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Daily Archives: July 14, 2017
Long, Libertarians have common ground – MyWebTimes.com
Posted: July 14, 2017 at 5:38 am
State Rep. Jerry Long found agreement on Thursday with local Libertarians on his opposition to the recent tax increase and FOID cards, but he encountered differences over marijuana laws.
Long, R-Streator, took questions from the Illinois Valley Libertarian Party at the Prairie Lakes Country Club near Marseilles.
He said conservative Republicans like himself are close philosophically to Libertarians, which favor less government in the economy and social affairs.
Last week, Long voted against the state budget that included an income tax increase. He said Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan did not budge "one inch" in his negotiations with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Rauner, meanwhile, offered to support a temporary tax increase with structural economic reforms, yet Madigan got his way, Long said. That proves again Madigan controls Illinois, Long said.
"Michael Madigan is the problem in Illinois. He drove Illinois into the hole," Long said.
Temporarily, he said, the tax increase will bring more revenue to the state. Long-term, though, it will drive more and more people out of Illinois, reducing the state's tax base, he said.
"A lot of people can't pack up and leave. Farmers can't pack up. How can you pack up your acres and leave?" he said.
On another issue, Long said he supported laws to decriminalize marijuana below half an ounce of marijuana, assessing a small fine in those cases. When people have more than that amount, he said, they're likely distributing.
"No one has ever overdosed on marijuana," one Libertarian said.
The local party's chairwoman, Jenae Wise, pushed Long to support marijuana legalization.
"It would bring so much revenue. That is undeniable," she said.
Long asked, "You don't feel marijuana is the gateway to other drugs?"
The Libertarians said they didn't.
Long said he would be happy to revisit the issue.
"We'll talk about it a little bit later," he said.
Sunday car sales: Long said he was open to allowing car sales on Sundays. State law requires car dealerships be closed on Sundays, a law that dealers convinced the Legislature to support decades ago.
Fireworks: Long said he wouldn't mind legalizing fireworks.
FOID cards: Long said he is pushing a bill to ban the cards, which have long been required of gun owners. But he said Madigan and the Democrats prevented the legislation from going anywhere. "The purpose was to curb crime. It hasn't done that. It gives the state strength over individuals," Long said.
Pensions: Long said the state needs to keep the pension promises it has made to government workers. But he said the state needed to find a way to curb pension spending.
Politics: More Republicans need to be elected, Long said. That's the only way to reduce Madigan's power, he said.
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Larry Sharpe Announces Run For NY Governorship As a Libertarian – The Libertarian Republic
Posted: at 5:38 am
The Libertarian Republic | Larry Sharpe Announces Run For NY Governorship As a Libertarian The Libertarian Republic Larry Sharpe, the 2nd place runner-up 2016 vice presidential candidate, announced that he was running for Governor of New York in 2018. He did this as a 'birthday announcement' and confirmed he was running as a member of the Libertarian Party, instead ... |
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Golden Age Design Pops up at the Golden Rule in Excelsior – Midwest Home Magazine (registration) (blog)
Posted: at 5:38 am
Golden Age Design owners Bill and Kara Kurth at their Robbinsdale storefront
by Jahna Peloquin (Photo by TJ Turner)
In the spring of 2015, two different stores with very similar names opened within one month of each other in the western suburbs of Minneapolis: the Golden Rule, which sells handmade goods from a collective of modern makers in Excelsior, and Golden Age Design, which specializes in meticulously restored, mid-century and Danish modern furniture in Robbinsdale.
Now, the two like-minded retailers are joining forces for a month-long Golden Age Design pop-up at the Golden Rule. A selection of Golden Ages stylish furniture has taken up residency of the Excelsior boutiques second floor, where the stores owner Erin Kate Duininck and her team styled it alongside goods by Golden Rules makers, including artwork by Minneapolis artist Ashley Mary.
I believe it was just the alignment of the stars, explains Golden Age Designs Bill Kurth. Similar names, similar personalities, just all around good stuff. We absolutely love what Erin and company are doing at Golden Rule.
Five years after setting up shop in a home garage, Golden Age Design opened its own storefront in April of 2015 inside a 125-year-old building located across the street from Travail Kitchen & Amusements in Robbinsdale. Founded by Kurth and his wife, Kara, the company began as something of a happy accidentthe pair ended up with a garage full of furniture that didnt work in their new home, so they decided to put it on Craigslist. The company quickly developed a cult following for its curated selection of mid-century and Danish-modern furnishings, all restored to mint condition by Bill and a small team of craftsmen.
There are many similarities between us and the Golden Rule, but one that stands out the most is that both shops just have a strong desire for good clean design, says Bill. We love the thought of our pieces being surrounded by the amazing art and home goods at the Golden Rule. It all blends together beautifully.
The Kurths carefully selected some statement-making pieces for the Golden Rule space, including a restored set of four Danish teak dining room chairs, a pair of 60s-era Danish lounge chairs by Sren Ladefoged for SL Mobler reupholstered in a light gray Scandinavian wool covering, and a teak chest of drawers that the couple just brought back from Denmark.
We wanted it to feel very minimal but not too thin, he says. The space was already so peaceful and serene so we just wanted to add what we could to help with that vibe. After staging and styling it, it felt like a little apartment in Denmark. Golden Age will continually be adding pieces though through the month of July, so check back frequently for a fresh selection.
