|
August 20, 2009 |
|
|
|
RSS
2.0 feed
|
Updated DAILY... Almost
Every Day!™ by 9 a.m. Pacific
Links are
functional at date of posting, but sometimes expire.
Thursday
Unemployment insurance saving businesses, jobs amid recession
Washington's
unemployment insurance system has pumped some $5 billion into our state
economy in the past 18 months. That money is keeping businesses afloat and
saving jobs in this recession. With the healthiest U.I. system in the nation, Washington
is able to afford both a major U.I. tax cut and benefit increases. But other
states, including all of our competitors for aerospace industry jobs, have
U.I. systems that are now insolvent and are borrowing money to pay benefits,
setting up major tax increases amid the recession.
This is the third in a series of "Outside the Echo Chamber" reports that aim to restore some perspective about our state's business climate. It examines the successes we can build upon as business, labor and government leaders work together to maintain and increase the number of good-paying jobs in this state, particularly in the aerospace industry. Read the full report.
|
Scheduled health care events This month, tell your member of Congress to support health care reform and the America's Affordable Health Choices Act.
► Monday,
Aug. 24 -- State
Sen. Karen Keiser and state Rep. Eileen Cody
host an Everett Town Hall from 7 to 9 p.m. at
the Robert Drewel Bldg., 3000
Rockefeller Ave., in Everett.
|
National health care news:
► At AFL-CIO Now -- Health reform backers out in force as support for public option remains high -- While TV news reports continue to focus on the loud, angry and sometimes just plain bizarre antics of opponents, union members are mobilizing to counter the big lies, at town hall meetings and forums around the country. Meanwhile, several recent polls show support for a public health insurance plan option remains high. The so-called health care “co-op” alterative is severely flawed and unworkable, says Rick Bender, president of the Washington State Labor Council.
► In today's Wall St. Journal -- New Rx for health plan: Split bill -- The White House and Senate Democratic leaders, seeing little chance of bipartisan support for their health-care overhaul, are considering a strategy shift that would break the legislation into two parts and pass the most expensive provisions solely with Democratic votes.
► In today's Wash. Post -- Key GOP Senator calls for narrower reform measure -- Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) says the outpouring of anger at town hall meetings has altered the nature of the debate and convinced him that lawmakers should drastically scaling back the scope of the effort.
► In today's NY Times -- Obama calls health plan a "moral obligation" -- "I know there’s been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness,” the president tells a group of pastors, rabbis and other religious leaders who support his goal to remake the health care system.
► From AP -- Fact check: Health reform myths take root -- The judgment is harsh in a new poll that finds Americans worried about the government taking over health care, cutting off treatment to the elderly and giving coverage to illegal immigrants. Harsh, but not based on facts.
► At HorsesAss.org -- Government should stay out of government -- A poll indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on the issue asked if respondents thought the government should "stay out of Medicare," something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.
Local
health
care news:
► In today's Spokesman-review -- Public excluded from McMorris Rodgers meeting on health care -- One of her only stops in Spokane was a closed affair in a church with invited members of two special interest groups. Although the media were not allowed to attend, a few people who did said afterward that health care was the primary topic of discussion and that a woman in the audience who spoke in favor of the public option received the loudest applause.
► In today's Columbian -- Baird talks health care with Rotary -- It's unfortunate that the concept of a public option has been "so distorted" by its opponents, Baird said. "People seem to think the public option will be fully government funded." In fact, he said those insured under a public plan would pay premiums just like those covered by private insurance, with subsidies for those unable to afford full premium payments.
► In today's Longview Daily News -- About 800 grill Baird on health care -- Baird said he’s “not sure where I come down on the bill myself,” but “I told leadership that if you tried to push it before August, I would vote against it.”
► In today's Oregonian -- Beyond outrage at NW health care town halls, real concerns -- Screams and jeers grabbed a lot of media attention, but now come the more sober questions about health care and how changes will impact families -- and politics -- in Oregon and Washington.
