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Posts Tagged ‘Job Creation’

The Economic Recovery in the Past Five Years: Then and Now

Sun ,02/11/2014

We have heard so much bad economic news that most people believe it, even though it is not true.The economy has recovered to the point that theRecovery economic stimulus is being ended. That would normally be good news. It is strange that it has not been widely disseminated and many people may be unaware of it. You may read a little piece here and there in the paper about it, but it hasn’t seemed to enter the public’s mind. Actually, since it would help the Democrats, great efforts have been made by some money interests and obstructionists to downplay the recovery.

The chart at the right summarizes the recovery in the last five years. Though it was put together by the Occupy Democrats, the numbers seem to be accurate and can be checked. Normally the President would get credit for the recovery, but not so much in this case as it would likely help the Democrats in the next election. The news could probably have been even better except for the missed opportunities caused by obstructionists in Congress. I hope some of them will join the jobless after the next election.

Congressman John Sullivan’s Town Hall Meeting II

Tue ,07/02/2012

 

Congressman John Sullivan (R-OK) held a town hall meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he discussed the budget, Social Security,  energy issues, EPA regulations, jobs, and the XL pipeline. The article gives Congressman Sullivan’s positions, comments and questions asked by the audience, and compares the authors views to Congressman Sullivan’s.

Congressman John Sullivan conducted two town hall meetings in Tulsa on January 26, 2012. The first was held at Tulsa Community College’s Metro Campus where a number of his constituents challenged Sullivan’s views. That meeting was reported  by the Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbeil in, “Sullivan town hall-goers applaud Obama speech”.  The afternoon meeting, which was held at the Hardesty Library in South Tulsa, had a much more partisan crowd. Congressman Sullivan’s opening remarks were much like those at his Sand Springs meeting last November. At the Hardesty meeting, he did not give people the opportunity to applaud Obama’s speech, he just criticized it. When people tried to point out the errors in his criticisms, they were interrupted by people shouting,” Ask a question”. Sullivan was there to hear what his constituents thought, but apparently his supporters did not want to hear anything good about the President.

 Gridlock: Congressman Sullivan likened Obama to a football coach who gives a great locker room talk but doesn’t win. It was a bad analogy as the coach cannot win without cooperation from the players, and many players in Congress seem more interested in beating the coach than winning for the country. Every winning team needs a reasonable budget, but many Congressmen have insisted on cutting taxes and 206 legislators, Sullivan included, have signed Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes. He blamed the President and the Democrats in the Senate for the gridlock, saying that the house had sent the Senate 26 bills that were not enacted. However, most of those bills contained a “poison pill”. For instance, H.R. 3630, the badly needed Middle Class Tax Relief and Jobs Creation Act of 2011, also had a provision to delay implementation of the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate, to hinder the EPA, and to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. It is hardly fair to blame the Senate when they are not sent clean bills.

 Energy : Congressman Sullivan said that we needed the XL pipeline to create jobs and claimed that it would create hundreds of thousands of jobs directly and indirectly – and that the only problem was just a few miles through Nebraska wetlands. The problems are actually much greater.  They involve destruction of the boreal forests in Canada, pollution of Canadian rivers, acquiring the water and energy needed to process tar sands, and the carbon emissions the project would cause. Then, it is still not clear how many jobs it will actually create, who will profit from the project, and whether much of the oil will be shipped to foreign countries, possibly without being taxed as some of the refineries are in a tax-free zone.

 The Congressman said he has introduced legislation encouraging the development of natural gas as a fuel. He pointed out that natural gas provides about three times as much energy and costs much less than gasoline. Natural gas is plentiful in Oklahoma and developing the infrastructure to use it as a fuel would help Oklahoma’s economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. That is about the only positive contribution that Congressman Sullivan has made on environmental issues. Using natural gas would also significantly decrease our carbon emissions – but the Congressman did not mention that as he does not accept the scientific research on climate change. His supporters claim to be conservatives, but it is hard to imagine how they could support someone who is not also a conservationist. Congressman Sullivan scored a 9% on the League of Conservation Voters scorecard (page 52).

