AROUND NEW HAMPSHIRE
1. Proposed Rules Changes to Medical Marijuana Law
State proposes ‘pre-registration period’ for medical marijuana ID cards
by Casey McDermott, concordmonitor.com, September 4, 2015
As New Hampshire inches closer toward the launch of its medical marijuana program, officials are continuing to iron out rules that will affect how people can apply to legally possess the substance and how treatment centers handling therapeutic cannabis will have to operate.
Public hearings on changes to two sets of rules – one on the registry for the medical marijuana program and one on the alternative treatment centers – were held at the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday afternoon but only attracted about half a dozen people, none of whom weighed in with official testimony on the rules during the meetings.
People can still offer written comments on each set of rules until Sept. 11. The regulations are set to be discussed again at the Therapeutic Cannabis Advisory Council meeting Sept. 25 and the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules meeting Oct. 15.
In one of the more notable proposed rule changes, the state has offered up the possibility of opening a “pre-registration period” to allow prospective patients or caregivers to apply for a medical marijuana identification card starting Nov. 2.
If, for example, a patient or caregiver were stopped by law enforcement while in possession of medical marijuana, these identification cards would serve as certification that they have been given permission by the state to possess the substance.
The state’s alternative treatment centers aren’t on track to open until early 2016, but this would allow people to make sure they’re in the system ahead of time so that they can begin accessing medical marijuana as soon as possible.
The timing of when the state plans to start issuing identification cards has been a subject of contention as New Hampshire took its initial steps to implement its medical marijuana law. In February 2014, the attorney general’s office – weighing in on a request for guidance from the DHHS – advised that the state should hold off on issuing the identification cards “prior to the availability of a lawful source of cannabis in New Hampshire.” Potential patients and advocates took issue with that decision, however, because this would delay their ability to legally possess medical marijuana.
The proposed registry rule changes also include a section that limits the options for extracting cannabis to either “food- or water-based extraction methods.” Additionally, the state is now proposing that it will not begin accepting petitions to approve conditions not already approved in its medical marijuana law until January 2017.
The rule changes also address requirements for laboratory testing – to measure the presence of toxins, pesticides and other potential contaminants – of the cannabis products being harvested and produced by the facilities in New Hampshire.
Such testing is required to be conducted by laboratories located and licensed in New Hampshire, according to the rules. Rodney Bacon, the state’s chief of health facilities licensing, said several existing laboratories in the state have the ability to carry out that testing but still have to validate their testing procedures, a process that could take several weeks or months. Bascom also said that several out-of-state laboratories have inquired about the possibility of partnering with New Hampshire-based facilities to conduct the testing.
2. The Upcoming State Democratic Convention
3,000 and counting for state Democratic convention
from New Hampshire Primary Source, by John DiStaso, wmur.com, September 3, 2015
A CAST OF THOUSANDS. The New Hampshire Democratic Party’s state convention on Sept. 19 at the Verizon Wireless Arena is shaping up to be one of the biggest political events ever held in the state.
The party isn't going quite that far, but it says it will be the biggest political party convention in state history.
The Democrats tell New Hampshire Primary Source that more than 3,000 tickets have been sold and it expects to have hundreds of delegates and 2,500 guests in attendance.
As reported, all five Democratic candidates for president have confirmed appearances.
In addition, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz will speak, as will key New Hampshire Democratic officials and candidates.
They include U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Gov. Maggie Hassan, U.S. Rep. Ann Kuster, as well as potential candidates for governor executive councilors Colin Van Ostern and Chris Pappas, Portsmouth City Council member Stefany Shaheen and former state securities bureau chief Mark Connolly. Also confirmed to speak are former U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter and declared congressional candidate Shawn O’Connor.
More speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.
Besides the expected bashing of the GOP candidates, all eyes will be on Hassan to see if she provides any hint of her political plans. The event will be held three days after state lawmakers return to Concord to act on her budget veto.
Hassan, by the way, is not expected to attend Saturday’s rally in Portsmouth where Shaheen will officially endorse Hillary Clinton for president.
Meanwhile, state Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley said: “We are thrilled that all our Democratic candidates are going to join us for our convention. As we inch closer to the first-in-the-nation primary, this convention will give thousands of Granite Staters a chance to hear from our candidates about their plans to open up more doors for hard working Granite State families, instead of the Republicans, whose plans favor the wealthy and make it harder for the middle class to get ahead."...
