now find full-time jobs or job training. Meeting the requirement could cost states $8 billion -- but the bill provides no new funds, only fines as high as $100 million a year for states that fail to meet the new standard. To avoid the penalties, many states are expected to stop offering welfare to two-parent families -- providing a perverse incentive for working parents to split up to preserve their benefits. Even more troubling, the GOP budget slashes $11 billion in federal support for child care. By 2010, as many as 255,000 kids could be booted out of day care, forcing poor parents to choose between working or caring for their children.

As if this assault on the poor wasn't enough, Republicans also gutted another $3 billion from social programs in a separate bill on discretionary spending -- a measure that flew through Congress in such a pre-Christmas flurry as to make the Deficit Reduction Act seem well considered. The bill received so little public scrutiny that the Senate was even able to duck a traditional roll-call vote, leaving no record of which GOP senators voted to slash job training for the poor, cut funding for community colleges and kick as many as 25,000 kids out of Head Start.

Nor will the budget cuts do anything to reduce the deficit, which is projected to hit $365 billion. Thanks to tax cuts expected to be finalized early this year, most of the money will go directly into the pockets of the country's wealthiest citizens. Three-fourths of all Americans will not see a dime from the president's move to make permanent his cuts on dividend and capital-gains taxes -- while the nation's richest 1 percent will reap more than $25 billion. By 2010, thanks to Bush, America's millionaires will enjoy annual tax cuts of $130,000.

"I don't know of any religion practicing in America today that preaches from the pulpit that what one should do is take from the least among us to give to those who have the most," says Sen. Conrad. "But that's what this budget is about. It's so profoundly wrong."

TIM DICKINSON

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Carter: Americans Were Misled On War

Former president says Bush policy is a 'radical departure'



ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday that there isn't "any doubt" the American people were misled about the war in Iraq and that President George Bush's policy on the war is a "radical departure from the policies of any president."

In an interview with CNN, Carter addressed some of the comments made in his new book, "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis." In the book he says the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq using "false and distorted claims after 9/11."

Carter said the Bush administration spoke of mushroom clouds, weapons of mass destruction and the threat of thousands of Americans dying to garner support for the war. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

He was careful to say he didn't know whether intelligence was misinterpreted or purposely twisted, and Carter praised the attempts by his fellow Democrats in Congress to press efforts to look into the matter.

"If the investigation would go ahead and proceed, as Democrats have been trying to in the Senate now for more than 18 months, then we will know the circumstances under which the American people -- and I think an entire world -- was misled about what was going on in Iraq," he said.

Carter added that he had seen no evidence the White House was involved in the CIA leak investigation that ensnared Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, last week.

Libby is accused of lying to investigators and a grand jury probing the disclosure of the identity of a CIA officer whose husband had challenged administration claims that then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been trying to restart his nuclear weapons program.

Carter also said that the administration's pre-emptive strike doctrine directed against the possible future use of weapons of mass destruction is a spurious basis for a war when there is no immediate threat to America's security.

"We'll bomb, strafe and send missiles against their people even though our security's not directly threatened," he said. "This is contrary to international law. It's also contrary to what every president has done in this country for more than 100 years, Democrat or Republican."

As the former president spoke from the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, protests in Mar del Plata, Argentina -- where Bush is attempting to promote free trade among the 34 nations comprising the Summit of the Americas -- had turned violent.

Shown live footage of the protests, Carter said the United States' reputation in the world is as low as it's been in his lifetime and that the United States has lost its prestige, authority and influence in Latin America. He added, however, that the chief opponent to the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is a "demagogue."

Before the protests turned violent, Chavez denounced capitalism to thousands of demonstrators from his perch in front of a six-story banner of communist revolutionary Che Guevara. Protesters, including Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona, listened as Chavez claimed he would "bury" the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal. Maradona wore a shirt accusing Bush of war crimes, while protesters called the U.S. president a "terrorist" and a "fascist."

Carter defended Bush and dismissed as rhetoric the words of the Venezuelan president.

"The personal attacks on the president and the condemnations of America by Hugo Chavez from Venezuela, I think, are completely unjustified and uncalled for," Carter said. "Chavez is a difficult person with whom to deal personally. I know from my own experience."

Carter was voted out of office in 1980 -- 25 years ago on Friday -- after Iranian militants took Americans captive in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The hostages were freed after 444 days as Carter left office.