On view through July 31 @ the Golden Rule, 350 Water St., Excelsior, 612-598-2098, goldenrulecollective.com.Visit the Golden Age Design's storefront at 4157 W. Broadway Ave., Robbinsdale, 612-408-6896, facebook.com/goldenagedesign.
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The crisis of confidence that’s roiling liberalism – The Washington Post – Washington Post
Posted: at 5:37 am
Asked what he thought of Western civilization, Mohandas Gandhi is said to have answered that it would be a good idea. Debate about liberal democracy in the Trump era is suffused with similar pessimism about Western achievement, bordering on self-damaging despair. The liberal mix of capitalism and democracy is denounced for yielding social inequality, cronyist kleptocracy and sheer governmental incompetence failings that opened the door to Donald Trumps dispiriting presidency and that may be entrenched by it in turn. In the wake of the recent Group of 20 summit, some went so far as to claim that the chief threat to Americans was not from the aggressively illiberal despots of Russia, North Korea, China or the Islamic theocracies. Rather, it was from Trump which is to say, from the perverse fruit of our own system. The enemy is us.
This intellectual bandwagon needs to be stopped. Liberalism faces two challenges on the one hand, external enemies; on the other, an internal crisis of self-confidence and it is time we all acknowledged that the external threat is more severe. However bad Trump may be, he is not Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un. And although it is true that liberalism faces an internal crisis Ive done my bit to contribute to the alarmism it is worth remembering how liberalism got started two centuries ago.
As Edmund Fawcett has argued in his magisterial history of liberalism, the creed originated as a set of principles for managing bewildering change. For most of human history, economic growth and social evolution proceeded at a snails pace, but between 1776 and the first decades of the 19th century, revolutions both political and industrial caused everything to speed up. Liberalism skeptical of central power, respectful of diverse beliefs, comfortable with vigorous disagreement offered a means of handling the resulting tumult. If headlong technological and economic dislocation made political conflict unavoidable, humanity needed a way to contain it, civilize it a way to hang on to timeless standards of humanity while providing an escape valve for argument and change.
Seen in this light, todays technological and economic convulsions the part-time jobs of the gig economy, the menacing shadow of the robots are not signs that the liberal system is in crisis. To the contrary, they are signs that liberalism is more essential than ever. We are in the midst of another industrial revolution, which will create winners and losers and bitter political arguments and Trump is testament to that. Liberalism will not end these conflicts; only absolutist doctrines create political silence. But liberalism will set the rules of the game that allow the conflict to be managed. For now, Trump is expressing the frustration of a part of the country, but liberal checks and rules of process are containing the impact.
In its long history of facilitating clamorous argument, liberalism has succumbed, unsurprisingly, to repeated neuroses. In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev boasted of the superiority of state-directed industrialization, telling a group of Westerners, we will bury you; some in the West made the mistake of believing him, especially when the Soviet Union launched the first-ever space satellite the following year. In the 1960s, U.S. democracy was rocked by political assassinations, violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and a bubbling up of radical challenges to the system. Amid the stagflation of the 1970s, a business school dean sounded a warning about an end-to-Western-capitalism syndrome; and no less a figure than the U.S. president lectured the nation on its moral turpitude. All these episodes generated existential crises, just as Trump today leads people to doubt the resilience of our system. But pessimists should note that liberalism emerged robustly from those moments of self-doubt.
Whats more, pessimists should remember that, if a few dice had settled differently, the current conversation would be completely different. Absent strong proof to the contrary, Trumps election must be accepted as legitimate, but a small swing in a few places would have put the status quo candidate in the White House. Similarly, Britains Brexit referendum was decided 52 to 48 percent; and a recent poll suggested that the voters now have doubts. In France, to cite a contrary example, the ambitious liberal Emmanuel Macron was lucky to face a bevy of weak opponents, and France was even luckier that Macron emerged out of nowhere, clad in white. The point is that political outcomes often hinge on quirks of fortune. None of these events should be interpreted as durable signals that liberalism is either moribund or resurgent.
Finally, it pays to remember that the two disasters that discredited the liberal establishment the 2008 financial crisis and the Iraq War were not errors that flowed from liberalism itself. There was nothing liberal about taxpayer backstops for private financial risk-taking, nor about the failure to temper the objective of Iraqi regime change with a sober calculation of available resources. These episodes do hold lessons for our democracy avoid cronyism, avoid hubris but they absolutely do not show that liberalism is wanting. To the contrary, liberalism arose during the first industrial revolution. We need it to navigate the second industrial revolution as it roils around us now.
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Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberal party feels a dread chill – The Australian Financial Review
Posted: at 5:37 am
It's not just a penchant for larrikin humour that explains former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett's comment that he's so disillusioned by the Liberal Party under Malcolm Turnbull he wants to drink whisky before 9 am.
A creeping chill threatens to paralyse a Party already in crisis. According to one Liberal insider, the position is "unsustainable."
What he means is that a Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is so riven by attacks from Turnbull's predecessor, Tony Abbott, and Turnbull's flat-lining in the polls, there will be a major eruption by Christmas.
If this scenario is born out, the "never again" mantra about another change in the Liberal Party leadership will metastasise into "here we go again."
