After Slashing Funds For Health And Education,
Ohio Prepares To Cut Taxes For Banks

During the Great Recession, Ohio has cut its budget to ribbons, reducing funds for health services, higher education, and K-12 education. The budget cuts are so severe that some towns might officially cease to exist (due to disincorporation).

However, it seems that Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) and the Republican legislature feel that the state has money to burn on tax cuts for the financial industry:

An Ohio Legislative Service Commission analysis said the bill ?may decrease GRF (general revenue fund) revenue by an uncertain amount, though the revenue loss may be up to $30?million per year, when compared to the introduced version of the bill.?

The potential of a $23?million to $30?million tax cut for financial institutions drew fire from Democrats at a time when schools and local governments are suffering from significant budget cuts.

Kasich’s original plan was meant to be revenue neutral, but the legislature cut it up until it turned into a gift to the banks worth millions of dollars. As Policy Matters Ohio noted, the justification for cutting banks’ taxes — that they will use the money to increase lending — is fundamentally flawed:

The idea that cutting bank tax rates will fuel more lending and a stronger economy is misplaced. Since many Ohio banks already are ?flush with cash,? as a representative of the industry puts it, cutting their taxes is unlikely to lead to new lending. Ohio banks are doing well, as a Feb. 28 press release from the Ohio Bankers League entitled ?Bumper Quarter for Ohio Banks? attests, and are in no need of a tax cut.

?We?re basically giving the banks ? a $25?million gift every year,? said state Rep. Mike Foley (D). ?But we?re also doing that in the context of an economy and state budget in Ohio that has been wracked and harmed and hurt and mangled by the financial industry that we?re giving benefits to today.?

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/22/488298/ohio-bank-tax-cuts/

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Google Killed The Twitter-Twat Star (Updated) Or
Not . . .

The saga of George Tierney (Jr) continues, or not . . .[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/VmGN59vM798/

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Obama did not go on federal spending binge. Pace
of increase now lowest it has been in decades

Government spending under Obama, including the
stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace?”
slower than at any time in nearly 60 years. But when
inflation is included, spending is falling.The standard view is that President Obama has been spending taxpayers' money wildly, like no other president before him. Rex Nutting has put the kibosh on that. In fact, growth in federal spending is the lowest it's been since half a decade before Obama was born:

As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: ?I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.?

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an ?inferno? of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children?s future. Even Democrats seem to think it?s true.

But it didn?t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

A key aspect of budgeting often ignored for political conveniency is the fact that the federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1. So by the time Obama stepped into the Oval Office, the budget for fiscal 2009 was already nearly one-third spent and expenditures for the rest of the year locked in. He added about $140 billion to the spending in 2009 through the stimulus plan.
The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal
2009, before Obama took office.For the four budget years Obama has had a direct hand in shaping, federal spending is on track to go from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion. On an annual basis, that's 0.4 percent. When those dollars are inflation-adjusted, federal spending will actually have fallen during Obama's first four budgets at an average rate of 1.4 percent. That, Nutting says, is the first real decline since Richard Nixon pulled hundreds of thousands of the U.S. troops out of Vietnam 40 years ago.

What's also true, of course, is that revenue hasn't kept up with spending. This is partly due to tax cuts pushed through by George Bush, two wars rushed into by George Bush and a record-busting recession that began on George Bush's watch. The impact of the last includes millions of Americans out of work or working fewer hours, thereby reducing income tax revenues and putting immense pressure on expenditures for food stamps and unemployment insurance benefits.

In per capita terms, Nutting writes, real spending will fall from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (as gauged with 2009 dollars). That's a 5 percent drop.