Saturday, December 24th, 2011

Banks behaving badly

NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - Zero percent interest for the next six months, or even a year, on all balance transfers. No annual fees. Rewards points for everyday purchases. Choose airline tickets, hotel stays, car rentals, a variety of great brand-name products or just get cash back.
What red-blooded American credit-card holder could resist such a deal?
Well, if you're smart, maybe you.
Tantalizing offers like these from your bank or credit-card issuer are increasingly filled with traps that can pile on unexpected fees or trigger punitive interest rates, some as high as 35 percent.
True, the details are spelled out in the fine print of promotions and cardholder agreements. But, says Curtis Arnold of CardRatings.com, "You have to be incredibly diligent to avoid the tripwire."
The strategies that follow will help make sure you don't get caught.
Trap No. 1: The old bait and switch
You're tempted by one of the many low-rate or zero-percent card offers you get in the mail claiming you're pre-approved for the deal. But the fine print often contains qualifying language that can result in your getting a higher rate than advertised.
If you do land the stated rate, you'll often find that it applies only to balance transfers, not new purchases. Your monthly payments, however, will be applied first to the low-rate balance transfer, helping the new, higher-rate debt to grow.
And if you're late with just one payment, the issuer may well boost your rate on the whole amount outstanding, even though the low rate was supposed to be in effect for six to 12 months.
What to do "The cardinal rule of balance transfers is to take the card transferred to and put it in a dark place where you'll never be tempted to use it again," says Arnold. Before you apply for a low-rate deal, make sure you understand the terms in the disclosure box and read the fine print to see what can trip you up.
Trap No. 2: One strike and you're up
You probably know that late payments can prompt your card issuer to increase your interest rate, even if you're a first-time offender. And you may know that some issuers will raise your rate if you're late paying a bill to a different company altogether -- a policy called universal default that is practiced by 45 percent of banks nationwide, according to Consumer Action.
But you may not realize that a card company with a universal default policy can also hike your rate because you're shopping for a deal on a mortgage or car loan (too many inquiries on your credit report) or because you've opened a new credit-card account (too much available credit). What's worse, banks aren't required to notify you in advance of the rate change or explain the reason.
What to do Call and ask your issuer whether it has a universal default policy. If so, consider switching cards. Check your monthly statements carefully to make sure a rate hike hasn't slipped past you, and read all notices that you're sent.
Some banks, such as Citibank, now give a two-week warning and let you pay off your balance at the lower rate. The catch: The account will be closed, so you can't make additional charges on it. If your rate does jump, ask the issuer to lower it. Tell the rep that other banks have made you better offers, which is undoubtedly true.
Trap No. 3: Twice is not so nice
If you carry an occasional balance on your credit card, you may get hit with higher than expected finance charges if your issuer uses a two-cycle billing system vs. the standard one-month cycle. That's because carrying a balance wipes out the grace period on new purchases, and in a two-cycle billing period, the issuer can impose interest retroactively.
Say you charge a $1,500 laptop on Dec. 15 and can't pay the full balance when you get your bill in January. Under double-cycle billing, you'd be hit with interest based on your average daily balance in January and December, resulting in 50 percent higher finance charges than if you'd been charged for January alone.
What to do Check your cardholder agreement to see if you're subject to two-cycle billing. If you are, and you carry a balance from time to time, switch to an issuer that bills on a single cycle.
Trap No. 4: The rude courtesy service
It sounds like a nice gesture: Your bank automatically covers you if you overdraw your account, saving you the humiliation of a bounced check or a declined debit card. What your bank doesn't spell out is the hefty cost of this courtesy service, which runs up to $35 per transaction.
What to do Sign up for overdraft protection linked to a savings account or credit line instead of relying on the default service. Cost: about $7 per transaction. Better yet, stop living so close to the edge. The easiest way to avoid overdraft fees? Don't spend more than you have.

Sunday, December 25th, 2011

Open letter from Michael Moore to George W.Bush

Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and
thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on
earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help
finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really
use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with
national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of
Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was
pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes
without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to
interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you
had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You
sure showed her!


I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to
Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let
people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the
heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you
specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this
summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't
cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers
to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job
for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was
moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I
know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like
a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use
it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to
nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like
this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles.
There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like
having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent
of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no
transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this
happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!


You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters
and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are
near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael Moore


P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She
and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the
country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with
them before they get to DC on September 21st.

Monday, December 26th, 2011

The Trillion-Dollar War

The New York Times
August 20, 2005
The Trillion-Dollar War
By LINDA BILMES

THE human cost of the more than 2,000 American military personnel
killed and 14,500 wounded so far in Iraq and Afghanistan is all too
apparent. But the financial toll is still largely hidden from public
view and, like the suffering of those who have lost loved ones, will
persist long after the fighting is over.

The cost goes well beyond the more than $250 billion already spent on
military operations and reconstruction. Basic running costs of the
current conflicts are $6 billion a month - a figure that reflects the
Pentagon's unprecedented reliance on expensive private contractors.
Other factors keeping costs high include inducements for recruits and
for military personnel serving second and third deployments, extra pay
for reservists and members of the National Guard, as well as more than
$2 billion a year in additional foreign aid to Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey
and others to reward their cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill
for repairing and replacing military hardware is $20 billion a year,
according to figures from the Congressional Budget Office.

