09.01.10
Posted in Around The State, Bad Government Republicans, Had Enough Yet?, The Budget, The Economy, Transportation, Unemployment at 7:00 am by wcnews
You know the old saying? Things may be bad, but they could always be worse. Well, that appears to be the Texas GOP’s campaign slogan this year. Here’s the line the GOP in Texas has been hiding behind [PDF] for a while now, “The Texas seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 8.2 percent in July, unchanged from June, and continued to trend well below the U.S. seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 9.5 percent.” (Emphasis added).
What Gov. Rick Perry appointee, and former Texas GOP chair Tom Pauken is trying to say, is that we should all feel grateful because things aren’t as bad as they are for others. The unemployment rate in Texas has moved little in the last 14 months, hovering between 7.9% and 8.3% since July of 2009. In a rational state, where incumbents are held accountable, that would mean bad news for the Republicans running for reelection in Texas, but I digress. Has anyone heard any ideas for lowering that number from the Governor, Lt. Gov., Speaker or Workforce Commissioner? Me either.
Another line Texas GOP has been been trumpeting is that our budget problems have not been as bad as other states. That is, if you exclude the $16 billion in federal money that was used to balance the budget in 2009. But Texas’ “lesser” budget problems are more about a system that was already punishing the weak, at the behest of the powerful, Texan Tall Tales.
What is true is that the Texas budget is in relatively good shape. That’s because recessions don’t do as much fiscal damage if you have a weak safety net, so expenses don’t rise much as people are plunged into poverty (because they don’t get any help), and a regressive tax system, so that revenues don’t fall much when incomes collapse.
What is clear is that in the upcoming legislative session we’re facing a budget freight train that’s about to go off the rails. The HChron had a piece last week that took the usual, left/right, D/R, perspective on the budget “debate” that has prevailed so far this election cycle, White, Perry not specific about budget - One talks tough on spending, the other of bipartisan compromise. Kuff details what’s likely to be cut, Them that has, gets, and it’s not the Texas Enterprise Fund. Here’s the short list:
Some of Texas’ most vulnerable residents – the very poor, the mentally ill, those suffering from birth defects, and children from troubled families – would lose state support and services under several new budget-cutting proposals.
That’s despicable, but it’s exactly what the Republicans do, and did the last time. We’ve known since the primary what Rick Perry’s plan is for the budget in 2011, it’s the 2003 plan on steroids. Which means more pain for the voiceless, the poor and middle class, in the way of less social services and much higher fees – shhh, don’t call them taxes. Also on the agenda will be their usual accounting tricks and privatization schemes.
Bill White, for his part, has only said that he would accept a local option tax bill. (A local option tax bill would allow local elections to raise taxes in that locality to pay for transportation projects). It’s also likely, in the event the likely GOP controlled legislature was to send a state budget with a tax increase to him, he would allow it to become law. With Perry that probably would not be likely. That doesn’t mean that taxpayers will get a break if Perry’s reelected, they’ll just be called fee increases, instead of tax increases. Both candidates will talk of scrubbing the budget, cutting waste, etc.. But the reality is, and everyone knows it, that if Texas wants to keep it’s current level of spending, including assistance to the weak and needy, then those with higher incomes in Texas will have to pay more taxes [PDF].
Since taking office in 2001 Gov. Perry has saddled Texans with $11.8 billion in transportation debt, where there was none when he took office. In Texas the Republicans are in charge and have been for the last 7 years. The education system, public and higher, is facing all sorts of trouble – quality down, cost up. Unemployment is roughly twice what it was when they took over. While our situation may not be as bad as other states, we must ask ourselves why are things so much worse since the GOP started running this state? It’s also likely going to get much worse, for those of us who aren’t on the high end of the wage scale, as long as they’re in charge.
These issues are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s no wonder Perry and his GOP cohorts are running scared from Democrats and the media.