It can be argued, and obviously has been from the president's left, that he should have sought more spending to quickly reduce unemployment and take advantage of low borrowing rates to improve America's crumbling infrastructure. That he should have gone on a short-term spending binge as an investment in the future. But those who say he actually did do so are not eager for anyone to look at the data and pop their propaganda balloon.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/OXZ1kTPyO3E/-Obama-did-not-go-on-f
ederal-spending-binge-Pace-of-increase-now-lowest-it-has-been-in-decades

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Men move into women's jobs, even though there are
no high-paying women's jobs

The future of pink collar work?

Men are increasingly moving into jobs traditionally dominated by women, the New York Times' Shaila Dewan and Robert Gebeloff report, with a third of job growth among men coming in occupations that are 70 percent female, and the trend appearing in men of all races and ages, as, during the recession, the "growth rate slowed for male-dominated and mixed jobs, but ticked up slightly for those dominated by women." That growth meant women's jobs were more available, and some number of men were willing to make the switch?despite the fact that, when the Times divided women's jobs into pay categories:

We divided ?women?s? jobs into low- and middle-wage jobs, as a stand-in for training. (We defined middle-wage jobs as those that pay $30,000 to $60,000 a year. There are no high-paying occupations among those that are dominated by women.)

That's a startling statement, isn't it? "There are no high-paying occupations among those that are dominated by women." After however many waves of feminism and women going to college, entering the workforce, all the advances of recent decades, and there is still not one female-dominated occupation that ranks as high-paying.

Then add in that these occupations are nonetheless becoming more popular among men. Why? Individual men will have their own reasons, but broad economic trends explain a lot:

[F]inancial security usually requires a steady full-time job with benefits, something that has become harder to find, particularly for men and for those without a college degree.

It's a pretty clear statement of how broken the American middle-class jobs economy is: The erosion of growth and stability among traditionally male-dominated professions suddenly makes the relative stability of even comparatively low-paying female-dominated professions seem appealing to men.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/6lk0Hb1o2Ls/-Men-move-into-women-s
-jobs-even-though-there-are-no-high-paying-women-s-jobs

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Guess Whos Investigating JP Morgans Fail Whale
Trades, Now Up to a $7 Billion Loss

The London Independent comes out with the largest estimate I've seen of losses on JPMorgan's Fail Whale trades: $7 billion. Another concern is the Senate Banking Committee's chief investigator for any hearings: a former lobbyist for JP Morgan.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/AkiWw01Kwmw/

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What You See Is What You Get

In my cover story for this month?s issue of the Prospect, I argued that it?s silly to expect moderation from Mitt Romney if he?s elected president. The former Massachusetts governor ran as a ?severely? conservative politician in the Republican primaries, his policies are drawn from the right-wing social engineering of Paul Ryan, and in all likelihood, he?ll govern on those terms. Over at The Washington Post, centrist extraordinaire Richard Cohen has, surprisingly, come to the same conclusion:

It?s hardly conceivable that, as president, Romney will become the Romney some think he is. The forces that shaped him in the primaries and caucuses will not go away. He has been clay in the hands of the political right, and this will not change. [?]

The widespread belief that Romney would govern from the center is supposedly supported by the equally widespread belief that he is a liar. I hear this all the time: Never mind what Romney said in the primaries, he is a moderate Republican. These people point to Romney?s record as the moderate governor of liberal Massachusetts ? even though he has renounced his moderation, as if it was an unaccountable episode of mental instability.

You should read this in dialogue with the most recent column from David Brooks, who (rightfully) defends private equity and then presents Mitt Romney as someone who will bring the dynamism of business to government. Like the Democrats Cohen excoriates, Brooks assumes that the ?real Romney? is a moderate technocrat from Massachusetts, despite half-decade Romney spent running away from his legacy in th Bay State.

The simple fact about a presidential election is that you aren?t voting for a person as much as you?re empowering a party to implement its agenda. The Republican Party is running on an explicit return to the policies of the Bush administration, and there?s no reason to think that Romney would somehow abandon that agenda if he reached the White House.

