AROUND NEW HAMPSHIRE
1. Lifting the Solar Cap
Lawmakers Working on Compromise to Expand N.H.'s Solar Power Incentive
by Sam Evans-Brown, nhpr.org, October 5, 2015
A compromise is in the works to raise the limit on the number of solar panels being installed on New Hampshire's electricity grid. The deal would likely result in less revenue for solar owners, but would allow the current boom in solar installations to continue.
At an annual energy summit in Concord Monday, Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley said a bipartisan group is working to lift the cap on a solar incentive called net-metering.
In exchange for lifting the cap, the deal would ask utility regulators to determine a new reimbursement rate for solar power that Bradley says would be “reflective of the cost of service.” Currently, net-metered customers are paid the full retail rate of energy, and Bradley told the crowd “the cost of service [rate] is presumably somewhat less than that.”
Bradley says the group, which includes energy policy makers from both parties, has been consulting with the state’s utilities in crafting its language, which may help ensure the proposal’s success.
“When both sides have something to gain, I would predict that legislation will pass,” he told the crowd.
Two utilities – the New Hampshire Electric Coop and Liberty Utilities – have already hit their net metering cap, and the others are expected to follow shortly. Solar installers have said if the cap is not lifted, their burgeoning business could grind to a halt, and have been pushing hard for a change in the law all summer.
2. Bad Consequences
From the Registry of Bad Ideas
Editorial, vnews.com, October 6, 2015
New Hampshire’s opioid abuse problem is of sufficient magnitude that it has unexpectedly become an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign. As they attend town hall meetings around the state, candidates frequently hear the anguished firsthand testimony of those whose lives have been poisoned by the toxic effects of addiction. Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie and John Kasich are among those who have addressed the subject.
That’s important, even if it doesn’t do much to burnish the image of the first-in-the-nation-primary state. For one thing, it reinforces in the public mind just how critical it is to address a crisis that cost more than 320 lives in New Hampshire last year and is on pace to kill far more than that this year. Added to those fatalities are hundreds or thousands of other lives ruined.
At the state level, Gov. Maggie Hassan has been emphasizing a multifaceted approach to combating the addiction crisis, focusing on prevention, treatment and recovery. By now, just about everybody has come to the conclusion that while law enforcement must be a component of any overall solution, it cannot be the linchpin.
Just about everybody, that is, except three Republican state representatives who are proposing legislation in various forms to create an online registry of convicted drug dealers modeled after the one that is supposed to keep track of sex offenders. It is difficult to overstate the stupidity of this idea.
“These people that are selling heroin are ruining people’s lives, so is there any penalty that we would not want to be considering?” asks House Majority Leader Jack Flanagan, the sponsor of one of the bills. An answer to his question is contained in his own proposal, which contemplates a drug offender registry but stops short of, say, capital punishment or water-boarding.
But we’ll go a little further. People who have served their time in prison have already been penalized and should not be saddled with legal disabilities that will make it even harder than it already is for them to stay clean, get a job and reintegrate into mainstream society. That’s unjust, and counterproductive, just as it is for sex offenders.
Moreover, many people who deal drugs do so to support their own habits, not as a criminal enterprise. Often there’s no bright line separating the two, so inevitably people who have been led to criminal activity in the grip of addiction would find themselves on the same list with those who are criminals by choice.
This idea presents another problem, that of unintended consequences. A registry containing addresses of convicted drug dealers could very well provide a road map to a possible source for those seeking drugs. Those on the registry — ostracized and jobless — might well be tempted to return to their former ways. It’s hard to imagine that any community would welcome that kind of attention.
But if a registry there must be, we’d argue that the drug dealers listed should include pharmaceutical manufacturers whose profligate marketing of powerful opioid painkillers is plausibily at the root of the current heroin epidemic. New Hampshire Attorney General Joseph Foster recently launched an investigation, perhaps with an eye toward seeking civil remedies for corporate deception or fraud. If part of the rationale for a registry is to warn the public that drug dealers are in their community, then the scarlet letter should be “one size fits all.”
3. The Scramble for Governor
Mad scramble in both parties could ensue in 2016 race for NH governor
by Kevin Landrigan, nh1.com, October 5, 2015
CONCORD - "Listen her decision to run for the Senate opens it up for a lot of people,’’ says veteran Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, D-Manchester, one of many now giving it a look.
And how. Maggie Hassan’s 2016 senate bid will identify the next, new rising star.
The last time it was this wide open? 2002 That’s when the last governor, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen ran for the Senate; voters gave us Governor Craig Benson, the only Republican in the last 10 elections to win the corner office.
Shaheen lost that race to then-Republican Congressman John E. Sununu; six years later she returned the favor, winning a rematch.
"We’ve had Democratic governors over the past 10 plus years and we’ve really seen a sense of stagnation.’’
That’s Executive Councilor Chris Sununu, the Newfields Republican who got out early as did Wilton Republican State Rep. Frank Edelblut.
Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, and Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, haven’t ruled it out.
