The Blast may be on hiatus tomorrow. If so, it will return Sunday.
AROUND NEW HAMPSHIRE
1. A Gas Tax Alternative?
FEE FOR MILES PER GALLON?
by LFDA Highlights, lfda.org, September 25, 2015
On Monday, September 28 a committee will meet to discuss alternatives to the gas tax for electric and hybrid vehicles.
In the past, the gas tax was considered a fair way for all drivers to pay for road maintenance. However, electric and hybrid vehicles can drive significantly further on less gas, meaning they pay less for road maintenance.
Some policymakers argue that electric and hybrid drivers should pay a fee when they register their cars that matches the lower gas tax revenue. This fee could also cover gasoline vehicles with relatively high miles per gallon.
Richard Bailey, the Director of the New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles, estimates it would cost $330,000 to establish this road usage fee and raise approximately $50 million in revenue.
Supporters argue this revenue would greatly help the state pay for road maintenance, repair, and improvement.
Opponents argue that electric and hybrid vehicles provide other benefits to the state, such as cleaner air, and therefore an additional fee is unfair.
Other drivers may oppose a fee structure that includes gasoline vehicles with relatively high miles per gallon. One proposal under consideration would charge a $55.50 annual fee for cars with 26-30 miles per gallon.
2. Speedbump to Selling Power Plants
PUC Staff: Selling Eversource Power Plants Bad for Ratepayers
by Sam Evans-Brown, nhpr.org, September 25, 2015
Staff at the Public Utilities Commission say a grand bargain struck earlier this year to sell Eversource’s New Hampshire fleet of power plants may not be in the best interest of rate-payers.
When the deal to sell Eversource’s aging power plants was announced in March, it was declared that it would save customers more than $300 million, but expert staff at the Public Utilities Commission asked to review the deal have concluded otherwise. One estimated the deal could cost ratepayers more than $600 million dollars, and another recommended delaying the sale by five years until more natural gas pipelines are built and power markets stabilize.
Republican Senator Jeb Bradley, who helped broker the deal, says Eversource – formerly Public Service of New Hampshire – will be the benefactor of that plan. “I think that they’ve got the math wrong,” he said in a telephone interview, “The winners here if staff gets their way is PSNH shareholders, who’ll be laughing all the way to the bank that we’ve turned down such a great deal.”
Meredith Hatfield, director of the Office of Energy and Planning and a former ratepayer advocate who was also involved in settlement talks, says that the staff analysis seems to not consider the key argument for selling the plants quickly.
If the plants sell for less money than Eversource has invested in them, the company will recoup those “stranded costs” through a securitized market rate loan, and currently such loans have around an interest rate somewhere around 3 or 4 percent. However, if Eversource is allowed to keep the plants, it gets a guaranteed 9.8 percent rate of return on the cost of operating them.
The staff analysis “doesn’t seem to be looking at all of the costs that rate-payers pay to run the plants,” says Hatfield. Noting that the staff’s analysis doesn’t consider the risks posed to the plants by upcoming EPA regulations on coal-fired power plants.
After taking into account all testimony, including that from its expert staff, it will be the politically appointed PUC commissioners who have the final say over whether the deal gets approved.
3. NH Children, Poverty, and Congressional Spending
Granite State Rumblings, by MaryLou Beaver, Every Child Matters in New Hampshire, http://everychildmatters.org/
New data released by the Census Bureau on September 17th show that poverty remains stubbornly high. In New Hampshire, 9.2 percent of people were poor in 2014 – roughly the same as in 2013 when 8.7 percent were poor.
The child poverty rate rose, with 13 percent of New Hampshire children living in poverty in 2014 – an increase from 2013 when 10.2 percent of our children were poor.
Disappointingly, our country’s economic recovery is hardly reaching New Hampshire’s poor, and progress remains slow. Nationally, the poverty rate fell slightly from 15.8 percent in 2013 to 15.5 percent in 2014. However, even if poverty keeps declining at the current rate – an extremely optimistic estimate – it would still take more than 25 years just to cut poverty in half across the U.S. It would take even longer – nearly 35 years – to bring child poverty down to that level.
In order to speed up the pace, New Hampshire and the nation need to maintain and expand investments in programs with proven success in helping people out of poverty. The new Census Bureau findings add to the mounting evidence that programs like low-income tax credits, SNAP/food stamps, and subsidized housing reduce poverty now and improve children’s chances of gaining economic security in the future. But some effective programs do not reach enough of the nearly 118,000 Granite Staters and the 48 million Americans struggling in poverty every day, and others, like SNAP, could do more good if their benefits were higher. Even the modest progress beginning to show in the Census data will stall unless Congress acts to end spending cuts known as sequestration scheduled to hit many of these programs this fall.
Deep and Disproportionate Poverty
For a family of four in 2014, the official poverty line was less than $24,230. Despite this low threshold, more than 47,000 Granite Staters live on far less, below half of the poverty level. Across the nation poverty disproportionately affects people of color. Nearly 27 percent of African Americans and 24.1 percent of Latinos in the United States are poor. In contrast, poverty for non-Hispanic whites is 10.8 percent. Nearly 22 percent of children are growing up in poverty, and the statistics are worse for children of color: 36.9 percent of African American children and 32.1 percent of Hispanic children nationally are poor.
We Can Speed Up the Pace in New Hampshire
Proven human needs programs lift millions out of poverty. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) lifted 16,000 Granite Staters, including 8,000 children, out of poverty each year, on average, during 2011 to 2013. In 2014, housing subsidies lifted 2.8 million Americans out of poverty, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) lifted 4.7 million people out of poverty across the U.S.
Numerous research studies also show that investments in quality, affordable child care and early childhood education also lead to long-term gains for children, families and our economy. For example, Head Start participants are more likely to attend college and be employed and less likely to be a teen parent or in poor health compared to siblings who didn’t benefit from Head Start.
