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Economy

Prominent Republican Senator Abandons Norquist’s No-Tax Pledge

By Igor Volsky on Nov 22, 2012 at 12:09 pm

As lawmakers work on a balanced deal of spending cuts and revenue increases to avoid the coming fiscal cliff, another prominent Republican is publicly rejecting Grover Norquist’s no-tax pledge. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) told a local television station in Georgia on Wednesday that he will no longer support the Taxpayer Protection Pledge to never vote for any tax increases under any circumstances.

Admitting the need for higher revenue, Chambliss — who is part of a small group of senators working on a deal to reduce the debt — said, “I’m willing to do the right thing and let the political consequences take care of themselves”:

“I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge,” Chambliss says. “If we do it his way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that.” … Now Chambliss says he wants to do what it takes to right the U.S. fiscal ship, even if that means findings ways to raise revenue, which Norquist strongly opposes.

Does Chambliss think Norquist will hold the anti-tax pledge against him during his next re-election bid in 2014? Yes.

“But I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist,” Chambliss says.

Watch it:

Before the 2012 election, Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform boasted that 279 Congressional incumbents — and another 286 challengers — signed its pledge.
But as Democrats fought back against anti-tax zealotry, many voters reacted positively, rejecting the pledge and its adherents, and telling pollsters that they supported higher taxes on the richest Americans.

As a result, 16 incumbent Republicans and one incumbent Senator who signed Norquist’s pledge lost on election night. In total, at least 56 Republican House incumbents or candidates who signed the pledge and 24 Republican Senators or hopefuls lost.

Update

Chambliss raised doubts about Norquist’s pledge in 2011.

Update

Norquist responded on CNN: “If he wants to change his mind and become a tax increaser so we don’t have to reform government, he needs to have that conversation with the people of Georgia.”

NEWS FLASH

U.S. Sees Biggest Abortion Decrease In A Decade | New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that abortions fell 5 percent in 2009, “in the biggest one-year decrease in at least a decade.” Researchers are attributing the reduction to the recession and increased use of more effective methods of birth control. Mississippi “had the lowest abortion rate, at 4 per 1,000 women of child-bearing age.”

Alyssa

Thanksgiving

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Nov 22, 2012 at 10:14 am

As I do every year, I want to post late Connecticut Governor Wilbur Cross’s 1936 Thanksgiving proclamation, which remains one of the most beautiful pieces of public language I know:

Proclamation

Time out of mind at this turn of the seasons when the hardy oak leaves rustle in the wind and the frost gives a tang to the air and the dusk falls early and the friendly evenings lengthen under the heel of Orion, it has seemed good to our people to join together in praising the Creator and Preserver, who has brought us by a way that we did not know to the end of another year. In observance of this custom, I appoint Thursday, the twenty-sixth of November, as a day of

Public Thanksgiving

for the blessings that have been our common lot and have placed our beloved State with the favored regions of earth — for all the creature comforts: the yield of the soil that has fed us and the richer yield from labor of every kind that has sustained our lives — and for all those things, as dear as breath to the body, that quicken man’s faith in his manhood, that nourish and strengthen his spirit to do the great work still before him: for the brotherly word and act; for honor held above price; for steadfast courage and zeal in the long, long search after truth; for liberty and for justice freely granted by each to his fellow and so as freely enjoyed; and for the crowning glory and mercy of peace upon our land; — that we may humbly take heart of these blessings as we gather once again with solemn and festive rites to keep our Harvest Home.

I hope you’re all happy, healthy, and safe, wherever you are today.

Climate Progress

Meet The Modern American Family: What Does It Mean For Sustainability?

By Climate Guest Blogger on Nov 22, 2012 at 9:31 am

by Kaid Benfield, via NRDC’s Switchboard

There is probably no other annual event in American culture that extols the concept of family more than Thanksgiving.  I’ll be at my in-laws’ home, watching as much sports as possible while still being friendly.

We romanticize family in our society:  just watch TV commercials to confirm that.  But does our storytale version of family life resemble real family life?  Does it exclude people who are not part of or close to their families?  Is the concept of “family” changing, with implications for the planning profession?  The answers are, of course, seldom; usually; and definitely.