Sources confirm Councilor Colin Van Ostern, a Concord Democrat is in and he’ll make an announcement in days.
The sure signs; NH1 News confirms two big hires by Van Ostern first naming longtime Democratic fund-raiser Debbie Butler of Concord as the treasurer of Van Ostern’s political committee.
Butler was co-chair of Democrat John Lynch’s first successful run for governor in 2004.
Anna Moffett comes aboard as Van Ostern’s full-time finance director.
She held a similar role for Congressman Annie Kuster, D-NH, who set records when she first won the Second District seat in 2012.
Moffett went on to raise $3 million for a Democratic congresswoman in Connecticut last fall.
The strategy is how Van Ostern first won the council seat; an early financial war chest so big many observers conclude that it scared the incumbent, Concord Republican Dan St. Hilaire, into dropping his own plans to defend his seat.
Other maybe Democrats include Stefany Shaheen, the eldest daughter of Senator Jeanne and political godfather Billy Shaheen.
"Knowing me I’m the last guy to tell a woman in my family what to do or what they are going to do. I think she’ll do what her heart tells her to do,’’ Bill Shaheen says.
Senator Andrew Hosmer of Laconia is getting a lot of encouragement.
"But really haven’t made any decision; I don’t have any time frame, but happy to continue the conversations,’’ Hosmer said.
And Manchester Democratic Sen. Lou D’Allesandro.
"I’ve done it before and it’s a tough, tough business,’’ he confided.
With four or more democrats in the mix, the governor has no problem with a crowded primary to replace her.
"We have a great bench in the Democratic Party and the people of New Hampshire the past few years have made great progress,’’ Hassan told nh1 news.
The Senate’s top Democrat sees a big ripple effect.
"I can count almost half the republicans in the senate on the list of moving up or moving out,’’ said Senate Democratic Leader Jeff Woodburn of Dalton.
In politics, the thing about change is hope always springs eternal. Republicans think they’ve got a shot at the corner office, Democrats now think they can win the Legislature.
4. Hassan Calls Out Ayotte for Her Record
Hassan slams Ayotte on Planned Parenthood funding
by Jeff McMenemy, seacoastonline.com, October 6, 2015
PORTSMOUTH — Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan on Tuesday lashed out at U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, a day after she announced she is running for the Senate seat held by her Republican opponent.
“ (U.S. Sen.) Ted Cruz and Sen. Ayotte both want to defund Planned Parenthood,” Hassan said after an appearance at Alpha Loft in downtown Portsmouth. “They just would go about it a different way. Their positions are just the same.”
Hassan went on to say that Ayotte has been “against allowing women to make their own health-care decisions well before this most recent debate came up.”
Ayotte voted in August to direct funding away from Planned Parenthood. However, Ayotte publicly criticized Cruz's efforts, saying she opposed his method to defund Planned Parenthood because it risked a government shutdown.
Hassan’s comments about Ayotte’s stand on Planned Parenthood echoed a similar theme she stressed about why she decided to run for the U.S. Senate seat.
Hassan contended that while New Hampshire has made progress on a number of issues important to the middle class — like growing the economy and freezing in-state tuition at the University of New Hampshire — they have not been supported by Ayotte.
“When you look at Washington they’re not responding to those needs at all,” Hassan said Tuesday. “When I look at Sen. Ayotte’s voting record, she voted to cut Pell grants, (which are) so critical to middle class families, she’s (voted) to turn Medicare into a voucher system, (which is) so critical to our seniors, and she voted to defund Planned Parenthood at a time when women need access to affordable primary and preventative care.”
She noted that women need access to Planned Parenthood “to plan their futures and support their families.”
“What I look at is the votes that have actually been taken and what a difference it would be if we had a response from Washington that voted the other way because that would really help middle class families. That’s why I’m running,” Hassan said.
Ayotte’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for reaction about Hassan’s comments, but said they would do so later in the day.
But Jennifer Horn, the director of the state Republican party, released a statement about Hassan.
"After years of failing to lead on the pressing issues facing New Hampshire, Gov. Hassan is trying to distract voters with the same tired attacks used by Washington Democrats," Horn said. "The governor’s tax and spend policies have failed to keep and grow jobs in New Hampshire. She has failed to respond adequately to the growing heroin epidemic and she brought partisan gridlock to Concord with her needless and harmful budget veto. She should give up relying on desperate political attacks and start doing what’s right for the people of New Hampshire.”
Asked if she would reach out to Ayotte to talk about setting a voluntary campaign spending limit in what is expected to be a high-profile national race, Hassan said, “I certainly am willing to discuss that. I have a record of wanting to make sure that campaigns are open and financing is fair, but it can’t just be one sided.
“If she’s interested in doing that, it’s certainly something we can discuss,” Hassan said.
Hassan decided to run, she said, because she is tired of seeing Washington dominated by special interests while the middle class has been neglected.
“I see (Washington) has really aligned itself with special interests and against the middle class and one of the examples of that is you see a lot of this outside spending,” Hassan said about money from outside the state that is expected to pour into the Senate campaign. “But I also know that as I talk to the people of New Hampshire they stay focused on how we can move the state forward and get the kind of response that we want.”
Hassan stressed that she’s “comfortable” she’ll have the resources she needs “to make my case to the voters.”
Asked about Ayotte’s decision in 2013 to vote against the The Manchin-Toomey proposal, which would have expanded background checks for gun buyers, requiring them for sales made at gun shows and online — Hassan said she would have voted for what she described as a “bipartisan background check bill.”
The vote came in the wake of the December 2013 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where a lone gunman with a history of mental illness killed 20 first-graders and six adults.
Hassan noted she supports “the second amendment right to responsibly own firearms, but we always need to be balancing that with public safety.”
She pointed out she’s worked in New Hampshire to try to make sure “our background system gets information about people with serious mental illnesses.”
Hassan called her choice to run for the U.S. Senate seat a “very difficult decision,” but said she’s been “very pleased about the response I’ve gotten across the state.”
“I think it’s really important that we get the response from Washington that we need to support the middle class and to stop the special interests,” Hassan said.
She said potential gubernatorial candidates, such as Portsmouth City Councilor Stefany Shaheen, will continue the work she’s begun to grow the economy while “holding the line against a sales and income tax.”
Hassan also stressed that if she gets elected to the Senate she will protect the “hard-earned” Social Security and Medicare benefits of state residents.
Hassan said she believes the federal government can save money by allowing Medicare to negotiate on pharmaceutical prices like the VA and private insurance companies do...
5. The NH Race, and Retaking the U.S. Senate
Democrats get top choice in New Hampshire: enough to win back Senate?
Gov. Maggie Hassan's challenge to Sen. Kelly Ayotte represents one more piece of bad news for the Republicans, forcing them to spend money in a race they hoped wouldn't be so tough.
by Linda Feldmann, csmonitor.com, October 5, 2015
WASHINGTON — The battle for control of the US Senate just got hotter.
Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) of New Hampshire announced Monday that she’s running for Senate, taking on freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R). Governor Hassan was the Democrats’ top choice for the race. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report immediately shifted its ranking of the race to “tossup.”
With Hassan’s long-awaited decision, “Democrats scored perhaps their biggest Senate recruiting success of the cycle,” writes Jennifer Duffy, Senate analyst for Cook.
The Democrats need a net gain of five seats in the 2016 elections to retake control of the Senate – and only four if a Democrat wins the White House. The playing field favors the Democrats, who are defending 10 seats to the Republicans’ 24 seats. Cook’s ratings show only two vulnerable Democratic seats (only one of them a tossup) versus seven vulnerable Republican seats, including four tossups.
“Ayotte's vulnerability can be attributed largely from having to run in a swing state in a presidential year rather than anything she has or hasn't done,” writes Ms. Duffy.
Still, Senator Ayotte is in a tough spot, and both candidates are going to have to run the race of their political lives to succeed. Ayotte has an advantage as the incumbent, albeit a first-termer. Hassan’s advantage comes from the fact that she’s running during a presidential election year, when key Democratic constituencies – single women, young voters, and minorities – turn out in higher numbers than in off years.
The presidential race could play a crucial role in determining who wins the New Hampshire Senate seat. If the Democratic nominee is strong, she or he could inspire turnout that benefits Democrats further down the ballot. The reverse could also be true: A strong Republican nominee could help Ayotte.
In the Hassan-versus-Ayotte smackdown, polls matching them up have shown a tight race. Three polls this year by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) found them in a tossup, 44 percent for Ayotte, 43 percent for Hassan. But Hassan has a higher job approval rating than Ayotte: Hassan has 48 percent positive, 42 negative. Ayotte has 38 percent positive, 46 percent negative.
But the wider political environment doesn’t always hurt a vulnerable candidate. Last November, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) of New Hampshire won reelection in a bad year for Democrats.
Still, Ayotte’s challenge from Hassan represents one more piece of bad news for the Republicans, forcing them to spend money in a race they hoped wouldn’t be so tough.
Among Democratic-held seats, Cook’s only tossup is the seat held by retiring Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada. In that race, Rep. Joe Heck (R) faces former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D).
On the Republican side, aside from Ayotte’s seat, three others are tossups:
Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, who has health issues and is running an uphill battle in a deep blue state. Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D) is his top opponent.
In Florida, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s decision to give up his Senate seat to run for president has unleashed fierce nomination battles on both sides of the aisle for the race to replace him.
Wisconsin’s Senate race probably features the most vulnerable Republican this cycle. Freshman Sen. Ron Johnson (R) faces the man he defeated in 2010, former Sen. Russ Feingold (D).
For Democrats, retaking the Senate is seen as an insurance policy against a potential Republican presidential victory. The Republicans have a strong grip on the House of Representatives, and if they keep the Senate and win the White House, the Democrats’ only hope of checking the Republicans is through filibusters and other procedural actions.
Senate control is also crucial for high-level executive branch nominations, including the US Supreme Court. The next president could nominate as many as three justices.