There are no current plans to topple Turnbull, but plenty of "hypothetical" discussions. Two names that crop up are long-time Party deputy and Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, as leader, and Health Minister, and Victorian MP, Greg Hunt, as Bishop's deputy.
Neither have expressed interest privately or publicly in such a scenario. So at this stage it is no more than talk.
Moreover, Party insiders acknowledge any significant improvement in Turnbull's opinion poll standing over coming months would result in leadership spill talk disappearing as quickly as a Scotch down a thirsty gullet.
But these conversations re-surfaced among Liberal MPs and Party supporters after Malcolm Turnbull's recent London speech. This sparked internal unrest because it included a shaman-like invoking of the name of the Party's founder, Sir Robert Menzies, to support Turnbull's position as a centrist.
The unrest is likely to become pointed during a special NSW Liberal Party "Futures Convention" to be held in Rosehill, Sydney, from July 21-23. It will debate a right wing push to "democratise" pre-selections. This originated in the electorate held by the man Turnbull bulldozed out of the prime ministership Tony Abbott.
The Warringah motion calls for pre-selections in "open" federal and state seats that is, electorates without a sitting Liberal MP, or where he/she is retiring to be done with full plebiscites of Party members.
Through its proximity to Mr Abbott, this push has been identified as a key element in the destabilising proxy war between Abbott and Turnbull. The complication is that Turnbull has also backed the reform bandwagon, with the significant caveat that he will not, in the end, necessarily back the motion from Abbott's Warringah Federal Electorate Council (FEC).
A more likely prospect is a series of 20 motions which in effect support plebiscites, but where respective Federal Electorate Councils (FEC) set the rules governing the conduct of those plebiscites. These will be put to the special State Council meeting by the successful Fox Valley branch of the NSW Liberal Party which lies in the seat of Berowra, held by a leading NSW Liberal moderate, Julian Leeser.
But even if the Fox Valley approach wins through it will not be a comfortable experience for Malcolm Turnbull who will be addressing the "Futures Convention" next Saturday morning. One interested attendee will be Peter King, the onetime Liberal MP for Wentworth until Turnbull toppled him in the mother of all Liberal Party pre-selection battles in 2003.
Mr King also mouths the mantra of Party reform, and is not re-entering federal politics. He has put his own motion forward for the special NSW Liberal Party Convention, but expects the Warringah motion, or the one identified with Tony Abbott, to win through.
No matter which motion emerges from the NSW Liberal Party "Futures Convention", the paradox is that the catalyst for this latest instability is a speech by Turnbull which, despite the spin by opponents, contained nothing exceptional, surprising, original, or even overtly provocative.
Turnbull pointed out that when Robert Menzies founded the Liberal Party in 1944, he "went to great pains not to call his new political party ... conservative, but rather the Liberal Party, which he firmly anchored in the centre of Australian politics."
"He wanted to stand apart from the big money, business establishment politics of traditional conservative parties of the right, as well as from the socialist tradition of the Australian Labour Party, the political wing of the union movement," Mr Turnbull said when receiving the Disraeli Prize from the influential conservative London think tank, the Policy Exchange.
"The sensible centre was the place to be. It remains the place to be."
Turnbull's London comments broadly accord with the views reflected in a 70-page report prepared for Menzies in 1944 as a political road-map for his new Liberal Party. It was written by the economic adviser to the powerful Institute of Public Affairs, Charles Kemp, father of David Kemp, Education Minister and Environment Minister in the Howard Liberal government.
Called Looking Forward, Charles Kemp's report was, writes Menzies' biographer Allan Martin, "a businessman's argument about the virtues of free enterprise". It was "not hostile to the state, but demanded agreed lines between when governments should attempt to thrust themselves forward and where they were being intrusive. What was essential, it said, was a kind of middle way."
Seventy-three years after Menzies founded the Liberal Party on the basis of that Institute of Public Affairs report, the current head of the IPA, John Roskam, says the "issue is what is his [Turnbull's] definition of what the progressive centre means." He answers that Turnbull's interpretation of the term "centre" means "bigger government" and an "excuse for higher taxes and bigger regulations."
The Turnbull government's economic policy stance contrasts with "everything he said he was going to do before becoming Prime Minister. He spoke about the evils of the mining tax. Now he is embracing something worse than that and that is the bank tax."
"That's how I see it," says Roskam
Historian Ian Hancock, who has written biographies of former Liberal prime minister John Gorton and former Liberal Attorney General Tom Hughes (father of Lucy Turnbull) points out that while Malcolm Turnbull refers to the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in his speech, "he never defines them. "
"He's like all Libs he's going back to Menzies and treating his statements as some kind of Holy Grail. But Menzies delivered" he was Prime Minister for a record 16 and a half years "because he was a pragmatist, not a philosopher."
"Menzies was never consistent" so "various factions of the Liberal Party can find support in various phrases."
Asked if Menzies would like Turnbull, Hancock replied: "If he was in a good mood he would probably say: 'Good luck to him'. He would probably approve that [Turnbull] is someone with a high background and appears to rise above everybody else."
Turnbull is, like Menzies was, a "loner, with few friends in politics. If Menzies was being honest he would probably have a degree of sympathy with someone who people on the backbench didn't like. That's something that Menzies went through himself," Hancock said.
