Is Obamacare turning the corner?

The Washington Post

By Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas, November 26, 2013

Welcome to Wonkbook, Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas's morning policy news primer. To subscribe by e-mail, click here. Send comments, criticism, or ideas to Wonkbook at Gmail dot com. To read more by Ezra and his team, go to Wonkblog.

A spin through HealthCare.Gov this morning went smoothly. The site loaded quickly. The process progressed easily. There were no error messages or endless hangs. I didn't complete the final step of purchasing insurance but, until then, the site worked -- or at least appeared to work -- exactly as intended.

My experience isn't rare. There are increasing reports that HealthCare.Gov is working better -- perhaps much better -- for consumers than it was a few short weeks ago. "Consumer advocates say it is becoming easier for people to sign up for coverage," report Sandhya Somashekhar and Amy Goldstein in the Washington Post. "The truth is, the system is getting stronger as it recovers from its disastrous launch," writes Sam Baker in the National Journal. Applying "was no problem at all, with no delays," says Paul Krugman.

Reports from inside the health care bureaucracy are also turning towards optimism. People who knew the Web site was going to be a mess on Oct. 1st are, for the first time, beginning to think HealthCare.Gov might work. Data backs them up: By mid-November, the pace of enrollment in the federal exchanges had doubled from what it was in October.

The Obama administration is certainly acting like they believe the site has turned the corner. Somashekhar and Goldstein report that they're "moving on to the outreach phase, which had taken a back seat as they grappled with the faulty Web site. Next week, the White House will host an insurance-oriented 'youth summit' aimed at people ages 18 to 35, an age group whose participation in the health-care law will be critical to its success."

The White House had held off on this kind of outreach because they believed it would simply drive people to a useless Web site. If they're restarting the outreach, it's because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that HealthCare.Gov will be able to convert the interest into enrollments.

The worry, at this point, is that the site is working in ways that are visible but broken in ways that are harder to see. The Obama administration won't answer direct questions on the percentage of "834s" -- the forms insurers need to sign people up for the correct policies at the correct prices -- that are coming through with errors. Robert Laszewski, a health-industry consultant with deep contacts among the insurers, told the National Journal the problem is getting better, but that his clients are still seeing a five percent error rate. That's still too high.

The systems that determine whether applicants are eligible for insurance are also improving. But inside the administration there's a recognition that it was error-ridden in the first six weeks of Obamacare -- and so the question is how to handle the many people who unknowingly received an eligibility determination that can't be trusted.

Still, it's clear that HealthCare.Gov is improving -- and, at this point, it's improving reasonably quickly. It won't work perfectly by the end of November but it might well work tolerably early in December. A political system that's become overwhelmingly oriented towards pessimism on Obamacare will have to adjust as the system's technological infrastructure improves.

The next challenge for the law, as the White House knows, will be the outreach challenge of signing up enough young-and-healthy people to balance out its risk pools. That's a challenge the White House spent quite a lot of time thinking about before this IT nightmare. The question is whether they still have enough time, and enough clout, to get it right.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/26/wonkbook-is-obamacare-turning-the-corner/?print=1

Senate filibuster, Boehner and pics

Here are some reflections on two significant events in Washington last week concerning Senate productivity and Obamacare.

The Senate voted to return some degree of democracy to that chamber.   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid allowed a simple majority of the Senate to approve allowing Presidential nominations (other than for the Supreme Court) to be approved by a simple majority of Senators.  The response to this feared “nuclear option” was, well, just more of the same passive filibustering by the minority opposition refusing to allow the Defense authorization bill to advance.   Requiring a “talking filibuster” to hold up any legislation in the Senate should be the next rule change.

Last week also saw a major step forward for Obamacare.  House Speaker John Boehner enrolled in a health insurance plan through an online healthcare marketplace.  The world didn’t end.  No one lost their job.  And the government did not get between Speaker Boehner and his doctor.  Take notice Obamacare-haters.  Your leader willingly and successfully enrolled in Obamacare. 

Below are some pics from my meeting last week with Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy Daniel Poneman in Charleston.  The bottom pic includes Sandy Bridges, owner of Palmetto Hammock (49 S Market St, Charleston) and big supporter of our sea level rise education project (SCBARS.org) for small businesses.