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/what-you-see-what-you-get

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The most dangerous place for a child is between a
Palin and a TV camera

It matters because the media refuses to stop printing what this emotional and intellectual child has to say. Then so be it.Two weeks ago, Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, weighed in about President Obama's support for marriage equality. Bristol opined that the President was failing to appreciate the important role fathers play in the lives of their children.This from an unwed mom who...

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/FFKpO4VF5iA/most-dangerous-place-fo
r-child-is.html

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Updated: Scott Walker and Cronies Prove No Low is
Too Low

enlargeBe forewarned. This is a rant. It is not a test of the emergency rant system. It is an outright, full-throated rant.

That image is of a full-page newspaper ad taken out in the Janesville Gazette, the local newspaper in Paul Ryan's district. What it is, is thuggery in typeset letters. The names you can't read in the image are the names of teachers in Janesville who signed the petition to recall Scott Walker. Next to their names, is their salary. At the bottom of the ad, there is a space to sign to "opt-out" of any teacher's classroom who signed the petition.

This is part of the strategy the Heartland Institute laid out for breaking the teachers' union and holding onto the their water boy, Scott Walker. According to Blogging Blue, this is part of an intimidation strategy to suppress enthusiasm, free speech, and the right to have a voice in one's government. Cognitive Dissidence outlines the strategy as outlined in Heartland's 2012 Funding Plan, released in January:

The recall elections of 2012 amount to a referenda on collective bargaining reform at the state level, making them of national interest. Successful recalls would be a major setback to the national effort to rein in public sector compensation and union power. Heartland is the largest and most influential national free-market think tank in the Midwest, so we are in the right place and with the right resources to help defend and secure Wisconsin?s recent gains.

We are contemplating five projects:

1. Recruit and promote superintendents who support Act 10
2. Explain the benefits of Act 10
3. Document the shortcomings of public schools in Wisconsin
4. Expose teacher pay in key districts
5. Create blogs that shadow small town newspaper coverage of the controversy

We anticipate that this project will cost about $612,000. Maureen Martin, Heartland?s legal counsel, with be the chief researcher and writer for this project. The anonymous donor has pledged $100,000 toward this project. We are circulating a proposal to other potential funders.

These cowards hide behind taxpayer-subsidized nonprofits to intimidate public servants who are under attack at every turn. Between the stealth privatization movement in the form of charter schools, the ridiculous, nonsensical high-stakes testing, and the public humiliation of great teachers, there is almost no incentive beyond some heightened sense of altruism to even bother to enter the teaching profession.

Now add to that this public attack on their right to sign petitions in the state of Wisconsin and it's clear that the goal in Wisconsin is to turn it into a totalitarian state with Governor Scott Walker as the puppet leader. I'm sure they're laughing all the way to the counting-house bank as they rub their slimy paws together and plan the next way they can publicly shame and humiliate public servants.

In two weeks, my time as a parent of public school K-12 students will come to an end after twenty-five years in the system. In that time, I have known and interfaced with many public school teachers. Even when I disagreed with them, I never saw one that didn't work far more hours than they were paid for. I never saw one who didn't care about their students. I never saw one who was "in it for the money." Not one teacher. Not one.

I have never seen any teacher who deserved the treatment they are receiving, and I've never seen any reason to tell any teacher they don't have the right to participate in our political system and still teach school. What outrages me most about this evil, cynical, ugly, thuggish act on the part of rich old men and women in Wisconsin and their precious John Birch principles is their utter lack of humanity. They are monsters, these people. They have no compunction about publicly intimidating honest, hard-working people in order to rob those same honest, hard-working people of their jobs and their livelihood.

I'm so angry it's hard to even write how angry I am over this. I'm going to stop ranting and go give Rob Zerban some money. And Tom Barrett. And then I'm going to try and figure out how to get the IRS to pay attention to these evil fascists who cower behind their piles of money and their nonprofits long enough to fix this problem.

You should too.