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Posted in Around The State, Taxes, Transportation at 6:00 am by wcnews
Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Instead of raising the gas tax, and paying for roads the way we used to, Sen. Ogden wants to pass a constitutional amendment that will allow voters to vote on whether or on they want to raise the gas tax to pay off the debt for roads we’ve already built. Via Peggy Fikac at the San Antonio Express-News, Proposal gives voters a say on gas-tax increase.
The Bryan Republican (Sen. Ogden) isn’t proposing a straight-ahead state gas-tax increase. Instead, he plans to offer an amendment to the Texas Constitution to say lawmakers can raise the gas tax a few cents a gallon to pay off debt service for road bonds financed through the highway fund.
The proposed amendment, which Ogden plans to push in the coming regular legislative session, would require a two-thirds vote from lawmakers plus voter approval statewide.
“Going with a constitutional amendment does a couple of things. It provides some political cover for people who don’t want to be responsible for raising taxes, and it gives the voters a legitimate option: If you want us to continue to borrow money to improve the highways, this is how we propose to pay for it,” Ogden said. “And whatever their answer is, I’d accept.”
Ogden’s idea is another sign of the seriousness of the money problems facing transportation, with the gas-tax-fueled highway fund projected to run out of money for new projects in 2012.
The increase would apply only to Proposition 14 bonds, which are paid off by the highway fund. The Texas Department of Transportation has authority to issue $6 billion in such bonds; it has issued $4.6 billion.
According to TxDOT, the state is expected to pay $272.5 million from the $6.45 billion highway fund for debt service in the 2011 fiscal year and nearly $290 million in 2012. Between 2013 and 2032, debt service for the bonds will cost more than $400 million a year.
The 20-cent-a-gallon state motor-fuels tax hasn’t been raised since 1991; efforts to increase it have been seen as politically risky. Each penny yields about $155 million, with one-fourth going to education. Ogden would propose having the extra pennies fund only debt.
Ogden’s idea is not a sign of seriousness, Ogden’s idea is a sign of cowardice. Not only that but he wants to lay the blame off on voters instead of taking it on himself. Oh how we long for the day when we had real leaders in Texas. Leadership means sometimes you have to stand up and do what’s right and unpopular, consequences be damned. Trying to hide the GOP’s neglect of Texas highways since taking control of our state’s government, and attempting to lay the responsibility of paying for their neglect on the taxpayers, is anything but. Hopefully voters would reject such shenanigans. Sen. Ogden if raising taxes is what you want to do then offer a “straight up” tax increase.
If Ogden’s fairy tale amendment was to pass in the next legislative session, there wouldn’t even be a vote on this until November 2011. So the money wouldn’t be available until 2012 at the earliest. No word in the article about what would happen if it didn’t pass.
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08.30.10
Posted in Around The State at 8:59 am by dembones
The Texas Progressive Alliance sure hopes that Harris County has a disaster recovery plan for the loss of its voting machines as it brings you this week’s blog roundup.
Off the Kuff had three more interviews this week, with State Reps. Armando Walle, Ellen Cohen, and Kristi Thibaut.
Meet Jeff “The Trucker” Evans, an unemployed 49-year-old whose unemployment benefits were restored by Congressional Democrats after a Republican filibuster caused the payments to temporarily cease. Eye On Williamson explains how misdirected Tea Party anger causes Jeff the Trucker to vote against his economic best interest.
John Cornyn, known as a rapist enabler, decides to waffle on 14th amendment to the constitution. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is certain that Cornyn doesn’t care about civil rights – just his fat a**.
Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker summaries the latest scandals at TYC. The more things change over there, the more they remain the same, sadly…. Check it out : Texas Youth Commission Abuses Make the News Again.
Neil at Texas Liberal attended press conferences held by both Houston Votes and by a local so-called Tea Party group, as a possible pattern of harassment and intimidation against likely Democratic voters in Harris County may be at work. Also, Neil announced that he will now also be blogging at The Daily Hurricane as well as at Texas Liberal. Neil is also a featured politics reader-blogger at the Houston Chronicle.
WhosPlayin reports that the local school district sent a letter to the Attorney General’s office requesting exemption from release on the grounds that some personal expenses on district credit cards were too embarrassing to release.