[The NHDP is going to give a $1000 prize to the county with the highest percentage of attendees at the convention. Also this convention will be a wild one with all 5 candidates coming and Debbie Wasserman Schultz being a little controversial at present, this could make for a memorable time. Please come. You can sign up at NHDP.org. The cost is $10 for delegates (Town and County Officers, elected Delegates-at-Large, and candidates from the last election), and $25 for regular admission. Please e-mail Lew Henry atlewhenry@yahoo.com with any concerns or questions. ]
AND NATIONALLY
3. The August Jobs Report
Job Growth Weakens in August
by Dean Baker, Jobs Byte, cepr.net, September 4, 2015
The Labor Department reported that the economy added 173,000 jobs in August, somewhat less than most predictions. However, the prior two months' numbers were revised upward by 44,000, bringing the average gain over the last three months to 221,000. The story on the household side was mixed. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.1 percent, as employment increased by 196,000. However the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) was little changed at 59.4 percent, a number that is still three percentage points below the pre-recession peak.
Health care was the biggest job gainer in August, adding 40,500 jobs. Job growth in health care has increased substantially since the ACA took effect. Average job gains over the last five months have been 43,700 compared to growth of just 18,300 per month in the three years from December 2010 to December 2013. Restaurants added 26,100 jobs, roughly in line with their recent pattern. One of the aspects of the recovery that has been striking is that restaurant employment continues to account for a large share of employment growth. In the late 1990s, the share of employment growth in restaurants fell as the labor market tightened and workers were able to get better paying jobs.
The other sector reporting big gains was state and local government education which added 31,600 jobs. This reflects a timing issue with many schools starting earlier than normal. These jobs will likely disappear in next month's report.
Construction added just 3,000 jobs. Average growth in the sector over the last three months has been just 3,700 jobs. This is surprisingly weak given relatively strong data on housing starts and construction more generally. On the other hand, the growth earlier in the year was surprisingly strong given relatively weak construction data. Manufacturing lost 17,000 jobs, more than reversing a gain of 12,000 in July. With the rise in the dollar and weak growth elsewhere in the world, the general trend is likely to be downward.
Retail added just 11,200, less than half the 27,700 average monthly rate for the last year. This might just be the result of unusually rapid growth in the prior three months. The temp sector added 10,700, barely offsetting a loss of 9,200 jobs in July. The extent to which the temp sector provides a harbinger of future job growth is exaggerated, but this growth is not a strong point.
Overall, private sector job growth of 140,000 was the weakest since a weather-reduced 117,000 reported for March. Prior to that, it would be necessary to go back to December, 2013 to find weaker numbers.
Wage growth remains weak. The average hourly wage rose by 8 cents in August. It has risen at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the last three months compared with the prior three months,
down slightly from its 2.2 percent rate over the last year.
Apart from the drop in the unemployment rate, other news in the household survey was mixed. The percentage of unemployment due to people voluntarily quitting their jobs fell slightlyfrom 10.2 percent to 9.8 percent. This measure of confidence in the labor market is extraordinarily low given the 5.1 percent unemployment rate. When unemployment fell to 5.1 percent in May of 2005, voluntary quits accounted for 12.2 percent of unemployment.
All the duration measures of unemployment increased in August, with the share of long-term unemployed rising from 26.9 percent to 27.7 percent, the second consecutive increase. The declines reported in black and black teen unemployment in July were reversed in August, standing at 9.5 percent and 31.3 percent, respectively. Younger workers are accounting for a larger share of job growth in the post ACA era, with employment of workers over age 55 actually falling by 213,000 (all men) in this report. People between the ages of 20–24 have accounted for 16.7 percent of the job growth over the last year.
While the drop in unemployment in the August report is encouraging, the overall report is not especially positive. There is no evidence that wage growth is accelerating and there is a real risk that employment growth is slowing. The big question is whether the 140,000 private sector job growth in August is the new trend or whether it was weakened by the strong growth in prior months.
4. Back to 1930
https://www.washingtonpost.
So who wants to roll back the New Deal?
by Greg Sargent, Plum Line, washingtonpost.com, August 31, 2015
Brian Beutler has an important piece in which he raises an unsettling question: Could the next Republican president nominate one or more Supreme Court justices who would seek to restore a pre-New Deal judicial conception of liberty of contract, with the goal of undermining much of the regulatory state that many Americans take for granted today?
Beutler reports on a movement among legal-minded libertarians to rehabilitate the Lochner decision, the notorious 1905 Supreme Court ruling that invalidated a state law limiting the working hours of bakers, giving its name to the “Lochner era” of Supreme Court rulings in which economic regulations established by popularly elected officials were struck down as unconstitutional. The Lochner era is widely seen to have ended during the New Deal, when the Court upheld (among many other things) a state minimum wage law, reiterating that liberty of contract is not an “absolute” right.