► At HeraldNet.com -- Health care foes plan own town hall, will reserve seats for Murray, Cantwell -- They have scheduled it for 7 p.m. tonight at the IKEA Performing Arts Center in Renton. (Maybe an IKEA representative can discuss the "government-run" Scandinavian health care systems that provide universal coverage, are extremely popular among citizens, spend far less than does the U.S., and achieve better health outcomes.)
Health care opinion:
► In today's Seattle Times -- The other "N" word (Leonard Pitts Jr. column) -- The Nazis have invaded American political rhetoric in a big way. As in Rush Limbaugh declaring health-care reform "a Hitler-like policy," swastikas popping up at protest rallies, a poster depicting Obama with Hitler's mustache and a pamphlet that says: "Act Now to Stop Obama's Nazi Health Plan!"
So I thought it would be good to make you sick, i.e., to spend a few minutes reminding some and teaching others what you invoke when you invoke the Nazi regime. For the record, then: it was Nazis who shoved sand down a boy's throat until he died, who tossed candies to Jewish children as they sank to their deaths in a sand pit, who threw babies from a hospital window and competed to see how many of those "little Jews" could be caught on a bayonet, who injected a cement-like fluid into women's uteruses to see what would happen, who stomped a pregnant woman to death, who once snatched a woman's baby from her arms and, in the words of a witness, "tore him as one would tear a rag."
That's who the Nazis were, ladies and gentlemen -- those obscenities plus 6 million more. You would think, then, that where they are invoked to draw a parallel or make a point, it would be done with a respect for the incalculable evil the Nazis represent. You would think people would tread carefully, not because of the potential insult to a given politician (they are big boys and girls) but because to do otherwise profanes the profound and renders trivial that which ought to be held sacred by anyone who regards himself as a truly human being.
Election results:
► CLICK HERE for links to county auditors' web sites with the latest election results for county and city races and ballot measures. CLICK HERE for results in special state legislative races.
► In today's Seattle Times -- Seattle Mayor Nickels loses ground; Mallahan takes lead -- Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' chances of re-election slipped Wednesday as new vote totals showed him still in third place, and falling further behind challengers Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn.
Local news:
► At TheNewsTribune.com -- Two Top 10 state salary groups: Colleges, everyone else -- The top salary in higher ed: Elson Floyd, president, Washington State University: $625,000. In general government: Gary Bruebaker, chief investment officer, Investment Board: $300,132.
► In the Seattle Times -- Renton Technical College president's firing boomerangs on board -- Community uproar over the firing of a popular college president has revealed a crucial mistake that has left the governor's office red-faced and state lawyers scrambling for answers.
► In today's Olympian -- Goldmark's term off to rough start at DNR -- The state agency is strapped for cash as it recovers from economic calamities that caused major budget cuts and job losses.
► At SeattleTimes.com -- Median age of voters in primary: 59.4 -- The primary was dominated by older voters. More than 70% of the votes counted as of last night came from people who are 50 or older. (How many of them were at Dow Constantine's events at the Crocodile and Neumo's?)
National news:
►
From Bloomberg -- Pension
funds' private equity cash depleted as profits sink -- U.S. pension
funds contributed to the record $1.2 trillion that private-equity firms
raised this decade. Three of the biggest investors, state pensions in
California, Oregon and Washington, plunked down at least $53.8 billion. So
far, they only have dwindling paper profits and a lot less cash to show the
millions of policemen, teachers and other civil servants in their retirement
plans.
► From AP -- Colorado minimum wage may drop as cost-of-living falls -- The state has an adjustable minimum wage that may become the first in the nation to drop along with the cost of living (from $7.28 an hour to the U.S. minimum of $7.25).
► In today's NY Times -- Government jobs have grown since recession -- State and local governments have added a net of 110,000 jobs, in part because of the federal stimulus program and the power of politically influential public-sector unions, but cuts are likely this year.
► In today's Wash. Post -- Public opinion turns against war in Afghanistan -- A majority now sees the war as not worth fighting, and just a quarter say more U.S. troops should be sent there.
► In today's NY Times -- CIA sought Blackwater's help in plan to kill jihadists -- The CIA in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor as part of a secret program to find and assassinate Al Qaeda operatives. (That's right, Bush even privatized our assassinations.)
Copyright © 2009 -- Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO