Is there a 2011-2012 Ky Lawmakers' plan to ELIMINATE $890 MILLION IN 2011-2012 APPROPRIATIONS?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REDUCE by $350,000,000 THE ESTIMATED $900,000,000 OF STATE TAX EXPENDITURES?
TAX EXEMPTIONS
TAX DEDUCTIONS
TAX DEFERMENTS
TAX EXCLUSIONS
TAX CREDITS
PREFERENTIAL TAX RATES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has there been any plans to locate identify and eliminate $400,000,000 corporate tax shelters?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has there been any plans to locate, identify, mody, eliminate 2,100 non-merit state employees being paid $100,000 + annually totaling estimated $100,000,000
Downsizing 120 PVA's to 17 saving $20,000,000?
Downsizing 174 Superintendents to 17 saving $20,000,000?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Huff
319 Dixie Manor Court
Harrodsburg, Ky.
40330-1923
859.734.2228
859.265.7180
Question for policy makers is, if
State can’t hold people in prison
but state can’t afford to provide
them with services and treatment
in the community, what’s state's
next move?
To e-mail ALL legislators you
can send e-mail to legislators
2007@lrc.ky.gov. Write your
legislator 702 Capital Avenue.
Call your legislator @
502.564.8100.
Monday, August 22, 2011
KY LAWMAKERS 2011 PLANS TO CUT APPROPRIATIONS?
What plans have been worked on by Ky lawmakers to stop Kentucky's run-a-way train of debt?
Has there been any plans to ELIMINATE $890 MILLION IN 2011-2012 APPROPRIATIONS:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REDUCE by $350,000,000 THE ESTIMATED $900,000,000 OF STATE TAX EXPENDITURES?
TAX EXEMPTIONS
TAX DEDUCTIONS
TAX DEFERMENTS
TAX EXCLUSIONS
TAX CREDITS
PREFERENTIAL TAX RATES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has there been any plans to locate identify and eliminate $400,000,000 corporate tax shelters?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has there been any plans to locate, identify, mody, eliminate 2,100 non-merit state employees being paid $100,000 + annually totaling estimated $100,000,000
Downsizing 120 PVA's to 17 saving $20,000,000?
Downsizing 174 Superintendents to 17 saving $20,000,000?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Huff
319 Dixie Manor Court
Harrodsburg, Ky.
40330-1923
859.734.2228
859.265.7180
Question for policy makers is, if
State can’t hold people in prison
but state can’t afford to provide
them with services and treatment
in the community, what’s state's
next move?
To e-mail ALL legislators you
can send e-mail to legislators
2007@lrc.ky.gov. Write your
legislator 702 Capital Avenue.
Call your legislator @
502.564.8100.
Has there been any plans to ELIMINATE $890 MILLION IN 2011-2012 APPROPRIATIONS:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REDUCE by $350,000,000 THE ESTIMATED $900,000,000 OF STATE TAX EXPENDITURES?
TAX EXEMPTIONS
TAX DEDUCTIONS
TAX DEFERMENTS
TAX EXCLUSIONS
TAX CREDITS
PREFERENTIAL TAX RATES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has there been any plans to locate identify and eliminate $400,000,000 corporate tax shelters?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has there been any plans to locate, identify, mody, eliminate 2,100 non-merit state employees being paid $100,000 + annually totaling estimated $100,000,000
Downsizing 120 PVA's to 17 saving $20,000,000?
Downsizing 174 Superintendents to 17 saving $20,000,000?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Huff
319 Dixie Manor Court
Harrodsburg, Ky.
40330-1923
859.734.2228
859.265.7180
Question for policy makers is, if
State can’t hold people in prison
but state can’t afford to provide
them with services and treatment
in the community, what’s state's
next move?
To e-mail ALL legislators you
can send e-mail to legislators
2007@lrc.ky.gov. Write your
legislator 702 Capital Avenue.
Call your legislator @
502.564.8100.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY ABUSED BY U.S. LAWMAKERS
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS apprised his readers about two great Republican Presidents and how they looked at Social Security; i.e., President Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan!
After the Second World War, many conservative Republicans said, "the first thing we'll do once we elect a President is repeal Social Security, because this is a big sign of the welfare state, Big Brother, all those things that Franklin Roosevelt brought that we want to get rid of," they said.
And in fact, when Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952, there was a lot of talk about that, and the first thing that Eisenhower did once he became President was to assure Americans that he not only would preserve Social Security, but he inaugurated one of the biggest expansions of Social Security in history. This action negates all your writer presented. It was not only Democrats but some of the biggest Republicans that expanded Social Security---the blame game sword cuts both ways!
In 1980, Ronald Reagan had said a number of things that suggested that he thought that Social Security should be made voluntary for some people. That fall, his campaign handlers said, "look, the first thing you've got to do is assure people that this is not on your mind, you're not going to do anything to take away Social Security."
And especially in that debate with Jimmy Carter, Reagan made a very big point of saying, "a president should not say never, but one thing I will promise you is that Social Security will not be reduced." This was a democrat turned Republican President!
JOAN HOFF: I think we really didn't make that march until very recently, until the decade of the 1990's, and the prosperity which came in the... really in the middle of that decade-- that is, in 1995.
Prior to that, I think that while there was talk about the flaw in the system of Social Security-- namely that if you ever had a time period when fewer people put in than people were taking out money, it would go bust.
Aside from that argument, most people did think it was a generational responsibility.
It's only, I think, been in the last half a dozen or eight years with this new prosperity and new economy, where people are beginning to think more about investing their own money and investing-- wish hopes, anyway-- some of their Social Security money.
So it's a new idea with the new economy, but it is based on the current level-- which is unprecedented-- of prosperity. And that's the thing we have to keep in mind.
Both Gore's plan and Bush's plan, even though they appear quite different, are premised on this assumption, and economic assumptions are always things to... I think, very often are mistaken. They are both based on this unprecedented prosperity, so I think what we're seeing is a trendy moment in history when prosperity is allowing people to think that they could, perhaps, invest some of their payroll tax on their own.
HAYNES JOHNSON: The people themselves. This is the quintessential entitlement. This is where the word comes from. You're entitled to "the government is going to help you, they're going to protect you, they're going to preserve what you have." And nobody, to this point, has ever suggested abolishing it.
As Michael and Doris said, there was a great... from the very beginning, this was attacked as socialized... socialism, Communism, the big government, all of the shibboleths and so forth, and railing against that thing, and every time it's been expanded and expanded and expanded.
There's a wonderful story about John Breaux, the Senator from Louisiana, where he went down to one of his constituents in New Orleans, and she met him at the airport, and she came up and said, "Senator, Senator, don't let the government get their hands on my Social Security plan." The idea that this is not a government program, so it's okay.
The fact is, nobody is going to abolish Social Security. The question is how you preserve it, and to what degree, and that's this debate about investing the money.
All through the 80's, and Mr. Gingrich was talking about the same thing, for one of his central parts in the new Republican era, letting you invest your money in the marketplace.
HAYNES JOHNSON: Yeah, because no one wants to change it, basically, because people are... They like what they have, they would like to make money on the side, as Joan Hoff said-- this great market. We would all like to be dot-com billionaire, you know, by the time we're 20, and we don't need our own governmental Social Security. But the truth is that those people who are involved in the system don't want to lose it, and so you've got this... and politicians come up to this line and they always step back from it.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, Michael, should we take that as a signal that the political axis is shifting in the direction of the boomers, away from seniors?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think that's somewhat true, and one of the biggest reactions in favor of Bush's plan we see from the polls this week has been from younger people who say, "why don't we benefit more from this booming economy and the stock market?" But the greatest thing about what we're seeing this week is what we always complain about-- Doris, Haynes and I-- is that we so rarely see a big debate about a real issue in a presidential campaign. 20th century, so rarely has the big programs come out of campaign. Social Security was never discussed in 1932.
Eisenhower's interstate highways, never discussed in 1952.
Johnson, Medicare was somewhat discussed in 1964, not much.
Reagan's tax reform, the same thing-- not discussed in the '84 campaign.
Here finally we have a real debate, two very different ways of fixing Social Security in the framework of presidential campaign. Whatever the next president does, he can say he has a mandate for doing that.
RAY SUAREZ: Or perhaps get scared back into the hole by the price there is to pay this season. That's happened in the past, too, hasn't it?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Absolutely. Presidents have promised all sorts of things and been scared back particularly on Social Security. As I was mentioning earlier, Eisenhower in 1952 -- even Reagan was toying during his first term, with reforming Social Security in certain ways that would help to preserve the program. Finally, he fell back on that time worn idea of appointing a commission, which in this case was headed by this obscure economist named Alan Greenspan. (Laughter)
HAYNES JOHNSON: But there's one thing, Ray, that we haven't talked about: The demographics. Young people today don't think it's going to be around for them. They don't think the government's going to be able to sustain them, and they also see they can make money in the markets, and they also know that there're going to be much more people like me who are older, than them who are younger-- this explosion-- and so there is a real concern down the road of what you do about that, how do you make it viable?
How do you preserve it - whether you have a mixture nor not - and that's something that politics is haven't really faced in the long term. So if we get a debate on this, that would be very useful.
JOAN HOFF: And one of the reasons they haven't faced it, I think, is that they've been using the Social Security funds to make the surplus in the budget look better, or to make the deficit ok less. And that's a tricky thing out this.
The Reagan Commission actually proposed what would have resolved the problem back then-- simply making it means-tested, and the program would be solvent indefinitely. But at was considered politically unpalatable. There are other less complicated ways to look at this.
You could raise the age for getting the benefits.
You could means-test them, as has been suggested.
You could reduce the benefits. You could increase taxes again.
But what's tricky is that this surplus is balancing the budget. Until last year, the Social Security surplus was the surplus in the budget.
RAY SUAREZ: And both the vice president and the governor of Texas this week took a lot of those options off the table.
After the Second World War, many conservative Republicans said, "the first thing we'll do once we elect a President is repeal Social Security, because this is a big sign of the welfare state, Big Brother, all those things that Franklin Roosevelt brought that we want to get rid of," they said.
And in fact, when Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952, there was a lot of talk about that, and the first thing that Eisenhower did once he became President was to assure Americans that he not only would preserve Social Security, but he inaugurated one of the biggest expansions of Social Security in history. This action negates all your writer presented. It was not only Democrats but some of the biggest Republicans that expanded Social Security---the blame game sword cuts both ways!
In 1980, Ronald Reagan had said a number of things that suggested that he thought that Social Security should be made voluntary for some people. That fall, his campaign handlers said, "look, the first thing you've got to do is assure people that this is not on your mind, you're not going to do anything to take away Social Security."
And especially in that debate with Jimmy Carter, Reagan made a very big point of saying, "a president should not say never, but one thing I will promise you is that Social Security will not be reduced." This was a democrat turned Republican President!
JOAN HOFF: I think we really didn't make that march until very recently, until the decade of the 1990's, and the prosperity which came in the... really in the middle of that decade-- that is, in 1995.
Prior to that, I think that while there was talk about the flaw in the system of Social Security-- namely that if you ever had a time period when fewer people put in than people were taking out money, it would go bust.
Aside from that argument, most people did think it was a generational responsibility.
It's only, I think, been in the last half a dozen or eight years with this new prosperity and new economy, where people are beginning to think more about investing their own money and investing-- wish hopes, anyway-- some of their Social Security money.
So it's a new idea with the new economy, but it is based on the current level-- which is unprecedented-- of prosperity. And that's the thing we have to keep in mind.
Both Gore's plan and Bush's plan, even though they appear quite different, are premised on this assumption, and economic assumptions are always things to... I think, very often are mistaken. They are both based on this unprecedented prosperity, so I think what we're seeing is a trendy moment in history when prosperity is allowing people to think that they could, perhaps, invest some of their payroll tax on their own.
If the market goes South at any point, you will find them back, I think, to the generational approach, which was the one that Roosevelt set in motion, as Doris said.
HAYNES JOHNSON: The people themselves. This is the quintessential entitlement. This is where the word comes from. You're entitled to "the government is going to help you, they're going to protect you, they're going to preserve what you have." And nobody, to this point, has ever suggested abolishing it.