Sam Bagenstos, a liberal constitutional scholar at the University of Michigan,tells Beutler that “a full fledged return to Lochner” could ultimately undermine a whole host of economic regulations, including minimum wage, overtime, and worker safety laws and even possibly laws protecting customers from discrimination based on race.
One leading libertarian lawyer tells Beutler frankly that the goal is to invalidate much social welfare legislation “at the federal level,” though I would add that a Lochner restoration might invalidate a fair amount of it at the state level as well. Libertarians are frustrated with the Roberts court for its rulings preserving Obamacare — decisions that have been widely interpreted as a sign of Roberts’ judicial restraint and deference to the elected branches — and the hope is that a Republican president will appoint more unabashedly activist judges when it comes to placing limits on federal power to regulate the economy:
The hope is that this anger propels a libertarian-minded president into office and inspires him to nominate less restrained judges. The next president will likely have the opportunity to appoint at least one, and possibly as many as four Supreme Court justices. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now 82. Stephen Breyer is 77. Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia are both 79. If one of these justices retires under a Republican president, who then appoints a Lochnerian to fill the vacancy, it will change the Court profoundly. If more than one of them steps down, the Court will become unrecognizable….
In July, the conservative columnist George Will made a provocative new demand of the next Republican president: “Ask this of potential court nominees: Do you agree that Lochner correctly reflected the U.S. natural rights tradition and the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments’ affirmation of unenumerated rights?”
All of this seems very far fetched, of course, but you really never know. Liberals sometimes imagine that American history progresses seamlessly in the direction of progressive change, but that isn’t really how it has unfolded — there have at times been setbacks and reversals, sometimes substantial ones.
Meanwhile, some Republican candidates have actually passed what we might call the Lochner litmus test:
Rand Paul has praised the Lochner decision explicitly multiple times, most recently at the Heritage Action Conservative Policy Summit this January. “I’m not a judicial restraint guy,” he told an audience of avowed judicial activism foes. “I’m a judicial activist when it comes to Lochner. I’m a judicial activist when it comes to the New Deal.”
And Rick Perry has boasted that he is “proud” to have nominated a Texas judge who recently opined that a wealth of revisionist legal scholarship is reestablishing Lochner’s “correctness as a matter of constitutional law.”
What’s really refreshing about all this is that proponents of a Lochner revival are quite open about their grand project of invalidating much of the contemporary regulatory state. At least you know where libertarians stand. Republican politicians who perhaps share the view that major 20th century progressive achievements — which are now pillars of American life — should be rolled back in the name of economic liberty are sometimes politically constrained from admitting it. Senator Paul, for instance, had to backtrack after remarks surfaced in which he seemed to suggest that the Civil Rights Act infringed on private property rights. And it’s not unreasonable to speculate that Paul Ryan and some of the GOP politicians looking to undermine the Medicare coverage guarantee (in the name of “strengthening” its finances) might also have fundamental ideological objections to the whole program, which, after all, was dismissed as socialism during the battle over its creation in the 1960s.
And so, I’m all for the Lochner litmus test that George Will has proposed. For that matter, I’m genuinely curious to know where Rand Paul and some of the other more conservative Republican presidential candidates are on Helvering v. Davis, which upheld Social Security on the grounds that Congress may spend for the general welfare. I’m not a close follower of libertarian legal analysis, but some have argued for a more constrained spending power, and I assume some on the right still think the Helvering decision upholding Social Security was deeply questionable. How about Knowlton v. Moore andBrushaber v. Union Pacific, in which the Court upheld the Constitutionality of progressive taxation? I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that some still agree with those who argued at the turn of the (last) century that progressive taxation is an unconstitutional violation of the Uniformity Clause.
So where do the presidential candidates think Supreme Court nominees should stand on all of these? Let’s get this all debated out in the open.
5. The Appeal of a Populist Platform
The Populist Agenda Is An Electable Agenda
by Terrance Heath, ourfuture.org, September 1, 2015
Whether you believe Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is an “electable” presidential candidate, the populist agenda Sanders has placed at the center of his campaign is absolutely an electable agenda.