But the biggest long-term costs are disability and health payments for
returning troops, which will be incurred even if hostilities were to
stop tomorrow. The United States currently pays more than $2 billion in
disability claims per year for 159,000 veterans of the 1991 gulf war,
even though that conflict lasted only five weeks, with 148 dead and 467
wounded. Even assuming that the 525,000 American troops who have so far
served in Iraq and Afghanistan will require treatment only on the same
scale as their predecessors from the gulf war, these payments are likely
to run at $7 billion a year for the next 45 years.

All of this spending will need to be financed by adding to the federal
debt. Extra interest payments will total $200 billion or more even if
the borrowing is repaid quickly. Conflict in the Middle East has also
played a part in doubling the price of oil from $30 a barrel just prior
to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 to $60 a barrel today. Each $5
increase in the price of oil reduces our national income by about $17
billion a year.

Even by this simple yardstick, if the American military presence in the
region lasts another five years, the total outlay for the war could
stretch to more than $1.3 trillion, or $11,300 for every household in
the United States.

Linda Bilmes, an assistant secretary at the Department of Commerce from
1999 to 2001, teaches budgeting and public finance at the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard.

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

STATION WON'T AIR ANTI-WAR AD BEFORE BUSH VISIT

SPOT FEATURING WAR MOM SHEEHAN DEEMED 'INAPPROPRIATE' BY UTAH AFFILIATE



SALT LAKE CITY - A Utah television station is refusing to air an anti-war ad featuring Cindy Sheehan, whose son’s death in Iraq prompted a vigil outside President Bush’s Texas ranch.

The ad began airing on other area stations Saturday, two days before Bush was scheduled to speak in Salt Lake City to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

However, a national sales representative for KTVX, a local ABC affiliate, rejected the ad in an e-mail to media buyers, writing that it was an “inappropriate commercial advertisement for Salt Lake City.”

In the ad, Sheehan pleads with Bush for a meeting and accuses him of lying to the American people about Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction and its connection to al-Qaida.

“I love my country. But how many more of our loved ones need to die in this senseless war?” a weary-looking Sheehan asks in the ad. “I know you can’t bring Casey back. But it’s time to admit mistakes and bring our troops home now.”

Salt Lake City affiliates of NBC, CBS and Fox began running the ad Saturday.

The ads were bought for Gold Star Families for Peace by Washington, D.C.-based Fenton Communications, which provided a copy of the e-mail from station sales representative Jemina Keller.

Station says spot may be ‘offensive’
In a statement Saturday evening explaining its decision, KTVX said that after viewing the ad, local managers found the content “could very well be offensive to our community in Utah, which has contributed more than its fair share of fighting soldiers and suffered significant loss of life in the this Iraq war.”

Station General Manager David D’Antuono said the decision was not influenced by the station’s owner, Clear Channel Communications Inc.

Celeste Zappala, who with Sheehan co-founded Gold Star Families for Peace, said she was puzzled by the decision.

“What stunned me was that it was inappropriate to hear this message,” she said. “How is it that Salt Lake City should hear no questions about the war?”

The e-mail read: “The viewpoints reflected in the spot are incompatible with our marketplace and will not be well received by our viewers.” It added that the spot didn’t qualify as an issue advertisement.

For the ad to have been considered an “issue” advertisement a ballot measure would have had to be at stake, D’Antuono said.

Mark Wiest, vice president of sales for NBC-affiliated KSL television, said that in the interest of freedom of speech, his station didn’t hesitate to run the ad. KSL is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“The bigger picture is, by suppressing the message are we doing what is right under the First Amendment and in an open democratic society?” Wiest said.

Bush received nearly 70 percent of the vote last fall in Utah, one of the most conservative states north of the Bible Belt.

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Court's ruling OKed land grab for business like Target, CostCo

CNN/Money June 24, 2005
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Supreme Court may have just delivered an early Christmas gift to the nation's biggest retailers by its ruling Thursday allowing governments to take private land for business development.

Retailers such as Target, Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond have thus far managed to keep the "eminent domain" issue under the radar -- and sidestep a prickly public relations problem -- even as these companies continue to expand their footprint into more urban residential areas where prime retail space isn't always easily found.

Eminent domain is a legal principle that allows the government to take private property for a "public use," such as a school or roads and bridges, in exchange for just compensation.

Local governments have increasingly expanded the scope of public use to include commercial entities such as shopping malls or independent retail stores. Critics of the process maintain that local governments are too quick to invoke eminent domain on behalf of big retailers because of the potential for tax revenue generation and job creation.

