Thursday, October 17, 2013

New Dawn

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President Obama speaking on the reopening of
the government, from State Dining Room | 
10/17/2013 | According to C-SPAN Video Library, 
"Video coverage of the debates originating from the 
chambers of the U.S. House of Representatives and
 the U.S. Senate is in the public domain and as such,
 may be used without restriction or attribution."
America's long night is finally at its end.  What began as an attempt to thwart a law designed to help the least among us, saw 818,000 federal employees furloughed from work for over two weeks.  Families lost half a months wages, and our economy was thrown in doubt.  Fortunately, our legislators acted at the eleventh hour to prevent the expiration of the debt ceiling and put Americans back to work.

Stop... Hush... Listen, and you'll hear a collective sigh of relief.  Unfortunately, just beneath this expulsion of mass anxiety echoes of bitter grumblings resonate through our streets.  Democrats blame the Tea Party,  Tea Partiers blame President Obama, conservative pundits blame the "liberal media elite," and the liberal media elite blames Speaker Boehner.

This morning, the president addressed these grumblings.

"We all know that we have divided government right now.  There's a lot of noise out there, and the pressure from the extremes affect how a lot of members of Congress see the day-to-day work that’s supposed to be done here. And let's face it, the American people don’t see every issue the same way.  But that doesn’t mean we can't make progress.  And when we disagree, we don’t have to suggest that the other side doesn’t love this country or believe in free enterprise, or all the other rhetoric that seems to get worse every single year.  If we disagree on something, we can move on and focus on the things we agree on, and get some stuff done." ~ President Obama from the State Dining Room, 10/17/2013


He's right.  Now's not the time for recriminations.  It is time to put the recent darkness behind us, to look past the murky night and embrace the dawn we've been given.  If the latest chapter of American history has taught us anything, it is that we are stronger as a united people than as a hodge-podge of bickering factions.  We are at our best when we celebrate one another for our difference, rather than attack each other because of them.  If we can remember this lesson, there is hope.

"We hear all the time about how government is the problem.  Well, it turns out we rely on it in a whole lot of ways.  Not only does it keep us strong through our military and our law enforcement, it plays a vital role in caring for our seniors and our veterans, educating our kids, making sure our workers are trained for the jobs that are being created, arming our businesses with the best science and technology so they can compete with companies from other countries.  It plays a key role in keeping our food and our toys and our workplaces safe.  It helps folks rebuild after a storm.  It conserves our natural resources.  It finances startups.  It helps to sell our products overseas.  It provides security to our diplomats abroad.

So let's work together to make government work better, instead of treating it like an enemy or purposely making it work worse.." ~ President Obama from the State Dining Room, 10/17/2013
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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Reaching The Ceiling

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Floor proceedings of the U.S. Senate | According to C-SPAN Video Library, "Video coverage of the debates originating from the chambers of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate is in the public domain and as such, may be used without restriction or attribution."
During this federal shutdown, there's been a lot of talk about the need to raise the "debt ceiling."  Many people, including members of congress, aren't sure what the term means, and don't understand why it needs to be raised.  Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to explore the history of the term and clarify what's being debated.

The United States first instituted a statutory debt limit with "The Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917." This legislation allows lawmakers to set limits on the  amount of debt that can be accumulated through individual categories of spending & debt. In 1939, this law was expanded to limit federal debt across the board, in order to close spending loopholes.  The "debt ceiling," which applies to the gross debt, including debt held by bond owners and creditors, became a mechanism to limit the amount of national debt that can be issued by the Treasury.

Prior to "The Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974," which mandated the passage of an annual all inclusive budget resolution, the debt ceiling acted as a necessary leash on federal spending.   However, now that Congress and the President need to pass budget resolutions in order to spend money, the debt ceiling has become redundant.  It essentially forces lawmakers to approve expendatures they've already ordered.

Basically, it's analogous to ordering a steak dinner, eating the meal, THEN deciding if you want to pay for it.  The moment the government passes a budget resolution, they've ordered the metaphorical meal.  Thus, deciding not to adopt the debt for it is akin to dining & dashing.

When the debt ceiling is actually reached, without an increase in the ceiling having been passed, Treasury may resort to "extraordinary measures" to temporarily finance the government's expenditures and obligations.  These measures may include suspending investments in the "G-fund" of the individual retirement funds of federal employees, and certain other federally held investments can be redeemed early.

If the debt ceiling is not raised by the time extraordinary measures are exhausted, the government will be unable to pay its financial obligations. This could theoretically cause Wall Street, and the rest of the fiscal community, to lose confidence in federally insured loans & government contracts.  If these two fiscal bedrocks become thrown into doubt, investment markets will most likely become volatile, and the global community will lose faith in U.S. backed ventures.