Once considered the longest of long-shot candidates, Sanders — the only “self-described socialist,” and longest serving independent member of Congress — has surged close to front-runner status in the Democratic race. He’s now the top choice of 30 percent of Iowa Democrats likely to vote in caucuses next year; that’s just seven points behind Hillary Clinton, who was beating Sanders 57 percent to 16 percent in late May. In New Hampshire, where he was 39 points behind in March, Sanders now has a seven-point lead over Clinton.
All of this has made the Democratic establishment nervous that Sanders could prove a serious challenge to Clinton, once the presumptive nominee. Some Democrats are worried that Sanders’ “electability” challenges could cost them the White House. (Granted, just the possibility of having to get used to saying “President Trump” could make anybody nervous.) According to a CBS News poll in early August, just 5 percent of Democratic primary voters thought Sanders was the most electable Democratic candidate, compared to 78 percent for Hillary Clinton.
So how did this happen? How did an unapologetic liberal with a campaign that relies on small donors even come close to threatening a candidate with the kind of money and name recognition that Hillary Clinton brings to the race? Not even Sanders’ socialist leanings necessarily hurt his candidacy. A Gallup survey reported in June showed that 47 percent of Americans — nearly half — would vote for a socialist candidate.
Sanders himself answered that question in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday: “I think people are responding to our message.”
It’s not just a message that galvanizes the left. As Thom Hartmann points out, Sanders’ message appeals to a surprising number of Republicans, like the voters from the most conservative part of Vermont, who have kept Sanders in Congress for almost 20 years. Sanders garners conservative support for the same reasons his candidacy has energized the left. “While Americans disagree on social issues like gay marriage and abortion,” Hartmann writes, “they’re actually pretty unified on the bread and butter economic issues that Bernie has made the core of his campaign.”
More and more Americans agree with Sanders on the issues, and not just those on the left. A recent Progressive Change Institute poll of likely 2016 voters, and the Populist Majority website show that:
Education
● 53 percent support the government paying students’ tuition for community college.
● 71 percent support debt-free college at all public universities.
● 71 percent support debt-free college at all public universities.
Environment
● 78 percent believe the government should limit greenhouse emissions from businesses.
Inequality
● 61 percent believe that in today’s economy, just a few people at the top have the chance to get ahead.
● 57 percent say the government should do more to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor.
● 65 percent believe income inequality is a problem that needs to be addressed now.
● 57 percent say the government should do more to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor.
● 65 percent believe income inequality is a problem that needs to be addressed now.
Money in Politics
● 84 percent think money has too much influence in elections today.
● 81 percent would support getting rid of secret money in our political system by requiring full disclosure and transparency of all political money.
● 75 percent would support preventing the wealthy and big corporations from spending unlimited amounts of money on elections.
● 81 percent would support getting rid of secret money in our political system by requiring full disclosure and transparency of all political money.
● 75 percent would support preventing the wealthy and big corporations from spending unlimited amounts of money on elections.
Social Security and Medicare
● 59 percent support the government offering a health care plan similar to Medicare to compete with the private market.
● 71 percent support giving all Americans the choice of buying health insurance through Medicare or private insurers.
● 62 percent of voters in Senate battleground states support increasing Social Security benefits.
● 71 percent support giving all Americans the choice of buying health insurance through Medicare or private insurers.
● 62 percent of voters in Senate battleground states support increasing Social Security benefits.
Taxes
● 62 percent say the rich pay too little in taxes.
● 68 percent are in favor of increasing taxes on those making more than $1 million a year.
● 74 percent support ending tax loopholes for corporations that ship jobs overseas.
● 68 percent are in favor of increasing taxes on those making more than $1 million a year.
● 74 percent support ending tax loopholes for corporations that ship jobs overseas.
Trade
● 75 percent support fair trade standards that protect workers, the environment, and jobs.
● 55 percent oppose giving the president exclusive authority to negotiate trade deals that would only allow Congress to vote yes or no, but not change.
● 55 percent oppose giving the president exclusive authority to negotiate trade deals that would only allow Congress to vote yes or no, but not change.
Wages and Workers
● 59 percent support a minimum guaranteed income.
● 84 percent support making sure working women earn equal pay, and opening up opportunities to women at all levels.
● 66 percent support making jobs pay enough to live on by defending the right of workers to bargain for better wages and benefits, and increasing the national minimum wage.
● 84 percent support making sure working women earn equal pay, and opening up opportunities to women at all levels.
● 66 percent support making jobs pay enough to live on by defending the right of workers to bargain for better wages and benefits, and increasing the national minimum wage.
Wall Street
● 66 percent support breaking up big banks that are “too big to fail.”
● 55 percent support a financial transactions tax.
● 55 percent support a financial transactions tax.