 

 

This chart is amazing news for our health cost problem

The Washington Post
By Sarah Kliff, Published: November 20 at 3:55 pm

This just might be my favorite chart about health care costs as of late. And it's one that contains billions of dollars' worth of good news!

The chart, from the Council of Economic Advisers, shows the Congressional Budget Office constantly revising downward how much it thinks the federal government will need to spend on health care costs over the next decade. That's because health care costs have been growing a lot more slowly over the past few years than they typically do. You can see that below, with a breakdown of health care cost growth by source of coverage.

In private insurance, the average spending growth rate per person has slowed a lot over the last few years. In Medicare, there was no spending growth between 2010 and 2013 and, in Medicaid, per person costs actually decreased some.

All told, health care costs have been growing more slowly over the last three years than any other time period since 1965. More recently, yearly health cost growth slowed from an average rate of 3.9 percent between 2000 and 2007 to 1.3 percent between 2011 and 2013.

The big health policy parlor game for the past few years has been to ask: How much of this change is cyclical, owing to the recession, or structural, partially due to the health law's payment reforms?

The White House has long argued that the changes are structural, and it made that case again Wednesday in a briefing with reporters.

"The slowdown is indisputable," Council of Economics Advisers chairman Jason Furman said. "A very important part of that is structure, and a very important part of the structural story is the Affordable Care Act."

Most health care economists now agree, at least to some extent, with this more structural view.  Even those who argue that the current slowdown is unlikely to last, such as Harvard's Amitabh Chandra and Dartmouth's Jonathan Skinner, still expect slower health care cost growth in the next decade compared with the previous one.

And in some cases, that translates into better health care, too. This chart from the council's report shows a significant drop in preventable readmissions to hospitals (when  treatment goes wrong the first time and the patient must return to the hospital). That happened right around the time Medicare began penalizing such return trips to the hospitals.

Cost savings aside, that's great news for patients, suggesting that the quality of care hospitals are delivering is improving at the same time that spending on that care is slowing down.

Original Article

Give me your message for the U.S. Dept. of Energy? I’ll deliver it tomorrow.

If there is anything you would like to say to the U.S. Department of Energy, tell me today and I’ll deliver it tomorrow.

U.S. Department of Energy Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman will be in Charleston tomorrow.  He will be at the dedication of Clemson University’s Energy Innovation Center, an 82,000 sq.ft. wind turbine drivetrain testing facility. 

Following the dedication I will be meeting him at a business roundtable of local business owners to discuss climate and energy issues.  Mr. Poneman, Sandy Bridges (owner of Palmetto Hammock) and I will hold a brief press opportunity following the roundtable.

So email me with your message for the Department of Energy.  sbchamber@scsbc.org 

Just be patient

With all the negative news surrounding the Health Insurance Marketplaces, it sure is nice to hear success stories.

WBTV in Charlotte ran this story last Friday.  This couple is going to save 3 to 4 thousand dollars a year and get better benefits through their successful use of Healthcare.gov.  And the money they’re saving has nothing to do with a government subsidy because they don’t qualify. 

Then this weekend the Governors of Washington, Kentucky and Connecticut, all states that are running their own health insurance marketplaces, authored an opinion editorial in The Washington Post that included this statement:

“The Affordable Care Act has been successful in our states because our political and community leaders grasped the importance of expanding health-care coverage and have avoided the temptation to use health-care reform as a political football.”

As more of these positive stories come to light, the supporters of Obamacare will hopefully stop being so defensive.  This is going to work.  Just be patient.

Debunking the "job-killing regulations" myth

Job-killing regulations. 

How many times have we heard this rhetoric from big businesses opposing new regulations while pretending that they are concerned about small businesses?  Yet polls of small business owners find that most understand the need for regulations. 

I outlined the results of one of these recent polls in an opinion editorial in The Hill.  The poll was conducted by Lake Research for three national business organizations, one of which is the American Sustainable Business Council (I serve as the Co-Chair of the Action Fund for the ASBC).  A summary of this poll is below.

But first, let’s look at how accurate the predictions have been of jobs to be lost from the passage of past “job-killing regulations”.