Ayotte vs. Hassan will be one of 2016 's most heated Senate races
by Grant Bosse, unionleader.com, October 6, 2015
GOV. MAGGIE Hassan did her part Monday to boost New Hampshire’s economy.
With the least surprising decision in recent political history, Hassan announced her candidacy for New Hampshire’s United States Senate seat currently held by Republican Kelly Ayotte.
As a swing state in a presidential year, Washington Democrats see New Hampshire as essential to their hopes of retaking the Senate in 2016, and Hassan was their top recruit. Really, she was their only recruit. Without the two-term governor in the race, Harry Reid and his colleagues would have written off the Granite State, and left whichever candidate who won the Democratic nomination to fend for themselves.
But Hassan’s announcement puts the race on the national radar, opening the floodgates for millions in third-party political advertising, hotel rooms for national political reporters, and endless copy for political columnists. So, thanks for that, Governor.
As it is, Hassan still faces an uphill battle. Ayotte is popular and effective. She also has $5.5 million cash on hand.
Hassan is a strong fundraiser, but she will not be able to tap into the war chest she amassed as governor, since money raised for state races may not be transferred to national campaigns. Hassan will have the funds she needs to run an effective campaign, but she will not be able to overwhelm Ayotte on the airwaves as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen did to challenger Scott Brown last year.
Hassan’s decision is no surprise. She held a right of first refusal on the Democratic nomination all year. While her announcement had been anticipated for months, it was delayed by Hassan’s veto of the Legislature’s state budget in June. The three-month standoff over business tax rates didn’t result in any substantial change to state government, but it did freeze the Democratic field while Hassan was tied up at the State House. With a new budget in place, Hassan is now free to raise money across the country, and campaign across the state.
With Hassan moving out of the corner office, the rest of the Democratic field will likely take shape quickly. The top offices don’t come open that often in New Hampshire, and executive councilors and state senators have a brief window to move up. The opportunity may even create something rarely seen around these parts, a crowded Democratic primary.
On the Republican side, Councilor Chris Sununu moves from an underdog to a favorite, but he’s now guaranteed company in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Running against a two-term incumbent is a challenge. Running for an open seat against a Democrat with little statewide name recognition is much more tempting.
A large pack of potential governors would cascade into openings on the council and in the state Senate. That will mean each state party will have to focus more energy on recruiting candidates to fill out their slates. These are good problems for parties to have, and should make for an exciting campaign season from the top of the ballot on down.
Assuming Ayotte and Hassan each secure their respective nominations in September, their matchup will greatly influence who wins those down-ballot races. It will also effect which presidential candidate captures New Hampshire’s four electoral votes.
Ayotte versus Hassan will pit the state’s two most powerful and popular politicians against each other, and it will keep New Hampshire on the national political radar long after the first-in-the-nation primary.
With the least surprising decision in recent political history, Hassan announced her candidacy for New Hampshire’s United States Senate seat currently held by Republican Kelly Ayotte.
As a swing state in a presidential year, Washington Democrats see New Hampshire as essential to their hopes of retaking the Senate in 2016, and Hassan was their top recruit. Really, she was their only recruit. Without the two-term governor in the race, Harry Reid and his colleagues would have written off the Granite State, and left whichever candidate who won the Democratic nomination to fend for themselves.
But Hassan’s announcement puts the race on the national radar, opening the floodgates for millions in third-party political advertising, hotel rooms for national political reporters, and endless copy for political columnists. So, thanks for that, Governor.
As it is, Hassan still faces an uphill battle. Ayotte is popular and effective. She also has $5.5 million cash on hand.
Hassan is a strong fundraiser, but she will not be able to tap into the war chest she amassed as governor, since money raised for state races may not be transferred to national campaigns. Hassan will have the funds she needs to run an effective campaign, but she will not be able to overwhelm Ayotte on the airwaves as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen did to challenger Scott Brown last year.
Hassan’s decision is no surprise. She held a right of first refusal on the Democratic nomination all year. While her announcement had been anticipated for months, it was delayed by Hassan’s veto of the Legislature’s state budget in June. The three-month standoff over business tax rates didn’t result in any substantial change to state government, but it did freeze the Democratic field while Hassan was tied up at the State House. With a new budget in place, Hassan is now free to raise money across the country, and campaign across the state.
With Hassan moving out of the corner office, the rest of the Democratic field will likely take shape quickly. The top offices don’t come open that often in New Hampshire, and executive councilors and state senators have a brief window to move up. The opportunity may even create something rarely seen around these parts, a crowded Democratic primary.
On the Republican side, Councilor Chris Sununu moves from an underdog to a favorite, but he’s now guaranteed company in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Running against a two-term incumbent is a challenge. Running for an open seat against a Democrat with little statewide name recognition is much more tempting.
A large pack of potential governors would cascade into openings on the council and in the state Senate. That will mean each state party will have to focus more energy on recruiting candidates to fill out their slates. These are good problems for parties to have, and should make for an exciting campaign season from the top of the ballot on down.
