Last Call

Between immigration and Obamacare, Florida is shaping up to be a different kind of "battleground" state:  the kind where Republican-on-Republican attacks are tearing the state's GOP supermajority apart.

Florida Governor Rick Scott's plan to expand Medicaid coverage to cover about 1 million more poor people suffered a setback on Monday when the proposal failed to make it out of a key state legislative committee hearing.

On the eve of convening of the 2013 session, the House Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act rejected the expansion. A Senate counterpart committee postponed consideration of the issue, which is sure to be one of the biggest controversies of the session.

Scott, a Republican who bitterly fought President Barack Obama's national healthcare plan as a candidate and in his first two years as governor, stunned conservative supporters on Feb. 20 when he endorsed a three-year expansion of Medicaid, provided the federal government picks up the full cost for the first three years as promised.

"There's definitely a fight between the governor and the (state) legislature over this. The Republicans in the legislature are much more fiscally conservative than his actions have shown him to be," said Susan MacManus, a Tampa-based political scientist at the University of South Florida.

Republican legislative leaders have been openly hostile toward the plan, emphasizing that state lawmakers will make the final decision in drawing up a budget for next fiscal year.

"Openly hostile" doesn't begin to describe it.  Florida GOP lawmakers believe Scott has betrayed them, and they'll expand Medicare over their dead bodies.

Or more correctly, the dead bodies of Florida's poor, who will continue to die from lack of affordable health insurance.  This is a major feature of Republican rule at the state level.  The GOP is A-OK with millions of uninsured Americans.  They don't have a problem with that.

I'm betting the rest of Florida does, however.

Thirteen Words, Possible Fewer IQ Points

In his quixotic quest to somehow assure that President Obama goes down in history as Worse Than Bush And Worst Ever, John Hinderaker over at Power Line decides that Obama's SOTU comments on climate change are even more of a lie than Bush's SOTU comments a decade ago on Saddam Hussein's WMD.

Yep, apparently climate change is worse than the Iraq War.

Remember George W. Bush’s famous “16 words”? They came from Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech, where Bush said: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” That was a true statement, but it caused immense controversy, for reasons that are now hard to remember.

Sure, hard to remember.  Like the faces of the thousands of US troops and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis that resulted from us going over there to stop those non-existent piles of phantom WMDs that never existed.  Oh well, why would that ever be considered controversial?

Fast forward to 2013, and President Obama’s State of the Union, where he said, talking about global warming: “Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense.” 

It's false, Hinderaker says, because the DUST BOWL, LIBTARDS and NYC had hurricanes in the 19th century!

No, that's his entire argument.  Convinced he's won, he plows on through the stars...

What are the chances that Obama’s false 13 words will become as controversial as Bush’s true 16 words? Slim and none, obviously. Of course, there were so many other untrue statements in Obama’s SOTU that it is understandable that the 13 words on global warming got lost in the shuffle.

What are the chances that this guy has a working soul?  Zero.

Romney With Glasses

And approximately 12 hours after flipping on immigration reform and saying there's no path to citizenship for undocumented citizens, Jeb Bush has flopped back saying there needs to be a path to citizenship for undocumented citizens.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday that he would support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants “if you can craft that in law where you can have a path to citizenship where there isn’t an incentive for people to come illegally” — a position that puts him at odds with his new book, out today from Simon & Schuster.

In Immigration Wars, co-authored with immigration lawyer Clint Bolick, Bush agues that denying a path to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrations is “absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences.” Those who enter the country illegally, Bush contends, should “start the process to earn permanent legal residency” after pleading guilty to breaking the law and paying “applicable fines or perform community service.” But they should not have access to “the cherished fruits of citizenship”.

Not only does it contradict his book, it contradicts what he said yesterday.

“There has to be some difference between people who come here legally and illegally. It’s just a matter of common sense and a matter of the rule of law,” he said. “If we’re not going to apply the law fairly and consistently, then we’re going to have another wave of illegal immigrants coming into the country.”

But today, a path to citizenship is okay.  Yesterday, it wasn't.  Six weeks ago in an op-ed for the WSJ, it was okay.

The only alternatives to increased immigration are mounting debts or reduced social services. A practicable system of work-based immigration for both high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants—a system that will include a path to citizenship—will help us meet workforce needs, prevent exportation of jobs to foreign countries and protect against the exploitation of workers. 

At this point Jeb's 2016 run is over about 3 years before it begins.  This clown is all over the map...just like his brother.  Please tell me we're not stupid enough to elect another Bush...and please tell me the GOP will nominate his dumb ass anyway.

StupidiNews!

• Twelve former Florida A&M band students now face manslaughter charges in the November 2011 hazing death of band major Robert Champion.
• Arkansas Democrat Gov. Mike Beebe has vetoed the most restrictive abortion bill in the country, one that that would restrict all abortions after 12 weeks, but his veto may be overturned by the legislature.
• Ahead of pulling out of Afghanistan, the US military is consolidating bases and operations toward its largest outposts.
• European Union officials are loosening budget requirements after Italian and French backlashes against the Eurozone's austerity regime.
• A new game simulation helps people understand what it's like to suffer from ADHD and sensory overload.

Last Call

And suddenly GOP Sen. Marco Rubio is all alone on immigration as fellow Floridian Jeb Bush drives the blade right into Rubio's back.