A new report released today by Public Citizen reviews 8 major regulations that have been implemented since the 1970’s.  Industry representatives directly impacted by these regulations predicted that if these regulations were put into effect, up to 55 million American jobs would be lost

These predictions included 1.5 million jobs to be lost due to requiring cars to get better fuel economy.  Up to 2 million jobs were predicted to be lost because of amendments to the Clean Air Act.  Forty-Three million jobs were supposed to be lost due to banning the use of lead in gasoline.  Public Citizen reviews these predictions and contrasts them with what really happened after each new regulation went into effect.   It’s a fun read.

Did we actually lose up to 55 million jobs due to these 8 regulations?  Of course not.  It is a frightening prediction.  But the 55 million predicted lost jobs is actually nearly 5 times greater than the current number of unemployed in this country, 11.3 million. 

Are there too many people unemployed in this country?  Of course.  Are these 11.3 million unemployed due to the 8 regulations (or any regulations) reviewed by Public Citizen? Absolutely not.

Yet the “job-killing regulations” fear mongering goes on today even though history has shown us that we should take these scare tactics with a mountain of salt.

Here is an excerpt from my opinion editorial on the small business owners poll on regulations that I mentioned above:

Contrary to anti-regulations rhetoric, 78 percent of small business owners see government standards as an important tool to level the playing field with big business and 86 percent view regulations as a necessary component of a modern economy: 93 percent agreed that their business could live with fair regulations and 78 percent agree that some standards are important to protect small businesses from unfair competition. Moreover, 76 percent said that regulations on the books should be enforced.

Small business owners express strong support for specific rules and standards:

•    84 percent support food safety standards
•    80 percent support product safety standards
•    80 percent support disclosure and regulation of toxic materials
•    79 percent support ensuring clean air and water
•    78 percent support rules to prevent health insurance companies from increasing rates excessively
•    67 percent support rules to curtail financial speculation by Wall Street and banks.
•    61 percent support moving the country towards energy efficiency and clean energy.

Report: Warmer temperatures, hurricanes, floods in store for South

“Rising sea levels. The ocean is expected to rise 1 to 5 feet by the end of the 21st century, making seaside property more vulnerable to storm surges and flooding. The exact rate of sea level rise will depend, in part, on how fast the polar ice sheets melt.”

The State
November 13, 2013

By SAMMY FRETWELL

2013-11-13T04:57:57Z COLUMBIA, S.C. — Poisoned seafood, scorched forests, flooded homes and crumbling bridges are just some of the problems the Southeast can expect as the earth's climate changes and temperatures heat up in future decades, according to a study released Tuesday.

The 341-page report, based on the expertise of more than 100 scientists and researchers, is considered the most comprehensive study to date of how global warming is affecting the South - and what Southerners can expect.

The findings are worth paying attention to, especially in the South's high-growth states, researchers said.

"There are going to be more people here to experience the impacts the climate models are projecting," said Kirstin Dow, a University South Carolina geography professor and one of the report's primary authors.

By mid-century, heat waves are projected to be more frequent across the Southeast, Dow said, with the number of consecutive days exceeding 95 degrees rising by anywhere from 97 percent to more than 200 percent.

Overall, average annual temperatures in the region could rise by up to 9 degrees this century, with summer temperatures increasing by more than 10 degrees, the study said.

Research shows that average temperatures already have risen 2 degrees in the region during the past 40 years, with temperatures the warmest on record between 2000 and 2010.

Global warming is a topic of intense political debate because controlling it could lead to more regulation of industries, but scientific data and research show that the phenomenon is virtually indisputable.

Since the rise of industrialization more than a century ago, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from man-made activities have built up in the atmosphere and trapped heat, which has increased worldwide temperatures. That, in turn, is contributing to an array of problems, from rising seas to drier weather.

Scientists involved in the southeastern climate report said rising earth temperatures can't be ignored in the 11-state area they studied. Researchers suggested cutting the amount of greenhouse gas pollution in the South, making buildings more energy efficient and protecting wide swaths of forests to soak up carbon dioxide.

Dow said higher temperatures could have a variety of impacts on the region, ranging from more diseases in fish to making air quality worse as smog-forming pollutants rise. Rising temperatures and drought will make crops thirstier. That will make it harder to grow crops without irrigation, the study said.