Congressional Cuts will Thwart Progress in New Hampshire
As effective as these programs are, their effectiveness is limited because of underfunding, and proposed Congressional cuts threaten these programs further. First imposed in 2013, sequestration’s impact through the end of 2014 resulted in 8 of the 18 agencies administering housing vouchers in New Hampshire reducing the number of households they served by 132 (some agencies in New Hampshire were able to increase the number of households served through 2014). The 2013 sequester cuts also denied Head Start services to 146 New Hampshire children. Thousands of rental vouchers were restored when Congress partly halted sequester cuts in FYs 2014 and 2015, and the numbers of children served by Head Start returned to previous levels in most areas.
Unfortunately, spending bills Congress has advanced so far this year assume that sequestration cuts will return in FY 2016. These House and Senate bills undercut the gains of the nation’s successful anti-poverty programs. Their proposed appropriations would mean that 1,300 fewer children in New Hampshire would have access to full day, full year Head Start when compared to President Obama’s budget. The House spending bill not only fails to restore the 67,000 rental vouchers still lost due to sequestration in 2013, it would cut even more, failing to renew 28,000 existing vouchers nationwide. As a result, 130 fewer New Hampshire families would have the use of housing vouchers in 2016. The Senate spending bill is even harsher, failing to renew 50,000 existing vouchers nationwide, leaving 230 New Hampshire families without this assistance.
More than 130 human needs programs have seen their funding cut since 2010, adjusted for inflation; about one-third were cut by 15 percent or more. Further cuts to these programs threaten to halt the progress made in 2014 in reducing poverty. The Congressional Budget Office also estimated that maintaining sequestration could lead to losses equal to as many as 1.4 million jobs over the next two years. Compounding these losses, as many as 10,900 fewer workers in New Hampshire would have access to job training and employment services if Congress has its way, compared to the President’s budget. New Hampshire would lose as much as $3 million in federal funding for K-12 education in low-income schools (Title I). We need more investments – not less – in programs that are proven to reduce poverty so more Americans who need help can get it.
There is talk that Congress might avoid the sequester cuts by cutting safety net programs that don’t rely on annual appropriations, like SNAP and Medicaid. This is the wrong approach. The U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 13.9 percent of New Hampshire households were “food insecure” over the years 2012-2014 – that is, they could not always afford enough food. SNAP reduces such hardships, but cuts in SNAP that occurred at the end of October 2013 cut the average benefit from $1.70 per meal to $1.40. According to health researchers Children’s HealthWatch, that cutback made SNAP households with children under age three 23 percent more likely to be food insecure, placing the children at risk for bad health and education outcomes. If Congress seeks to offset the cost of stopping sequestration, it should close tax loopholes or end a few corporate tax breaks. Ending the extra tax breaks for hedge fund managers, for example (a proposal with bipartisan support), would save nearly $1.4 billion a year, nearly enough to fund the $1.5 billion to cover a full year, full day program for all children in Head Start.
In addition, if Congress fails to renew improvements made in 2009 to the EITC and CTC before they expire in 2017, 16 million people – including 8 million children – will be pushed into or deeper into poverty across the U.S.
Congress Needs to Stop the Cuts
Our state and our country are continuing to recover from the Great Recession, and too many Granite Staters are still being left behind. By 2020, more than half of children in the U.S. are expected to be part of a minority racial or ethnic group. If the shamefully high poverty numbers for African American and Latino children stay so high, the future economic growth of New Hampshire and our country will be endangered as a larger proportion of our children grow up with less education and less connection to good-paying jobs. Increasing investments in programs like Head Start and safe, secure housing will give these children a better start and will benefit New Hampshire and our country as a whole as they become adults.
Members of Congress have a choice to make. They can continue to cut, forcing more Granite Staters into poverty and pushing our country backwards. Or they can stop the sequestration cuts so New Hampshire and the whole nation can expand – not cut – programs that prevent and eliminate poverty. And they can do so without cutting safety net programs like SNAP, low income tax credits like the EITC and CTC, and Medicaid.
This report was prepared by Every Child Matters in NH and the Coalition on Human Needs.
The child poverty rate rose, with 13 percent of New Hampshire children living in poverty in 2014 – an increase from 2013 when 10.2 percent of our children were poor.
Disappointingly, our country’s economic recovery is hardly reaching New Hampshire’s poor, and progress remains slow. Nationally, the poverty rate fell slightly from 15.8 percent in 2013 to 15.5 percent in 2014. However, even if poverty keeps declining at the current rate – an extremely optimistic estimate – it would still take more than 25 years just to cut poverty in half across the U.S. It would take even longer – nearly 35 years – to bring child poverty down to that level.
In order to speed up the pace, New Hampshire and the nation need to maintain and expand investments in programs with proven success in helping people out of poverty. The new Census Bureau findings add to the mounting evidence that programs like low-income tax credits, SNAP/food stamps, and subsidized housing reduce poverty now and improve children’s chances of gaining economic security in the future. But some effective programs do not reach enough of the nearly 118,000 Granite Staters and the 48 million Americans struggling in poverty every day, and others, like SNAP, could do more good if their benefits were higher. Even the modest progress beginning to show in the Census data will stall unless Congress acts to end spending cuts known as sequestration scheduled to hit many of these programs this fall.
Deep and Disproportionate Poverty
For a family of four in 2014, the official poverty line was less than $24,230. Despite this low threshold, more than 47,000 Granite Staters live on far less, below half of the poverty level. Across the nation poverty disproportionately affects people of color. Nearly 27 percent of African Americans and 24.1 percent of Latinos in the United States are poor. In contrast, poverty for non-Hispanic whites is 10.8 percent. Nearly 22 percent of children are growing up in poverty, and the statistics are worse for children of color: 36.9 percent of African American children and 32.1 percent of Hispanic children nationally are poor.