Assuming Ayotte and Hassan each secure their respective nominations in September, their matchup will greatly influence who wins those down-ballot races. It will also effect which presidential candidate captures New Hampshire’s four electoral votes.
Ayotte versus Hassan will pit the state’s two most powerful and popular politicians against each other, and it will keep New Hampshire on the national political radar long after the first-in-the-nation primary.
6. Early Poll Results for the Senate Race
Survey shows virtual dead heat between Hassan, Ayotte
by Allie Morris, concordmonitor.com, October 6, 2015
Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan and Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte are deadlocked in the race for U.S. Senate, according to a WMUR Granite State Poll released Monday night.
A poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found 45 percent of likely voters would choose Ayotte, 43 percent would pick Hassan and 11 percent would be undecided, if the election were held today.
Hassan announced she would challenge Ayotte for U.S. Senate on Monday, ending months of speculation over the second-term governor’s political future.
The poll found New Hampshire voters were largely divided and unsure about what political path Hassan should take. While 42 percent of likely voters said they didn’t know what Hassan should do, 27 percent said she should seek another term as governor, 11 percent said she run for U.S. Senate and 18 percent said she shouldn’t run for anything.
The poll found very few likely voters have decided who they will support when the election rolls around next year – more than 84 respondents said they are still trying to make a decision.
The survey found both women are viewed favorably by likely voters. The poll was conducted between Sept. 24 and Friday, and 587 randomly selected New Hampshire voters were surveyed.
AND NATIONALLY
7. Rigged
Donald Trump Proves What's Wrong with Bankruptcy Laws in America
by Robert Reich, robertreich.org, September 29, 2015
On the opening day of Trump Plaza in Atlantic City in 1984, Donald Trump stood in a dark topcoat on the casino floor celebrating his new investment as the “finest building in the city and possibly the nation.”
Thirty years later, the Trump Plaza folded, leaving some 1,000 employees without jobs. Trump, meanwhile, was on Twitter claiming he had “nothing to do with Atlantic City,” and praising himself for his “great timing” in getting out of the investment.
As I show in my new book, “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few,” people with lots of money can easily avoid the consequences of bad bets and big losses by cashing out at the first sign of trouble. Bankruptcy laws protect them. But workers who move to a place like Atlantic City for a job, invest in a home there, and build their skills have no such protection. Jobs vanish, skills are suddenly irrelevant and home values plummet. They’re stuck with the mess.
Bankruptcy was designed so people could start over. But these days, the only ones starting over are big corporations, wealthy moguls and Wall Street bankers, who have had enough political clout to shape bankruptcy laws (like many other laws) to their needs.
One of the most basic of all economic issues is what to do when someone can’t pay what they owe. The U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 4) authorizes Congress to enact “uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States,” and Congress has done so repeatedly.
In the last few decades, these changes have reflected the demands of giant corporations, Wall Street banks, big developers and major credit card companies who wanted to make it harder for average people to declare bankruptcy but easier for themselves to do the same.
The granddaddy of all failures to repay what was owed occurred in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers went into the largest bankruptcy in history, with more than $691 billion of assets and far more in liabilities.
Some commentators (including yours truly) urged then that the rest of Wall Street be forced to grapple with their problems in bankruptcy as well. But Lehman’s bankruptcy so shook the Street that Henry Paulson, Jr., George W. Bush’s outgoing secretary of the treasury, and, before that, head of Goldman Sachs, persuaded Congress to authorize several hundred billion dollars of funding to protect the other big banks from going bankrupt.
Paulson didn’t explicitly state that big banks were too big to fail. They were, rather, too big to be reorganized under bankruptcy—which would, in Paulson’s view, have threatened the entire financial system.
The real burden of Wall Street’s near meltdown fell on homeowners. As home prices plummeted, many found themselves owing more on their mortgages than their homes were worth, and unable to refinance. Yet chapter 13 of the bankruptcy code (whose drafting was largely the work of the financial industry) prevents homeowners from declaring bankruptcy on mortgage loans for their primary residence.
When the financial crisis hit, some members of Congress, led by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, tried to amend the code to allow distressed homeowners to use bankruptcy. That would have given them a powerful bargaining chip for preventing the banks and others servicing their loans from foreclosing on their homes. If the creditors and homeowners couldn’t come to an agreement, the homeowner’s case would go to a bankruptcy judge who presumably would reduce the amount to be repaid rather than automatically force people out of their homes.
The bill passed the House, but when in late April 2009 Durbin offered his amendment in the Senate, the financial industry—among the largest donors to both parties—argued it would greatly increase the cost of home loans. (No convincing evidence showed this to be the case.) The bill garnered only 45 Senate votes even though Democrats were in the majority. As a result, distressed homeowners had no bargaining power. Subsequently, more than 5 million lost their homes.
Another group of debtors who can’t use bankruptcy to renegotiate their loans are former students laden with student debt. Student loans are now about 10 percent of all debt in the United States, second only to mortgages and higher than auto loans and credit card debt. But the bankruptcy code doesn’t allow student debts to be worked out under its protection.