Even so, Republican state Sen. Larry Grooms of South Carolina was skeptical about the consequences for his state.

"If you're talking about (rising temperatures) causing disease and famine, and so forth, that's simply not the case," he said. "All you have to do is look to other states with a slightly warmer climate.

"There's a reason why a lot of people move to Florida."

The southeastern study includes 14 chapters, looking at various aspects of global warming in the region. Those working on the study included university scientists and federal researchers from departments such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Unsafe seafood is one global warming threat people should pay attention to, researchers said.

The study said a toxin associated with warm oceans and tropical fish has in the past decade been found in South Carolina. This suggests the disease, known as ciguatera, is moving north in association with rising sea surface temperatures, the study said. The disease is tied to the spread of toxic algae blooms.

"Climate change may lead to the expansion of ciguatera fish poisoning in tropical areas, as well as more temperate zones," the report said.

The study doesn't mention a specific case of ciguatera poisoning, but in 2004, researchers found that a married couple became ill from eating a toxin-tinged barracuda caught along the South Carolina coast. Ciguatera poisoning can cause nausea, vomiting and neurological problems, and in extreme cases, can last for years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Oysters and clams also are at risk of contracting diseases related to warmer water temperatures. Researchers say marine pathogens known as vibrio are a threat. Infections associated with vibrio are expanding in Gulf Coast shellfish. The trend is tied to the number of days when water temperatures rise above typical levels. Some types of vibrio can cause diarrhea and liver disease.

Other impacts expected by the end of the 21st century, include:

-More wildfires. Higher temperatures are expected to dry out forests, making them more susceptible to catching fire. Wildfires have in recent years presented a notable threat in the Myrtle Beach, S.C., area, where homes have burned to the ground.

-Worn out roads and wrecked bridges. Hotter conditions are expected to make asphalt heat up and roads to wear down, while rising seas will threaten to wash out bridges in coastal areas.

-More devastating hurricanes. The number and intensity of hurricanes is expected to increase as ocean waters get warmer.

-Rising sea levels. The ocean is expected to rise 1 to 5 feet by the end of the 21st century, making seaside property more vulnerable to storm surges and flooding. The exact rate of sea level rise will depend, in part, on how fast the polar ice sheets melt.

-Toxic algae blooms. At least five different varieties of marine toxins have moved into the region or shifted northward toward the Carolinas. These toxins not only can threaten fish, but some can cause respiratory problems or rashes in people exposed to them.

-Dying sea life. Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could make the ocean more acidic, which would likely limit the growth of corals, shellfish and crustaceans.

Keith Ingram, a University of Florida researcher and co-author of the study, said some past skeptics of global warming appear to be softening their positions.

"Over the last couple of years we've started getting more and more questions from farmers about climate change because they see it," said Ingram, who studies agriculture at Florida. "We see the same thing in coastal communities, where they see flooding already."

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/11/12/3094459/new-climate-change-research-takes.html#storylink=cpy

FL seas level rise alliance good model for SC

The New York Times
November 11, 2013

South Florida Faces Ominous Prospects From Rising Waters

By NICK MADIGAN

MIAMI BEACH — In the most dire predictions, South Florida’s delicate barrier islands, coastal communities and captivating subtropical beaches will be lost to the rising waters in as few as 100 years.

Further inland, the Everglades, the river of grass that gives the region its fresh water, could one day be useless, some scientists fear, contaminated by the inexorable advance of the salt-filled ocean. The Florida Keys, the pearl-like strand of islands that stretches into the Gulf of Mexico, would be mostly submerged alongside their exotic crown jewel, Key West.

“I don’t think people realize how vulnerable Florida is,” Harold R. Wanless, the chairman of the geological sciences department at the University of Miami, said in an interview last week. “We’re going to get four or five or six feet of water, or more, by the end of the century. You have to wake up to the reality of what’s coming.”

Concern about rising seas is stirring not only in the halls of academia but also in local governments along the state’s southeastern coast.

The four counties there — Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach, with a combined population of 5.6 million — have formed an alliance to figure out solutions.