[h/t Cognitive Dissidence]

Update: It turns out that the Janesville Gazette did not publish this. The people responsible for this actually printed it and added it to the "tube" -- an insert section where paid advertisements, fliers, and other loose enclosures go. The Janesville Gazette is unhappy about this, to say the least.

The flier was distributed in Gazette home-delivery tubes.

Gazette representatives said the newspaper did not authorize the use of its tubes, and the flier is not connected to the newspaper.

Gazette Circulation Manager Lon Haenel said Gazette tubes are for newspaper use only. The paper asks unauthorized people or groups to stop using The Gazette's tubes, Haenel said, and will contact the police if they do not.

The Gazette also names the group, Citizens for Responsible Government, as the group responsible for the compilation of the names and salary information. That group has quite a reputation in Wisconsin, which is probably deserving of a separate post.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/scott-walker-and-cronies-prove-no-low-too-l

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Scott Walker and Cronies Prove No Low is Too Low

enlargeBe forewarned. This is a rant. It is not a test of the emergency rant system. It is an outright, full-throated rant.

That image is of a full-page newspaper ad taken out in the Janesville Gazette, the local newspaper in Paul Ryan's district. What it is, is thuggery in typeset letters. The names you can't read in the image are the names of teachers in Janesville who signed the petition to recall Scott Walker. Next to their names, is their salary. At the bottom of the ad, there is a space to sign to "opt-out" of any teacher's classroom who signed the petition.

This is part of the strategy the Heartland Institute laid out for breaking the teachers' union and holding onto the their water boy, Scott Walker. According to Blogging Blue, this is part of an intimidation strategy to suppress enthusiasm, free speech, and the right to have a voice in one's government. Cognitive Dissidence outlines the strategy as outlined in Heartland's 2012 Funding Plan, released in January:

The recall elections of 2012 amount to a referenda on collective bargaining reform at the state level, making them of national interest. Successful recalls would be a major setback to the national effort to rein in public sector compensation and union power. Heartland is the largest and most influential national free-market think tank in the Midwest, so we are in the right place and with the right resources to help defend and secure Wisconsin?s recent gains.

We are contemplating five projects:

1. Recruit and promote superintendents who support Act 10
2. Explain the benefits of Act 10
3. Document the shortcomings of public schools in Wisconsin
4. Expose teacher pay in key districts
5. Create blogs that shadow small town newspaper coverage of the controversy

We anticipate that this project will cost about $612,000. Maureen Martin, Heartland?s legal counsel, with be the chief researcher and writer for this project. The anonymous donor has pledged $100,000 toward this project. We are circulating a proposal to other potential funders.

These cowards hide behind taxpayer-subsidized nonprofits to intimidate public servants who are under attack at every turn. Between the stealth privatization movement in the form of charter schools, the ridiculous, nonsensical high-stakes testing, and the public humiliation of great teachers, there is almost no incentive beyond some heightened sense of altruism to even bother to enter the teaching profession.

Now add to that this public attack on their right to sign petitions in the state of Wisconsin and it's clear that the goal in Wisconsin is to turn it into a totalitarian state with Governor Scott Walker as the puppet leader. I'm sure they're laughing all the way to the counting-house bank as they rub their slimy paws together and plan the next way they can publicly shame and humiliate public servants.

In two weeks, my time as a parent of public school K-12 students will come to an end after twenty-five years in the system. In that time, I have known and interfaced with many public school teachers. Even when I disagreed with them, I never saw one that didn't work far more hours than they were paid for. I never saw one who didn't care about their students. I never saw one who was "in it for the money." Not one teacher. Not one.

I have never seen any teacher who deserved the treatment they are receiving, and I've never seen any reason to tell any teacher they don't have the right to participate in our political system and still teach school. What outrages me most about this evil, cynical, ugly, thuggish act on the part of rich old men and women in Wisconsin and their precious John Birch principles is their utter lack of humanity. They are monsters, these people. They have no compunction about publicly intimidating honest, hard-working people in order to rob those same honest, hard-working people of their jobs and their livelihood.