(by: US Census Bureau)

Why does this matter to communities and sustainability?  Because we must plan the future of our cities and neighborhoods to account for reality, not our memories, a rosy version of what some believe today’s households “should” be, or even our own personal situations.

As it turns out, the way households are going to be evolving over the next few decades is toward more singles, empty-nesters, and city-lovers, none of whom particularly want the big yards and long commutes they may have grown up with as kids.  There will still be a significant market for those things (for example, my in-laws), but it will be a smaller portion of overall housing demand than it used to be.  This means that the communities and businesses that take account of these emerging preferences for smaller, more walkable homes will be the ones that are most successful.

(by: US Census Bureau)

(by: US Census Bureau)

Last week the Census Bureau released some fascinating graphs and data about the current state of American households.  People are marrying later than they used to, for example, if they marry at all.  Among other relevant statistics, the number and portion of people living alone has risen steadily and significantly for decades.  So has the number of unmarried couples living together, nearly eight million today compared with only around three million as recently as 1996.  Even the number of unmarried couples with children has doubled in less than 20 years.

Read more

Health

Five Obamacare Provisions To Be Thankful For

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Nov 22, 2012 at 9:00 am

After clearing significant hurdles over the past year — including repeated repeal votes in Congress, a Supreme Court challenge, and a presidential election — the future of President Obama’s landmark health reform law is finally secure. Now that it’s here to stay, Americans can expect to reap significant benefits as the Affordable Care Act continues to be gradually implemented over the next few years. But some important provisions of the health law have already gone into effect, helping improve coverage for millions of Amercians and significantly reduce the national uninsurance rate. Americans can be grateful for these five existing Obamacare provisions that are currently working to provide the following benefits for millions of people across the country:

1) Eliminating the “donut hole” coverage gap. After this Obamacare provision began working to make prescription drug coverage more affordable for seniors, the Centers for Medicare And Medicaid Services (CMS) confirmed that over 5 million seniors and people with disability saved an estimated $4 billion on their prescription costs. And the health law ensures that those savings will only increase in the future, as the Medicare program eventually covers more and more of the cost of both brand-name and generic drugs. The average senior on a traditional Medicare plan is expected to rack up about $5,000 in savings between 2010 and 2022.

2) Preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. Eliminating discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions is one of the most popular provisions of the health reform law, since the insurance market has typically forced people with genetic or chronic illnesses to either pay expensive premiums in high-risk pools or forgo coverage altogether. Americans under 19 years old are currently eligible for these protections, and the provision will be expanded to all Americans in 2014.

3) Allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance until age 26. Obamacare has helped extend coverage to millions of young adults by allowing them to remain covered under their parents’ plans until they turn 26, resulting in a record drop in the number of uninsured young adults across the nation. More than six million young adults are now insured through their parents’ insurance plans because of this provision.

4) Increasing affordable access to women’s health services. Thanks to Obamacare, a wide range of women’s preventative health services are now covered in employer-based insurance plans at no additional charge. The health reform law works to eliminate gender-based disparity in health costs by eliminating co-pays for birth control, HPV screening, breastfeeding support, and domestic violence resources. And studies have confirmed that Obamacare’s contraception mandate will help lower the national abortion rate by increasing access to affordable and reliable forms of birth control.

5) Ensuring that premiums go toward Americans’ health care rather than insurance companies’ profits. Obamacare’s 80/20 rule mandates that insurance companies can only spend 20 percent of the premiums they charge on their own profits and overhead costs, while the remaining 80 percent needs to go toward the cost of providing quality health care. Thanks to this provision, Americans have already saved an estimated $2.1 billion on their premium costs. And if you got a refund check in the mail this past year from your insurance company, you can thank this part of the Affordable Care Act for that. About 13 million Americans have received over $1 billion in rebates since the health law enacted the 80/20 rule.

Economy

A Thanksgiving Reminder That America Alone Doesn’t Guarantee Time Off For Vacations Or Holidays

By Pat Garofalo on Nov 22, 2012 at 9:00 am

Today, many workers at the nation’s largest retail stores, including Walmart and Target, will have to go to work instead of spending the entirety of the Thanksgiving holiday with their families. Many retailers have decided that Black Friday, the biggest retail day of the year, now needs to start on Thursday, despite workers complaints.

