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Wes Anderson Weekend

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 28, 2011 at 4:29 pm

I spent a bunch of the weekend rewatching Wes Anderson movies, in part for a piece I was working on for The Atlantic, in part because watching The Royal Tenenbaums tends to make me want to watch Rushmore, and then to rewatch The Life Aquatic in the hopes that it will be slightly better than I remember. It’s been a while since I’ve watched any of those three movies in full, and one thing that stood out to me was the conversational pacing. The rise of both the Frat Pack and SNL alums like Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin in our comedy has, I think accustomed us to a lot of very fast-paced improvisational conversation, a world in which everyone is naturally more witty, possessed of a permanently faster riposte reaction than we are. But Anderson’s conversations are often awkwardly slow in a way that seems manners by comparison but are, I think, actually how many of us would sound in similar situations.

Take the scene from Rushmore when Max is telling Herman’s wife that her husband is having an affair. He’s wants to do more than blurt it out, so he’s set up this weird little hospitality spread on the roof of the building where they’re meeting, and she tries to play along, but can only hold it together for so long:

I think that attempt at normalcy, on both sides, makes an odd amount of sense, both in the context of the movie, and in our own world (in Anderson’s movies, you can’t take for granted that they overlap, mostly to charming effect).

The same awkwardness is often present around Margot in The Royal Tenenbaums because she’s so often lying, or affectless in a way that means the people around her don’t know how to deal with her:

When she’s saying she doesn’t smoke, she’s composing herself for the lie. When she’s stopping to consider how long she’s smoked in response to her mother’s question, she fact-checking herself. When her father takes her out for ice cream in an attempt to replicate moments they should have had decades ago, they’re feeling for conversational rhythms and reactions that ought to have been familiar but instead are cliches they’re trying to adopt.

The Life Aquatic is a vastly less good movie than either of the prior two, and it has, in much of its conversations, that fast, glib quality. But unlike the pauses, speeding up Anderson’s dialogue actually sounds vastly more mannered:

When the characters in prior movies are struggling to sound clever, it’s possible to have some kind of sympathy for what they come up with. When they just toss around complaints about a nemesis or make elaborate pronunciations of revenge, it’s kind of exhausting. These are not real humans with real concerns about how they’re portrayed and what weight their words have. They’re too-perfect creations, designed to elicit emotional reactions from us. It’s impossible to get close to them.

Climate Progress

Groucho Marxist Bill McKibben takes on Glenn Beck

By Joe Romm on Feb 28, 2011 at 4:25 pm

My life as a communist actually began without me knowing it, on Friday evening, when Glenn Beck spent his program explaining about a “communistic” conspiracy that included 10 groups in America. One was 350.org, a global campaign to fight climate change that I helped found three years ago. He even put our logo up on his whiteboard – and next to it a hammer and sickle.

Since I don’t actually watch Mr. Beck, I didn’t know about it until e-mails began to arrive, informing me that indeed I was a communist. My first reaction was: I’m not a communist. I’m a Methodist.

But then I reconsidered.

Fellow Eaarthling and sometime CP blogger Bill McKibben offers a light touch in his response to the clown prince of disinformers.  Beck is the guy who told William Shatner, “I think there are too many stupid people.”  Now that’s humor!

Here’s more from McKibben’s new Washington Post column, “My life as a communist“:

Read more

Education

House GOP Spending Bill Cuts Equivalent Of Funding For Nearly One Million Low-Income Students

By Pat Garofalo on Feb 28, 2011 at 4:03 pm

House Republicans have passed a continuing resolution to fund the government once the current resolution runs out on March 4. Included in the House GOP’s plan, as we’ve pointed out, are a slew of counter-productive and outright destructive spending cuts aimed at community health centers, job training, environmental protection, infrastructure funding, and programs that protect some of the country’s most vulnerable residents.

And as CAP Education Policy Analyst Diana Epstein laid out today, the House Republicans’ plan also cuts education funding in a way that is equivalent to cutting federal support for nearly one million low-income students:

What would these cuts mean in terms of the students and teachers who would be affected? First consider the impact that this bill would have on funding for Title I, which provides supplemental funding to districts and schools to meet the needs of low-income children. Title I would be cut by $694 million, which is equivalent to eliminating the extra academic support Title I provides for 957,000 students. Because Title I money is distributed at the school level, a large proportion of the 20 million children nationwide who receive free or reduced-price lunches — many of whom attend schools that receive Title I support — would be affected by reduced or eliminated programs at their schools.