The warehouse where election machines are stored erupted in flames last Friday morning, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had the early line on what it means for Houston and the surrounding area, which represent 15% of the statewide vote tally. Coupled with the histrionics of Leo Vasquez vis-a-vis Houston Votes, it’s going to be a real lively election season (and that’s before a single race gets mentioned).
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08.25.10
Posted in Commentary, Election 2010, Employment, Had Enough Yet?, Local Elections, Take Action, Williamson County at 9:54 pm by dembones
Williamson County Democratic Party chair Greg Windham holds a peculiar view of voters’ perception of the party he was elected to lead.
Windham said Moving Wilco Forward and Annie’s (List) play into anti-Democratic stereotypes, making Williamson County residents and other Texans “afraid of Democrats.”
“They [voters] think we are here to kiss their men, kill their babies and take their guns,” Windham said.
In an interview with Round Rock Leader editor Brad Stutzman, Windham echoed derisive stereotypes that Republicans frequently use to bash Democrats. During his brief tenure as the head of the local party, these sentiments have sparked conflict with a number of precinct chairs on the party’s executive committee.
Stutzman provides a balanced summary of the disagreement between Windham and the executive committee members who voted to spend about half their cash to fund a voter registration drive conducted by a coordinated campaign representing all local Democratic candidates. However, Windham’s comments quoted in the story reveal that he is fixated on opposing the treasurer of Moving Wilco Forward, the political action committee managing the coordinated campaign.
Robert Jones is a Democratic political consultant with a remarkable track record of success, serving as the political director for Annie’s List, a statewide “organization dedicated to electing progressive women to office.” Jones formed Moving Wilco Forward in December 2008 with the express purpose of electing all the Democratic candidates in Williamson county.
In voting to move $5,000 over to Moving Wilco Forward, the majority of executive committee members expressed greater confidence in the organization’s ability to execute the voter registration program than Windham.
Windham said he believes volunteers should use “elbow grease,” going door-to-door to register voters.
Hard work is part of the plan, and the coordinated campaign will do a significant amount of door-to-door canvassing; however, the coordinated campaign will also be using mail pieces and targeting new residents of Williamson county, many of whom may have neglected to move their voter registration. Take the average street in your average neighborhood, for example. Perhaps 1 in 20 homes on that street will have moved in the past year. “Elbow grease” is wasted knocking on the other 19 doors.
Windham may not have been aware of this, which may explain why he was in a very small minority voting against the proposal. After all, Windham has only run one political campaign, a failed bid for County Commissioner in 2008.
After the executive committee voted to write the check to Moving Wilco Forward, Windham fired off an antagonistic email to a large number of local Democrats.
It would be responsible for wasteful spenders to be eradicated in order to combat the stereotypes that prevent us from winning elections. We are living in an age of consequences and it would be refreshing for some people to wake up and realize it.
One is led to wonder how to “eradicate” members of the executive committee who disagree with him. The executive committee believes the best chance for success in November is with an organization that has the experience and tools to register more voters. They believe that a Moving Wilco Forward-led coordinated campaign will make a much better case than Windham that the Democratic Party better represents the interests of Williamson County’s working families.
The top concerns of voters this election, contrary to what Windham says, are Texas’ highest-in-the-nation electric and home insurance rates, the difficulty in finding a job or getting enough hours to make ends meet, the expense of sending a child to college, the fear of being one illness away from bankruptcy and the strain of toll roads and fuel prices on the family budget.
In ways that directly impact the lives of families in Williamson county, the Democratic Party represents positive change, greater transparency and accountability. All the better ideas for government are Democratic. The Republican party deals in fear, distrust, delay, stagnation and corruption. The Republican party is sorry that BP was asked to pay for the damage caused by their negligence. The Republican party wants to eliminate Social Security and terminate unemployment benefits. The Republican Party wants to give $3 million to each of the richest 120,000 taxpayers.
Local Democratic activists feel a sense of urgency to act now to take back government and use it to defend working families instead of giant corporations like ExxonMobil or BP. Every election that passes without voters hearing our message, more children fail, more homes are foreclosed, more workers become jobless, more jobless become homeless and summers keep getting hotter.