We Can Speed Up the Pace in New Hampshire
Proven human needs programs lift millions out of poverty. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) lifted 16,000 Granite Staters, including 8,000 children, out of poverty each year, on average, during 2011 to 2013. In 2014, housing subsidies lifted 2.8 million Americans out of poverty, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) lifted 4.7 million people out of poverty across the U.S.
Numerous research studies also show that investments in quality, affordable child care and early childhood education also lead to long-term gains for children, families and our economy. For example, Head Start participants are more likely to attend college and be employed and less likely to be a teen parent or in poor health compared to siblings who didn’t benefit from Head Start.
Congressional Cuts will Thwart Progress in New Hampshire
As effective as these programs are, their effectiveness is limited because of underfunding, and proposed Congressional cuts threaten these programs further. First imposed in 2013, sequestration’s impact through the end of 2014 resulted in 8 of the 18 agencies administering housing vouchers in New Hampshire reducing the number of households they served by 132 (some agencies in New Hampshire were able to increase the number of households served through 2014). The 2013 sequester cuts also denied Head Start services to 146 New Hampshire children. Thousands of rental vouchers were restored when Congress partly halted sequester cuts in FYs 2014 and 2015, and the numbers of children served by Head Start returned to previous levels in most areas.
Unfortunately, spending bills Congress has advanced so far this year assume that sequestration cuts will return in FY 2016. These House and Senate bills undercut the gains of the nation’s successful anti-poverty programs. Their proposed appropriations would mean that 1,300 fewer children in New Hampshire would have access to full day, full year Head Start when compared to President Obama’s budget. The House spending bill not only fails to restore the 67,000 rental vouchers still lost due to sequestration in 2013, it would cut even more, failing to renew 28,000 existing vouchers nationwide. As a result, 130 fewer New Hampshire families would have the use of housing vouchers in 2016. The Senate spending bill is even harsher, failing to renew 50,000 existing vouchers nationwide, leaving 230 New Hampshire families without this assistance.
More than 130 human needs programs have seen their funding cut since 2010, adjusted for inflation; about one-third were cut by 15 percent or more. Further cuts to these programs threaten to halt the progress made in 2014 in reducing poverty. The Congressional Budget Office also estimated that maintaining sequestration could lead to losses equal to as many as 1.4 million jobs over the next two years. Compounding these losses, as many as 10,900 fewer workers in New Hampshire would have access to job training and employment services if Congress has its way, compared to the President’s budget. New Hampshire would lose as much as $3 million in federal funding for K-12 education in low-income schools (Title I). We need more investments – not less – in programs that are proven to reduce poverty so more Americans who need help can get it.
There is talk that Congress might avoid the sequester cuts by cutting safety net programs that don’t rely on annual appropriations, like SNAP and Medicaid. This is the wrong approach. The U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 13.9 percent of New Hampshire households were “food insecure” over the years 2012-2014 – that is, they could not always afford enough food. SNAP reduces such hardships, but cuts in SNAP that occurred at the end of October 2013 cut the average benefit from $1.70 per meal to $1.40. According to health researchers Children’s HealthWatch, that cutback made SNAP households with children under age three 23 percent more likely to be food insecure, placing the children at risk for bad health and education outcomes. If Congress seeks to offset the cost of stopping sequestration, it should close tax loopholes or end a few corporate tax breaks. Ending the extra tax breaks for hedge fund managers, for example (a proposal with bipartisan support), would save nearly $1.4 billion a year, nearly enough to fund the $1.5 billion to cover a full year, full day program for all children in Head Start.
In addition, if Congress fails to renew improvements made in 2009 to the EITC and CTC before they expire in 2017, 16 million people – including 8 million children – will be pushed into or deeper into poverty across the U.S.
Congress Needs to Stop the Cuts
Our state and our country are continuing to recover from the Great Recession, and too many Granite Staters are still being left behind. By 2020, more than half of children in the U.S. are expected to be part of a minority racial or ethnic group. If the shamefully high poverty numbers for African American and Latino children stay so high, the future economic growth of New Hampshire and our country will be endangered as a larger proportion of our children grow up with less education and less connection to good-paying jobs. Increasing investments in programs like Head Start and safe, secure housing will give these children a better start and will benefit New Hampshire and our country as a whole as they become adults.
Members of Congress have a choice to make. They can continue to cut, forcing more Granite Staters into poverty and pushing our country backwards. Or they can stop the sequestration cuts so New Hampshire and the whole nation can expand – not cut – programs that prevent and eliminate poverty. And they can do so without cutting safety net programs like SNAP, low income tax credits like the EITC and CTC, and Medicaid.
This report was prepared by Every Child Matters in NH and the Coalition on Human Needs.
4. The Latest NH Poll
Hillary Clinton trails Sanders in New Hampshire, even without Joe Biden in the race
by Jennifer Agiesta, cnn.som, September 24, 2015
Hillary Clinton trails Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the race for the Democratic nomination for president in New Hampshire, even if Vice President Joe Biden decides not to make a run for the White House, according to a new CNN/WMUR poll.
Sanders has the backing of nearly half of those who say they plan to vote in the first-in-the-nation Democratic primary next year -- 46% support him -- while just 30% say they back Clinton. Another 14% say they would support Biden, 2% former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, 1% former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, and less than half of 1% back former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee or Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig.
Clinton trails Sanders across most demographic groups, with broad gender and ideology divides bolstering Sanders' run. He holds 56% of male Democratic voters compared with just 20% who back her, while the two are much closer among women, 39% back Sanders, 37% Clinton. Likewise, Sanders holds a 56% to 30% lead among liberals, versus a 37% to 31% race among moderates.