But there are differences. Menzies was a social conservative; Turnbull is more liberal, and has supported same-sex marriage. Above all, Menzies was a devoted monarchist "I did but see her passing by, but I will love her till I die," he once intoned to Queen Elizabeth in a speech in Canberra.
Malcolm Turnbull is, or was, Australia's Mr Republic.
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Can Democrats Make Nice with the ‘Deplorables’? – National Review
Posted: at 5:37 am
Editors Note: The following piece originally appeared in City Journal. It is reprinted here with permission.
Since early June, when voters in Georgias sixth congressional district rubbed yet more salt in their 2016 election wounds, Democratic pols and sages have been pondering why, as Ohio congressman Tim Ryan put it, our brand is worse than Trump. Thats a low bar, given the presidents nearly subterranean approval ratings, but so far the blue party has mostly been turning to an inside-the-box set of policy and political memes: jobs programs, talk of a mutiny against House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and better marketing or, in Ryans words, branding of the Democratic message.
Whats missing from this list is the most important and most challenging item of all: solving the liberal deplorable problem. The white working class that hoisted Donald Trump to an unexpected victory may not always admire the man, but they know that he doesnt hate people like me, in the pollsters common formulation. And they have good reason to think that Democrats, particularly coastal and media types, do hate them: Consider Frank Richs snide and oft-cited article, No Sympathy for the Hillbilly. Its possible that white working-class voters would back a party filled with people who see them as racists and misogynists, with bad values and worse taste, because they all want to raise taxes on Goldman Sachs executives, but it seems a risky bet.
So its worth noting that a few prominent liberal writers have been venturing out of the partisan bunker and calling attention to the deplorable issue over the past few months. In late May, for instance, progressive stalwart Michael Tomasky, former editor of Guardian America and now of Democracy, published an article frankly titled Elitism is Liberalisms Biggest Problem in the New Republic. The West Virginia native called the chasm between elite liberals and middle America...liberalisms biggest problem. The issue has nothing to do with policy, Tomasky writes. Its about different sensibilities; bridging the gulf is on us, not them. To most conservatives, Tomaskys depiction of Middle Americans will seem cringingly obvious. The group tends to be churchgoers (Not temple. Church), they dont think and talk politics from morning till night, and, yes, theyre flag-waving patriots. Mother Jones columnist Kevin Drum, an influential though occasionally heterodox liberal, seconded the argument.
A more complex analysis of liberal elitism comes from Joan Williams, a feminist law professor whose best-known previous book is Unbending Gender. In White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America, Williams takes her fellow liberal professionals to the woodshed for their indifference to the hard-knock realities of working-class life and for their blindness to the shortcomings of their own cosmopolitan preferences. Married to the Harvard-educated son of a working-class family, Williams is astute about the wide disparities between liberal and white-working-class notions of the meaning of work, family, community, and country. One of her proposals for solving class cluelessness is a conservative favorite: reviving civics education.
A final recent example of deplorable-dtente comes from Atlantic columnist Peter Beinarts How the Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration. Noting that the unofficial open-borders philosophy of the Democratic party is far more radical than the restrictionist immigration policy it espoused just a few decades ago, the former New Republic editor acknowledges that there is more than nativist bigotry behind white-working-class immigration concerns. He concedes that mass immigration may have worked to the disadvantage of blue-collar America by lowering wages for low-skilled workers and undermining social cohesion. Beinart concludes by dusting off a concept that liberals currently hate: assimilation. Liberals should be celebrating Americas diversity less, and its unity more, he writes.
These writers are engaging in healthy critical self-reflection, but in the course of describing the Democrats class dilemma, the liberal truth-tellers unwittingly show why a solution lies out of reach. They understate Democrats entanglement with the identity-politics left, a group devoted to a narrative of American iniquity. Identity politics appeals to its core constituents through grievance and resentment, particularly toward white men. Consider some reactions to centrist Democrat John Ossoffs defeat in Georgias sixth district. Maybe instead of trying to convince hateful white people, Dems should convince our base ppl of color, women to turn out, feminist writer and Cosmopolitan political columnist Jill Filopovic tweeted afterward. At some point we have to be willing to say that yes, lots of conservative voters are hateful and willing to embrace bigots. Insightful as she is, even Williams assumes that all criticisms of the immigration status quo can be chalked up to fear of brown people.
No Democrat on the scene today possesses the Lincolnesque political skills to persuade liberal voters to give up their assumptions of white deplorability, endorse assimilation, or back traditional civics education. In the current environment, a Democratic civics curriculum would teach that American institutions are vehicles for the transmission of white supremacy and sexism, hardly a route to social cohesion. As for assimilation, Hispanic and bilingual-education advocacy organizations would threaten a revolt and theyd only be the first to sound the alarm.
Appeasing deplorables may yet prove unnecessary, though. Democrats strategy of awaiting inevitable demographic change in the electorate, combined with the hope that Trump and the Republican Congress will commit major unforced errors, may allow the party to regain control of the country without making any concessions to the large portion of the U.S. population whom they appear to despise.
READ MORE: A Democratic Blind Spot on Culture The Democrats Resistance Temptation Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Shrinking Democratis Brand
Kay S. Hymowitzis aCity Journalcontributing editor, the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author ofThe New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back.