Greg Windham needs to heed his own advice: “We are living in an age of consequences and it would be refreshing for some people to wake up and realize it.” Wake up, Greg. Realize that you’re hurting the very cause you were elected to champion. Either that or step down and allow someone who actually believes that informed voters will side with the Democratic Party.
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08.24.10
Posted in Around The Nation, Bad Government Republicans, Election 2010, Had Enough Yet?, Recession, Right Wing Lies, The Economy at 11:08 am by dembones
In a fascinating article about the re-election campaign of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Slate reporter David Weigel touches on the tragic irony of the typical disaffected voter that is working to return the Republican party to the majority in the United States House of Representatives.
In 2008, (voters in the Orlando-area 8th Congressional District) voted for Grayson and the Obama-Biden ticket, narrowly, because of disgust with the Bush administration’s failures. It was tough to find a job then. It’s tougher now.
Republicans are blaming the weak economy on President Obama, Grayson and Congressional Democrats.
It’s a critique that appeals even to voters like Jeff Evans, 49, who was laid off from his trucking job in December 2009. He was receiving unemployment benefits until a Republican filibuster stopped them this summer, leaving him without a revenue stream for weeks. But even though Grayson and his fellow Democrats eventually restored his benefits, Evans isn’t sure he will support Grayson. It would do him more good, he said, and allow him to keep his dignity, if they “let the small businesses create more jobs.”
Meet Jeff the Trucker, a typical unemployed American who despite the direct negative impact that Republicans have wrought — namely a protracted filibuster in the United States Senate that interrupted the meager unemployment benefits that represented his only income — is supporting a Republican Congressional candidate. How can Americans be so easily misled into voting in direct opposition to their economic best interest?
The candidate Jeff the Trucker supports is a Republican with his name on the dictionary, Daniel Webster. In a complete break of reality — one that pretends that the half-billion egg recall, BP oil leak, Wall Street meltdown, sub-prime mortgage lending crisis and Massey’s West Virginia coal mine disaster never occurred — Republicans continue to insist that budget-busting tax breaks and less regulation on business will lead to more employment.
Grayson knows how popular that argument is. The solution: Argue that Republicans have no credibility to make it. He pivots off of one of Webster’s ideas,a proposal to cut the budget to what it was in 2007. Webster suggests that Floridians were perfectly well off when the government spent at that lower level. Grayson prefers to ask whether voters realize that a cut like that would mean lower Social Security payments.
“It’s a stupid idea,” says Grayson. “Nobody has a time machine, OK? The world has changed a little bit since 2007. For one thing, there’re a lot of more people out of work.” Soon he’s on a roll, explaining how $12 trillion of capital disappeared in the “Bush implosion” of 2008. That’s who voters need to blame, he says. Why aren’t they as angry as he is?
“In 18 months, two centuries of work, the collective effort of millions of people, all gone,” says Grayson of the financial crisis. “So now the Republicans want to go back to 2007? It’s a little bit late for that.”
Joe the Trucker needs to wake up to his exploitation by Webster and the Republican Party, that has used the “Tea Party” moniker to replace their discredited brand, misled and exploited its followers who are feeling real pain, some of it caused directly by Republicans themselves. What we are witnessing is the counterattack of the nation’s wealthiest citizens to prevent even the slightest correction to the disastrous course that President George W. Bush and Congressional Republicans have led this nation.
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Posted in Around The Nation, Bad Government Republicans, The Budget, The Economy at 10:23 am by dembones
Paul Krugman followed up yesterday’s blockbuster New York Times op-ed with a blog post today defending the fact that over the next decade, the GOP proposal to extend all Bush tax cuts, not just those going to the middle class as President Obama suggests, will line the pockets of the richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers with $3M each.
What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years.
Krugman points out that the TPC estimates that most of the money will end up in the pockets of the rich.