The Supreme Court's decision Thursday clarified that local governments can seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private and public economic development.

The ruling would seem to offer new opportunities to retailers. However, some industry watchers caution that with Thursday's decision thrusting the eminent domain issue into the national spotlight, companies using eminent domain risk a very public backlash.

Craig Johnson, president of retail consulting group Customer Growth Partners, said that retailers shouldn't interpret the high court's decision to be a green light to aggressively expand even into those neighborhoods where a big-box presence is unwelcome.

"Even with the Supreme Court's decision potentially in their favor, smart retailers would rather go into communities wearing a white hat rather than a black one," said Johnson.

The appropriate move for companies would be to selectively use eminent domain as a last resort, he said, not as a first course of action. "I think companies have learned a few lessons from Wal-Mart's public relations struggles," he said.

Where's the space crunch?
According to industry watchers, retailers face a different type of expansion problem on the East Coast versus the West Coast.

"On the West Coast, land availability takes a back seat to labor union issues and that's why Wal-Mart has consistently run into problems in California," Johnson said. "On the East Coast, because of population density it's very hard to get big open space and the zoning is more restrictive," Johnson said.

Industry consultant George Whalin said that's one reason that Target, the No. 2 retailer behind Wal-Mart has resorted to using eminent domain to set up shop in a few East Coast markets.

Target and Wal-Mart could not immediately be reached for comment.

"Wal-Mart and Target have both been criticized for their eminent domain use," said Burt Flickinger, a consultant with the Strategic Resources Group. "Target has used eminent domain in some cases because it made the stupid mistake of not relocating its bankrupt box locations in the late 1990s. As a result, it has fallen behind some of its key competitors in terms of growth."

Meanwhile, eminent domain opponents called the high court ruling a "big blow for small businesses."

"It's crazy to think about replacing existing successful small businesses with other businesses," said Adrian Moore, vice president of Los Angeles-based Reason Public Policy Institute, a non-profit organization opposed to eminent domain.

"There are many, many instances where we've found that the cities that agreed to eminent domain use not only destroyed local businesses but the tax revenue that the local government had hoped to generate did not come to pass," Moore said.

But at least one retail industry analyst sees things a little differently.

"Expanding for big box store is a challenge, especially in the Northeast. Therefore, retailers will have to devise a strategy for using eminent domain," said Candace Corlett, retail analyst with WSL Strategic nRetail.

"Local communities may oppose Wal-Mart and Target coming to their area but as consumers, they also want to shop at these stores and they complain when they don't have these stores nearby," she said. "The fact is that shoppers ultimately vote with their dollars and retailers are very well aware of that."

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Cuomo Warns of 'Tyranny of the Majority'

Republicans threaten to end judicial filibustering
Saturday, April 30, 2005 Posted: 1:28 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- If Republicans rewrite Senate rules to more easily end filibusters, the country will experience "exactly the kind of `tyranny of the majority' that James Madison had in mind," former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said Saturday.

Cuomo, in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address, said Senate Republicans "are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they cannot get from the proper political bodies."

"How will they do this? By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate," Cuomo said.

"The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate," he said. "That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, to protect all of Americans from what he called the `tyranny of the majority."'

"It sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do," Cuomo said.

Democrats blocked 10 of President Bush's appellate court choices during his last term by filibustering. Bush re-nominated seven of them this term, and Democrats are threatening to block them again. They contend those seven are two sharply conservative to fill the lifetime appointments.

Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed in the 100-member body to end a filibuster. Republicans are threatening to use their majority to change the rules and require only a simple majority vote to end a filibuster.

"The Republican senators should instead start working with the Democrats to address all the serious problems of this country in the proper forums -- in the Congress and in the presidency -- leaving the judges to be judges instead of a third political branch controlled by the whim of the politicians in power," Cuomo said.

Cuomo, who was leading in Democratic polls in late 1991 when he pulled the plug on a possible presidential bid, lost the New York governorship in 1994 as he sought a fourth term against Republican Gov. George Pataki. He later turned down a chance to be considered by President Clinton for a Supreme Court seat.