Having to miss special occasions and holidays is an all-too-real phenomenon for many of America’s workers, as the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not mandate vacation time. As the Center for Economic and Policy Research found:

European countries establish legal rights to at least 20 days of paid vacation per year, with legal requirement of 25 and even 30 or more days in some countries. Australia and New Zealand both require employers to grant at least 20 vacation days per year; Canada and Japan mandate at least 10 paid days off. The gap between paid time off in the United States and the rest of the world is even larger if we include legally mandated paid holidays, where the United States offers none, but most of the rest of the world’s rich countries offer between five and 13 paid holidays per year.

In the absence of government standards, almost one in four Americans have no paid vacation and no paid holidays. According to government survey data, the average worker in the private sector in the United States receives only about nine days of paid vacation and about six paid holidays per year: less than the minimum legal standard set in the rest of world’s rich economies excluding Japan (which guarantees only 10 paid vacation days and requires no paid holidays).

The U.S., in fact, trails most of the developed world on a host of labor policies.

Politics

ThankProgress: 10 Things Progressives Can Be Thankful For

By ThinkProgress on Nov 22, 2012 at 8:30 am

Following a long presidential campaign full of policy battles and disagreements, progressives have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season. Here are 10 things we can all celebrate:

We are thankful for the millions of Americans serving our country at home and abroad. This includes 1.4 million Armed Services members, 80,000 AmeriCorps members, and 8,073 Peace Corps volunteers and trainees, 6 million teachers and public school employees, 1.1 million professional and volunteer firefighters, and 22 million total public employees.

We’re thankful for Obamacare. After surviving dozens of repeal votes in Congress, the Supreme Court, and a presidential election, the Affordable Care Act is on track to extending insurance coverage to 30 million Americans and lowering health care spending. Millions of seniors and young people have benefited from the law and inefficient insurers are distributing rebates to consumers.

We’re thankful for the social safety net. Nutrition assistance, welfare, unemployment compensation, Social Security, and other social programs keep millions of Americans out of poverty each year. Though the programs aren’t as robust as they could be, they help provide food, health care, and educational opportunity to America’s neediest families.

We’re thankful for historic progress against the War on Drugs. In passing laws to legalize and regulate marijuana in Washington and Colorado, supporters joined many local jurisdictions that have decriminalized some drug offenses in signaling their willingness to better tailor drug policy to public health and safety goals. Timed to the year when the film The House I Live In is opening new eyes to the War’s decimation of minority communities, the time is ripe to end the War that, since its declaration 40 years ago by President Richard Nixon, has cost the U.S. both money and lives while failing to curb drug use.

We’re thankful for the advocates who protected our right to vote. The past few years saw a raft of new voter suppression laws and tactics, but most of the worst laws were blocked at least temporarily by the courts or repealed by lawmakers. The challenge going forward will be to maintain these victories as litigation in several of these cases continues and the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge to the Voting Rights Act.

We’re thankful for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB, created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, has been working on new rules to protect Americans from predatory lenders, bogus credit card deals, and shady mortgage peddlers. It has also won American consumers hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds for credit card scams.

We’re thankful for Occupy Wall Street. Since its street protests last year, Occupy Wall Street has kept busy with several important projects. Occupy Our Homes saved many Americans from unfair foreclosures, while Occupy Hurricane Sandy provided aid to victims of the superstorm that battered the northeast. Occupy’s latest project, the Rolling Jubilee, raised millions of dollars in order to buy and then abolish debt.

We’re thankful for the most diverse Congress in history. On Election Day, Americans ensured that the 113th Congress will contain the widest range yet of ethnicities, religious affiliations, and sexual orientations. The incoming freshman class contains 4 African Americans, 5 Asian Americans, 10 Latinos, 24 women, the first openly bisexual congresswoman, as well as the country’s first Buddhist senator and two Hindu representatives.

We’re thankful for religious freedom. The U.S. is a nation of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, non-believers, and religious and spiritual sects of all stripes. Unlike some other countries, the U.S. protects Americans’ freedom to practice the religion of their choice without fear of repercussion, suppression, or forced religious adherence.

We’re thankful for growing LGBT equality. The sweeping victories for LGBT equality and out candidates in this election demonstrated that this country is on track to providing full benefits and protections to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. While there is still work to be done, schools are becoming safer, families are becoming more secure, and visibility and awareness are helping to lower discrimination rates.

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