Multimillionaires Collecting Millions in Jobless Benefits

With the Republican Study Committee, (think: conservative House members) saying that they still wanted $100 billion in spending reductions as per the GOP's campaign pledges, what will they make of a move to cut unemployment benefits for millionaires? In a written statement explaining why he supports the bill introduced yesterday, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) said, "Ending this practice will save nearly $100 million and correct a gross injustice against the millions of Americans who are out of work. Congress should pass this bill without delay. If there was ever a common sense spending cut, this is it."

Unemployment insurance for somebody who earns over $1 million a year? That's right, the way the system currently works, they qualify, too. So the safety net provides for people who pull down a million or two -- or even ten million dollars in a year -- did you know that? Here's the scoop from TheHill.com:

"As many as 2,840 households who have reported an income of $1 million or more on their tax returns were paid a total of $18.6 million in unemployment benefits in 2008, according to Internal Revenue Service figures.

This included more than 800 earning over $2 million and 17 with incomes exceeding $10 million. In all, multimillionaires were paid $5.2 million in jobless benefits..."

Vicki Needham at

Now I don't know about you, but I expect anybody who pulls down a 7-or-8-digit income to have acquired some assets and set some of it aside. If you're having trouble making payments on the Lamborghini or Bugatti maybe you could trade it in for something that gets a little better mileage, like a Lexus hybrid, and stop going to restaurants that don't have prices on the menu, until you get your cash-flow going in a positive direction. Mooching off the government at that level is just plain abusing the system even if it's technically legal - for now.

I applaud U.S. Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mark Udall (D-CO), and Jon Tester (D-MT) for being willing to take on the injustice. I hope this bill passes both houses of Congress swiftly.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Democratic Campaign Manager, strategist, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community. You can follow him as @kabiu on twitter.

Rangel declared "guilty" on most ethics charges

The bi-partisan panel of the House ethics Committee considering charges against Representative Charles Rangel (NY-15) has determined that the veteran Democrat and former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is guilty in 11 of the 13 counts of breaking House rules they were investigating.

Rangel's appearance yesterday before the subcommittee was highlighted by a self-non-defense, arguing that he needed additional time and funds to be properly represented. The subcommittee, chaired by another Democrat, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA-16), was extraordinarily indulgent of Representative Rangel's repeated pleas; Rangel asserted spending approximately $2 million to date on his defense, but that expecting it might still cost half as much again his lawyers were unprepared to move forward, and that any "donated" defense provided by others would likely run afoul of FEC campaign donation limits.

The full House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct will hold a hearing to determine punishment and announce their recommendation to the full U.S. House of Representatives.

Consequences for Rangel could range from a House vote deploring Rangel's conduct to a fine and denial of privileges.  The so-called ethics committee is the only House committee exactly split between the two parties, and last acted to admonish then-Represenative Tom DeLay (TX-22) which seems to have resulted in then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert removing three Republicans. Reactions by Democrats arguably left the panel hobbled and ultimately unable to act in the cases of DeLay, Jim McDermott (WA-7), and the infamous Abramoff lobbying scandal, which resulted in such distrust of the GOP that they lost their majority in the 2006 elections.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, political strategist, and photographer who recently worked as the Campaign Manager on the Madore For Congress campaign in Minnesota's 2nd District. He contributes regularly to a host of other web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

What's Bart Stupak's real agenda?

The Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Represenatives has prepared, for all 435 congressional districts, a district-level analysis of the impact of health care reform legislation. This analysis includes information on the impact of the legislation on families, small businesses, seniors in Medicare, health care providers, and the uninsured. Somebody in Michigan should forward the link to Representative Bart Stupak, just in case he doesn't know.

The bill caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $6,200 for individuals and $12,400 for families who purchase insurance through the exchange or who are insured by small businesses. It also eliminates annual and lifetime limits on all insurance coverage. These changes mean no family will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.

Take, for example, the highlights from the report on MI's First District, Represented by Republican Bart Stupak. In Rep. Stupak’s district, the health care reform bill will:

• Improve coverage for 364,000 residents with health insurance.
• Give tax credits and other assistance to up to 197,000 families and 17,900 small businesses to help them afford coverage.
• Improve Medicare for 141,000 beneficiaries, including closing the donut hole.
• Extend coverage to 44,000 uninsured residents.
• Guarantee that 10,000 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage.
• Protect 1,100 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.
• Allow 50,000 young adults to obtain coverage on their parents’ insurance plans.
• Provide millions of dollars in new funding for 41 community health centers.
• Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and other health care providers by $102 million annually.