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

Speech at the Press Club

Ten years ago, almost to the day, I stood at this podium after another election in which Democrats lost ground-far too much ground-an unwelcome redistribution of power, with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress for the first time in nearly half a century.
2004 was nothing like that. It was more a replay of 2000. This time, a switch of less than 60,000 votes in Ohio would have brought victory. Unlike 2000, it would have been a victory against an incumbent president, and in a time of war.
Small swings in other states could also have given Democrats control of the Senate or the House, or even both. Obviously, it hurts to come so close in all three battles, and then fail by so little. We did many things right, but that is no cause for complacency.
I categorically reject the deceptive and dangerous claim that the outcome last November was somehow a sweeping, or a modest, or even a miniature mandate for reactionary measures like privatizing Social Security, redistributing the tax burden in the wrong direction, or packing the federal courts with reactionary judges. Those proposals were barely mentioned-or voted on-in an election dominated by memories of 9/11, fear of terrorism, the quagmire in Iraq, and relentlessly negative attacks on our presidential candidate.
In an election so close, defeat has a thousand causes-and it is too easy to blame it on particular issues or tactics, or on the larger debate about values. In truth, we do not shrink from that debate.
There's no doubt we must do a better job of looking within ourselves and speaking out for the principles we believe in, and for the values that are the foundation of our actions. Americans need to hear more, not less, about those values. We were remiss in not talking more directly about them-about the fundamental ideals that guide our progressive policies. In the words of Martin Luther King, "we must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."
Unlike the Republican Party, we believe our values unite us as Americans, instead of dividing us. If the White House's idea of bipartisanship is that we have to buy whatever partisan ideas they send us, we're not interested.
In fact, our values are still our greatest strength. Despite resistance, setbacks, and periods of backlash over the years, our values have moved us closer to the ideal with which America began-that all people are created equal. And when Democrats say "all," we mean "all."
We have an administration that falsely hypes almost every issue as a crisis. They did it on Iraq, and they are doing it now on Social Security. They exploit the politics of fear and division, while ours is a politics of hope and unity.
In the face of their tactics, we cannot move our party or our nation forward under pale colors and timid voices. We cannot become Republican clones. If we do, we will lose again, and deserve to lose. As I have said on other occasions, the last thing this country needs is two Republican parties.
Today, I propose a progressive vision for America, a vision that Democrats must fight for in the months and years ahead-a vision rooted in our basic values of opportunity, fairness, tolerance and respect for each other.
These founding beliefs are still the essence of the American dream today.
That dream is the North Star of the Democratic Party-the compass that guides our policies and sets our course to freedom and opportunity, to fairness and justice-not just for the few, not just for some, but for all.
At our best, in all the great causes for which our party has stood, we have kept that dream alive for all Americans, even and especially in difficult times, and we will not fail to do so now.
Today, as we know too well, that dream is again in peril. The hopes of average Americans have faltered, as global forces cause the economy to shift against them. The challenge has been needlessly compounded, because Republican Congresses and administrations have consciously chosen negative policies that diminish the American dream.
We cannot reclaim it by tinkering at the margins. No nation is guaranteed a position of lasting prosperity and security. We have to work for it. We have to fight for it. We have to sacrifice for it.
We have a choice. We can continue to be buffeted by the harsh winds of a shrinking world. Or we can think anew, and guide the currents of globalization with a new progressive vision that strengthens America and equips our citizens to move confidently to the future.
Our progressive vision is not just for Democrats or Republicans, for red states or blue states. It's a way forward for the nation as a whole-to a new prosperity and greater opportunity for all-a vision not just of the country we can become, but of the country we must become-an America that embraces the values and aspirations of our people now, and for coming generations.
A newly revitalized American dream will, of course, be expressed in policies and programs. But it is more than that. It is a challenge to Americans to look beyond the next horizon, remove false limits on our vision and needless barriers to our imagination, and open the way for true innovation and progress.
It is a commitment to true opportunity for all-not as an abstract concept, but as a practical necessity. To find our way to the future, we need the skills, the insight, and the productivity of every American, in a nation where each of us shares responsibility for the future, and where the blessings of progress are shared fairly by all our citizens in return.
Obviously, we must deal with Iraq and the clear and present danger of terrorism. I intend to address that issue in greater detail after the elections there. But I do not retreat from the view that Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam. At the critical moment in the war on terrorism, the administration turned away from pursuing Osama bin Laden, and made the catastrophic choice instead that has bogged down America in an endless quagmire in Iraq.
Our misguided resort to war has created more-and much more intense-anti-American feeling than Osama bin Laden ever dreamed of. And the sooner we reverse that distressing trend, the better.
I'm convinced John Kerry could have worked with the international community to end that war and bring our troops home with honor. Our challenge now is to convince George Bush that there is a better way ahead in Iraq, instead of continuing to sink deeper into the quagmire.
Here at home, but also for the sake of our future in this rapidly globalizing world, I strongly believe that our highest priority must be a world-class education for every American. As Democrats, we seek a future where America competes with others, not by lowering people's pay and outsourcing their jobs, but by raising their skills.
