After Republicans from Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) lit into Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) for canceling a promised end-of-session vote on Hurricane Sandy relief, the House overwhelmingly approved a small portion of the needed funds on Jan. 4. While the first vote provided just $9 bln in funds — compared to the $60 bln total requested — 67 Republicans still voted against even this bare-bones package. But Josh Israel of ThinkProgress.org noted (1/7) that the majority of those representatives had supported emergency aid efforts following disasters in their own states.
The House was set to vote on the remaining $50 bln requested for the Sandy relief in mid-January.
Eighteen of the 67 dissenters are first-term members, sworn in just a day earlier. But of the 49 reps with a prior House record who opposed Sandy aid, at least 37 had previously advocated for or touted emergency aid services following other disasters that affected their own constituents.
The “hypocritical” list includes:
1. Rep. Dan Benishek (R-MI): Endorsed emergency crop relief assistance after spring freezes.
2. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): Asked for disaster relief after flooding.
3. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL): Promoted relief funds after a tornado.
4. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA): applauded FEMA flooding relief.
5. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH): Asked for disaster relief after storms.
6. Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX): Asked President George W. Bush to approve disaster relief after storms caused flooding.
7. Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN): Endorsed disaster funding after storms.
8. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI): Backed disaster funding after storms.
9. Rep. John Duncan (R-TN): Asked for a disaster declaration after storms caused flooding.
10. Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN): Endorsed disaster tax relief and touted available disaster relief funds.
11. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC): Endorsed President George W. Bush’s disaster declaration and its resulting USDA crop freezing relief.
12. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX): Pushed for a Bush administration disaster declaration to include more counties after Hurricane Ike.
13. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA): Endorsed drought relief emergency crop assistance.
14. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ): Asked the Forest Service for immediate relief after floods.
15. Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO): Begged for a disaster declaration after flooding.
16. Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD): Backed USDA emergency relief during a drought.
17. Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL): Requested emergency drought relief from the USDA.
18. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS): Supported disaster declaration after storms.
19. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Asked for a disaster declaration after storms.
20. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO): Asked for disaster support amid wildfires.
21. Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX): Asked for disaster declaration after Tropical Storm Hermine.
22. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC): Personally took an SBA loan as part of a disaster relief program.
23. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX): Blasted FEMA for denying a disaster relief request after wildfires and pushed for USDA disaster relief for farmers.
24. Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS): Backed emergency funds for Katrina cleanup.
25. Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM): Pushed the Bush administration to declare a disaster after Hurricane Dolly.
26. Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI): Applauded disaster declaration during a drought.
27. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS): Encouraged constituents to apply for USDA assistance during drought.
28. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA): Called for FEMA disaster relief after tornadoes.
29. Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN): Urged a disaster declaration after tornadoes.
30. Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN): Backed a request for disaster relief after flooding.
31. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA): Called for USDA and SBA relief after fires.
32. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI): Backed a disaster declaration after flooding in his district.
33. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI): Backed disaster relief after flooding.
34. Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN):Backed a request for disaster relief after flooding.
35. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX): Blasted the denial of a disaster declaration amid Texas wildfires.
36. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC): Endorsed USDA drought relief.
37. Rep. Robert Woodall (R-GA): Requested a disaster declaration from USDA amid drought.
Former US Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-NY) blasted the opponents, telling the New York Daily News, “They’re a bunch of jackasses. Every one of the 67 who voted no are nothing more than pawns of a philosophy that is not backed up by facts.”
GOP CROC ON PAYROLL TAX HIKE. Republicans are crying crocodile tears about President Obama letting working people’s taxes increase 2% as the two-year-old payroll tax break expires, but if they were really concerned about the plight of workers they could have joined Democrats in extending the payroll tax cut, as Obama proposed in December — and they could have paid for it by lifting the cap on wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax, which is $113,700 for 2013. That means that wealthy people pay a lower payroll tax rate than lower income levels. The increased revenue that would come from taxing millionaires’ full wages not only would make the payroll tax more fair and eliminate any question about the Social Security fund’s long-term solvency for the foreseeable future; it could allow a reduction in the overall payroll tax and/or a lower retirement age. (Without any changes, Social Security can pay full benefits through 2033 and three-fourths of promised benefits after that.)
FUNNY WHAT FASCINATES D.C. MEDIA. Juan Cole notes in “Brennan v. Hagel, Big Oil v. Solar & other Media Hypocrisies” at JuanCole.com (1/8):
Not controversial: John Brennan: Served in CIA during the torture program, designed the current US drone program that has extra-judicially killed hundreds, including children and including at least 2 American citizens.