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Xi Jinping, New Defender of Liberal Order, Lets Chinese Dissident Die – The American Interest
Posted: at 5:37 am
Seven years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Chinas most famous political prisoner has died, locked away under the heavily guarded watch of the Chinese state. The New York Times:
Liu Xiaobo, the renegade Chinese intellectual who kept vigil on Tiananmen Square in 1989 to protect protesters from encroaching soldiers, promoted a pro-democracy charter that brought him an 11-year prison sentence and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 2010 while locked away, died on Thursday. He was 61. []
The Chinese government revealed he had liver cancer in late June only after it was virtually beyond treatment. Officially, Mr. Liu gained medical parole. But even as he faced death, he was kept silenced and under guard in a hospital in northeastern China, still a captive of the authoritarian controls that he had fought for decades.
As Bill Bishop points out in hisSinocism newsletter, Lius death will be difficult for even Beijings most dedicated apologists to spin. The last Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to be effectively killed by his own government was Carl Ossietsky, in Germany in 1938, Bishop notes. Does Xi care that the the likely precedent here for Beijing will be pre-World War II Nazi Germany?
Another question follows from that one: will the Wests newfound defenders of Xi Jinping care that the man they have anointed in the wake of the election of Donald Trump as the champion of the liberal world order drove a courageous dissident to his death? Or will they persist in the delusion that Xi is a liberal darling, content to overlook his human rights abuses so long as he delivers rhetorical paeans to globalization and needles Trump on the world stage?
Sadly, the answer is not clear. Many in the West have already proven easy marks as Xi has tried to reinvent himself as a principled defender of international values. All it took was a single speech at Davos for the plaudits to pour in: China has become the global grown-up, claimed the front cover of The Economist.Beijing would now be seen as the linchpin of global economic stability, raved Bessma Momani in Newsweek,while Trumps America [would] no longer play the role of enforcing the liberal rules and norms the country once coveted and benefited from.Susan Shirk, a former China hand in the Clinton administration, perhaps went the furthest in singing Xis praises toThe Guardian:
Lets lavish praise on them I think it was super-smart of Xi Jinping to go to Davos and give the speech More credit to him, really. []
I believe the United States actually has sponsored Chinas emergence as a constructive global power not just allowed it but really, actively encouraged it and I dont see anything bad about that. The only bad thing is that the United States is not just sitting by the sidelines, but actively subverting [the status quo].
Liu Xiaobos death should be a sobering reminder that this kind of thinking is nonsense. China is a dictatorship and a revisionist power, not a defender of liberal values or a responsible stakeholder. As the world pays tribute to Lius brave legacy of speaking truth to powerand his family remains under house arrest in China, unable to speak outacknowledging that reality is the very least we can do.
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GOP leaders enlist Pence, Mulvaney to help with budget woes – Politico
Posted: at 5:37 am
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney will be calling on his rabble-rousing friends and former colleagues to get in line behind a House budget proposal. | Getty
Republicans hope lobbying from key White House conservatives will ease opposition from the hard-line House Freedom Caucus.
By Rachael Bade and Sarah Ferris
07/13/2017 02:15 PM EDT
Updated 07/13/2017 06:20 PM EDT
House GOP leaders are bringing in the big guns to help ease their budget woes: Vice President Mike Pence and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney.
Pence and Mulvaney committed Thursday to helping GOP leaders muster support among their divided conference to pass a fiscal 2018 budget. Republican leadership and House Budget Chairwoman Diane Black are hoping that Mulvaney will be particularly helpful in wooing his former colleagues and friends on the hard-line Freedom Caucus, where he was once a member.
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The Freedom Caucus' opposition has the potential to be one of the greatest hurdles to passing the budget, which is crucial if Republicans want to pass tax reform on a party-line vote. Caucus leaders, who have pushed hard to include mandatory cuts to welfare programs in the budget, have said they will not support the fiscal plan until they also get the details of the Houses tax reform proposal.
But tax reform details are still far off, insiders say. And GOP leaders, not to mention Black, are eager to move on the budget before the August recess.
Its frustrating in a sense that theyre demanding that we stay here [through August recess] and work, which is fine with me, but they're not working while were here, said Budget panel member Tom Cole (R-Oakla.) of the Freedom Caucus threat to block the budget without tax details. I just think thats unrealistic Theyre not necessarily related."
The Vice President's office confirmed that Pence would be on the Hill to help get the budget passed. An Office of Management and Budget official confirmed that Mulvaney would be "working the phones" as well as making in-person pitches.
"The White House wants to be helpful in any way it can," OMB spokesman John Czwartacki said by phone Thursday. "The White House sees tremendous value on a 2018 budget resolution passing both chambers of Congress."
Black set out early to woo conservatives, even taking on GOP leadership as well as other Republican committee chairs to include $200 billion in entitlement cuts. Many moderates have balked at the proposal, with as many as 20 centrist Republicans in the Tuesday Group threatening to vote against such a plan almost enough to block it.
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Still, some Freedom Caucus members say those cuts are not enough. Vice chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) suggested during a news conference Wednesday that $200 billion in mandatory cuts was, essentially, a rounding error compared to the nations larger spending issues.