I'm so angry it's hard to even write how angry I am over this. I'm going to stop ranting and go give Rob Zerban some money. And Tom Barrett. And then I'm going to try and figure out how to get the IRS to pay attention to these evil fascists who cower behind their piles of money and their nonprofits long enough to fix this problem.

You should too.

[h/t Cognitive Dissidence]

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/scott-walker-and-cronies-prove-no-low-too-l

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Midday open thread

• Today's comic is Batemanimation: Mitt on Bain Capital (actual audio) by Scott Bateman:
• Bears for a Bearable Tomorrow is now a Super Pac. Seriously.
• How do you resist a headline like this?
  

  Half-naked woman in hot pink duct tape attacks, injures 3 cops

• How much would you pay for a vial of Ronald Reagan's blood?
  

  An on-line auction site is hoping to find out by selling a vial that it claims was used to draw President Ronald Reagan?s blood while he was recovering from the gunshot wound that nearly killed him in 1981. To top it off, the auction site says, ?dried blood residue? is clearly visible inside the vial. [...]

  PFC says the vial is being sold on behalf of the son of a deceased woman who worked at a laboratory in Columbia that tested Reagan?s blood, which had been drawn while he was treated at George Washington University Hospital.

  But here's the best part. It's not gross?it's Reaganomics!
  

  The lab worker was permitted to keep the vial and its accompanying paperwork by a supervisor at Bio-Science Laboratories, the son wrote in a statement posted on the auction site. The mother kept the vial until her death in 2010. The unidentified man said he contacted the ?Ronald Reagan National Library? ? he meant the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library ? in Simi Valley, Calif., and was told that the National Archives would accept the vial but not pay for it. ?Reagan when he was my Commander in Chief when I was in the ARMY from ?87-?91 and that I was a real fan of Reaganomics and felt that Pres. Reagan himself would rather see me sell it rather than donating it,? the man wrote on the PFC website.

• Whatever the Gordon Gekko wannabe gets for a vial of Reagan's blood, it probably won't be as much as the going rate of Babe Ruth's first season jersey:
  

  The jersey was bought Sunday for $4.4 million, nearly quadruple the previous high for a piece of Ruth memorabilia: the bat he used to hit the first home run at Yankee Stadium on April 18, 1923.

  That went for only $1.265 million.

  ?To see this jersey bring in $4.4 million is shocking,? said Leila Dunbar, an appraiser and former Sotheby?s executive whose specialties include sports memorabilia. ?The record for a Ruth jersey before was $1.025 million. For some reason, there?s been a dramatic rise in the value of jerseys the past year.?

• If Mitt Romney even thinks of asking Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to be his running mate, he'd better think twice because Daniels issued some fightin' words:
  

  "If I thought that call was coming, I would disconnect the phone."

• Fiscal conservatism:
  

  When he entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination in May 2011, Newt Gingrich was the prosperous head of a small empire commonly known as Newt Inc, which included both for-profit consultancies and nonprofit foundations.

  Altogether, these entwined ventures pulled in more than $110 million over the past decade. Now the vestiges of this empire are mired in debt, as is Gingrich's campaign fund.

  A bankruptcy proceeding under way in Atlanta will determine whether the one company still owned by Callista Gingrich, Gingrich Productions, will lose an expected payout that now constitutes the bulk of the Gingriches' net worth.

• Roger Ailes, ladies and gentlemen:
  

  Jon Stewart is a comedian. He wouldn?t do well without Fox. And he basically has admitted to me, in a bar, that he?s a socialist.

• Family values:So now Bristol Palin is going to have a "reality" show glorifying her unwed motherhood as she moves 3k miles away from kid's father.
  — @aravosis via Twitter for Mac

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/lRWbMJ8SOEg/-Midday-open-thread

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