If graduates can’t meet their payments, lenders can garnish their paychecks. If still behind on student loan payments by the time they retire, lenders can even garnish their Social Security checks. The only way graduates can reduce their student debt burdens, according to a provision enacted at the behest of the student loan industry, is to prove that repayment would impose an “undue hardship” on them and their dependents. This is a stricter standard than bankruptcy courts apply to gamblers trying to reduce their gambling debts.
Congress and its banking patrons fear that if graduates could declare bankruptcy on their debts, they might never repay them. But a better alternative would be to allow former students to use bankruptcy where the terms of the loans are obviously unreasonable (such as double-digit interest rates), or if the schools they owed money to had very low post-graduation employment rates.
State and federal lawmakers once sought to protect vulnerable borrowers by setting limits on the interest that could be demanded by creditors. But in recent years, under political pressure from big banks like Citigroup, many state legislatures have repealed those limits. It’s not unusual for borrowers who want an advance on an upcoming paycheck to now pay annualized rate of 300 percent or more.
Such legal changes helped swell profits at Citigroup, whose former OneMain Financial unit was one of the leading payday lenders. “There was simply no need to change the law,” Rick Glazier, a North Carolina Democratic legislator who opposed raising interest rate limits there, told the New York Times. “It was one of the most brazen efforts by a special interest group to increase its own profits that I have ever seen.”
It’s not just changes in the bankruptcy code and interest-rate regulations that benefit the wealthy. Real estate developers like Trump have also benefited from a welter of special subsidies and tax breaks squeezed out of pliant local legislators.
Trump has the unique distinction of being the first developer in New York to receive a public subsidy for commercial projects under programs initially reserved for improving slum neighborhoods. Referring to how he managed to win a 40-year tax abatement for rebuilding a crumbling hotel at Grand Central Station—a deal that in the first decade cost taxpayers $60 million—Trump quipped, “Someone said, ‘How come you got 40 years?’ I said, ‘Because I didn’t ask for 50.’”
Trump’s success at getting such deals is better explained by a 1980s study by Newsday, showing Trump had donated more than anyone else to members of the New York City Board of Estimate, which at the time approved all land-use development.
Trump sparred with Jeb Bush in the second GOP debate last Wednesday night over Trump’s alleged lobbying for casino gambling in Florida. “You wanted it and you didn’t get it because I was opposed to casino gambling before, during and after,” Bush charged. “I’m not going to be bought by anybody.” Trump responded: “I promise if I wanted it, I would have gotten it.”
Indeed, Trump is a poster child for how big money buys the laws it wants. “As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal. “As a businessman, I need that.”
The prevailing myth that America has a “free market” existing outside and apart from government prevents us from understanding that the very rules by which the market runs—from the federal bankruptcy code to state usury laws to local tax abatements—are made by lawmakers.
And the real issue is whose interests those lawmakers are pursuing. Are they working for the vast majority of Americans, who are getting nowhere economically and whose political voices are barely even heard these days? Or are they beholden to those at the top—CEOs of the biggest corporations and Wall Street banks, hedge-fund and private-equity moguls and billionaires—who now own more of the nation’s wealth than the robber barons of the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, and are using some of that wealth to further rig the rules to their benefit?
We don’t need Donald Trump to give us the answer.
8. Medicaid Expansion: Critical to Mental Health Care
If you want mental health services to prevent violence, Medicaid expansion is critical
by Harold Pollack, Wonkblog, washingtonpost.com, October 3, 2015
Oregon’s mass homicide sparked the usual debate about whether guns or mental health is the best focus in preventing atrocities. Given this stark frame, the centrality of gun policy is hard to deny. Compared with other wealthy democracies, America has surprisingly similar rates of car theft, aggravated assault, and other forms of nonlethal violence. Our gun homicide rate is about three times the average among our peers. Gun policy measures such as improved background checks included in the nearly-passed, bipartisan, post-Newtown Manchin-Toomey bill would certainly be helpful.
Many conservatives place greater emphasis on the mental health system. In some ways, this rhetoric is misplaced. The fraction of American violence attributable to severe mental illness is quite low, on the order of five percent. We must also avoid reinforcing cruel stereotypes regarding millions of Americans who live with major depression, bipolar disorders, or related conditions.
Still, it’s always wise to consider how our mental health systems could treat people more effectively, and more-reliably keep weapons away from dangerous individuals. I’ve discussed some options here at Wonkblog in the aftermath of the Isla Vista shootings. One useful initiative would be to expand the power of police and mental health professionals to temporarily confiscate guns from individuals whose behavior raises real concerns, but who do not meet the stringent criteria required to justify involuntary commitment or other coercive interventions.
Texas Senator John Cornyn has proposed legislation, the mental Health and Safe Communities Act, that would, among other things, expand states’ provision of mental health information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Responding to President Obama 13-minute statement on gun violence on Thursday, Senator Cornyn tweeted,
POTUS should support this bill to address mental health factor in mass violence incidents. http://t.co/
— JohnCornyn (@JohnCornyn) October 2, 2015
The potential impact of such data-sharing remains unclear. Only a small minority of dangerous individuals have documented histories of involuntary commitment or severe mental health crises. Cornyn’s bill also does not address private transactions in which no background check is performed.