Meadows also said the group would need to see the details of the tax plan. They're wary of Speaker Paul Ryan's proposal to increase taxes on imports to pay for other tax cuts and want assurances the so-called border adjustment is dead.
Without decisions on tax reform, there will not be enough votes to pass it in the House because of the conservative concerns, Meadows said.
Enter the White House. Mulvaney and Pence huddled Thursday morning with Ryan (R-Wis.), Black (R-Tenn.) and White House legislative liaison Marc Short to devise a strategy to get Black's budget passed. That plan includes talking not just to members of the Freedom Caucus but any recalcitrant Republicans to get the 218 votes needed on the floor.
The meeting followed several calls between Mulvaney and Black this weekend.
Several GOP sources following the budget process closely said they think the White House's pitch for opponents to back the budget will work, allowing Black to move the bill through committee as soon as next week. Two members of the committee, Reps. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, told POLITICO on Wednesday that they were told to expect a Budget Committee markup next week.
Mulvaney and Pence's first task will be helping Black move the bill through the panel, where some conservatives like Reps. Dave Brat (R-Va.) and Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), both Freedom Caucus members, have not yet committed to supporting the plan.
Palmer in an interview off the House floor Thursday said he wanted the budget to rein in more spending.
Im still looking at it. I think theres time to improve it," Palmer said, when asked if he'd support the budget. "At some point everybodys got to come to the realization that were on a path to fiscal disaster."
Palmer, however, might be one of the easier conservatives to win over: He does not agree with his fellow Freedom Caucus members who say they want to hold up the budget in order to squeeze out the details of tax reform.
"The Freedom Caucus doesnt speak for all its members," he said. "I think that the tax reform effort is a separate issue. I dont believe in holding something else hostage."
Palmer also praised Black for her work, saying he can't remember the last time a budget was crafted to trigger billions in cuts.
Brat said he couldn't back a budget without more tax details.
"How do you get corporate rates down when you're minus a few trillion [in deficits]? We have to know the answer to that question because tax reform is the Holy Grail," he said. "I am not able to take a budget vote until I know how all the big trillion-dollar pieces fit together."
Even if Mulvany and Pence are able to help Black move the budget out of committee next week, they'll have an even heavier lift with the rest of the conference. Freedom Caucus members have not yet taken a position on the issue, but they could soon.
"Why arent we seeing the tax plan? I think [our opposition is] a move to try to spur things along," said Freedom Caucus member Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.). "Its a shame we would have to do that but weve got to keep things moving."
To be sure, Ryan, the White House and Senate leaders have indeed begun working on a tax bill. But right now, those discussions and decisions are being made at a high level not with the rest of the conference.
The Freedom Caucus would like to have input in those discussions.
Asked about Mulvaney whipping the Freedom Caucus, Meadows on Thursday gave a hearty laugh off the House floor.
"We're not voting for the budget until we get all those other things done, and Mick Mulvany can come up here and we can have nice lunch ... and it ain't gonna change a single vote," Meadows said.
Meadows then called Mulvaney to press him on his intentions to whip the Freedom Caucus into passing the budget. He said Mulvaney denied that was his intention.
Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for the Freedom Caucus, said: "Chairman Meadows has a great degree of respect for Director Mulvaney and always appreciates his input on policy matters."
And that's just the conservative end of the House GOP conference.
GOP leaders and the White House will also have to presuade moderates in the Tuesday Group to back the budget. A few weeks ago, members of the group said they wouldn't vote for a fiscal blueprint until Republicans strike a broader spending deal with Democrats, which seems a world away amid the partisan rancor on Capitol Hill.
In other words, Pence, Mulvaney and Ryan have some serious work to do.
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GOP leaders enlist Pence, Mulvaney to help with budget woes - Politico
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The Health Care Security And Freedom Act Of 2017 – Investor’s Business Daily
Posted: at 5:37 am
After years of subjecting ObamaCareto the harshest criticism, the Senate GOP's struggles to come up with a replacement over the past several weeks havebeen a revelation:A critical mass of Republican senators seem to be saying that wresting the health care security provided by the law from their constituents is a nonstarter.
That leaves Congresswith two possible paths forward. The most likely path is a form of triage that would try to control the bleeding, rather than address ObamaCare'sunderlying problems that explain why enrollment was weak even before premiums spiked, and why the law was unpopular before"mean" TrumpCare came on the scene.
Stabilizing insurance markets, principally by providing protection for insurers against high-claims customers, is a good idea and an important step. But let's be clear about what that won't achieve: It won't create a robust nongroup insurance market with rules that Americans can broadly support, and that work reasonably well for the finances of healthy and sick, old and young, working class and middle class.
To create a robust nongroup insurance market with lower premiums that serves people well will require taking the other potential path forward: transforming the Affordable Care Act, largely byinjecting the ingredient that Republicans say the law is most sorely lacking freedom.
While ObamaCare has helped thenear-poor and those with chronic conditions who otherwise might be stuck without affordable coverage, it gives a bad deal to pretty much everyone else, which iswhy the exchanges' pool of customers is too small, too old and too costly, and premiums have soared asinsurers likeUnitedHealth Group (UNH),Aetna (AET) andHumana (HUM) have mostly exited the markets.