Title I is distributed via formula to schools with higher percentages of low-income students, and as Theodora Chang noted, slashing it right now “is a brutal mid-year cut to staffed-up districts and would hit high-poverty districts the hardest.” House Republicans also took a whack at special education funding, even though House Education Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) has repeatedly promised to increase funding for special education. In a final blow, the Republican plan would knock 196,000 children out of Head Start

Even the short-term resolution that House Republicans have unveiled — which would fund the government for two weeks, giving Congress more time to work out a longer term deal — includes debilitating cuts to education, including more than $300 million from literacy programs. That bill will be debated on the House floor this week.

These sort of funding cuts are short-sighted and counterproductive, as study after study shows that investments in education — particularly for young children — pay for themselves in the long-run, as better educated workers are more productive, commit fewer crimes, require fewer social safety net payments, earn more money and ultimately pay more in taxes.

Politics

Gov. Daniels Says Governments Should Slash Spending ‘Even If They End Up Seriously Costing A Lot Of Jobs’

By Pat Garofalo on Feb 28, 2011 at 4:00 pm

When asked earlier this month about the job loss that would occur if the continuing resolution passed by House Republicans were actually implemented, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) replied “so be it.” “We’re broke. It’s time for us to get serious about how we’re spending the nation’s money,” he said.

And Boehner is evidently not the only one who feels that budget cuts should be imposed with complete disregard for their effect on employment. In an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep today, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) was asked if budget cuts should still go forward, even if they would result in widespread job loss, and replied “yes”:

INSKEEP: I want to ask something that a lot of people are confronting right now, as they deal with the federal deficit as well as state and local deficits that need to be closed. Are budget cuts — government budget cuts — worth it, even if they end up seriously costing a lot of jobs right now?

DANIELS: The answer is yes.

Last week, economists at Goldman Sachs estimated that the House Republicans’ continuing resolution would cause GDP to drop by 1.5 to 2 percent, which CAP economist Adam Hersh explained would translate into a one percentage point jump in the unemployment rate. Before that, the Economic Policy Institute found that the Republican plan would cause a loss of nearly one million jobs.

As if we needed more evidence of the effect GOP spending policy could have on employment, Moody’s Analytics predicted today that the House Republican plan would cause the loss of 700,000 jobs:

A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday…[Moody's Chief Economist Mark] Zandi, an architect of the 2009 stimulus package who has advised both political parties, predicts that the GOP package would reduce economic growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, and by 0.2 percentage points in 2012, resulting in 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of next year.

Republicans rode into the House majority chanting “where are the jobs?” but multiple independent analyses have now found that the vision they have for the federal budget would make unemployment substantially worse.

Cross-posted on Wonk Room.

Yglesias

Unions, Norms, and Inequality

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 28, 2011 at 3:29 pm

Read a working paper from Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld recently that argues that the decline in union density has been a bigger deal for wage inequality than most economists realize, largely because there’s been significant action through the channel of norms. The authors claim the effect can be empirically estimated:

From 1973 to 2007, private sector union membership in the United States declined from 34 to less than 10 percent for men and from 16 to 6 percent among women. Inequality in hourly wages increased by over 40 percent in this same period. We study the effect of deunionization on rising inequality with a variance decomposition that assesses the contribution of the shrinking weight of the union wage distribution to overall wage inequality. We also argue that unions helped institutionalize norms of equity reducing the dispersion of nonunion wages in highly unionized regions and industries. Accounting for the effect of unions on union and nonunion wages suggests that the decline of organized labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality—an effect comparable to the growing stratification of wages by education.

The impact is much larger for men than for women. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a publicly available copy of the paper yet. In general, I think the impact of norms and conventions on social outcomes is often underrated.

Politics

REPORT: Ending Special Interest Tax Dodging Would Balance Wisconsin’s Budget And End The War On Unions

By Zaid Jilani on Feb 28, 2011 at 3:00 pm

title= Over the weekend, Main Street America held the largest rallies yet to take place against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) radical proposal to gut his state’s public employee union collective bargaining rights. Walker claims that his assault on the state’s labor unions is designed to help close his state’s budget deficit and save taxpayers money.

Yet the truth is that the relatively minor budget woes that Wisconsin faces aren’t a result of the middle class pay and benefits afforded to hard-working teachers, municipal employees, and other Main Street Americans. Rather, declining tax revenues from a recession caused by Wall Street and corporate tax cuts Walker immediately rammed through the legislature are much more responsible for the relatively minor shortfalls the state is facing.