We must open new doors and new avenues for all Americans to make the most of their God-given talents and rekindle the fires of innovation in our society. By doing so, we can turn this era of globalization into a new era of opportunity for America. Universities and school boards cannot master the challenge alone.
We need a national education strategy to assure that America can advance, not retreat, in the global economy in the years ahead.
I welcome President Bush's remarks today on improving our high schools. But, it's clear that unless we fund the reforms under the No Child Left Behind Act for earlier grades and younger children, what we do in high schools will matter far less. We are past the point where we can afford only to talk the talk, without walking the walk.
It's time for the White House to realize that America cannot expand opportunity and embrace the future on a tin cup education budget.
The No Child Left Behind Act was a start, but only a start. We need to do more-much more-to see that students are ready for college, can afford college, and can graduate from college.
I propose that every child in America, upon reaching eighth grade, be offered a contract. Let students sign it, along with their parents and Uncle Sam. The contract will state that if you work hard, if you finish high school and are admitted to college, we will guarantee you the cost of earning a degree. Surely, we have reached a stage in America where we can say it and mean it-cost must never again be a bar to college education.
We must also inspire a renaissance in the study of math and science, because America today is losing out in these essential disciplines. Two major studies last month ranked American students 29th in math among the 40 leading industrial nations. Over the last 30 years, we have fallen from 3rd to 15th in producing scientists and engineers. Incredibly, more than half of all graduate students in science and engineering in American colleges today are foreign students.
National standards in math and science have existed for more than a decade. We need to raise those standards to be competitive again with international norms, and work with every school to apply them in every classroom.
We should encourage many more students to pursue advanced degrees in math and science. We should make tuition in graduate school free for needy students in those disciplines. And we should make undergraduate tuition free for any young person willing to serve as a math or science teacher in a public school for at least four years.
We can make these investments in our nation's future without adding a single penny to the deficit, if we empower colleges to negotiate better agreements with student loan providers. Billions of education dollars needlessly line the pockets of the Sallie Maes of the world. The Bush administration irresponsibly defends this misallocation. Democrats must fight to end it. If Republicans truly care about values, they will join us in throwing the money-changers out of the temple of college education.
Another basic truth is obvious here. How young Americans fare in their school and college years is determined in large part by how well they do in their earliest years.
We must invest much more in early education and healthy development for the youngest children, so that entering school ready to learn is no longer just a hollow mantra but a genuine reality.
For children at home, we must give parents the information needed for their child's well-rounded development. For those in child care, pre-school, or Head Start, we must see that teachers and caregivers have the skill and training to provide the best possible start in life.
A new national commitment to early childhood education must become a top priority. If we fail to meet a child's development needs starting at birth, we fail not only the child, but our country and our future as well. Acting in time in the early years will also achieve immense savings in later costs for remedial education. Prevention works in health care, and it can work in education, too. Our goal should be an America whose commitment to early childhood education is as strong as its commitment to elementary and secondary education and to college education.
As we prepare our children for the new economy, we must make sure the economy lets them fulfill their American dream. The reality today is that the free market is not truly free. Not all Americans can fully share in its prosperity. We need an economy that values work fairly, that puts the needs of families ahead of excessive profits-an economy whose goal is growth with full employment and good jobs with good benefits for all.
To create good jobs for both today's and tomorrow's economy, the private and public sectors must work together toward specific goals.
We should reduce our dependence on foreign oil-not by drilling in the priceless Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, but by investing in clean energy.
We should invest in new schools and modernize old ones, to make schools the pride of their communities again.
We should invest in research and development, to pave the way for innovation and growth.
We should invest in broadband technology, so that every home, school, and business in America has easy and comprehensive access to the internet.
We should invest in mass transit, to reduce the pollution in our air and the congestion on our roads.
We should stop the non-scientific, pseudo-scientific and anti-scientific nonsense emanating from the right wing, and start demanding immediate action to reduce global warming, and prevent the catastrophic climate change that may be on our horizon now.
We must not let the administration distort science and rewrite and manipulate scientific reports in other areas. We must not let it turn the Environmental Protection Agency into the Environmental Pollution Agency.
A progressive economy also recognizes that Americans don't just want more. They want more of what matters in life, which is the true American dream.
They want greater flexibility on the job, with more time for their families, more time for their children's schools, more time to volunteer in their communities and churches and synagogues and mosques. They want jobs that pay fairly and don't force them to work excessive hours without extra pay. They want safe workplaces and the right to join with fellow employees to bargain for a fair workplace. They want companies to stop marketing cigarettes and unhealthy foods to young Americans. They want workplaces free from all forms of bigotry and discrimination, including discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans.
One step we can and should take immediately to help families cope with the relentless and growing pressures of everyday life is to require all employers to give employees at least seven days of paid sick leave a year.