Simply stabilizing theturbulent insurance-exchange markets wouldn't do anything to ameliorate ObamaCare's harshest reality:Even among working-class households earning 150% to 250% of the poverty level, supposedly among the law'sbiggest beneficiaries, just 1 in 3 people who lack insurance from other sources are getting coverage that will protect them from financial disaster. Most of the other two-thirds are uninsured, either because they or a spouse work full time and don't qualify for exchange subsidies, or else they've spurned subsidized bronze plans that carry $6,000-$7,000 deductibles despite the threat of a individual-mandate penalty.
While Americans aren't crying out for the freedom to buy the skimpiest coverage that insurers can dream up, and pretty much everybody would rather have insurance than not if the price is right many people would benefit from greater flexibility than the ACA allows, and the entire country would benefit from a bipartisan consensus on health reform that helps those who have fallen through ObamaCare's wide cracks.
That is whythe very best step for public policy, within the realm of what might be possible, would be to give people a choice between the comprehensive coverage that Democrats want them to have and that many people with chronic conditions or low incomes clearly need and the consumer-driven model that Republicans believe in, which allows people to opt for high-deductiblecoverage and set aside funds to cover basic medical needs.
This would involve turning ObamaCare's cost-sharing support into something more akin to working-class tax cuts and removing ObamaCare's heaviest-handed mandates, while preserving the ACA's critical protections and support.
A central problem with ObamaCare is that the rules stacked the deck in favor of those needing comprehensive coverage, leaving far too many in the working class with three unappealingoptions: a silver plan that costs too much; a bronze plan that won't pay their medical bills until long after they're in financial distress;or anindividual-mandate penaltyfor opting against coverage that may be of little use.
Think ofa couple, age 30, in St. Louis with income of $40,000 (about 200% of the poverty level) and a child covered by Medicaid. For this couple, the cheapest silver plan under ObamaCare offers pretty solid coverage but costs$2,430 likely too much for a young family that's probably already struggling to save anything. The cheapest bronze plan, costing $1,068, might be doable, but the $13,300deductible ($6,650 per person) could make a hospital stay financially devastating.
The chasm between ObamaCare's silver and bronze deductibles $700 vs. $13,300 is by design, though clearly a poor one. ObamaCare provides extra cost-sharing subsidies that shrink deductibles for modest-income households, but only if they buy silver plans. Those cost-sharing subsidies work exactly like premium subsidies, paid directly from the government to insurers each month, even if the policyholder gets no medical care.
Looking through the lens of these 30-year-olds in St. Louis, a bipartisan replacement, merging Republican principles and Democratic values, is easy to identify.
First, don't get rid of the comprehensive option. If this couple is trying to have a second child or one spouse has a chronic condition, they will be desperate for a low-deductible plan with a wide range of essential benefits.
Second, offer people the flexibility to choose a Republican option. A replacement for ObamaCare could give young, modest-income families the chance to set aside some savings for health expenses with two simple tweaks. Relax ObamaCare's age-rating restrictions that inflate insurance costs for the young, but only for high-deductible plans, keeping comprehensive plans affordable for older adults. (That could mean silver plans with a 3:1 age rating, bronze 4:1 and catastrophic 5:1.)
Next, let people use cost-sharing subsidies to reduce premiums, if they prefer, effectively making it a tax cut. Those two steps would shrink that St. Louis couple's bronze premium to zero, and they'd have about $900 left to put in a Health Savings Account to defray medical expenses not nirvana, but a dramatic improvement over what ObamaCare offers. Yes, this family would still be subject to very high deductibles, but no greater than under ObamaCare, and they'd have a $2,000 head start on their medical bills, giving them a chance to put aside some savings not because their tax credits are more generous than under ObamaCare but because they would be more usable.
From 100% to150% of the poverty level (about $12,000-$18,000 for a single), roughly90% of exchange enrollees sign up for silver coverage. Bronze-level deductibles would bealmost too extreme to bother if not for the mandate penalty though some percentage don't bother and remain uninsured. So here's a beautiful compromise that would inject some freedom and flexibility but not too much into the ACA.
ACA cost-sharing subsidies, which are even higher for this income tier, turn silver plans to ultra-low-deductible platinum plans.That option would still be available, but they also could opt to use their cost-sharing subsidy to cover a basic silver-plan premium and deposit the extra amount in a Health Savings Account. What's beautiful about this is that the bar on minimum coverage would risecompared to the ACA, yet people would still have more freedom to pick a plan that works for their finances and their health status.
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We also should do something about thesteep drop-off in cost-sharing subsidies that acts as a disincentive to earn above 200% of the poverty level and is an especially big deal for people with significant medical needs. A more gradual phase-out by300% of the poverty level would provide more constructive incentives, while delivering modest tax cuts to income-tax-paying households. Premiums could essentially be free for everyone up to 250% of the poverty level if a catastrophic-planoption is made available to people above 200% of the poverty level and they opt to apply their cost-sharing subsidy to the premium for the lowest-cost plan, roughly around the "copper" option proposed by the insurance industry and some moderate Democrats.
This is another compromise in which both sides win.Above 200% of the poverty level, ObamaCare's cracks widen in a serious way. The percentage of the uninsured under ObamaCare takes a big jump, and so does take-up of bronze coverage.Easing the cost-sharing subsidy cliff won't only make it more attractive for people to get coverage, albeit higher-deductible coverage, but it will allow people who need comprehensive coverage to get a better policy than they do under ObamaCare, since the bigger cost-sharing subsidy will effectively turn a silver plan to gold.