Long battered by hurricanes and prone to flooding from intense thunderstorms, Florida is the most vulnerable state in the country to the rise in sea levels.

Even predictions more modest than Professor Wanless’s foresee most of low-lying coastal Florida subject to increasingly frequent floods as the polar ice caps melt more quickly and the oceans surge and gain ground.

Much of Florida’s 1,197-mile coastline is only a few feet above the current sea level, and billions of dollars’ worth of buildings, roads and other infrastructure lies on highly porous limestone that leaches water like a sponge.

But while officials here and in other coastal cities, many of whom attended a two-day conference on climate change last week in Fort Lauderdale, have begun to address the problem, the issue has gotten little traction among state legislators in Tallahassee.

The issue appears to be similarly opaque to segments of the community — business, real estate, tourism — that have a vested interest in protecting South Florida’s bustling economy.

“The business community for the most part is not engaged,” said Wayne Pathman, a Miami land-use lawyer and Chamber of Commerce board member who attended the Fort Lauderdale conference. “They’re not affected yet. They really haven’t grasped the possibilities.”

It will take a truly magnificent effort, Mr. Pathman said, to find answers to the critical issues confronting the area. Ultimately, he said, the most salient indicator of the crisis will be the insurance industry’s refusal to handle risk in coastal areas here and around the country that are deemed too exposed to rising seas.

“People tend to underestimate the gravity here, I think, because it sounds far off,” said Ben Strauss, the director of the Program on Sea Level Rise at Climate Central, an independent organization of scientists. “People are starting to tune in, but it’s not front and center. Miami is a boom town now, but in the future that I’m very confident will come, it will be obvious to everyone that the sea is marching inland and it’s not going to stop.”

The effects on real estate value alone could be devastating, Mr. Strauss said. His research shows that there is about $156 billion worth of property, and 300,000 homes, on 2,120 square miles of land that is less than three feet above the high tide line in Florida.

At that same level, Mr. Strauss said, Florida has 2,555 miles of road, 35 public schools, one power plant and 966 sites listed by the Environmental Protection Agency, such as hazardous waste dumps and sewage plants.

The amount of real estate value, and the number of properties potentially affected, rises incrementally with each inch of sea-level rise, he said.

Professor Wanless insists that no amount of engineering proposals will stop the onslaught of the seas. “At two to three feet, we start to lose everything,” he said.

The only answer, he said, is to consider drastic measures like establishing a moratorium on development along coastal areas and to compel residents whose homes are threatened to move inland.

Local officials say they are doing what they can. Jason King, a consultant for the Seven50 Southeast Florida Prosperity Plan, an economic blueprint for seven southeastern counties over the next half-century, said it proposed further replenishing of beaches and mangrove forests, raising roads, and building flood-control gates, backflow preventers and higher sea walls.

Here on Miami Beach, a densely populated 7.5-square-mile barrier island that already becomes flooded in some areas each time there is a new moon or a heavy rain, city officials have approved a $200 million project to retrofit its overwhelmed storm-water system, which now pumps floodwaters onto the island when it should be draining them off, and make other adjustments.

“The sky is not falling, but the water is rising,” said Charles Tear, the Miami Beach emergency management coordinator, who stood at an intersection at the edge of Maurice Gibb Park, just two feet above sea level, that floods regularly.

Mr. Tear said he and other city officials were focused on the more conservative prediction that the seas will rise by five to 15 inches over the next 50 years.

“We can’t look at 100 years,” he said. “We have to look at the realistic side.”

James F. Murley, the executive director of the South Florida Regional Planning Council, was similarly unmoved by the more calamitous predictions.

“We’re not comfortable looking at 2100,” he said, noting that for planning purposes he adhered to a projection that foresaw two feet of sea-level rise by 2060.

Whatever the specifics of the predictions, the Miami Beach city manager, Jimmy L. Morales, said he and his staff had to consider whether “we should adopt more aggressive assumptions” about the effects of climate change.

Officials here are seeking advice from the Netherlands, famous for its highly effective levees and dikes, but the very different topography of Miami Beach and its sister coastal cities does not lend itself to the fixes engineered by the Dutch.