And opinions about the Democratic race have solidified more so than on the Republican side of the coin. More than half of Democrats now say they have made up their minds or are leaning toward someone, compared with 41% on the Republican side.
In most recent national polling, assessments of the Democratic race without Biden have boosted Clinton's standing well above that of Sanders, but in New Hampshire, Biden's backers aren't enough to push Clinton back to the top of the field. Though Clinton picks up more of Biden's supporters than Sanders when they are reallocated to their second choice, Sanders maintains control of the race, holding 49% to Clinton's 36%.
And voters are split on who they think will ultimately win the state's primary, with 42% saying Clinton will and 42% saying Sanders will. Another 6% say Biden will, and no respondents chose any other candidates.
Biden has gained ground in the poll as speculation about his candidacy has grown. While he stood at just 5% in the July poll, he now holds 14% support. And he's now better liked than he was earlier this cycle, 69% now view him favorably, up from 63% in July and 57% back in May. But New Hampshire voters aren't clamoring for Biden to make a go of it. While 37% say they'd like to see the vice president get in the race, 32% say that he shouldn't and another 30% are neutral about it.
Looking ahead to 2016's general election, voters have a clearer picture of which candidate they believe has the best chances nationally: 51% say Clinton does, 19% Sanders, 15% Biden and 1% O'Malley. Clinton is also more apt to be seen as the candidate with the right experience for the job: 44% say she has it, 23% for Biden, 18% for Sanders and 1% for O'Malley.
Sanders holds the cards as the most progressive in the field, as 63% see him that way versus just 16% who say Clinton is, and both Sanders (39%) and Biden (35%) are more likely than Clinton (15%) to be viewed as the most likeable in the field.
Clinton's favorability ratings continue their slow fade in New Hampshire, according to the new poll, dipping slightly to 67% favorable, down from July's 73%. Clinton began the year with an 83% favorable rating in February, but hasn't come close to that since.
Sanders' ratings, however, are shifting in the opposite direction, with 78% rating him positively, up from 69% in July.
The CNN/WMUR poll was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center by telephone from Sept. 17 through 23. The poll includes interviews with a random sample of 820 residents of New Hampshire, including 314 who say they plan to vote in the Democratic presidential primary. For results among the sample of Democratic primary voters, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.
5. The Argument for More Debates
An open letter to the DNC: Let them debate
by Sens. Martha Fuller Clark and Lou D'Allesandro, nhbr.com, September 28, 2015
We – New Hampshire Democrats supportive of an open and democratic debate process that transcends our loyalty to any one presidential primary candidate — respectfully urge the Democratic National Committee to remove the penalty for candidates who would participate in more than the six DNC-sanctioned debates.
This unjust rule, and the harsh punishment it embodies, is putting a chill on fundamental freedoms of political speech and a free press. Many of us
have heard directly from media outlets here, in New Hampshire, and beyond that the DNC’s rule casts a long shadow and has stifled would-be conveners of debate amongst press and educational organizations in the Granite State.
have heard directly from media outlets here, in New Hampshire, and beyond that the DNC’s rule casts a long shadow and has stifled would-be conveners of debate amongst press and educational organizations in the Granite State.
Why do we need debate? Presently the airwaves have been monopolized by some Republican candidates who promote mass deportations and stripping the constitutional birthrights of children — ideas history warns are a slippery slope to devastation. Candidates espousing scapegoating and mass violations of human rights have startlingly dominated polls and press coverage for the entire election season to date.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party fiddles while the nation’s political discourse burns.
We are not scheduled to hold our first debate until mid-October, and, as a result, we daily cede the national conversation by barring our candidates from sharing a stage to present their alternative vision for the nation, a vision that plays to our better angels, not our worst demons.
Further, the DNC has relegated the sole New Hampshire debate to the Saturday before Christmas at the height of the holiday season and at the lowest point of voters’ attention, an unprecedented break from the cherished tradition of multiple, vigorous early nominating state debates.
Every day that goes by that we Democrats remain silent and spurn healthy debate among those who would lead us is fatal to the party’s chances to defend the progress we’ve made under President Barack Obama and the progress still to come under the Democratic banner.
Our Democratic Party — the party of human rights and human dignity — must no longer stay silent against the headwinds of a boundless demagoguery not seen for a generation. To the contrary, we must present a clear and compelling vision for moving the country forward. We must present it now.
Simply put, the DNC’s plan to forbid candidates who participate in more than the six sanctioned debates from participating in the DNC debates is an unacceptable violation of our party’s commitment to a value fundamental to our democracy: open political speech.
We respectfully request that the DNC remove the penalty for presidential candidates who participate in more than the six sanctioned debates. For the sake of our party and the future of our country, we hope the DNC will strongly consider this request.
As this summer of political discontent has shown, these are volatile times in the course of our country. The American people need to hear from us, the party of civil and constructive debate, now, not later. Now, before it is too late.
Sen. Martha Fuller Clark is a Democrat from Portsmouth. Sen. Lou D’Allesandro is a Democrat from Manchester. This letter is also signed by: Sen. Andrew Hosmer, D-Laconia; Dan Calegari; Peter Burling; Dudley Dudley; John Rauh; Mary Rauh; Dr. Bill Siroty; Dean Barker; Rachel Hampe; Elizabeth Campbell; and Jay Surdukowski.
6. Ayotte's Coverup of Her Record
Guests on NHPR’s “The Exchange” Highlight Kelly Ayotte’s Political Attempts To Cover Up Her Record of Blocking Access to Women’s Health Care
by Ajacobs, nhdp.org, September 25, 2015
On Equal Pay, “What’s interesting is that [Ayotte’s] opposed some of these measures in the past.”
