Krugman: The big budget mumble | The Salt Lake Tribune

Krugman: The big budget mumble | The Salt Lake Tribune:

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 Republicans have howled in outrage. Sen. Orrin Hatch, delivering the GOP reply to the president’s weekly address, denounced the offer as a case of "bait and switch," bearing no relationship to what Obama ran on in the election. In fact, however, the offer is more or less the same as Obama’s original 2013 budget proposal and also closely tracks his campaign literature.

So what are Republicans offering as an alternative? They say they want to rely mainly on spending cuts instead. Which spending cuts? Ah, that’s a mystery. In fact, until late last week, as far as I can tell, no leading Republican had been willing to say anything specific at all about how spending should be cut.

The veil lifted a bit when Sen. Mitch McConnell, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, finally mentioned a few things — raising the Medicare eligibility age, increasing Medicare premiums for high-income beneficiaries and changing the inflation adjustment for Social Security. But it’s not clear whether these represent an official negotiating position — and in any case, the arithmetic just doesn’t work.

Start with raising the Medicare age. 

UNDERSTANDING THE FISCAL CLIFF (in 2m 30s)

Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale

Daily Kos: Obamacare At Minimum, Single Payer Preferably Must Be Inferred By 60 Minutes Story (VIDEO)

Daily Kos: Obamacare At Minimum, Single Payer Preferably Must Be Inferred By 60 Minutes Story (VIDEO):

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 that provide standards of care for particular illnesses, whether it be requisite tests, admissions, or other facets of care. Absent this, corporate profit maximization for the benefit of the shareholder and not the interest of the patient or tax payer will be the sole outcome.

The reality is that fixing the healthcare system is not difficult at all. The complexity is in creating a rational for keeping portions that should not be for profit in the hands of private skimmers. Private insurance makes no sense. Private insurance has two purposes; firstly to pay a claim, and secondly to minimize the risk of having to pay a claim. It minimizes risks by attempting to insure only healthy people, thus leaving a pool of the unhealthy virtually uninsured but ultimately government covered (privatizing profits socializing losses). Moreover because there are several insurance companies, they all have their own presidents, executives, advertising, headquarters, shareholders’ dividends, and other fixed costs that have nothing to do with healthcare or paying a bill. A single payer system eliminates all these costs.

Robust regulations that uses crowd sourcing techniques for most effective care brings down cost and eliminates much opportunity for fraud. The problem is that in the chaos that is the healthcare system today, corporate pilferers are more able to profit. They used that power to make Obamacare less than it could be and made single payer but a long term dream.

Marvin Miller, MLBPA's first leader, dies at 95 - ESPN--usw associate director

Marvin Miller, MLBPA's first leader, dies at 95 - ESPN:

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"Marvin possessed a combination of integrity, intelligence, eloquence, courage and grace that is simply unmatched in my experience," said Donald Fehr, a successor to Miller as union head.

"Without question, Marvin had more positive influence on Major League Baseball than any other person in the last half of the 20th century."

Miller was born in New York, the son of a salesman in the heavily organized garment district. His mother was a school teacher. He studied economics at Miami (Ohio) University and New York University.

He entered the labor field in 1950 as an associate director of research for the United Steelworkers Union. In 1960, he was promoted to assistant to union president David McDonald. When McDonald lost a hotly contested election to I.W. Abel, Miller began looking for a new job.

He and his wife Terry, the parents of two grown children, carefully considered their options, and Miller accepted the directorship of the players' association even though he had some reservations at the time. In fact, he thought his union image had "put some of them off."

"I was surprised when they called me back and asked me to stand for election," Miller said.

In the end, Miller's reputation as a hard worker won over the players, many of whom considered him the consummate professional.

Obama pipeline decision may preview energy policy : Stltoday

Obama pipeline decision may preview energy policy : Stltoday

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 There's less variation among Republicans, who generally support the project.

But in Texas, a deep red state that normally embraces the oil industry, the project has drawn intense opposition from landowners who argue their property along the pipeline's route is being unfairly condemned. Their complaints, along with those from Texans who oppose an influx of foreign oil from Canadian tar sands, have fostered an unlikely alliance with environmentalists, who have taken to chaining themselves to machinery and trucks in an attempt to stall construction.

The messy politics may demonstrate why Obama punted the decision until after the election. Now both sides are applying pressure with renewed vigor.

A group of Keystone XL opponents, organized by climate activist Bill McKibben, marched on the White House in November, hoping to call attention to an issue that got barely a mention during the presidential campaign. Days earlier, nine Democratic and nine Republican senators sent Obama a letter urging him to stop stalling.

'Cliff' talks: White House waiting on GOP move : Stltoday

'Cliff' talks: White House waiting on GOP move : Stltoday

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 Both Boehner's and Geithner's latest remarks indicate it could be some time before serious negotiations begin between the White House and Republicans on how to avert economic calamity expected in less than a month when President George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire and automatic, across-the-board spending cuts kick in.

Last week, the White House delivered to Capitol Hill its opening plan: $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over a decade, hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending, a possible extension of the temporary Social Security payroll tax cut and enhancing the president's power to raise the national debt limit.

In exchange, the president would back $600 billion in spending cuts, including $350 billion from Medicare and other health programs. But he also wants $200 billion in new spending for jobless benefits, public works projects and aid for struggling homeowners. His proposal for raising the ceiling on government borrowing would make it virtually impossible for Congress to block him.

Republicans said they responded in closed-door meetings with laughter and disbelief.

"I was just flabbergasted," Boehner said. "I looked at him (Geithner) and I said, `You can't be serious.'" Boehner described negotiations as going "nowhere, period," and said "there's clearly a chance" the nation will go over the cliff.