Take a group of 1,000 randomly selected Americans, and pick the one with the highest income; he’s going to get the majority of that group’s tax break. And the average tax break for those lucky few — the poorest members of the group have annual incomes of more than $2 million, and the average member makes more than $7 million a year — would be $3 million over the course of the next decade.
Your choice in November is between a party that will responsibly navigate the country out of the financial wilderness created by decades of voodoo economics, and one that wants to open the doors of the United States Treasury to be looted by the wealthiest members of our society. Vote Democratic to continue down the path to recovery, or return to the policies of the Republican Party that led us into this mess.
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07.13.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:42 pm by dembones
Eye On Williamson is currently on hiatus.
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06.28.10
Posted in Around The State at 10:41 am by dembones
At roughly 1:45 p.m. Saturday, after voting 25-8 to keep the two-step process for allocating national delegates’ presidential preferences, the convention permanent rules committee voted to sever that portion of their report and send it immediately to the convention floor. With delegates leaving Corpus Christi to return to their homes around the state, attendance steadily declines throughout the convention’s second session. Severing the report allowed the convention to take up this important issue with the largest number of delegates in attendance.
When the issue came to the floor, members of the committee wanted to come to the hall to have an opportunity to speak and vote their positions. According to sources on the permanent rules committee, the committee recessed in order to give its members that chance. However, many of the members of the committee never returned, and the committee was unable to reach a quorum to continue its business.
More than 40 proposed rules changes on their agenda did not deal with the “Texas Two-Step”. A number of those were recommended by the temporary rule committee to be referred to the resolutions or legislative committees. The permanent rules committee acted on these with a single vote to agree with the recommendations. That left about a dozen proposed rules changes waiting for action.
Because those rules changes were not acted upon, they fall to the SDEC’s rules committee. The main question is whether the members of the permanent rules committee who did not return to the meeting in room 225D were confused into thinking the meeting had been adjourned instead of recessed. According to sources, SDEC member John Behrman made a motion to adjourn, which (if true) would have been out of order because Behrman was not a member of the permanent rules committee.
Alternatively, enough members of the permanent rules committee could have decided that because the main issue before the committee had been decided, they were not inclined to invest any more time on the committee’s agenda.
For whatever reason, there was no further report from the permanent rules committee to the convention. The delegates to the state convention were not allowed an opportunity to hear the proposals nor their recommendations. About a dozen such proposals passed multiple county and senatorial district conventions and deserved a hearing by the permanent rules committee.
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06.25.10
Posted in Elections, Good Stuff, Presidential Election at 7:27 pm by dembones
As a member of the temporary rules committee, I was present at the meeting R. G Ratliff describes in today’s Houston Chronicle.
The hybrid system of awarding some presidential convention delegates through a primary vote and others through a series of caucuses held on primary night became contentious in the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton won the primary vote, but Obama outmaneuvered her in the caucuses and walked away with the most pledged Texas delegates to the national nominating convention: 99-94. The state fight over those delegates continued from the March primary until a week before the 2008 state convention when Clinton conceded the nomination to Obama.
In some ways, the fight reignited Thursday morning during a pre-convention meeting in Corpus Christi in a sometimes-heated discussion over whether to keep the system or start allocating presidential delegates based only on primary results.
The temporary rules committee voted unanimously to recommend the adoption of the West Commission report, which keeps the allocations of national delegates’ presidential preferences based up on the combined results of the primary and caucuses. In the interests of full disclosure, this reporter served on the Temporary Rules Committee and authored a supplement to our report on the issue.
Now the work passes to the permanent Rules committee in the morning, where I believe the committee will vote to allow the full convention an opportunity to vote on a simple question: “Should Presidential Delegates’ presidential preference be determined exclusively by Primary election results?” If the full convention agrees with me and the rest of the Temporary Rules Committee, then the answer to this question will be no.
The concerns of those who would prefer we changed to a conventional primary are currently being addressed by the Texas Democratic Party. With improved and secured record-keeping, participant credentialing, improved training and certification, the scenes of chaos that made the national news in 2008 won’t be repeated. We can retain the precinct conventions as a party-building exercise in the long Presidential nomination process, honoring the tradition of the Texas Democratic party, and keep our unique process. It is going to take work.