Concord, N.H. – Guests on NHPR’s “The Exchange” today highlighted Kelly Ayotte’s political attempts to cover up her record of repeatedly voting to defund Planned Parenthood and block women’s access to health care as she faces vulnerable re-election prospects.
The AP’s Kathleen Ronayne pointed out that Ayotte is “kind of trying to play both sides of the road here,” as she continues to support defunding Planned Parenthood while disagreeing with certain Republicans over the best way to accomplish that.
NHPR’s Josh Rogers added that Ayotte is “very much supported by the pro-life movement” and “so it’s interesting to watch how calibrated this is, because she makes it very clear, and she has voted repeatedly to defund Planned Parenthood.”
On equal pay, Rogers also noted, “What’s interesting is that she’s opposed some of these measures in the past. She’s said that she was afraid they would retard job creation and saying that the federal government should enforce existing laws.”
Rogers concluded, “you can be purely cynical and say, ‘well, this is an election year move.'”
See transcript below:
SPILOTES: On Planned Parenthood as well, and Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte’s involvement.
RONAYNE: Yeah, I think it, I mean this sets itself up along pretty typical partisan lines, with Shaheen and Ayotte. I think that, you know, it’s no surprise to anyone that Jeanne Shaheen would support Planned Parenthood and that Kelly Ayotte, I think she’s been pretty clear in her position in the past. But it’s interesting for Ayotte in terms of a political context. She’s kind of trying to play both sides of the road here. You know, she’s saying, ‘I don’t think we should be funding Planned Parenthood, but I also don’t think that we should be shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood.’ In a larger context, over the past week or so we’ve seen Ayotte really try and focus on women’s issues. We know that that’s been a very effective line of attack for Democrats in New Hampshire, to paint themselves as the party of, the party of women, Republicans as the anti-women party. And I think that what we’re seeing is Senator Ayotte trying to thwart some of those attacks before they come at her. The New Hampshire Democratic Party has been criticizing her. But given that she doesn’t have an opponent right now she’s kind of, I think, trying to steer the conversation a little bit more on her terms before someone gets into the race. So she’s trying to set herself up as someone practical who’s saying, ‘you know, I don’t think we should be shutting down the government,’ but at the same time, you know, she’s kind of walking this fine line of saying, ‘I support women, I support women’s healthcare, but I don’t support Planned Parenthood.’ I think we’re going to see this come up again and again throughout her campaign, whether Governor Hassan or someone else is challenging here.
… ROGERS: It’s interesting to listen to the way she talks about it, because, you know, she is, you know, very much supported by the pro-life movement, she’s supported by the Susan B. Anthony List, she’s spoken at their dinners and fundraisers and she says, you know, ‘it’s time for both sides to end the games on this.’ And so it’s interesting to watch how calibrated this is, because she makes it very clear, and she has voted repeatedly to defund Planned Parenthood, but that it’s impractical to, you know, predicate a shutdown of government because it’s not going to happen given that they can’t get the votes for cloture to even bring the, bring something forward and that even if they did President Obama has said he’ll veto. And so how are you going to get 67 votes? You know, but she faces a, you know, Kathleen’s right, it’s the Democratic strategy against Republicans and certainly is going to be against her, no matter who runs, is not terribly subtle. It’s mobilize women. Democrats have enjoyed a gender gap in the last several elections and they were crucial in Jeanne Shaheen beating Scott Brown and Democrats know that they can mobilize people and that a lot of the most passionate Democratic support is in the context of abortion rights.
… SPILOTES: And Josh let me ask you one more question. I read yesterday that Senator Ayotte introduced, or was introducing, a gender pay equity bill, which is not something Republicans are typically in favor of, kind of mandating that corporations have that, those kinds of rules about pay equity. I mean, sort of, what’s the bigger picture here? What is she up to in terms of the election?
ROGERS: Well, I think it’s sort of a piece with, with the, you know, some of her moves on the shutdown. It’s wanting to be a, wanting to be and wanting to be seen as a, sort of, pragmatic person on issues that, you know, matter to a good slug of the electorate. What’s interesting is that she, she’s opposed some of these measures in the past. She’s said that she was afraid they would retard job creation and it’s saying that the federal government should enforce existing laws. This was back in 2013 when some of the stuff was up for a vote in 2014 she did introduce with some other GOP senators an amendment which contained some of these provisions, which essentially would prohibit retaliation against employees for talking about pay or disclosing their salary history and mandating that, you know, men and women must get equal pay for equal work with the proviso that merit pay is still permissible. You know, she, you know, if you can be, you can be purely cynical and say, ‘well, this is an election year move.’
AND NATIONALLY
7. Bye Bye Boehner
I'm Surprised Boehner Lasted This Long
by Robert Reich, readersupportednews.com, September 25, 2015
Actually I’m amazed John Boehner survived as long as he has. His one virtue as Speaker of the House has been his total lack of principle, which has enabled him to cobble together majorities or pluralities out of a Party that’s gone off the rails, becoming increasingly misogynist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim; filled with paranoid whackos, voodoo economists, anti-science half-brains, creationists, and white supremists; while being financed by billionaires, Wall Street, and big business.
The problem for the rest of us right now is they’re still a majority in Congress, and many are aiming to close down the government unless Planned Parenthood is defunded and then to default on the nation’s debt rather than lift the debt limit. John Boehner will not go down in history as one of America's greatest Speakers of the House, but at least he served as something of a buffer between the Republican crazies and the rest of America. (This morning when Marco Rubio announced Boehner's plan to retire, attendees at the Values Voter Summit in Washington roared their approval and then rose in a standing ovation.) After the end of October, that buffer is gone.