Walker claims that that the state is facing a $137 million budget deficit and says that the state’s hard-working public employees should sacrifice their pay and benefits and have their collective bargaining rights crippled in order to close this budget gap. Additionally, Walker has included language in his latest budget proposal that would restructure the state’s debt, which would essentially take care of any economic problems in the short-term. Despite the fact that they aren’t responsible for a budget deficit, Wisconsin’s public employee unions have “announced they would accept paying half the cost of pensions and 12.6 percent of the cost of health insurance — as long as they were allowed to keep their collective bargaining rights” — a deal Walker has flatly rejected.

Yet if Walker really feels like the state is facing unacceptable budget problems and that it needs to be able to recoup revenue, he doesn’t have to attack the pay, benefits, or rights of his public employees at all. All he has to do is look at his state’s tax code and take action to close a handful of special interest tax loopholes and tax breaks so that the state’s richest pay their fair share so that the middle class that has already sacrificed so much doesn’t continue to have to bear all the burdens of the recession by itself. ThinkProgress has assembled a far from comprehensive list of just some of these special interest tax breaks and loopholes that could help balance the budget and end any need for a war on unions:

– Close The Internet Sales Tax Loophole: Currently, online retailers all over the country make skillfull use of the tax code to avoid paying sales taxes. Big retailers like Amazon.com set up subsidiary corporations in states and then argue that the subsidiary corporation doesn’t obligate the parent company to collect sales taxes in the state. A University of Tennessee study estimates that “in 2011 alone, Wisconsin will lose an estimated $127 million in uncollected sales tax on purchases made online” — only $10 million short of what Walker projects his state’s deficit to be. While the best way to close the internet sales tax loophole is for federal action, some states like New York have enacted what they refer to as the “Amazon law,” which would decree that any internet sales company would be liable for the state’s tax laws if it has “independent ‘affiliate’ websites in the state promoting sales on its behalf.” After New York enacted its law to capture previously lost revenues in 2008, Amazon responded by unsuccessfully suing the state. Wisconsin could follow New York’s lead.

- Close Special Interest Property Tax Loopholes: Much of the funding necessary to support government services in Wisconsin comes from property taxes, collected by municipalities, with these taxes currently generating “far more revenue than any other state or local tax.” Considering that much of the Wisconsin state budget is consumed by aid to municipalities, closing these loopholes would relieve city budgets and therefore help reduce statewide expenditures. The current exemptions on potential property taxes amount to $700 million a year. Many of these exemptions were won by interest groups with clout in the state legislature. For example, nonprofit community hospitals — which make up 89% of hospital revenue in the state — currently have an exemption, allowing them to forgo $128 million in taxes in 2008. Certain retirement homes also have an exemption that costs the state $15 million a year. The 2009-2011 state budget included a special exemption “for student housing owned by a nonprofit organization that houses up to 300 students, with at least 90% of its residents enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison” — which benefitted a single dorm: the “Pres House on the UW-Madison campus, which would pay about $250,000 in taxes without it.” While some of the state’s current exemptions make sense, others simply benefit special interest groups and should be closely examined.

- Crack Down On Corporate Income Tax Dodgers: The Institute for Wisconsin’s Future (IWF) notes that the state is “losing over one billion dollars annually to the ‘tax gap,’ the difference between what is legally owed by taxpayers and what is actually paid.” It notes that “business income is only 8% of Wisconsin income, but responsible for 57% of the underreporting tax gap,” mostly due to underreporting. This gap accounts for $113 million in revenue. Some companies dodge their taxes by setting up subsidiaries in neighboring states with corporate income tax havens, like Nevada and Delaware. IWF suggests that simplying the tax code and expanding the network of state auditors could help close the tax gap and stop businesses from underreporting their income to avoid taxes.

And it’s worth noting that the tax cuts Walker rammed through during his first month in office “will reduce general fund tax collections by $55.2 million in 2011-12 and $62.0 million in 2012-13.” It is simply irresponsible for Walker and his allies to continue to blame middle class Wisconsinites for his state’s modest budget woes while ignoring the tax dodging by the state’s special interests who continue to fail to pay their fair share.

Update

Rather than making sure special interests and tax dodgers pay their fair share, Walker and his allies are busy bolting the capitol building’s windows shut so protesters can’t get in and so do the demonstrators inside can’t get out without being locked out (HT: @ericming):

There are some reports that the bolting story may be false.


Update

,Nearly a hundred Idaho students protesting the state’s upcoming education policies that would layoff hundreds of teachers have encamped themselves on the second floor of the capitol rotunda and are “quietly doing their homework.” Watch it:

Health

The Case Against Medicaid Block Grants

By Igor Volsky on Feb 28, 2011 at 2:53 pm

With their one-time Recovery Act funds about to expire, budget conscious governors from around the nation are petitioning the Department of Health and Human Services to give states more flexibility in how they manage Medicaid. More than half the states “want permission to remove hundreds of thousands of people from the Medicaid insurance program,” and some conservative governors are proposing radical changes to how the program is financed.