Meanwhile, freedom to choose a catastrophic plan with a 5:1 age-rating should satisfy the GOP that the reformed insurance markets will provide sufficient flexibility to meet the needs of all comers. Democrats should acknowledge that it's far better to let a young adult member of the working class get a higher-deductible plan for free than pay a penalty for going uninsured, and the broader, healthier risk pool will serve to hold down premiums for everyone.
As for the individual mandate, among the biggest issues of contention, if people earning up to 250% of the poverty level can get high-deductible coverage essentially for free and in most cases get extra cash on top there should be no need to threaten them with fines.
Above 250% of the poverty level, an alternative to the individual mandate is well worth considering. Among the reasons that the ObamaCare individual mandate doesn't work very well is that relatively young and healthy people who gamble on going without coverage can reasonably expect to win their bet and end up with a financial gain. ObamaCare encourages this kind of short-term calculation, sinceonly those who get sick pay a price.
A more logical approach would eliminate the incentive to go without coverage when one is young and healthy, then sign up when one's health starts deteriorating. Much like Medicare's late-enrollment penalties, the idea would be to very gradually shrink future tax subsidies based on how long people go without coverage. This should apply to both the individual market and employer market, or else people would have reason not to get coverage between jobs that offer insurance. The key for this to work in the constructive way intended is that subsidies must be sufficient to make coverage affordable, or else people would opt out for legitimate financial reasons and their future cost of coverage would gradually become even less affordable.
Even without this more constructive incentive, it's important to give members of the middle class a better deal than they get now. Those who earn too much to receive ObamaCare subsidies including young adults earning well below the official cut-off at 400% of the poverty level should be treated more equitably relative to their peers covered through the workplace.
A fiscally responsible solution would be to put a floor on tax credits for anyone buying coverage on the individual market equal to 25% of the cost of a silver plan, while limiting the income-tax benefit to 25% of the cost of employer-provided coverage and capping that benefit for high-income households. People in the 25% tax bracket (up to $91,151 for singles and $151,900 for married couples) who get coverage from an employer wouldn't be touchedby the tax change, while there would be minimal effect on those in the 28% bracket (up to $190,150 for singles and $231,450 for couples).
The sad reality today is that ObamaCare throws millions of modest-wage, full-time workers under the bus. There are some4.5 million uninsured full-time workerswho along with their spouses don't qualify for exchange subsidies, even if bronze-level workplace coverage costs close to 10% of income, which ObamaCare deems "affordable" but clearly isn't. That can amount to five times what people pay on the subsidized exchanges, sometimes even more. That's why perhaps a million other modest-wage earners solid numbers arehard to come by opt for"skinny" coverage at work that won't pay for hospitalization or surgerybut will keep them from having to pay a mandate penalty. This is worth repeating: The skimpy coverage that Democrats hate is exactly the kind of insurance-in-name-only-coverage that a lot of low-wage, full-time workers are settling for under ObamaCare.
Theemployer mandate is easy to dodgeand ends up harming the low-wage workers it was supposed to help. Getting rid of it is a progressive thing to do especially if it is done while fixing the individual insurance market.
Finally, we shouldallowstates that haven't expanded Medicaid to do so whilelimiting the expansion to 100% of the poverty level, easing the fiscal burden of the expansion on states, as suggested by Urban Institute scholars.
The Health Care Security & Freedom Act wouldn't deliver gold-plated insurance to most people, but it is the least we can do. All of these features would create a broad, stable risk pool, with affordable coverage options and plenty of flexibility to let people get the coverage that they believe suits them best. While they entail a fiscal cost, we can tackle that while stillputting the nation on a sounder fiscal courseand strengthening the social safety net.
Having a robust nongroup market for insurance that serves people well should be a priority for the nation. The dynamism of our economy will be better served if entrepreneurs and idealists who are willing to step out on a limb don't have to fear that their health insurance support will come crashing down. Demographic changes make it increasingly important for people to have the flexibility to step back from full-time work to help care for an aging parent or a sick child. Amid minimum-wage pressures and health care mandates, ultra-competitive markets and the advance of technology threaten to widen the cracks in our employer-centric insurance system that millions of workers, many with modest wages, are already falling into. And don't forget that we're entering the ninth year of an economic expansion. When the next recession hits, all of these pressures will multiply and millions more people will depend on insurance outside the employer system.
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6/30/2017 Combining Republican principles and Democratic values is key to replacing ObamaCare.
6/30/2017 Combining Republican principles and Democratic values is key to replacing...
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The Health Care Security And Freedom Act Of 2017 - Investor's Business Daily
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Studio Update On New Album Posted By Bleeding Utopia – Metal Underground
Posted: at 5:34 am
Metal Underground | Studio Update On New Album Posted By Bleeding Utopia Metal Underground Swedish death metal act Bleeding Utopia issued a video studio update on the upcoming new album. The band is currently in the studio finishing up the album, which is said to be a blast of deep-rooted Swedish death metal meshed with modern American ... |
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Studio Update On New Album Posted By Bleeding Utopia - Metal Underground
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