8. Second Quarter Uptick
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Economy in U.S. Picked Up on Consumer Spending, Construction
by Shobhana Chandra, bloomberg.com, September 25, 2015
The world’s largest economy expanded more than previously forecast in the second quarter, boosted by gains in consumer spending and construction that may help the U.S. withstand a global slowdown.
Gross domestic product rose at a 3.9 percent annualized rate, compared with a prior estimate of 3.7 percent, Commerce Department figures showed Friday in Washington. The median forecast of 76 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 3.7 percent gain.
Strong hiring, cheaper gasoline and higher home prices will probably sustain household purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy. That helps bolster Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s view that the U.S. will overcome any fallout from cooling overseas markets and swings in global financial and commodity markets.
“Declining energy prices have been a big support, and that was a big windfall for consumers,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, who correctly projected the second-quarter expansion. “We’ve been growing above trend, and we think that’ll probably continue for at least the third and fourth quarters.”
Economists’ forecasts for GDP, the value of all goods and services produced, ranged from 2.7 percent to 4.1 percent.
Business Investment
The upward revision was driven mainly by a bigger pickup in consumer spending and business investment in commercial and residential construction.
The economy rebounded last quarter after growing at a 0.6 percent pace from January through March amid harsh winter weather, a labor dispute at West Coast ports and a pullback in energy-industry investment after the plunge in oil prices.
The latest estimate is the third for the quarter and the reading won’t be updated again until annual revisions are issued in July of 2016.
Household consumption was revised to a 3.6 percent gain compared with an initial estimate of 3.1 percent, and followed a 1.8 percent advance from January through March. The Bloomberg survey median called for a second-quarter advance of 3.2 percent.
A strong job market and cheap gasoline are sustaining the momentum in spending this quarter, helping to boost housing and autos. Industry data showed sales of cars and light trucks climbed in August to the highest level in a decade.
Another report Friday showed consumer sentiment fell less than forecast in September, buoyed by a late-month boost among wealthier Americans.
Consumer Sentiment
The University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment index for the month decreased to 87.2, the lowest level since October, from 91.9 in August. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey called for 86.5, compared with a preliminary September reading of 85.7.
Among other details of the GDP report, business investment climbed at a 5.2 percent annualized pace, compared with a prior estimate of 4.1 percent. Investment in nonresidential structures, including office buildings and factories, rose 6.2 percent, the most in more than a year.
Residential construction increased at a 9.3 percent rate, up from a previous estimate of 7.8 percent.
Corporate spending on equipment and software eked out a tiny gain last quarter, and recent data indicate it could pick up this quarter.
Weaker Incomes
Last quarter’s growth reading was at odds with data on earnings. Gross domestic income, which reflects all the money earned by consumers, businesses and government agencies climbed at a 0.7 percent annualized rate. It climbed 0.4 percent in the first quarter, marking the weakest back-to-back gains since mid-2012.
Although GDP and GDI should theoretically match, they can diverge in the short run because they are derived from different sources. For that reason, the government began issuing a new measure tracking the average of the two, which showed a 2.3 percent gain after a 0.5 percent advance in the first three months of the year.
Another bright spot last quarter was government spending, which climbed at a 2.6 percent pace, led by the biggest gain in state and local agency outlays since 2001.
The biggest obstacle for the economy this quarter is the need to reduce bloated inventories. Stockpiles in the first two quarters of the year showed the biggest back-to-back gain since records began in 1947.
Inventory Cutbacks
The need to cut stocks is the main reason economists project growth will slow this quarter. GDP is forecast to expand at a 2.4 percent rate, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg from Sept. 4 to Sept. 9.
Fed Chair Yellen said Thursday that she is ready to raise interest rates this year and intends to let the labor market run hot for a time to heal the lingering scars of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
She also said officials are confident the economy will keep expanding.
Policy makers are “monitoring developments abroad, but we do not currently anticipate that the effects of these recent developments on the U.S. economy will prove to be large enough to have a significant effect on the path for policy,” she said in a speech in Amherst, Massachusetts.
9. The Republican Attack on Choice
http://prospect.org/article/
Pay Close Attention to What the Republican Candidates Are Saying About Abortion
How abortion became the dominant issue of Republican politics.
by Paul Waldman, prospect.org, September 20, 2015
If a year ago you had tried to predict what issues would dominate the presidential primary campaign of 2016, there would have been a few obvious contenders. The economy, of course, which is a central issue in every campaign. Obamacare? Definitely. After making opposition to the Affordable Care Act the defining feature of contemporary Republicanism—they've voted to repeal it over 50 times, after all, which must be unprecedented in American history—how could they not spend their primary arguing about which of them loathes it the most? Then there's immigration, an issue that both animates the GOP base and has been the subject of lots of contention between the president and the Congress. Terrorism would surely figure prominently, as the candidates would compete to show that they are toughest-talkin' buckaroo in the bunch.
But abortion? You might not have thought so. It would, like usual, be a box that requires checking—I'm pro-life, I'll appoint only judges who "respect the Constitution," nudge-nudge wink-wink—but beyond that, what more is there for Republican candidates to say?
It turns out there's quite a bit more. And though it sometimes seems like the country has been locked in the same place on this issue for the last four decades, anti-abortion activists are probably feeling like they're finally getting the attention they're due, for the first time in years. That's because those activists have long believed that the GOP mistreats them, asking for their labors at election time and promising that abortion rights will be a memory once they take power, but then failing to deliver.