Under the legislation, small businesses with 100 employees or less will be able to join the health insurance exchange, benefiting from group rates and a greater choice of insurers. There are 18,600 small businesses in Bart Stupak's district that could benefit from this provision.

Tax credits for truly small businesses:
Small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $50,000 will qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. There are up to 17,900 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits according to the committee report.

By that reckoning, it's bound to be good for the 1^st CD in Michigan, but their Democratic Representative must have something else as a higher priority than the health and economy of his district.

Curious how other districts will fare? The full report is at: Benefits of Health Care Reform, District by District Impact, where the Committee notes the cost of health care reform under the legislation as currently formulated is:

"...fully paid for, in large part by eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and excessive profits for private insurers. The legislation will reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the next ten years, and by about $1.2 trillion over the second decade."

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Tom Hayes: What would the Founding Fathers make of politics on Facebook?

It's clear that collectively the political activists supporting Barack Obama's campaign got used to knowing - or thinking they knew - what was going on with the campaign. Reading David Plouffe's book might open a few eyes to the reality, which was anything but glamorous in his account.

Obama laid his cards on the table, as many documented during the campaign, and managed to make the election a referendum on his agenda despite the best efforts of his opponents to make it a vote on his "not like me-ness." Of course, the reasons for voting for him were diverse -- hence it was a coalition that put him into office based on a wide variety of individual beliefs and convictions about what it was possible to improve in D.C.

Some supporters (and many detractors,) for instance, failed to listen closely to his intentions for Afghanistan, choosing to assume his statements about being against "dumb wars" in general and Iraq in particular meant he'd back out of any situation overseas where bullets and bombs are flying.

It's disconcerting to others to realize that increasing the transparency of the government, which Obama also advocated, isn't exactly tantamount to inviting activists and reporters into the negotiating sessions necessitated by the arcane rules and strictures of the Congress. 

Most (not all) political activists on both sides of the major issues know that progress is fundamentally based on compromise(s) to achieve what is possible, no matter if it's making decisions in the local school PTA or the U.S. Senate.  Compromises acceptable to the majority by definition almost always fall short of the ideals of those with the strongest convictions.

Unlike the PTA, which is pretty much open to all comers, the U.S. Congress reaches compromise by a not-terribly-pretty process involving just over 500 powerful, influential, sometimes self-serving people expected to do right by the entire country while being inundated with conflicting suggestions. Expecting to see inside that process is a bit - well - idealistic for those sitting at home or working for the media, even if that is what they thought they had bargained for in electing the new President.

That's not how a Democratic Republic works. We don't hold referendums on every issue; we elect folks who seem to hold similar ideals to us and hope they manage to accomplish exactly what we want them to. That's why it's so easy to predict that polls almost always reflect the popularity of a President as in decline - at any given point in time politicians are working on decisions bound to challenge our "collective" opinion precisely because we charge them with handling the hardest and most important decisions.

Now, to balance out the curiously persistent tea baggers who apparently favor a system based on government as minimal and ineffectual as the one in Somalia, some of the hundreds of millions on Facebook are banding together on a "fan page" supporting President Obama, and not second-guessing him. The Founding Fathers must surely be smiling.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Senate Version of Bailout Bill Passes 74 to 25 - House Next

The U.S. Senate passed the new version of the Bailout Bill 74 to 25 votes. And while credit markets have not recovered all the way -- about 70 percent -- from Monday, at least it's not going to crash as it did that day.

The Bailout Bill Fails; The Market Falls - Zennie's Blog Report

http://www.zennie62.com - This is The Blog Report for September 29, 2008, or "The Crash of 29" - the day the stock market saw it's largest one-day drop in American History.
On this day, the market reacted to the failure of the U.S. House or Representatives to pass The Bailout Bill, the Emergency Economic Stability Act of 2008.
I discuss the implications of this action and the political fallout behind it. Moreover, I take aim at the unintelligent view of people who claim that government's not in the market and should not be. In point of fact, there's no place where Government isn't in our lives. Thus, we must make sure it works.
I also take on Senator John McCain, who deserves blame for the failure of the bill's pasage as much as he believed his involvement would deliver House Republicans -- that did not happen. Senator Barack Obama was smart enough not to try and out-do Senator McCain, but to let the Congressional House do its job.

See it on CNN - click here.