That's not asking too much of corporations. For too many Americans, an illness means a cruel choice between losing their job, or neglecting their sick child or sick spouse at home. I intend to introduce legislation early in the new Congress to end that cruelty, and I urge the Republican leadership to bring it to a vote.
I also propose that companies which create good jobs with good benefits should receive new tax advantages, because their mission is so important to our cause. But companies that choose not to do so, that ship jobs overseas, should be denied those new incentives. In addition, we must act at long last to raise the federal minimum wage. Overwhelming numbers of citizens in Nevada and Florida showed the way last November, by voting for a higher minimum wage in their states. It's time for the Republican Party to stop obstructing action by Congress and raise the minimum wage for all employees across the nation.
We must do more to reduce poverty. It is shameful that in America today, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, nearly a fifth of all children go to bed hungry at night because their parents are working full time and still can't make ends meet.
For the millions who can't find work and the millions more unable to work at all, we need a strong safety net.
Social Security is fundamental to the integrity of that safety net. Never before-until now-has any president, Republican or Democrat, attacked the basic guarantee of Social Security. Never before-until now-has any president, Republican or Democrat, proposed a cut in Social Security benefits. Yet President Bush is talking not just about a cut, but an incredible 33 percent cut. We must oppose it-and we will defeat it.
We will not let any president turn the American dream into a nightmare for senior citizens and a bonanza for Wall Street.
The biggest threat to Social Security today is not the retirement of the baby boomers. It's George Bush and the Republican Party.
To revitalize the American dream, we also need to renew the battle to make health care affordable and available to all our people. In this new century of the life sciences, breakthrough treatments and miracle cures are steadily revolutionizing the practice of medicine and the quality of life. The mapping of the human genome enables us to understand far more about the molecular basis of disease, and to plan far-reaching cures that were inconceivable only a few years ago.
Sadly, in America today, the miracles of modern medicine are too often the province only of the wealthy. We need a new guarantee for the years ahead that the cost of these life-saving treatments and cures will not be beyond the reach of the vast majority of the American people.
An essential part of our progressive vision is an America where no citizen of any age fears the cost of health care, and no employer refuses to create new jobs or cuts back on current jobs because of the high cost of providing health insurance.
The answer is Medicare, whose 40th birthday we will celebrate in July. I propose that as a 40th birthday gift to the American people, we expand Medicare over the next decade to cover every citizen-from birth to the end of life.
It's no secret that America is still dearly in love with Medicare. Administrative costs are low. Patients' satisfaction is high. Unlike with many private insurers, they can still choose their doctor and their hospital.
For those who prefer private insurance, we will offer comparable coverage under the same range of private insurance plans already available to Congress. I can think of nothing more cynical or hypocritical than a Member of Congress who gives a speech denouncing health care for all, then goes to his doctor for a visit paid for by the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan.
I call this approach Medicare for All, because it will free all Americans from the fear of crippling medical expenses and enable them to seek the best possible care when illness strikes.
The battle to achieve Medicare for All will not be easy. Powerful interests will strongly oppose it, because they profit immensely from the status quo. Right-wing forces will unleash false attack ads ranting against socialized medicine and government-run health care.
But those attacks are a generation out of date-retreads of the failed campaign that delayed Medicare in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, we are immunized against such attacks by the obvious success of Medicare. It is long past time to extend that success to all.
The Democratic Party's proudest moments and greatest victories have always come when we stand up against powerful interests and fight for the common good-and this coming battle can be another of our finest achievements.
To make the transition from the current splintered system, I propose to phase in Medicare for All, age group by age group, starting with those closest to retirement, between 55 and 65. Aside from senior citizens themselves, they have the greatest health needs and the highest health costs, and need our help the most.
The first stage of the phase-in should also guarantee good health care to every young child. We made a start with the Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997. It does a major part of the job, and it's time to complete the job now.
As we implement this reform, financing must be a shared responsibility. All will benefit, and all should contribute. Payroll taxes should be part of the financing, but so should general revenues, to make the financing as progressive as possible.
We can offset a large part of the expense by a single giant step-bringing health care into the modern age of information technology.
By moving to electronic medical records for all Americans when they go to the hospital or their doctor, we can save hundreds of billions of dollars a year in administrative costs while improving the quality of care.
Equally important, we should pay for health care based on value and results, not just the number of procedures performed or days in a hospital bed. We must also expand our investments in medical research, so that we can realize even more of its extraordinary promise. We must confront and defeat the misguided ideology that-in the name of life-denies life-saving cures by blocking stem-cell research.
Above all, as we face the forces of globalization, we must inspire a stronger sense of national purpose among our citizens in a wide variety of areas that serve the public interest. We must affirm anew what it means to be an American.
Citizenship is far more than just voting every two years or four years. The strength and genius of our democracy depends on the caring and involvement of our people, and we cannot truly secure our freedom without appealing to the character of our citizens.