But if you were one of those activists today, you'd have to be cheered by what's happening now. Abortion has become the dominant issue of the Republican contest, even of Republican politics more generally. Carly Fiorina just shot into second place in the race in at least one poll, based in part on her fervent condemnation of something that wasn't actually on those Planned Parenthood "sting" videos. Republicans in Congress are getting very close to shutting down the government in order to prevent women from getting non-abortion services like cancer screenings and gynecological exams at Planned Parenthood clinics. A whole series of bills to restrict abortion rights are now getting a prominent hearing in Congress. John Kasich told CNN this weekend that he will sign a bill currently in the Ohio legislature that would outlaw abortions if they are performed because the fetus tests positive for the genetic anomaly that causes Down syndrome, meaning that any woman in Ohio—and wherever else Republicans manage to pass copycat laws—will only be allowed an abortion if the government decides she's doing it for the right reason.
The release of those tapes were obviously the PR coup that pushed the abortion issue to the top of the agenda, but there's a reason why Republicans were so ready to start pounding lecterns and shouting into cameras. Abortion is the the one "culture war" issue where conservatives don't feel like they're in a hasty retreat. Gays are getting married, the number of people with no religious affiliation isskyrocketing, you can say "shit" on television, and the kids and their rap music are even taking over Broadway. But at least conservatives can say that it's no easier today to get an abortion than it was 20 years ago—indeed, depending on where you live, it may be considerably harder.
That's because Republicans have successfully used their power in state government to dramatically restrict women's ability to exercise their reproductive rights, with almost no objection at all from the Supreme Court. Decades of intimidation and violence against abortion providers, combined with a campaign of spectacularly disingenuous legislation aimed at driving those providers out of business, has left much of the country in a situation where abortion is technically legal but incredibly difficult to obtain.
The Republican presidential candidates are promising to make it even harder—and for the moment anyway, it seems like they really mean it. That could be purely opportunistic, but right now they have almost no choice but to swear on a stack of bibles that they will worker harder than anyone else to make sure every American woman who has an unintended pregnancy has no choice but to carry it to term. (And of course, to also make it harder for her to get the contraception that would prevent the pregnancy in the first place. Because what, do women think they can just choose to have sex without being punished?)
There's no telling how long abortion will stay at the top of the Republican agenda—maybe when this government shutdown inevitably fails to get them what they want, like all their other threatened shutdowns did, they'll decide that it would be wise to move on to other issues. But I'm quite certain that the Republican nominee will not be bringing up abortion a lot in the general election, no matter who that nominee is. You aren't going to win over a lot of independent voters promising to overturn Roe v. Wade, an idea supported by only three in ten Americans. But you can bet that the Democratic nominee is going to keep telling voters that the Republicans are waging a war on women, complete with an effort to cut off access to contraception and put the clinics where thousands of women get their health care out of business (not to mention opposing things like laws mandating equal pay and paid sick leave).
So it will be one more issue about which that Republican nominee will say, "Look, why do we have to talk about all that stuff I said during the primaries?" But it will be worth talking about particularly considering that if the Republican wins, it is highly likely that Roe v. Wade will be history. Three of the five Supreme Court justices who have voted to uphold the decision will be in their '80s by the time the next president's first term ends; Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be two months shy of her 88th birthday.
In other words, the next Republican president could be the one who's finally able to give those anti-choice activists what they want most of all—not just the president's signature on one bill after another restricting abortion rights, but a Supreme Court that would repeal Roe, which would mean abortion would be illegal in half the country within a week.
So even if the candidates hadn't planned on talking about abortion this much, we had all better pay close attention to what they're saying.
10. Savings from Single-Payer
Calculating the Cost of Bernie Sanders' Single-Payer Health Program
by John Geyman, truth-out.org, September 24, 2015
In a front-page Wall Street Journal article a few days ago, the projection was made that a single-payer national health insurance program (NHI), as part of the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), would cost $15 trillion over ten years. Accurate though that figure is, this under-researched article conveys disingenuous misinformation to a broad readership that might be inclined to dismiss such a program as too expensive to even consider.
This article is irresponsible in what it doesn't say - what the savings would be of reining in our current wasteful, overly bureaucratic profit-driven medical industrial complex, and the benefits that NHI would bring to our entire population compared to what we have now or have ever had.
Thanks to a landmark study in 2013 by Gerald Friedman, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, we have a solid financial analysis of the costs and benefits of a single-payer national health plan. With NHI, $592 billion would be saved annually by cutting the administrative waste of some 1,300 private health insurers ($476 billion) and reducing pharmaceutical prices to European levels ($116 billion). These savings would be enough to cover all of the 44 million uninsured (at the time of his study) and upgrade benefits for all other Americans, even including dental and long-term care. A single-payer public financing system would be established, similar to traditional (not privatized) Medicare, coupled with a private delivery system. Instead of having to pay the increasing costs of private health insurance, so often with unaffordable deductibles and other cost-sharing, patients would present their NHI cards at the point of service without cost-sharing or other out-of-pocket costs. Care would be based on medical need, not ability to pay. (2)
The current single-payer bill in the House of Representatives, H. R. 676, The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D. MI), includes funding to absorb the costs of converting investor-owned facilities, such as hospitals, nursing homes and ambulatory surgery centers, to non-profit status over a 15-year transition period. Savings would also fund $51 billion in transition costs, such as retraining displaced workers. (3)
When we look at cost controls after NHI is enacted, the argument for it becomes even more compelling. Cost controls would include negotiated annual budgets with hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities, negotiated fees with physicians and other health care professionals, and bulk purchasing for prescription drugs, as the Veterans Administration has done for many years in getting 40 percent discounts.