Controversial: Chuck Hagel: Thinks war should be a last resort, doesn’t think an air strike on Iran would be effective, wants to do diplomacy with all major factions of the State of Palestine, including Hamas.
Not controversial: Wealthy Americans use government tax loopholes and subsidies to avoid $3 tln a year in taxes.
Controversial: American workers who paid into Social Security all their lives and want their money back when they retire are accused of being “takers,” “moochers” and seeking “entitlements.”
Not controversial: Despite an alleged need to raise government revenue and cut spending, the “fiscal cliff” deal awarded Big Oil billions of dollars in subsidies at a time when the US has the highest per person carbon emissions of any advanced industrial country and those emissions are threatening human welfare via climate change.
Controversial: Despite the large numbers of successful solar companies, the impressive increase in electricity supplied by solar in the US, the investment of $2 bln in the solar industry by financier Warren Buffett – nevertheless, the press narrative is still dominated by the allegation that modest federal support for green energy is a boondoggle (inaccurately instancing Solyndra).
Controversial: Sen Tom Harkin (D-IA) has met resistance to his proposed to raise the minimum wage, even though many full-time minimum wage workers fall below the poverty line.
Not controversial: The banks and investment firms that caused the 2008 crash and mortgage crisis have avoided any real accountability save for slap on the wrist fines, and could well plunge us into another such crisis. The vast numbers of Americans who lost their mortgages to bank fraud have not seen nearly the help promised.
THANKS, GOP, FOR SEN. WARREN. DailyKos.com founder Markos Moulitsas noted as the new Congress was sworn in (1/4), “Had Republicans confirmed Elizabeth Warren as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, odds are they would still have Sen. Scott Brown to help gum up the Senate. That bureau was her first love, and when the GOP took it away from her, the Senate became her plan B.
“Dumbasses. And thank heavens for that!”
POPE SLAMS CAPITALISM, INEQUALITY IN NEW YEAR MESSAGE. Pope Benedict rang in the new year with a mass for 10,000 in St. Peter’s Basilica with a homily that denounced “the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated capitalism, various forms of terrorism and criminality.”
In marking the World Day of Peace, the pope called for a new economic model and ethical regulations for markets, saying the global financial crisis was proof that capitalism does not protect society’s weakest members. He also warned that food insecurity was a threat to peace in some parts of the world. (HuffingtonPost.com)
FREEDOMWORKS PAID BECK & LIMBAUGH. FreedomWorks, the conservative organization that helped launch the Tea Party, paid Glenn Beck at least $1 mln a year to praise the organization on his radio show, former FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey told MediaMatters.org (1/4). “The arrangement was simply FreedomWorks paid Glenn Beck money and Glenn Beck said nice things about FreedomWorks on the air,” Armey said.
Armey, who left the organization in September with a promise of an $8 mln payout after a dispute over its internal operations, told MediaMatters a similar arrangement was also in place with Rush Limbaugh, but he did not know the exact financial details.
Beck has been reading on-air appeals for FreedomWorks since at least April 2010. In June of that year, MediaMatters reported that the organization was using Beck’s endorsement to raise money. Politico.com highlighted the relationship as an example of a conservative group “paying hefty sponsorship fees to the popular talk show hosts” in exchange for “regular on-air plugs.”
The Washington Post reported (12/25) that Richard Stepenson, a reclusive millionaire banker and founder of Cancer Treatment Centers of America, arranged for the payout to Armey. Stephenson and members of his family then funneled $12 mln in October through two newly created Tennessee corporations to FreedomWorks’ super PAC, which used the funds to support Tea Party candidates.
The entire FreedomWorks organization — including a 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) nonprofit arms and its super PAC — raised nearly $41 mln through mid-December, Mother Jones reported (1/4). Of that total, $31 mln came in the form of “major gifts.”
Mother Jones reported that the organization “plans to continue its financial support for Glenn Beck’s media enterprise, including sharing a TV studio with and leasing office space to the Washington Bureau of TheBlaze, Beck’s website and TV network.”
A FreedomWorks budget plan for 2013 leaked to Mother Jones includes “Glenn Beck Radio Ads, “Glenn Beck TV,” :TheBlaze Action Center” and the “Rush Limbaugh Contract.”
KILLINGS INCREASE IN ‘STAND YOUR GROUND’ STATES. Homicides increased by 7 to 9 percent in 23 states with “Stand Your Ground” laws from 2000 to 2009, a Texas A&M study found, with no apparent deterrent effect on crime. That translates to an additional 500 to 700 homicides per year nationally across the states that adopted laws that widen the justified use of deadly force in self-defense. The authors wrote that many of those cases could be “driven by the escalation of violence in situations that otherwise would not have ended in serious injury for either party.”