“Ultimately, you can’t beat nature, but you can learn to live with it,” Mr. Morales said. “Human ingenuity is incredible, but do we have the political will? Holland sets aside $1 billion a year for flood mitigation, and we have a lot more coastline than they do.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/us/south-florida-faces-ominous-prospects-from-rising-waters.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131111&_r=0

Impacts and Costs of the Government Shutdown

I talked with a federal employee yesterday about the recent government shut down.  She said that it was stressful until Congress voted to pay the furloughed employees even if they weren’t working.  Then it became a matter of tedious waiting to go back to work.

So what was the cost of this paid time off for federal employees?  According to a White House report released yesterday the cost was $2.0 BILLION in lost employee productivity. 

Below is a White House blog that summarizes the report.

Remember these costs to the American taxpayer come next January when those that brought us the last shutdown threaten to do the same again in the name of saving the taxpayers money.

-----------------

Posted by Sylvia Mathews Burwell on November 07, 2013 at 03:38 PM EST

As the President has said, the shutdown that occurred last month inflicted completely unnecessary damage on our economy and took a toll on families and businesses across the country. Today, OMB is releasing a report that catalogs the breadth and depth of this damage, and details the various impacts and costs of the October 2013 Federal government shutdown.

The report explains in detail the economic, budgetary, and programmatic costs of the shutdown. These costs include economic disruption, negative impacts on Federal programs and services that support American businesses and individuals, costs to the government, and impacts on the Federal workforce.

While the report covers a variety of areas, it highlights five key impacts and costs.

First, Federal employees were furloughed for a combined total of 6.6 million days, more than in any previous government shutdown. At its peak, about 850,000 individuals per day were furloughed. That number fell once most Department of Defense civilian employees were able to return to work as the Pentagon implemented the Pay Our Military Act.

Second, the shutdown cost the Federal government billions of dollars. The payroll cost of furloughed employee salaries alone – that is, the lost productivity of furloughed workers – was $2.0 billion. Beyond this, the Federal government also incurred other direct costs as a result of the shutdown. Fees went uncollected; IRS enforcement and other program integrity measures were halted; and the Federal government had to pay additional interest on payments that were late because of the shutdown.

Third, the shutdown had significant negative effects on the economy. The Council of Economic Advisers has estimated that the combination of the shutdown and debt limit brinksmanship resulted in 120,000 fewer private sector jobs created during the first two weeks of October. And multiple surveys have shown that consumer and business confidence was badly damaged.

The report highlights some of the more direct impacts the shutdown had on the economy by shutting down government services. For example:
 -Federal permitting and environmental and other reviews were halted, delaying job-creating transportation and energy projects.
-Import and export licenses and applications were put on hold, negatively impacting trade.
-Federal loans to small businesses, homeowners, and families in rural communities were put on hold.
-Private-sector lending to individuals and small businesses was disrupted, because banks and lenders couldn’t access government income and Social Security Number verification services.
-Travel and tourism was disrupted at national parks and monuments across the country, hurting the surrounding local economies.

Fourth, the shutdown impacted millions of Americans who rely on critical programs and services halted by the shutdown. For example:
-Hundreds of patients were prevented from enrolling in clinical trials at the National Institutes of
Health.
-Almost $4 billion in tax refunds were delayed.
-Agencies from the Food and Drug Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency had to cancel health and safety inspections, while the National Transportation Safety Board was unable to investigate airplane accidents in a timely fashion.
-Critical government-sponsored scientific research was put on hold. Notably, four of the five
Nobel prize winning scientists who work for the Federal government were furloughed during the shutdown.

Fifth, the shutdown could have a long-term impact on our ability to attract and retain the skilled and driven workforce that the Federal government needs. The shutdown followed a three-year pay freeze for Federal employees, cuts in training and support, and, for hundreds of thousands of workers, administrative furloughs earlier this year because of sequestration. These cuts will make it harder for the government to attract and retain the talent it needs to provide top level service to the American people.

The report makes clear that the costs and impacts of the shutdown were significant and widespread, and demonstrates why this type of self-inflicted wound should not occur again.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/11/07/impacts-and-costs-government-shutdown

 

 

538 Organizations Call on U.S. Senators to Support the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act

WASHINGTON – The South Carolina Small Business Chamber and the American Sustainable Business Council signed onto a letter released yesterday by the Americans for Tax Fairness and the Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition  that included 538 organizations calling on Members of the U.S. Senate to support the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act (S. 1533).