Some aspects of Cornyn’s proposal are helpful and constructive. It wouldsupport new screening and treatment, and better crisis response strategies. Our background check system could certainly benefit from improved management and financial resources.
Cornyn’s proposal does not address the most glaring issue in American mental health policy: the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion was always the public health cornerstone of ACA. It remains the single most important measure to expand access to mental health and addiction treatment, serving severely vulnerable populations such as the homeless, addressing the complicated medical and psychiatric difficulties of many young men cycling through our jails and prisons.
Here in Chicago, Sheriff Tom Dart has played a leading role in efforts to serve thousands of people with psychiatric disorders who pass through the Cook County Jail. Three years ago, almost all of these detainees were uninsured. Now, because of Medicaid expansion, the great majority gain health coverage before they are discharged.
Because they are now insured, these men and women have greater access to medical, psychiatric, and addiction services. Hard work is now underway to field interventions that make the most of this new access. Ohio Governor John Kasich eloquently describes the importance of such efforts.
More subtly, Medicaid expansion provides financial stability to the whole network of safety-net medical, psychiatric, and addiction care. The Chicago Tribune reports that the Cook County Health System is experiencing its first surplus in decades. For the first time in memory, the majority of low-income patients are insured. This story extends far beyond Chicago, too. Hospital losses from uncompensated care have sharply declined across the Medicaid expansion states.
Safety-net providers and patients experience greater difficulty in non-expansion states. About four million low-income adults are uninsured because their state has declined to expand Medicaid, even though the federal government would pay more than 90 percent of the bill. Twenty-six percent of adults caught in this “Medicaid gap,” almost one million people, live in Texas, Senator Cornyn’s own state.
In 2013, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) released a report endorsing Medicaid expansion. The report argued that “States that decline to expand Medicaid will miss as good an opportunity as they may ever have to address this shameful void in access to mental health treatment.” Addressing the connection between mental illness and violence, NAMI concluded:
In the aftermath of Newtown, many politicians and policy makers have promised to take steps to fix America’s broken mental health system. Expanding Medicaid in all states would represent a significant step towards keeping those promises.
Senator Cornyn is an implacable opponent of Medicaid expansion. Indeed he rallied at the Texas state capitol to oppose it.
No one knows the precise prevalence of addiction and psychiatric disorders within the population of Texans deliberately left uninsured. Extrapolation from national data suggest that roughly 140,000 live with addiction disorders, and that roughly 54,000 live with severe mental illness. This population includes indigent criminal offenders and those seeking care at addiction treatment centers and stressed safety-net facilities that have lost billions of dollars because Texas has declined Medicaid. Leaving aside the human consequences for the uninsured, this is very poor violence prevention policy.
If any other politician suggests that mental health rather than gun policy is central to reducing mass homicides, ask where they stand on Medicaid expansion. Their answer will be clarifying.
9. The Unsatiable Right-Wingers
Boehner's Gone. Why Isn't the Right Happy?
by Jonathan Chait, nymag.com, October 5, 2015
On July 14, a conservative group began releasing a series of undercover videos showing officials from Planned Parenthood negotiating, in blunt and sometimes callous terms, the sale of fetal tissue for medical research. The videos set off a chain of events that culminated, strangely enough, in John Boehner’s resignation as Speaker of the House of Representatives. And so a journalistic sting operation intended to expose the alleged depravity of social liberalism instead wound up exposing the fragile psyche of the American right, which remains unable to handle the realities of holding partial power in a divided government without regularly freaking out.
The intermediary steps in that bizarre sequence involved a now-familiar procession of political rituals. The videos instantly catapulted Planned Parenthood to the top of conservative activists’ hierarchy of intolerable evil, thus triggering an ingrained response to shut down the federal government, as had been threatened over Obama’s immigration policies and carried out over Obamacare. Most Republicans, including Boehner, regarded this plan as horrendously misguided. Some recent NBC–Wall Street Journal poll numbers help explain their reluctance. Americans dislike the Republican Party quite a lot: Only 29 percent view it favorably, 45 percent unfavorably. They regard President Obama more favorably (46-40) and Planned Parenthood more favorably still (47-31). Another poll found that only a fifth of the public would rather shut down Washington than maintain funding for Planned Parenthood. The proposed strategy — an unpopular party using an unpopular tactic against a popular president in order to defund a popular organization — understandably struck Boehner as ill-advised.
Faced with the Speaker’s reluctance to join in their suicidal gesture du jour, his tormentors resorted to the only leverage at their disposal: threatening to depose him. (Boehner’s party controls 247 of 435 seats, meaning a defection of just 29 agitated Republicans could, in theory, take the gavel out of his hand.) The ritual of demands, threats, and nervous pacification proceeded much as it has many times before, until it climaxed with Boehner’s unexpected announcement that they could take this job and shove it.