Health care inflation advances relentlessly, except for some temporary slowing with the depressed economy, despite virtually all efforts to contain costs in recent decades. A growing part of our population is unable to afford necessary care. For those who say that the ACA will redress these problems if we just give it more time, these are some of the markers that show how unaffordable health care still is more than five years after the ACA was enacted:
- According to the Milliman Medical Index (MMI), the typical family of four with employer-sponsored insurance paid $23,215 in 2014 for health care, including payroll deductions and out-of-pocket costs. The MMI grew by an average of 7.6 percent a year between 2004 and 2014, about three times the annual growth rate of the consumer price index (CPI) of 2.3 percent. (4)
- The median household income in the US was $53,657 in 2014, down from $57,357 before the recession and its peak of $57,843 in 1999, according to the most recent Census data. (5)
- Deductibles for private health insurance grew by 42 percent in 2013 to an average of $5,081 a year in 2014. (6)
- According to a 2014 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, one in three Americans have difficulty in paying their medical bills, even when insured, especially as a result of unaffordable premiums, increasing cost-sharing, and health plan coverage limits or exclusions. (7)
- New cancer drugs are routinely priced above $100,000 a year, about twice the average annual household income. (8)
Back to the $15 trillion ten-year price tag for NHI - those are federal expenditures
[The Wall Street Journal article] correctly puts the additional federal spending for health care under H.R. 676 (a single-payer health plan) at $15 trillion over ten years. It neglects to add, however, that by spending these vast sums, we would, as a country, save nearly $5 trillion over ten years in reduced administrative waste, lower pharmaceutical and device prices, and by lowering the rate of medical inflation. These financial savings would be felt by businesses and by state and local governments who would no longer be paying for health insurance for their employees; and by retirees and working Americans who would no longer have to pay for their health insurance or for co-payments and deductibles. Beyond these financial savings, H.R. 676 would also save thousands of lives a year by expanding access to health care for the uninsured and underinsured. (9)
In addition to the federal government saving money with NHI, 95 percent of Americans would pay less than they now do for health insurance and medical care. NHI would be funded by a progressive system of taxation, mainly the payroll tax for those with annual incomes less than $225,000 - $900 for those with incomes less than $53,000 a year, $6,000 for those earning $100,000 a year, and $12,000 for those with incomes of $200,000. Employers would be relieved of their burden of paying for employer-sponsored health insurance, while gaining a healthier workforce and greater capacity to compete in a global marketplace.
So here's the bottom line - NHI would bring our entire population more protection against the costs of health care, at a lower cost than we now pay, with more efficiency and fairness, while eliminating today's narrow networks that restrict our choice of physicians, other health professionals, and hospitals. Opponents who decry its costs are distorting the issue as they try to perpetuate profit-driven markets at the expense of patients, their families, and taxpayers.
11. Drug Prices
Enough Is Enough
by CAP Action War Room, thinkprogress.org, September 18, 2015
New CAP Report Outlines How To Stop Prescription Drug Prices From Skyrocketing
Almost half of all Americans, and 90 percent of all seniors, take a prescribed drug every month. Meanwhile, U.S. spending on prescription drugs increased 13 percent last year to a record $374 billion. Prescription drugs save lives and can sometimes prevent costlier, more invasive treatments. But a drug can only be lifesaving if patients can afford it, and skyrocketing prescription drug prices are putting a strain on families, businesses, and state and federal budgets.
But a new report from the Center for American Progress outlines several reforms that could control the rapidly rising prices, bring transparency to the pharmaceutical industry, and encourage innovation. Within the report’s proposed package are six major policy recommendations that focus on consumer education and paying for value. Here’s a brief look at those six ideas:
- Commission an independent organization to evaluate new drugs. The FDA only tests whether a drug is safe and works better than a placebo, not whether it’s better than other drugs. Yet pharmaceutical companies often claim new drugs are “innovative” and charge ever-higher prices even if the drug is no more effective than existing treatments. Much like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 5-star safety rating system, the report recommends establishing an independent organization to provide consumer-friendly ratings of drugs to tell patients whether a drug provides minor, significant, or no added benefits when compared to medications already on the market.
- Provide more transparency on research and development costs. The amount of money pharmaceutical companies spend on research and development pales in comparison to average marketing budgets, and drug companies have the highest profits in the entire health sector. Requiring companies to disclose how much they spend on research and development and forcing those who do not meet the required budget threshold to pay into a fund to support the National Institute of Health, which conducts much of the research that leads to new drugs, would help incentivize companies to invest more in the development of better medications.
- Protect consumers by capping cost-sharing. CAP’s report recommends setting monthly limits on out-of-pocket spending on prescription medication and capping cost sharing–the share of costs that individuals pay themselves—for drugs at $3,250 annually. The proposals would also give insurers greater flexibility in designing their official lists of medications.
- Incentivize drug companies to set fair prices. Over the next 10 years, more than $1.1 trillion in taxpayer dollars will go to pharmaceutical companies for name-brand drugs – in addition to federal tax credits and funding for research and development. The amount of taxpayer dollars going to new drugs is straining state and federal budgets. Under CAP’s recommendation, an independent organization would set voluntary price ranges based on a drug’s added benefit to patients. Drug companies would be forced to publicly justify setting a price outside the designated range, and if the drug’s patent came from federally funded research, competitors will be allowed to create generic versions of the medication.
- Change Medicare’s payment policy for physician-administered drugs. Under Medicare’s current system, physicians get an added administrative fee of 6 percent of a drug’s price, which incentivizes them to over-prescribe costly treatments. Changing that system to a flat fee that would cover overhead costs would change their incentive structure and cut costs. CAP recommends that Medicare test several alternatives, including a flat fee, and then expand the most successful to the full Medicare program.
- Adapt Medicaid drug rebates based on the comparative effectiveness of drugs. The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program requires manufacturers to pay a minimum rebate to states and the federal government as a condition for Medicaid covering their drugs. Instead of setting a default rebate amount, rebates should vary based on a drug’s comparative effectiveness.
BOTTOM LINE: The current rate of prescription drug spending growth is unsustainable. But by enacting these reforms and shifting the focus to consumer education and the value of medication, lawmakers can control the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs and ease the strain on families, businesses, state and federal budgets.
FINALLY double header
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