The legislation, introduced by Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), Mark Begich (D-AK), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), would close tax loopholes that encourage U.S. corporations to move jobs, profits and operations offshore and avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Some tax loopholes allow corporations to use complex accounting schemes to make it appear that profits earned in the United States are actually generated in other countries, often a tax haven with little or no tax on profits. This enables those corporations to substantially lower the amount of U.S. income taxes they pay. By closing some of these loopholes, the Levin bill would raise $220 billion over ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. This could stop some or all of the impending next round of automatic spending cuts under the budget sequester, which are projected to cost 800,000 jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The 538 letter signers represent tens of millions of Americans, many of whom are still feeling the effects of the “Great Recession” while multinational corporations book record profits. The list of signers includes some of the largest public and private sector unions, as well as many of the most well-known non-profits in America working for the public good.

“As Washington begins a new budget debate, lawmakers should replace the next round of budget cuts with new revenue raised by closing offshore tax loopholes,” said Frank Clemente, campaign manager of Americans for Tax Fairness, which co-led the effort to secure letter signers. “Too many Members of Congress express support for the idea of closing tax loopholes, but never say how they would do it. The answer is to support the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.”

“When corporations use tax havens to dodge the taxes they owe, the rest of us pick up the tab, either through higher taxes, cuts to important programs, or a bigger deficit,” said Dan Smith, Tax and Budget Advocate for U.S. PIRG, which is a member of the FACT coalition, which co-led the letter-signing effort. “Some budget decisions are tough, but closing the offshore tax loopholes that let large companies shift their tax burden to the rest of us is a no-brainer. Congress should pass this legislation to level the playing field for small businesses and restore fairness to our tax system.”

Among other things, the letter explains that this legislation would close or tighten tax loopholes that have been used by some of the most profitable multinational corporations – Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Nike – to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

A Mayor to learn from

Every mayor in this country can learn from my friend Mayor Ed Malloy of Fairfield, Iowa.  Not only did he have a vision for reducing the energy consumption of his whole city, he is making it happen.  Read the story below.

I expect that other mayors will soon have the chance to attend future workshops around the country featuring Mayor Malloy’s efforts.  The American Sustainable Business Council, Natural Resources Defense Council and White House Council on Environmental Quality will be working to make that happen.  Hopefully the Fairfield experience will soon be coming to a South Carolina city near you.

-----------------------------------------------------

Des Moines Register
November 2, 1013

Fairfield defines community action

Jefferson County town shows how to 'manufacture dreams' through civic collaboration

Written by

ROX LAIRD

ADVERTISEMENTFairfield, Ia. – Drive around this Jefferson County seat with Mayor Ed Malloy and you begin to understand why this town is considered unique in Iowa.

The obvious reason is the presence of Maharishi University of Management that is a magnet for transcendental meditation devotees from around the world, which is evident as Malloy wheels around the downtown square. It is lined with unusual shops, art galleries, bookstores, restaurants offering international fare, imported chocolates and teas. A monthly First Friday Art Walk draws a cross-section of the community and people from around the state.

Just off the square, across from the Jefferson County Courthouse, sits the community center and the Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts. It is home to what is described as the only professional live musical theater company in the state and attracts a variety of performing arts events.

A couple of blocks on is Malloy’s oil trading company, housed in an office building built according to the ancient Indian principles of Maharishi Vedic architecture that seeks harmony with the energy of the sun and nature for the well-being of occupants. Many examples of Vedic design can be seen in Fairfield and in Maharishi Vedic City, incorporated in recent years.

Fairfield is a town of contrasts, where you can see a BMW parked on the street next to a pickup truck. The native population has increasingly accepted immigrants who brought a different culture and an entrepreneurial spirit that invigorates the city’s economy. Fairfield has earned a long list of plaudits in numerous “best of” categories, including the April Smithsonian magazine’s list of “The 20 Best Small Towns in America.”

