| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 10:09:11 AM | | | | | | The New Jersey governor's race
tigerhawk.blogspot.com
By TigerHawk
Newshounds know that New Jersey holds its elections on odd years, which makes this year's governor's race one of the few big state elections that political junkies can twist their hankies over.
The Democratic candidate in this very blue state will be Senator Jon Corzine, who is willing to trade his very expensive first-term seat in the United States Senate for the opportunity to preside over the nest of vipers in Trenton. Corzine expects to spend another big wad to win Drumthwacket, but is trying to turn his wealth into an asset: his wealth, we are to believe, makes him uncorruptible, at least in the petty Sopranos sense of corruption:
Corzine said he will refuse campaign donations from people associated with firms that have state contracts. He will limit individual contributions to $500 - more than $2,000 lower than state law allows. And he said he would forgo public financing and pay for his effort largely out of his personal wealth, valued at $300 million.
"There might be a better way for the public to spend its money than financing someone who has the wherewithal to do it," Corzine said.
Well, there is no arguing with that.
Corzine has spent around $15 million of his own money for every year that he has served in the Senate, and now he is going to switch jobs. Why? Perhaps he calculates that as a liberal Senator from a blue state he can't really get anything done in Washington right now. Sure, like the rest of the Democrats in the Congress he can devote himself to frustrating Republicans, but that won't satisfy a guy like Corzine, who once ran the most powerful investment bank on Wall Street. Perhaps he has also learned from John Kerry's example that it is very difficult for a sitting Senator to become President. While he is unusual among Democratic politicians in that he has extensive experience as an executive, most voters won't give him credit for that until he has been a governor. This year is his shot.
The Republicans will nominate either Bret Schundler, the conservative former mayor of Jersey City, or Douglas Forrester, the choice of New Jersey's creaky Republican establishment. This is a choice not unlike Dean and Kerry last year -- Schundler is the choice of the faithful, but Forrester is the moderate who "can win."
Jersey blogger DynamoBuzz linked yesterday to the results of a new poll that show Forrester and Schundler neck and neck in the Republican primary race, even though most of the respondants admit that they have weak preferences. More interestingly, both Forrester and Schundler have narrowed the gap vs. Corzine significantly, trailing by only ten points, instead of the usual twenty or so. The question, of course, is whether this reflects a substantive improvement in Republican chances, or whether it is an artifact of the publicity around the forthcoming Republican primary. Unfortunately, I believe it is the latter.
Meanwhile, New Jersey's last elected governor, James McGreevey, continues to sink into the mire. |
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| To: LindyBill who wrote (111717) | 4/29/2005 10:10:38 AM | | From: DMaA | | | | | The coming confrontation will also be a barometer of the effectiveness of the MSM. Can they still spin the country to blame the Republicans for the government shut down? |
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| To: Mary Cluney who wrote (111727) | 4/29/2005 10:15:46 AM | | From: Lane3 | | | | >>You see, America is ruled by conservatives, and they have a private obsession: they believe that more privatization, not less, is always the answer. And their faith persists even when the evidence clearly points to a private sector gone bad.<<
>>The point, instead, is that even though all the evidence suggests that we would be much better off under a system of universal coverage, any such move will be fiercely opposed, on principle, by conservatives who want us to move in the opposite direction.<<
I don't see how Krugman's view is any less ideological. |
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| To: gamesmistress who wrote (111704) | 4/29/2005 10:16:10 AM | | From: Ilaine | | | | Back when I hung out with science fiction fans there was a pedophile among the group, Roger Lovin, who wrote The Complete Motorcycle Nomad. A lot of people admired him because he was a published author, but I could tell he was a con man. He was caught with a lot of kiddie porn, some of it starring himself. He liked to have sex with the children of his girlfriends.
The weird thing was -- well, there was two weird things. 1) I knew he liked to joke about stuff like that but I didn't take him seriously until he was arrested; 2) after he was arrested it seemed to me that he was still admired (not by me.)
Tarring all science fiction fans with the pedophile brush is silly, but I do find it very weird that so many pedophiles are science fiction fans.
I would have expected something different, NASCAR, maybe. Or paramilitary.