To prevent this calamity from occurring, Washington NEEDS to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling by the 17th.  That's it.  All they have to do to prevent fiscal chaos is to agree to pay for the steak they've already ordered.
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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The Great Myth

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Jay Nelson Tuck, Reporter at the New 
York Post | Photographer: TuckJay |
Date: (1950s) | Permission is granted to 
copy, distribute and/or modify this 
document/picture under the terms of the 
GNU Free Documentation License.
When thinking of the news, most of us picture images of the completely objective mild mannered reporter being fueled by coffee & cigarettes, well into the night, in order to polish their undistorted article, which tells "both sides" of the story, in time to make the morning edition.  If this image was ever an accurate depiction of reality, it is now a popular myth, to be filed alongside the likes of John Henry, Paul Bunyon, and Casey Jones.

Yet, I'm not convinced this archetype's inclusion to the realm of mythology is necessarily a negative thing.  By my way of thinking, many stories make it impossible to lend equal credibility to both sides without ignoring or perverting the facts.

In 1939, a completely unbiased headline would've read, "Germans And Poles Struggle To Settle Territorial Dispute."  When Amanda Berry, Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, and Michelle Knight were rescued after a decade of captivity, the impartial headline, "Ariel Castro's Dependents Leave Shared House After 10 Years," would have been grossly deceptive as well. 

Facts shape honestly written stories towards the truth.  No honest reporter would've ignored the brutality of Germany's invasion of Poland, nor would they refer to the Castro household as "a family," dysfunctional or otherwise.  Honest reporting requires presentation of the facts, and allowing the truth to prevail.

Within the media jungle, there DO exist certain outlets which purposely skew stories in order to promote their ideological stance.  While these outlets can be confused for fact driven purveyors  of truth, one can tell the difference simply by examining their record on the facts.  If a media outlet/reporter has a record of saying things such as, " Senator Barack Obama had attended a 'Muslim seminary' as a child in Indonesia," "The Obama administration shut down the Amber Alert program because of the government shutdown," or gave credence to the idea, "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing (fertilization) down," they're probably not a credible news source.

Propaganda machines aside though, my point is that there's no such thing as purely objective news.  This is OK though, as long as;
  • The news source in question honestly reports the facts,
  • The source's spin/conclusion is based on those facts,
  • And the news reader/viewer is aware of the source's leanings.
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Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Quiet Days and Lonely Desks

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Photographer: Desk Driver
This photo is in the public domain worldwide.
Once bustling halls and offices are quiet today.  The lonely stillness would send shutters up spines of dwellers, if any in fact could breach the pad locks securing the federally owned buildings.

818,000 public servants feel their bodies clinch as they wonder where their next rent check, or sack of groceries, will come from.  Meanwhile, stores, restaurants, theaters, and other businesses which depend upon public employees, as a chunk of their customer base, brace for a decrease in business, just as the holiday buying season begins.

Some government operations DO remain open on the second day of this political tug-of-war.

WHAT'S OPEN?:
U.S. Postal Service,
Social Security Benefits,
Medicare,
Active-duty military (will keep working/fighting, but will not get paid until the funds are available),
Air-traffic control,
Immigration And Border Security,
Emergency and disaster assistance,
Federal law enforcement,
IRS can still process electronic returns and payments only

WHAT'S CLOSED?:
Any federal agency that’s subject to appropriations,
All National Parks,
All federally-funded museums, including Smithsonian and the National Zoo,
All federal government websites,
Research by Health and Human Services stops as well as the grant process,
Applying for Social Security,
Roads dependent on federal maintenance,
Head Start,

Military Commissaries,
IRS walk-in centers (paper tax return will not be processed),
Loan applications for small businesses, college tuition, or mortgages,
All Library of Congress buildings, events, and websites,
All federal contractors will be out of work

While Social Security benefits WILL go out, I mistakenly said they wouldn't in my last blog, and the mail will get through, many of the services Americans depend on for fiscal planning & assistance, food safety, education, health, and other facets of life will be unavailable to those who've paid their taxes in good faith.

WIC (Women, Infants, & Children), which normally provides vouchers for healthy food to low income households with pregnant or postpartum women, infants, and children up to age 5, sits quiet now.  Purchase slips for iron-fortified infant formula, infant cereal, iron-fortified adult cereal, vitamin C-rich fruit & vegetable juices, eggs, milk, cheese, peanut butter, dried beans & peas, tuna fish, and carrots rest within abandoned drawers, feeding no one.
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