“These laws lower the cost of using lethal force,” said Mark Hoekstra, an economist at Texas A&M who led the study, in an interview with National Public Radio (1/2). “Our study finds that, as a result, you get more of it.”
CURRENT, WE HARDLY KNEW YE. Owners of Current TV, the progressive cable channel founded by former Vice President Al Gore that had struggled with low ratings, hit the jackpot when Al Jazeera — the Qatar-based network that is popular in the Mideast but has been trying to make inroads into the US market — agreed to pay $500 mln for the cable channel whose main value was its presence on major cable carriers. Time Warner Cable promptly dropped Current from its offerings, denying Al Jazeera access to Time Warner’s 12 mln subscribers, but Current is still carried by 40 mln US homes, including customers of Comcast, DirecTV and Dish Network.
Current’s programs feature Cenk Uygur and the Young Turks, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Joy Behar and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm in the evenings, as well as telecasts of Bill Press’s and Stephanie Miller’s radio shows in the mornings, but the network averaged only about 42,000 prime-time viewers in the last quarter, according to Horizon Media Inc., as reported by BusinessWeek.com (1/3).
Al Jazeera’s English network, started in 2006, reaches 250 mln households in 130 countries but in the US it is carried on only seven relatively small pay-TV providers reaching 4.7 mln households before the Current deal, BusinessWeek reported.
Al Jazeera America reportedly plans to double its US staff to 300, with headquarters in New York, and generate 60% of its reports in the US.
Gore and his partners paid $71 mln in 2004 for the channel that became Current, BusinessWeek reported. They reportedly raised a total of $153 mln, including debt. Current reported operating cash flow of $16.3 mln on revenue of revenue of $108 mln last year. Gore’s share of the sale reportedly is $100 mln.
Time Warner subscribers and others who can’t find Current shows among their cable channels (and whose local radio stations don’t carry liberal talkers) can find video and audio of the Young Turks on the Internet at (tytnetwork.com), Stephanie Miller’s show at (stephaniemiller.com) and the Bill Press show at (billpressshow.com) as well as a multitude of other progressive talkers on the World Wide Web. If you have Internet access, find a young person who can set you up to listen to webcasts on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch (or comparable Android devices).
HANNITY LOSES HALF HIS TV AUDIENCE AFTER ELECTION DEBACLE. Conservative mouthpiece Sean Hannity lost about half his TV audience on Fox News in the weeks after the election while colleague Bill O’Reilly’s viewership dropped by 30%, the New York Daily News reported (12/30).
“The going wisdom is that viewers who basked in his preelection anti-Obama rhetoric tuned him out when they were stunned to wake up on Nov. 7 and discover that the President had won a second term — a scenario that Hannity had all but promised could never happen.”
Hannity performed even worse in the “money-demo” of viewers aged 25-54. More than half of those prized viewers deserted him.
WENDY'S FRANCHISE CUTS WORKER HOURS TO AVOID OBAMACARE. Not long after the owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains admitted their anti-Obamacare campaigns hurt more than helped, the owner of a Wendy’s franchise in Omaha, Neb, plans to cut 300 employees’ hours to part-time to avoid providing them health care coverage, Rebecca Leber noted at ThinkProgress.org (1/7).
The company has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week. Gary Burdette, vice president of operations for the local franchise, said the cuts are coming because the new Affordable Health Care Act requires employers to offer health insurance to employees working 32-38 hours a week. Under the current law they are not considered full time and that as a small business owner, he can’t afford to stay in operation and pay for everyone’s health insurance.
But the strategy may backfire on the Omaha Wendy’s operations. This past fall, Denny’s quickly distanced itself from a franchisee’s similar ploy, while Darden Restaurants saw a sharp 37% drop in profit after threatening to cut workers to part-time.
Heaping blame on Obamacare may be a popular tactic among the fast food industry, but it is a misleading one. According to the Urban Institute (urban.org), Obamacare has a negligible impact on business costs, leaving large companies virtually unaffected while actually reducing costs for small businesses.
HEALTH INSURERS HIKE RATES. Health insurance companies are taking advantage of weak state regulations to seek double-digit increases in premiums for some customers before the Affordable Care Act takes full effect in 2014. Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own, Reed Abelson reported in the New York Times (1/6).
In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22%, Anthem Blue Cross 26% and Blue Shield of California 20% for some policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20% for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month. The proposed increases compare with about 4% for families with employer-based policies.
Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10% or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.
The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.
New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10%. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.
The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy.
Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.
But Abelson reported that critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.
“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones told the Times. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act.” He is pushing for a state law that will give him the authority to deny excessive rate increases.
Obamacare requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of the premiums they charge on actual care rather than profits or overhead. In 2014, Obamacare will also end the practice of medical “underwriting” — taking a consumer’s current health into consideration when setting his or her premium rates — so insurance companies may be trying to lock in higher rates on sicker Americans while they still can, Sy Muhkerjee noted at ThinkProgress.org (1/7).
The 80/20 rule already has put over $1.5 bln in insurance rebates back in consumers’ pockets. But the only way to ensure that Americans are not held hostage to the whims of private insurers is to expand state regulators’ ability to negotiate and control premium rates, Mukherjee noted.
YES, THERE IS STILL A WORLD ALMANAC! Those of you who don’t have Internet access — or who just like books full of trivia — will be interested to know that the new World Almanac and Book of Facts 2013 is out with 1,008 pages, including 2012 election results, the Year in Sports (including the Olympics), the Year in Pictures, Offbeat News Stories and all sorts of lists and statistics to keep you entertained on a long winter’s night. New York Times Crossword Editor Will Shortz calls it “My #1 reference work for facts,” which means — yes, the New York Times Almanac’s final edition was 2011.
PRESIDENTIAL VOTE UPDATED. Since the World Almanac was printed in early December, using vote tallies as of Nov. 7, it didn’t have the final vote totals for the presidential race. As of Jan. 4, when Congress certified the Electoral College vote that re-elected President Obama and Vice President Biden, the Democrats finished with 65,899,660 (51.03%) for 332 Electoral Votes; Republican Mitt Romney got 60,932,152 (47.19%) for 206 Electoral Votes; and Gary Johnson (Libertarian) got 1,275,827 (0.99%), Jill Stein (Green) 468,907 (0.36%), Virgil Goode (Constitution) 122,378 (0.09%), Roseanne Barr (Peace and Freedom) 67,359 (0.05%), Rocky Anderson (Justice) 42,995 (0.03%), Tom Hoefling (America’s) 40,609 (0.03%) and others got 282,784 (0.22%). (Totals collected by Google from secretaries of states.)
Ballot Access News reported (1/1) that US House candidates other than the Democrat or Republican received an average of 5.8% of the votes in the 246 districts where other choices were on the ballot. Among all the districts, Democrats got 48.9% of the total vote, Republicans got 47.8% and minor party and independent candidates got 3.3%. In 2010, the national “other” vote in all the districts also had been 3.3%. However, in that election 300 districts had an “other” choice on the ballot. The main reason for the decline in districts with an “other” choice, BAN noted, was implementation of a top-two runoff system that kept minor parties off the general election ballot in all but four districts, down from 29 in 2010.
GERRYMANDERING KEEPS GOP UP IN HOUSE. Ian Milhiser noted at ThinkProgress.org (12/21) that voters preferred Democrats over Republicans in US House races by a fill percentage point but Republicans controlled nearly 54% of the seats in the House as a result of massive gerrymandering by Republican state officials. “President Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 5 points, but Democrats carried only 5 of the state’s 18 congressional seats. Obama won Virginia, and Democrats took 3 of 11 House seats. Obama won Ohio, but Democrats carried only 4 of 16 seats in Ohio’s House delegation. In state after state after state, Republicans used their unconstitutional ability to gerrymander Democratic votes into meaninglessness — and they were able to do so because the conservatives on the Supreme Court refuse to do anything about it,” Milhiser wrote.
AIG MULLS SUING GOV’T FOR BAILING IT OUT. AIG considered joining a shareholder lawsuit against the federal government over the bailout on the grounds that it deprived shareholders of billions of dollars, before deciding not to join the lawsuit.
The New York Times reported (1/7) that the board of AIG would meet (1/9) to consider joining a $25 bln shareholder lawsuit against the government, court records show. The lawsuit does not argue that government help was not needed. It contends that the onerous nature of the rescue — the taking of what became a 92% stake in the company, the deal’s high interest rates and the funneling of billions to the insurer’s Wall Street clients — deprived shareholders of tens of billions of dollars and violated the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the taking of private property for “public use, without just compensation.”
The lawsuit was filed by Hank Greenberg, AIG’s former chief executive, in 2011. In an upcoming book, Greenberg writes that because of the bailout, AIG was “ultimately taken over and run aground by a cadre of auditors, lawyers, outside directors, and government officials,” according to Bloomberg, which obtained an excerpt. “Contrary to proponents of anointing such professionals as ‘gatekeepers’ who police against corporate misconduct, the AIG story shows how such custodians run amok.”