Fairfield lives green

Among the striking things about Fairfield is its ethic of self-sufficient sustainability. This manifests itself in many ways, such as a cooperative organic food market and a solar-powered radio station run by volunteers. Solar panels sprout from roofs and from freestanding structures. The city of Fairfield has an energy efficiency coordinator, whose salary is shared by the city and by Iowa State University’s extension service.

In the city’s industrial park, Sky Factory uses backlit photography to create outdoor scenes for ceilings of hospitals and medical clinics. The plant has set aside space next to its parking lot for an array of solar panels and a garden tended by employees.

On the opposite side of town, a mostly off-the-grid subdivision called Abundance EcoVillage captures energy from the wind and the sun, and draws air for heating and cooling from the Earth.

This conservation ethic runs deeper in the community than these outward symbols of alternative and renewable energy sources. As a participant in Alliant Energy’s Hometown Rewards program, Fairfield took on a challenge beginning on Earth Day in 2012 to reduce its overall energy consumption by 4 percent. It hit that and exceeded it: Fairfield residents shaved electric and natural gas consumption by 8.5 percent and businesses cut theirs by 8 percent.

Working with Alliant, which provided marketing and technical support, the city held workshops for residents and business owners, some 4,500 participants pledged to meet energy savings goals by doing laundry in cold water and installing compact fluorescent light bulbs. A fund was created to make loans for new windows and insulation.

The total savings of 10.2 million kilowatt hours of gas and electricity is enough energy to power 1,077 homes for one year, according to Alliant, which independently verified the energy savings. Besides the savings on power bills, Alliant dangled a carrot in the form of a grant of nearly $19,000, which the city put toward installation of solar panels on the roof of the Fairfield Library this summer.

Alliant Energy spokesman Justin Foss attributed the success of this impressive energy savings to the level of community engagement, working at a neighbor-to-neighbor level creating peer pressure that came from an active group that led the charge.

“This is a program that works really well for Fairfield,” Foss said. “You can’t do that in every community.”

A foot in both worlds

Ed Malloy is perhaps the best example of how Fairfield has melded small town Iowa values with the exotic culture inspired by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Malloy is an immigrant from New York, practices TM and lives in a spacious and handsome home built to the exacting Vedic principles. He moves comfortably among traditional and nontraditional Fairfield, which is evident from his support by voters for more than a decade.

Malloy says Fairfield’s can-do culture begins with setting ambitious goals, but achievements are celebrated by the entire community, not just the strong core of transcendental meditation followers fed by Maharishi University.

In Fairfield, Malloy said, “people go out and manufacture their dreams. When we all share the pride, that’s when everything changes.”

Classroom building is a lesson in sustainability

Fairfield, Ia. – Maharishi University of Management here set out three years ago to build a new classroom building for its sustainable living program that lived up to the department’s mission. The finished product may be the greenest building in Iowa.
The building is constructed of compressed-earthen blocks manufactured by students on site and load-bearing timbers consisting of full-size aspen tree trunks. It generates more energy than it consumes. It collects and treats rain­water from the roof for drinking and flushing. Daylight supplies two-thirds of light in classrooms and offices during the day. Passive and active solar energy is stored in 600 tons of earthen blocks and a 5,000-gallon water tank, which is supplemented with wind-generated electricity. It has a greenhouse for growing plants indoors and edible landscaping outdoors.
The Schwartz-Guich Sustainable Living Center is performing exactly as intended. In fact, it is “exceeding our expectations in energy efficiency in cooling and heating seasons,” said Lawrence Gamble, professor of sustainable living at MUM and an irrepressible evangelist on the subject of renewable energy and natural resource conservation.
Standing beside the center’s electric meter outside the building recently, Gamble pointed to the spinning wheel that measures electric consumption. The wheel was going backward, however, meaning the building was returning power to the electric grid. In fact, according to Gamble, the center produces about a third more energy than it consumes. And it consumes less than a quarter of what an ordinary building of the same size would consume.
Besides employing nearly every imaginable green building technique, the Sustainable Living Center design follows the principles of Maharishi Vedic architecture, an ancient design philosophy from India that puts buildings in harmony with nature. It is hard to imagine a building that does a better job of meeting that goal.

 

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20131103/OPINION01/311030029/