Former Florida governor – and potential GOP presidential candidate – Jeb Bush said this week that a pathway to citizenship should not be a component of an overhaul of the nation's immigration system.

Bush, a Spanish-speaker who's wife is Mexican-born, has long-been viewed as one of the more liberal-minded GOP leaders when in comes to immigration policy, warning Republicans for years that they oppose significant reform at their own political peril.

But in a Monday interview with NBC's “Today," Bush advocated for a system in which the millions of immigrants living in the country illegally be given the option of attaining permanent residency, but not eventual citizenship.

“There has to be some difference between people who come here legally and illegally. It’s just a matter of common sense and a matter of the rule of law,” he said. “If we’re not going to apply the law fairly and consistently, then we’re going to have another wave of illegal immigrants coming into the country.”

That position puts him to the right of another Floridian and potential 2016 presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R), who is part of the bipartisan group of eight senators pushing for an immigration overhaul that includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. 

That's a complete reversal on Jeb's previous position, and he solidifies that in his new book on immigration out this week:

In a new book, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) makes a notable reversal on immigration reform, arguing that creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants would only encourage future unauthorized immigration.

"It is absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences -- in this case, that those who violated the law can remain but cannot obtain the cherished fruits of citizenship," Bush and lawyer Clint Bolick argue in a new book, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution. "To do otherwise would signal once again that people who circumvent the system can still obtain the full benefits of American citizenship."

If I'm Team Rubio, I'm flipping tables and lighting them on fire.  Jeb Bush just backstabbed Rubio for what may be fatal damage.  How does Rubio survive any sort of primary for 2016 when he's now to the left of arguably the most moderate GOP candidate around?

Answer is, he doesn't.  But this massive flip-flop also burns Bush.

The revelations angered top advisors to Mitt Romney, who felt that Bush went out of his way to make statements during the campaign that undermined the former Republican presidential candidate's campaign by seeming to urge a softer approach to immigration.

"Where the hell was this Jeb Bush during the campaign?" said one advisor."He spent all this time criticizing Romney and it turns out he has basically the same position. So he wants people to go back to their country and apply for citizenship? Well, that's self deportation. We got creamed for talking about that. And now Jeb is saying the same thing."

So not only does Marco Rubio know know he's been had, but now the party will have to deal with Jeb Bush basically killing immigration reform.

Good luck with that in 2014, much less 2016, boys.

Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2013/03/jeb-bush-immigration-reversal-no-citizenship-pathway-for-the-undocumented-pulling-a-romney.html#storylink=cpy

Wage Slaving 101

Former Obama economic adviser and current UC-Berkeley econ professor Christina Romer all but pours cold water on the notion of even having a minimum wage, let alone raising it to $9 an hour as the President suggested in his SOTU speech last month.

First, what’s the argument for having a minimum wage at all? Many of my students assume that government protection is the only thing ensuring decent wages for most American workers. But basic economics shows that competition between employers for workers can be very effective at preventing businesses from misbehaving. If every other store in town is paying workers $9 an hour, one offering $8 will find it hard to hire anyone — perhaps not when unemployment is high, but certainly in normal times. Robust competition is a powerful force helping to ensure that workers are paid what they contribute to their employers’ bottom lines. 

One argument for a minimum wage is that there sometimes isn’t enough competition among employers. In our nation’s history, there have been company towns where one employer truly dominated the local economy. As a result, that employer could affect the going wage for the entire area. In such a situation, a minimum wage can not only make workers better off but can also lead to more efficient levels of production and employment. 

But I suspect that few people, including economists, find this argument compelling today. Company towns are largely a thing of the past in this country; even Wal-Mart Stores, the nation’s largest employer, faces substantial competition for workers in most places. And many employers paying the minimum wage are small businesses that clearly face strong competition for workers. 

Now, I'm not a economics professor, but the problem isn't production, efficiency, or competition.
It's cost of living.  It's the fact that minimum wage doesn't begin to cover a place to live anywhere in America.




And Romer's solution is increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit.

It’s precisely because the redistributive effects of a minimum wage are complicated that most economists prefer other ways to help low-income families. For example, the current tax system already subsidizes work by the poor via an earned-income tax credit. A low-income family with earned income gets a payment from the government that supplements its wages. This approach is very well targeted — the subsidy goes only to poor families — and could easily be made more generous. 

By raising the reward for working, this tax credit also tends to increase the supply of labor. And that puts downward pressure on wages. As a result, some of the benefits go to businesses, as would be the case with any wage subsidy. Though this mutes some of the direct redistributive value of the program — particularly if there’s no constraining minimum wage — it also tends to increase employment. And a job may ultimately be the most valuable thing for a family struggling to escape poverty. 

Not if the job doesn't cover the cost of rent in the first place.  Even here in Kentucky, one of the cheapest states to live in,  you'd need to be pulling down $11+ an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

Ohio's $7.85 a hour minimum wage still means you'd need $13+ an hour, same with Indiana's federal minimum.  The $9 an hour the President is talking about is a solid first step, but more tax credits for the poor isn't going to fix the problem.

Talking about minimum wages without talking about cost of living problems is a ridiculous waste of time and space, and frankly I'm more than a little peeved at Professor Romer for forgetting that:  nowhere in the piece does she mention a living wage.

Just annoying as all hell.