My hope is that the convention will commit to completing this task and saving this critical organizing tool for future presidential elections.
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Posted in Commentary, Elections, Energy at 6:00 am by PECmember
The Pedernales Electric Cooperative held its annual meeting on Saturday, June 19, 2010 in Johnson City. The annual meeting culminated in the announcement of Board of Director elections. The two newly elected Directors will replace Directors R.B. Felps and O.C. Harmon, the last two holdovers from the regime of former General Manager Bennie Fuelberg. Fuelberg is currently under indictment for misapplication of fiduciary property in excess of $200,000, theft of property in excess of $200,000, and money laundering between $100,000 and $200,000. The PEC Board is now comprised of entirely democratically elected Directors. Members also voted to approve a Member Bill of Rights which guarantees their right to open meetings and open records.
New District 4 Director member of Special Interest Group
Chris Perry, 57, a resident of Dripping Springs, won the District 4 election. He was one of two candidates endorsed by special interest groups “PEC4U” and the Texas Clean Water Action. (You can read the Clean Water endorsement at http://www.cleanwateraction.org/feature/finish-reforming-pedernales-electric-co-op) In their press release, Clean Water Action takes credit for playing a role in the reforms at PEC and claims to have “endorsed and assisted” the PEC Board, which oversees electrical distribution and service to its members, but not their water supply. Perry, was on the 2009 PEC4U steering committee which helped to elect Directors Larry Landaker and Cristi Clement. Perry will now be the fifth elected director out of seven to be endorsed by one special interest group.
Both PEC4U and Texas Clean Water have angered members for stacking the PEC Board with their candidates thanks to the at-large voting system. Members have voiced their desire for single member district voting, which allows residents of a district to only vote for their representative, to an at-large elected Board which increasingly becomes deaf to member and employee concerns. All four PEC4U/Texas Clean Water endorsed Directors have voted against single member district voting despite prior claims to support it. District 2 Director Patrick Cox, Associate Director at the Center for American History at the University of Texas and Chair of the Governance and Bylaws Committee, had promised the PEC Board and membership that single member district voting would be carried out in 2009. Instead he successfully buried the proposal in committee for “further study” and then left it out of proposed bylaws revisions, causing that critical document to fail to garner the full support of the Board.
Independent Candidate Elected for District 5
Ross Fischer, 36, a resident of Kendalia, won the District 5 election. He was an independent candidate who beat out the PEC4U/Clean Water candidate Steve Carriker. Carriker is a former Texas State Legislator (D, Roby) voted the #1 Worst Legislator by colleagues in 1993 (list available at: http://www.texasmonthly.com/magazine/bestworst#1993). In his acceptance speech Fischer stated he is “independent with no ties to any special faction.” An attorney, Fischer was appointed by Governor Rick Perry to the Texas Ethics Commission. His Bio states that he is “a lawyer in private practice, specializing in local government law, including open records, open meetings, and ethical standards for public officials.”
Interim General Manager Appointed
Luis Garcia, currently the cooperative’s General Counsel, was appointed by the Board to be the Interim General Manager. Departing GM Juan Garza was terminated at the Board’s regular June 14, 2010 board meeting. A sizeable number of employees attended the annual meeting to protest the termination of Garza’s contract. Board President Larry Landaker, in his speech to the attendees, cited the need for new leadership in order to keep the cooperative healthy and progressive. “All of you may have read about the recent woes of Austin Energy,” said Landaker. “They are deep in the red—in the millions. Their General Manager recently said, ‘We need a new business model or we go bankrupt.’ Because they overspent and deferred critical decisions for years, they will have to raise consumer rates 6.5% in 2012, with more to come.” Garza was, until 2008, the General Manager of the now struggling Austin Energy.
A video of the PEC Annual Meeting can be viewed at: http://pec.iqm2.com/Citizens/VIdeomain.aspx?MeetingID=1008
The complete 2010 PEC Election Results can be viewed at: http://www.pec.coop/CorpProfile/Election2010.aspx
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