If we fail, we open the way for abuses of power in the hands of the few, for neglect of poverty and bigotry, and for arrogant foreign policies that shatter our alliances and make enemies of our friends.
Our founders made the values of justice, equality and civic responsibility the cornerstones of America's strength and its future. Teaching these fundamentals should be the mission of every school. It's not enough to deliver the knowledge and skills needed to compete in a global economy. Equally important are the values that create an informed and engaged society.
Every young person should learn the skills to participate in our democracy through knowledge of government and opportunities to be involved in service in their own communities.
Good citizenship begins at home, with the values that parents teach children. Parenting is a challenge in any era, but never more so than today. Parents know that every hour spent working overtime is an hour away from their children. If they can't attend a PTA meeting or a school play or a sports contest, they lose an opportunity to learn more about their child at school. They know instinctively that the quality of their skill as parents affects the learning of their children, their sense of the future, and their contributions to their communities in their own day and generation.
Aid to schools should include more funds for outreach, so that parents know more about schools, and schools know more about parents. The outreach should also include employers, so that they too can see the importance of flexible hours for employees to attend school functions and meet other family needs.
Our new progressive vision must also speak more directly to the issues of deep conscience in the policy positions we take. We must do a better job of explaining these positions in terms of our shared goals and values.
I'm concerned particularly with the contentious and difficult issue of abortion. My deep and heartfelt desire is for families to grow and prosper and continue to bring new life into the world. Our progressive vision and the policies that flow from it are aimed at helping all families thrive in this land of opportunity.
But in this land that cherishes individual rights and liberties, a woman has the constitutional right to make her own reproductive decisions, and I support that right wholeheartedly. As the Supreme Court has recognized, reproductive decisions are among the most personal and private decisions a woman ever makes, and neither Congress nor the White House should be making those reproductive decisions for her.
But there is a way America can find common ground on this issue. Surely, we can all agree that abortion should be rare, and that we should do all we can to help women avoid the need to face that decision.
If we are serious about reducing the number of abortions, we must be serious about reducing unwanted pregnancy. We must adopt policies with a proven track record of reducing abortion. History teaches that abortions do not stop because they are made illegal. Indeed, half of all abortions in the world are performed in places where abortions are illegal. We do know, however, that the number of abortions is reduced when women and parents have education and economic opportunity.
Our progressive vision is of an America where parents have the opportunity and the resources-including good prenatal care-to bring healthy children into the world.
We want every child to be welcomed into a loving home, and to be part of the American Dream. This fundamental vision is at the heart of who we are as Democrats, and we must do everything in our power to make it a reality.
On the issue of gay rights, I continue to strongly support civil marriage. We cannot-and should not-require any religion or any church to accept gay marriage. But it is wrong for our civil laws to deny any American the basic right to be part of a family, to have loved ones with whom to build a future and share life's joys and tears, and to be free from the stain of bigotry and discrimination.
Finally, and by no means least, our actions in the wider world must reflect our values at home as well. The true American spirit and the basic generosity of the American people were never more in evidence than in the spontaneous outpouring of support by millions of our fellow citizens for the victims of the deadly tsunami that caused such tragedy and devastation across South Asia. We are a compassionate and caring people, and in times like this, we are never separated by borders or oceans or politics or faith. The people of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and other suffering nations are our brothers and sisters.
Sustained action by America and other nations will be essential in the ongoing mission of reconstruction and rehabilitation. The people of South Asia need our help now and they need our long term support-and so do other peoples struggling desperately to deal with overwhelming poverty and disease.
Their nations can be our friends-or be the breeding ground of our enemies. As President Kennedy said in his Inaugural Address, "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
America is strongest in the world when we use our superpower status to join with other nations to achieve great goals, instead of bullying them to salute us. More than ever, our strength today depends on pursuing our purposes in cooperation with others, not in ways that anger them, or ignore them, or condescend to them.
As Franklin Roosevelt said of America in 1945, "We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of nations far away. . . . We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community."
If only President Bush would heed those words. Our fragile planet is not a Republican or Democratic or American community. It is a world community, and we forget that truth at our very, very great peril.
So I look forward to this year and the years ahead with full awareness of the great challenges facing our country, but with full confidence as well in our ability to renew our Democratic Party to successfully meet them, and persuade America that we are right. I welcome the opportunity and the obligation to debate our values and our vision.
A new American majority is ready to respond to our call for a revitalized American dream-grounded firmly in our Constitution and in the endless adventure of lifting this nation to ever new heights of discovery, prosperity, progress and service to all our people and to all humanity.
We as Democrats may be in the minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans. If we summon the courage and determination to take our stand and state it clearly, I'm convinced the battles that lie ahead will yield our greatest victories.