As Michael and Doris said, there was a great... from the very beginning, this was attacked as socialized... socialism, Communism, the big government, all of the shibboleths and so forth, and railing against that thing, and every time it's been expanded and expanded and expanded.
There's a wonderful story about John Breaux, the Senator from Louisiana, where he went down to one of his constituents in New Orleans, and she met him at the airport, and she came up and said, "Senator, Senator, don't let the government get their hands on my Social Security plan." The idea that this is not a government program, so it's okay.
The fact is, nobody is going to abolish Social Security. The question is how you preserve it, and to what degree, and that's this debate about investing the money.
All through the 80's, and Mr. Gingrich was talking about the same thing, for one of his central parts in the new Republican era, letting you invest your money in the marketplace.
HAYNES JOHNSON: Yeah, because no one wants to change it, basically, because people are... They like what they have, they would like to make money on the side, as Joan Hoff said-- this great market. We would all like to be dot-com billionaire, you know, by the time we're 20, and we don't need our own governmental Social Security. But the truth is that those people who are involved in the system don't want to lose it, and so you've got this... and politicians come up to this line and they always step back from it.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, Michael, should we take that as a signal that the political axis is shifting in the direction of the boomers, away from seniors?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think that's somewhat true, and one of the biggest reactions in favor of Bush's plan we see from the polls this week has been from younger people who say, "why don't we benefit more from this booming economy and the stock market?" But the greatest thing about what we're seeing this week is what we always complain about-- Doris, Haynes and I-- is that we so rarely see a big debate about a real issue in a presidential campaign. 20th century, so rarely has the big programs come out of campaign. Social Security was never discussed in 1932.
Eisenhower's interstate highways, never discussed in 1952.
Johnson, Medicare was somewhat discussed in 1964, not much.
Reagan's tax reform, the same thing-- not discussed in the '84 campaign.
Here finally we have a real debate, two very different ways of fixing Social Security in the framework of presidential campaign. Whatever the next president does, he can say he has a mandate for doing that.
RAY SUAREZ: Or perhaps get scared back into the hole by the price there is to pay this season. That's happened in the past, too, hasn't it?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Absolutely. Presidents have promised all sorts of things and been scared back particularly on Social Security. As I was mentioning earlier, Eisenhower in 1952 -- even Reagan was toying during his first term, with reforming Social Security in certain ways that would help to preserve the program. Finally, he fell back on that time worn idea of appointing a commission, which in this case was headed by this obscure economist named Alan Greenspan. (Laughter)
HAYNES JOHNSON: But there's one thing, Ray, that we haven't talked about: The demographics. Young people today don't think it's going to be around for them. They don't think the government's going to be able to sustain them, and they also see they can make money in the markets, and they also know that there're going to be much more people like me who are older, than them who are younger-- this explosion-- and so there is a real concern down the road of what you do about that, how do you make it viable?
How do you preserve it - whether you have a mixture nor not - and that's something that politics is haven't really faced in the long term. So if we get a debate on this, that would be very useful.
JOAN HOFF: And one of the reasons they haven't faced it, I think, is that they've been using the Social Security funds to make the surplus in the budget look better, or to make the deficit ok less. And that's a tricky thing out this.
The Reagan Commission actually proposed what would have resolved the problem back then-- simply making it means-tested, and the program would be solvent indefinitely. But at was considered politically unpalatable. There are other less complicated ways to look at this.
You could raise the age for getting the benefits.
You could means-test them, as has been suggested.
You could reduce the benefits. You could increase taxes again.
But what's tricky is that this surplus is balancing the budget. Until last year, the Social Security surplus was the surplus in the budget.
RAY SUAREZ: And both the vice president and the governor of Texas this week took a lot of those options off the table.
Super Committee's CONNECTIONS to lobbyists
Bipartisanship is being served with makeup of "SUPER COMMITTEE" WHEN:
Over the past 10 years member lawmakers on super committee received in campaign contributions from special interests;
More than 100 "super committee" staffers for super committee members have moved on to lobbying shops
Political action committees and other industry groups representing the health care industry, financial industry, defense contractors and more now have "staffers" working from them that served "super committee" lawmakers now appointed to "super committee".