Audience Questions: The wife of a veteran told of the problems her husband had getting help from the Veterans Administration and asked if Sullivan could help. Congressman Sullivan said he would see what he could do. I hope he can help that veteran, but it is not likely that all the veterans needing help will get it if we cut the budget as Congressman Sullivan wanted. The veteran was certainly a good man, and when pressed to speak, he said that it would really help if people would recycle more. He pointed out that we throw away a lot of things that are still useful and that by recycling them we could create a lot of jobs and save our resources.

 Another woman complained that the EPA’s rules about Freon were making it difficult to get the refrigerant needed for their air-conditioning business. Congressman Sullivan took it as an opportunity to criticize the EPA and the Obama administration, apparently unaware that those rules had been signed into law by President Reagan.

A CPA in the audience brought it to the Congressman’s attention that the low interest rates were hurting people who had their nest egg in savings accounts and CDs. He also pointed out that the mandatory IRA withdrawals required at age 70 1/2 are making people withdraw the money that they may need to save for later in life. The Congressman agreed that some changes need to be made there.

 When the Congressman was asked about who he would like to see as the Republican presidential candidate, he said he would support whoever could beat President Obama. A member of the audience tried to point out that there were other things more important than beating Obama, and that the President and his wife were good role models and examples of family values. She was almost drowned out by disagreements from the audience.

 Entitlements: There was a time when Republicans were fiscal and environmental conservatives. Congressman Sullivan said he wanted to cut what he calls “entitlement programs”, but one of his own supporters set him straight by pointing out that those were “earned benefits”, not entitlements. I want my children and grandchildren have the same benefits I did, and I want them to have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink and a beautiful Earth to enjoy. They are entitled to that.

Research Credit: Barbara Moore

(c) 2012 J.C. Moore

Congressman John Sullivan's Town Hall Meeting

Sat ,31/12/2011

Election season is coming up, and many of our representatives are, or will be, holding town hall meetings. Congressman John Sullivan (R-OK) held  one of his town hall meetings in Sand Springs on November 7, 2011. He told us that things have been crazy lately in Washington, and he illustrated that by talking about the budget.

 Budget: A Supercommittee has been formed with the goal of reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion. Congressman Sullivan said he did not think that was enough and he supports a balanced budget amendment, with the goal of cutting $4 trillion from the budget. He said that we would have to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a list of other programs that mostly help the poor and the middle class.  He said he supports raising the age or cutting the benefits for Social Security, but that those over 55 should not worry, as the proposed changes would only affect those younger than 55.

 A member of the audience commented that he did not think that was fair, as he was just under 55. When the Congressman was asked if he would consider raising revenue rather than making such deep cuts in spending, he said he could not support raising taxes. That is not surprising as he and 276 Legislators have signed Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, making it almost impossible for Congress to raise taxes. Any reasonable effort to balance the budget will require tax increases as well as spending cuts. Congress is trying to fight the budget battle with one hand tied behind its back.

 Congressman Sullivan also criticized the budget submitted by the President, saying that no one would vote for it and even Harry Reid voted against it. A member of the audience pointed out that Harry Reid changed his vote for procedural reasons and asked what the Senate’s vote was. The congressman replied he did not know. The records show that the President’s budget passed the Senate by a vote of 51 to 47, but not enough to overcome a filibuster. Harry Reid changed his vote as a procedural move so that it might be brought up again later.

 Banking reform: Congressman Sullivan said he could not support unneeded regulations and that the Dodd Frank law should be repealed because “it hurts small banks”. That is surprising, as the Dodd Frank bill was applauded by the Independent Community Bankers of America who said it would “level the regulatory and competitive playing field for community banks.”

Energy: The Congressman said he has introduced legislation encouraging the development of natural gas as a fuel. He pointed out that natural gas provides about three times as much energy and costs much less than gasoline. Natural gas is plentiful in Oklahoma and developing the infrastructure to use it as a fuel would help Oklahoma’s economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Using natural gas would also significantly decrease our carbon emissions – but the Congressman did not mention that as he does not accept the scientific research on climate change.