The New York Fed dismissed the allegations (1/8). “AIG’s board of directors had an alternative choice to borrowing from the Federal Reserve and that choice was bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would have left all AIG shareholders with worthless stock,” a representative told Reuters.
AIG, which the government rescued in 2008 to the tune of $182 bln, rather ironically just launched an ad campaign called ”Thank you, America,” in which it thanks the country for the bailout.
AIG's board decided (1/9) not to join the lawsuit, partly to avoid reputational harm that they feared could result from signing on, a person familiar with the company told the Wall Street Journal.
Before the board's decision, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a sharply worded broadside against the lawsuit: “Beginning in 2008, the federal government poured billions of dollars into AIG to save it from bankruptcy. AIG’s reckless bets nearly crashed our entire economy. Taxpayers across this country saved AIG from ruin, and it would be outrageous for this company to turn around and sue the federal government because they think the deal wasn’t generous enough. Even today, the government provides an ongoing, stealth bailout, propping up AIG with special tax breaks — tax breaks that Congress should stop. AIG should thank American taxpayers for their help, not bite the hand that fed them for helping them out in a crisis.”
FISH FLEE NORTHEAST WATERS. Warming waters and an evolving ocean ecosystem possibly related to man-made climate change are contributing to the disappearance of once-abundant cod and flounder populations, government officials say. Beth Daley of the Boston Globe reported (12/20) that researchers are just beginning to understand how the vast Gulf of Maine is responding to global warming and exactly what will happen to fragile fish populations. They acknowledge they don’t know whether prized cod and flounder stocks will ever rebound — and if they don’t, what species will take their place.
Fishery regulators are poised to impose devastating cuts on New England fishing fleets in the hopes that the bottom-hugging fish can make a comeback.”While we are not blaming fishermen, this is not good news,’’ said John Bullard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s regional chief. “We can control overfishing — it’s hard but we can do it — but how do you control this?”
NOAA research shows that about half of 36 fish stocks they analyzed in recent years, including cod, flounder, and lesser-known species, have been shifting northward or into deeper waters in the last four decades. While locally caught Atlantic cod are disappearing from restaurants and stores, other fish that thrive in warmer water, such as Atlantic croaker, could take their place. But it’s unclear if fishermen will be able to make as much money from these species.
‘RIGHT-TO-WORK’ DOESN’T BRING JOBS. After Michigan plutocrats pushed a “right to work” bill through the Michigan legislature in December, Samuel Knight looked into how “right to work,” also known as “open shop” fare in employment, since the main argument is that states that weaken unions are more desirable to industrialists and see unemployment drop, but Knight wrote at WashingtonMonthly.com (12/21) that it does not appear to pass the smell test.
Looking at BLS unemployment rates for November, he found that half of the 22 states that had open shop laws before 2012 can be found in the bottom half of the employment rate table: 50th - Nevada (11.5%); 46th - North Carolina (9.3%); 43rd - Mississippi (8.9%); 40th - Georgia (8.7%); 39th - South Carolina (8.6%); 37th - Florida (8.5%), 36th - Kentucky (8.4%); 34th - Tennessee (8.2%), 31st (tie) - Arizona, Alabama (8.1%), and 26th - Arkansas (7.2%).
Liberal economist Lawrence Mishel found in 2001 that real wages in open shop states are 4% lower, rendering workers there with less money to spend, and the state with weaker aggregate demand, Knight noted.
He also acknowledged that eight of the 10 states with the lowest unemployent rate are open-shop: 1st - North Dakota (3.1%); 2nd - Nebraska (3.8%); 3rd - South Dakota (4.5%); 4th - Iowa (4.5%); 5th (tie) Wyoming, Utah (5.2%); 7th - Oklahoma (5.3%), 10th - Kansas (5.7%). But he also noted that nine of the 10 states with lowest unemployment were net beneficiaries of federal largesse — some to a staggering degree. “In 2007, North Dakota netted $4,856 per capita from D.C. South Dakota netted $4,414 per capita. The average Iowan took $1,075 more than he or she spent in federal taxes. And the average man, woman and child in Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, and Kansas netted $1,205, $792, $376 and $154 from the federal tax regime,” leading Knight to hypothesize that income transfers from the federal government are responsible for more jobs in those states.
He concluded, “This might not exactly be a peer reviewed stuff here. But it certainly should lead one (a.k.a. you) to cast aspersions on the alleged jobs boom created by open shop laws.”
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2013
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us