THIS INFORMATION IS REASON LAWMAKERS' STOP FUNDRAISING WHILE THEY DO THEIR WORK!
Supreme court ruling in U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission wherein Supreme court said "Corporations are people".
A Missoula City Council member is pushing her colleagues to place a referendum on the next ballot that asks voters if they want to urge the state and U.S. Congress to support a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision and declare that corporations are not people.
Two towns in Wisconsin have held similar votes, with voters overwhelmingly saying that corporations aren’t people (no matter what Mitt Romney may think), and Boulder, Colo., is slated to do so later this year.
New York caps on the amount party committees and candidates can give---which goes up every 4 years based on CPI---individuals or legal partnerships may give $102,300 to a party committee, up from $94,200.
Starbucks CEO calls for halt on political contributions
Disgusted with the deficit reduction negotiations, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is calling on members of the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ to stop making political contributions until Congress and the president “deliver a fiscally disciplined, long-term debt and deficit plan.”
You can’t make this stuff up: the latest Colbert PAC development
The treasurer of comedian Stephen Colbert’s mock Super PAC is leaving to go to a real campaign. Salvatore Purpura, who has been treasurer of Colbert’s Super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, is now treasurer for presidential candidate Rick Perry.
If it walks like a lobbyist and talks like a lobbyist, it probably is a lobbyist
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Minnesota group that connects corporations with state lawmakers to draft model legislation, should register as a lobbyist under state law, experts say. “The fact that ALEC … does these direct activities to meet with lawmakers in Minnesota and to proselytize this model law and then help them draft it into actual state legislation, that crosses the line,” said Public Citizen’s lobbying expert Craig Holman. ALEC is stubbornly maintaining that it is not a lobbyist and merely takes a policy position.
Visit DemocracyIsForPeople.org to learn more!
Over the past 10 years member lawmakers on super committee received in campaign contributions from special interests;
More than 100 "super committee" staffers for super committee members have moved on to lobbying shops
Political action committees and other industry groups representing the health care industry, financial industry, defense contractors and more now have "staffers" working from them that served "super committee" lawmakers now appointed to "super committee".
THIS INFORMATION IS REASON LAWMAKERS' STOP FUNDRAISING WHILE THEY DO THEIR WORK!
Supreme court ruling in U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission wherein Supreme court said "Corporations are people".
A Missoula City Council member is pushing her colleagues to place a referendum on the next ballot that asks voters if they want to urge the state and U.S. Congress to support a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision and declare that corporations are not people.
Two towns in Wisconsin have held similar votes, with voters overwhelmingly saying that corporations aren’t people (no matter what Mitt Romney may think), and Boulder, Colo., is slated to do so later this year.
New York caps on the amount party committees and candidates can give---which goes up every 4 years based on CPI---individuals or legal partnerships may give $102,300 to a party committee, up from $94,200.
Starbucks CEO calls for halt on political contributions
Disgusted with the deficit reduction negotiations, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is calling on members of the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ to stop making political contributions until Congress and the president “deliver a fiscally disciplined, long-term debt and deficit plan.”
You can’t make this stuff up: the latest Colbert PAC development
The treasurer of comedian Stephen Colbert’s mock Super PAC is leaving to go to a real campaign. Salvatore Purpura, who has been treasurer of Colbert’s Super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, is now treasurer for presidential candidate Rick Perry.
If it walks like a lobbyist and talks like a lobbyist, it probably is a lobbyist
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Minnesota group that connects corporations with state lawmakers to draft model legislation, should register as a lobbyist under state law, experts say. “The fact that ALEC … does these direct activities to meet with lawmakers in Minnesota and to proselytize this model law and then help them draft it into actual state legislation, that crosses the line,” said Public Citizen’s lobbying expert Craig Holman. ALEC is stubbornly maintaining that it is not a lobbyist and merely takes a policy position.
Visit DemocracyIsForPeople.org to learn more!
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