This was something new. The activists in the House had not just flexed their muscles but achieved a win. Far from delivering them a cherished victory, however, Boehner’s announced resignation threw the rebels into disarray. This became clear in the ensuing days, during the succession struggle over the party leadership. The activists briefly rallied around Daniel Webster, a Floridian, as a potential Speaker, an effort that quickly collapsed. When Kevin McCarthy, the incumbent majority leader, solidified his position to succeed Boehner, some insurgents mustered a brief flurry of enthusiasm for Trey Gowdy of South Carolina to fill McCarthy’s job. Gowdy decided instead to stay in the comfort of his chairmanship of the Benghazi Committee. Tellingly, neither Webster’s or Gowdy’s supporters expressed any belief their leadership would fulfill the demand that precipitated Boehner’s resignation. (For those who have already lost the thread, that would be shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood.)
The disappearance of the issue that had triggered the entire meltdown provided an important clue to the unusual nature of the confrontation. The rift dividing Boehner and his antagonists was not ideological or even necessarily substantive, and the rebel demands were not merely extreme — they were implacable.
Anti-Boehner Republicans described themselves as “conservatives.” (Representative Walter Jones: “I don’t really know Kevin [McCarthy] that well, but I know that conservatives are not ready to have him.”) But Boehner is also a conservative — barely less so, if at all, than his opponents. He came to power in the House as an original lieutenant of Newt Gingrich, who helped Republicans discover that their party’s only chance of power lay in withholding cooperation and instead attacking the Democratic majority. Boehner vociferously opposed all of Obama’s major undertakings during the president’s first two years in office, and when he became Speaker, he advocated for their repeal and advanced proposals that would roll policy dramatically in the opposite direction. Major legislation ground to a halt, with the two parties at odds on health care, taxes, regulation, and the general role of government.
That is to say that, contrary to the recriminations of Boehner’s Republican critics and the nostalgia-tinged accolades heaped on him by moderates, Boehner did not preside over an era of compromise or bipartisanship. The overwhelming thrust of his tenure was one of obstruction. But obstructionism meant stalemate, and stalemate meant maintaining the status quo. Having deemed the status quo after two years of Obamaism a socialist monstrosity, the rebels demanded that the GOP bend the president to its will. Lacking the two-thirds majority required in both chambers to override a veto, however, it never had a chance to do this. None of which prevented bitter recriminations. The ultimate source of right-wing anger at Boehner was the Obama administration’s continued existence.
Fury over not having enough power to force your leader to wield more power than is constitutionally possible is not an emotional state conducive to stable coalition-building. Over the years, right-wing discontent has sundered the party into a number of ever-shifting sub-factions. The “Republican Study Committee” used to serve as headquarters for those most dedicated to annoying their party’s leaders. In 2010, the “Tea Party Caucus” formed, overshadowing the RSC before fading away. This past January, believing the ranks of the RSC had swollen with too many halfhearted members, a core of true believers split off to form the “Freedom Caucus.” Perhaps eventually the Freedom Caucus will give way to a Blood-Dimmed Tide Is Loosed Coalition.
Like the Weather Underground of the ’70s, the Freedom Caucus keeps the identity of most of its members secret. Around 40 Representatives are believed to belong, though only nine publicly disclose their membership. “It’s like Fight Club,” said Jim Bridenstine, one of the nine. David Frum, a moderate-conservative commentator, has mockingly summed up the beliefs of these fundamentalists as “If people don’t appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder,” but the Freedom Caucus’s most specific strategic contribution is literally that. “Many members want the leadership to be more vocal across the board,” Ted Poe of Texas explained to the Washington Post. “Things we bring up need to have more enthusiasm. Back home, they wouldn’t mind a little more fire and brimstone.”
In 2011, during a strangely pervasive swell of dissatisfaction among Barack Obama’s erstwhile supporters, I wrote that liberals have trouble handling authority. In general, we are much more comfortable fantasizing about power; the sensation of holding and using it seems to unsettle us, and we curl into ourselves with disappointment. Conservatives displayed far less grumpiness toward George W. Bush than liberals have toward Obama until the very end, when Bush’s presidency collapsed so irretrievably the right had to hastily abandon its largely worshipful pose and write him out of the conservative tradition in order to contain the fallout.
Conservatives in the Freedom Caucus suffer from a similar but different problem: They do not seem capable of comprehending a world in which they exert less than total power. This failure to compute leads to bursts of angry behavior that is ineffectual by design. No scalp will satisfy, not when any new head starts to look like another scalp. No Freedom Caucus member who finds himself in the party leadership can be anything but a sellout, since betrayal is the only explanation for the failure of the right-wing agenda.
Earlier this week, House Republicans met to plan their post-Boehner future and came away with nothing more than a generalized agreement as to the need to be “more aggressive” and “play offense.” Representative Carlos Curbelo told the Washington Post, “It was a therapy session.” Therapy, not a new Speaker, may be exactly what Republicans need.
FINALLY
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