 EPA: Congressman Sullivan was quite critical of the EPA and stated he has introduced legislation that would require the EPA to do a cost-benefit analysis for every rule it makes. His legislation would create a huge amount of paperwork for the EPA and would make its job impossible to do, which seems to be his goal. Perhaps Congressman Sullivan could help by including a value for human life in his bill, as the EPA says slashing toxic emissions would prevent many premature deaths. The American Lung Association  estimates that the EPA’s proposed  guidelines could prevent 38,000 heart attacks and premature deaths, 1.5 million cases of acute bronchitis and aggravated asthma, and 2.7 million days of missed work or school. The public agrees that the EPA should be setting standards to protect our health, not Congress. A recent poll found that more than two-thirds of registered voters supported EPA setting strong air pollution standards.

 Jobs: The Congressman spent considerable time criticizing the job creation efforts and the economic policies of the President, particularly the stimulus program. When he declared that the government could not create jobs, someone the audience asked him about the CCC and the WPA, which created jobs during the Great Depression and provided improvements in the infrastructure, such as creating the REA. The Congressman answered with a long criticism of the stimulus package, which he finished by claiming that the stimulus package had not created one job.

 A school administrator in the audience said that there were a number of jobs saved in education by the stimulus money and that the cuts to the school budget would’ve been much worse without it. Interestingly, the records show that District 1 in Oklahoma, Congressman Sullivan’s district, received $463 million in stimulus money which directly created 280 jobs. That did not include jobs indirectly created or jobs that were saved, such as the teaching jobs.

 Services: When asked about cuts to mental health services, the Congressman rather surprised us all by saying that one fourth of all Oklahomans have some form of mental illness. The Congressman said he supports mental health programs, efforts to help soldiers with PTSD, and programs that help those with substance abuse. However, it is rather difficult to see where money would come from to support those programs if the budget were cut by $4 trillion.

 2012: The 1st District covers the population centers in the northeast part of Oklahoma, mostly Tulsa and north to Bartlesville. We certainly appreciate Congressman Sullivan taking time to share his comments with us and answer our questions. Some of the things the Congressman said were of concern to the author, as you can discern from his comments. As the 2012 elections near, Oklahoma voters need to weigh carefully what Congressman Sullivan says and how he votes in order to decide if we should return him to Washington.

Co-authorship credit: Barbara Moore

(c) 2011 J.C. Moore

Your Family's Health Depends on Health Care Reform

Mon ,31/08/2009

“Your family’s health depends on the health of everyone.”

The advantages of health care reform have been lost in the politics and arguments about the Health Care Bill.  Here are some advantages :

Productivity. We would have happier and more productive citizens. Most people receive health care insurance from their employer.  There is a good reason for that. Healthy people are happier, perform better, are less likely to be hurt on the job, and miss fewer days of work  Offering healthcare benefits lets companies attract and retain better-qualified employees, shows that management cares about the workers, and is a great morale builder.  Couldn’t the same principles work on a national level?

Jobs. It would create job openings. One great way to create jobs would be to provide health benefits to those who wish to retire early. There are about 45 million baby boomers who are now between 55 and 65.  Many of them have the resources to retire early but feel they must continue working to retain their health care benefits.  Health care reform would let them retire early, opening up more jobs.

Bankruptcies could be  reduced by better health coverage. A Harvard study found that about 50% of all bankruptcies in the United States are caused by illness and unpaid medical bills. Bankruptcies affect everyone because the health providers, banks, businesses, and credit card companies who lose money in the bankruptcy pass the cost on to the rest of us. Bankruptcies were a big factor in our recent housing crisis that negatively affected us all.

Reduced Insurance Rates: The health care bill, as passed, requires that 80% of the premiums collected by insurance companies be paid back in benefits. Currently, the overhead for private insurance companies ranges from 15% to 35%. Those companies with high overheads will have to find ways to reduce their rates or be replaced by the more efficient companies.  Companies that pay back less than 80% will have to give refunds to their policy holders at the end of the year.

Healthier Americans. Your family’s health depends on the health of everyone. Unless you are a hermit, you will likely come into contact with thousands of people during this next winter. People without health care are less likely to receive immunizations and are much more likely to have untreated communicable diseases.   This is particularly important since a Swine Flu epidemic is a possibility.

The advantages of health care reform are obvious to those with no health insurance.  Remember, except for the Grace of God, that could be you.