Under the current arrangement, Medicaid — which provides health coverage to approximately 53 million lower income Americans — operates under a matching fund basis. That is, the federal government matches state spending on a per-claim basis; it pays a fixed percentage of each state’s Medicaid costs (anywhere between 50 and 75 percent), sending more money to the states as their costs increase. It in turn also requires states to maintain certain eligibility and benefit standards and grants waivers to states that seek to alter the program on a case-by-case basis.

But as Politico’s Sarah Kliff reports, GOP governors attending the National Governors Association’s winter meeting are now asking the federal government to permanently convert the the existing matching system into block grants, where states would receive a fixed dollar amount annually that would fall below current growth projections:

“For myself, I would take a capped blocked grant in return for true flexibility to run the program,” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told reporters. “We could use money more widely.”

Barbour said that he’s heard “a lot of talk” about Medicaid block grants throughout the NGA conference and would expect to hear more of it as the meetings continue through Monday….

Florida Gov. Rick Scott even took to CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning, before attending the NGA health meeting, to make the case for block grants.

“All of us know that Medicaid is a problem for the states,” he said. “So we are going to do a better job of managing our Medicaid population and our Medicaid program. We would like the federal government to just give us a block grant because I could spend the money way better without all the strings attached.”

While anyone would welcome state-centric proposals that reduce costs without undermining coverage, under this arrangement, the cost of the program is shifted from the federal government to the states, which would be responsible for bearing the cost of any increases in Medicaid spending once the capped federal contribution is exhausted. In all practicality, states would either have to increase their contribution to the program or (more realistically) cap enrollment, cut eligibility, stop offering mandatory benefits, lower provider reimbursements etc. As the CBO put it in examining Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicaid block grant proposal: “reducing federal payments for Medicaid relative to currently projected amounts would probably require states to provide less extensive coverage, or to pay a larger share of the program’s total costs, than would be the case under current law.”

After all, had the block grant structure been in effect during the Great recession, when an increasing number of Americans lost their employer-sponsored health care coverage and turned to the Medicaid program, it’s likely that states would be in even more dire straights. Under the block grant proposal, states would have received significantly less from the federal government than under current law and would have had to absorb significantly higher Medicaid costs while dealing with plummeting state tax revenues and large budget shortfalls. That would meant a lot more people without coverage and as CAP’s Tony Carrk explains, a far higher unemployment rate.

Instead, the federal government reacted to the economic crisis by temporarily increasing its share of Medicaid funding in the Recovery Act. Those funds are set to expire on June 30 and states will have to make up for the budget shortfall until new federal funds can be used to expand the Medicaid program in 2014 (in accordance with the Affordable Care Act). HHS is working with states to find maximum savings and today President Obama asked the NGA to form a bipartisan task force that would develop solutions to lower health costs. But those proposals shouldn’t leave millions of lower income Americans without coverage or establish a system of financing that would force states to curtail their health programs during the periods of greatest need.

Yglesias

Medicaid Costs

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 28, 2011 at 2:30 pm

Via Jamelle Bouie, a reminder that retirees aside healthcare is near the heart of many state budget issues thanks to Medicaid:

Almost everything in American politics circles back to health care costs. The government has committed to pay for health care for certain classes of people—the elderly, its own workforce, the poor—and health care costs are growing more rapidly than the economy as a whole. Meanwhile, on the private sector side the insurance market as we know it exists largely because of tax subsidies that, in turn, are becoming more expensive to provide. The fact that these are manifest themselves as separate issues called “Medicare,” “Medicaid,” “public sector compensation,” “insurance premiums,” etc. reflects the fact that we have an unusually patchworky health care system.

Climate Progress

Big Oil gains from higher prices while families pay the price

By Climate Guest Blogger on Feb 28, 2011 at 2:21 pm

Daniel J. Weiss and Valeri Vasquez in a CAP cross-post.

Political instability in the Middle East over the past month has driven parallel unrest in world oil prices. The drive for political freedom in the Middle East has rightfully captured the world’s attention but it has also roiled oil markets.  Governments across the globe are worried that sustained unrest will escalate oil prices past $100 per barrel on their way to $120 or more, choking the struggling economic recovery in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. One entity, however, is almost certain to benefit from this volatility: Big Oil companies.

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