These are just some of the issues on which a growing number of Americans agree with Bernie Sanders.
Pundits and commentators love to put Sanders and Trump in the same category: Candidates Who Make Their Party Establishment Nervous. The difference is that Trump’s appeal is to the basest of the GOP base. Sanders’ populist message crosses partisan lines, and appeals to Americans who know that the economic and political system has been rigged against them. They want an economy of equal opportunity and shared prosperity, where good jobs with fair wages are available to anyone who wants one. More and more of them are demanding that their elected leaders act on it, and that their candidates support it.
6. Republican Health-Care Plans: Making America Sick
Why Republicans’ health-care plans are bad deals for Americans
by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, washingtonpost.com, August 29, 2015
Yawn. That is the proper response to the latest health-care reform proposals from Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Gov. Scott Walker (Wis.). They are retreads of the Burr-Coburn-Hatch proposal of 2014 and the John McCain plan in the 2008 election. All have the same fatal flaw — for average Americans, the price of health insurance jumps thousands of dollars.
The Republican plans rest on three pillars. First, limit and ultimately eliminate the tax exclusion that allows employers’ contributions to workers’ health insurance not to be subject to income or payroll taxes. Second, subsidize people to buy health insurance individually. Third, allow the interstate sale of insurance. That is, preempt state health insurance regulation to allow insurers to sell plans approved in one state in other states.
The vast majority of health economists and health policy experts agree that the tax exclusion is a bad policy. It represents the single largest tax deduction in the United States, valued at more than $250 billion a year — more than three times the value of the mortgage deduction. The tax exclusion also incentivizes the over-purchase of health insurance. Because a dollar in health insurance is worth more than a dollar in added wages — the insurance is tax-free — Americans, and especially unions, have opted to have their employers give them more and more insurance, while wages have stagnated. The exclusion also contributes to higher health-care inflation.
But if the tax exclusion is eliminated, then many employers will terminate their health coverage for workers and many Americans will have to buy their own insurance. Here is the rub: Most Americans cannot afford to buy their own health insurance. Hence, they need government subsidies.
Two fundamental details about the subsidies inevitably torpedo the Republican plans.
One, Republican subsidies are too meager. Years ago, Stanford economist Vic Fuchs and I proposed eliminating the tax exclusion and combining all health-care spending to give Americans a voucher equivalent to the premium for a basic health package.
But Republicans give far less. In 2008, McCain proposed subsidizing each family $5,000 toward the purchase of health insurance. A few days ago, Walker proposed that subsidies be age-based, as opposed to the Affordable Care Act’s income-based subsidies. For a family of four with parents ages 35 to 49 and two children under 18, the subsidies would be $6,000. (Rubio’s plan did not disclose his level of subsidies.)
Last year, the average cost of employer-based health insurance in the United States was about $16,800. This means with $6,000 in subsidies, an average family would have to come up with $10,800 to afford their old insurance. A less generous silver plan in the exchanges cost $10,776 in Philadelphia, meaning a family would contribute nearly $5,000. With the median U.S. income at $52,000 per year, these premiums constitute up to 20 percent of a family’s pre-tax income. With deductibles and co-pays on top of that, soon a family is paying 25 percent of its income on health care. Unlike the ACA, Walker’s plan does not include annual limits on out-of-pocket expenses and provides no subsidies for co-pays. It doesn’t take an economist to figure out that this is a bad deal for the average American.
The second important detail is: How do the subsidies grow over time? Traditionally, Republicans have tied the increase to the consumer price index (CPI). Because health-care costs and insurance premiums have grown faster than the CPI, over time the subsidies would cover less and less, pushing more and more costs onto Americans. This makes a bad deal even worse.
Finally, it is worth noting that the ACA does permit insurance companies to offer plans across state lines, as long as such states create a joint compact with common regulatory standards to avoid a “race to the bottom” that would allow them to undermine other states’ insurance laws. There has been no significant take-up. Health insurance, like malpractice insurance, remains largely state-regulated and states — as Republicans often emphasize — are closer to their citizens and better able to determine what is good for them than a state insurance agency thousands of miles away with no accountability. Hence, states jealously guard their regulatory prerogatives and rarely are willing to delegate them to other states. This may be one reason that there has not been one multi-state exchange formed.
Republican thinking on health-care reform has hardly advanced since 2008. The deals proposed then were bad and were defeated at the ballot box. And they remain bad deals for average Americans. This may be why few are willing to trust the “replace” part of the Republican pledge to “repeal and replace” the ACA.
FINALLY
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