Edit: reading commentary on that blog, I came across one that makes sense. They catch pedos using the computer. Well, people who use computers tend to be geeks, and geeks tend to like science fiction.
So it's a coincidence.
This means they don't catch the pedos who don't use the computer.
Well, one more comment -- I don't think being attracted to 15 year old girls is warped, although it's illegal. The ones I want to kill are the ones who are attracted to five year olds. And we won't even talk about the ones who are attracted to younger kids. Death is too good for them.
Sorry for talking about horrible things. I know a lawyer who used to prosecute these guys, and she had to quit. |
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| To: kumar who wrote (111729) | 4/29/2005 10:17:33 AM | | From: DMaA | | | | I mentioned earlier that my parents bought a house in 1962 for $15,000. The house has been maintained and upgraded over the years and is probably a better house today than it was in 1962. You could buy it for about $95,000. According to my inflation calculator, in real terms this house hasn't appreciated one dime in 40 years.
I would say there are vastly more properties like this in the country than the absurd pockets like south Florida and CA. |
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| To: DMaA who wrote (111730) | 4/29/2005 10:19:17 AM | | From: Lane3 | | | | There's no point for a "centrist" third party. That area is already thoroughly covered by the big two.
I disagree that the middle is currently covered. I agree, however, that solving that problem via a third party is unfeasible. |
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| To: Lane3 who wrote (111722) | 4/29/2005 10:20:21 AM | | From: LindyBill | | | | Bush didn't say how he was proposing to change projected benefits.
Here is the WaPo explanation.
President's Plan Shields Benefits of Low Earners
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 29, 2005; A08
President Bush last night embraced a complex proposal to restore much of Social Security's fiscal balance by cutting deeply into the Social Security benefits of high-income workers and eroding benefits promised to the middle class.
By forcing higher-income beneficiaries to bear the brunt of the cuts, the plan would shield low-income retirees completely -- allowing Bush to endorse an enhanced benefit that would ensure the working poor will not retire into poverty. Any benefit cuts or enhancements would come on top of the president's personal accounts proposal, in which every dollar contributed to a private account would be deducted from a worker's traditional Social Security benefit, plus an interest rate 3 percent above inflation.
Already battling public opinion, the president has now publicly endorsed a proposal under attack from all sides -- by conservatives who say it will make Social Security an even less attractive deal than it is now, and by liberals who say it is unfair to the middle class and would undermine political support for Social Security.
The proposal, known as progressive indexing, was formulated by Robert Pozen, a Massachusetts investment executive and a Democratic member of Bush's 2001 Social Security Commission. It would not completely close the gap between Social Security benefits promised and taxes expected to be paid into the system, but it would solve almost three-quarters of the problem. The White House last night pegged the figure at 70 percent.
Currently, to set initial benefit levels, the Social Security Administration averages the highest earning years of a worker's career, then adjusts them upward to reflect the growth of wages between those years and the time of retirement. Under Pozen's progressive indexing, that system would remain in effect for the bottom 30 percent of earners, who are currently making less than about $20,000 a year.
For workers earning the maximum income subject to Social Security taxes, currently $90,000, benefits would be set according to the growth of inflation over their careers. Since prices tend to grow more slowly than wages, benefits for these workers would be reduced substantially over time, from the level currently promised and even the reduced level payable once the Social Security system has depleted its entire trust fund.
Workers earning between $20,000 and $90,000 would have their benefits set by a sliding scale that combines inflation increases and wage growth.
According to analyses by Social Security's chief actuary, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service and the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the impact would be substantial. By 2055, workers earning $90,000 would see their annual Social Security benefit drop from the currently scheduled $35,751 to $22,666, a 37 percent reduction, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. By 2075, the negative impact would grow to 49 percent.
Even if nothing were done to fix Social Security's finances, such workers in 2075 would see their benefits cut by $5,156, or 19 percent, from the level even a "bankrupt" Social Security system could pay.
For the working class, the picture is more complex. Under progressive indexing, a worker now earning $35,000 and retiring in 2055 would see annual benefits fall by 21 percent, or $4,552. But that benefit would be $1,685 higher than Social Security could actually pay, absent any changes.
If that same retiree were earning $58,000 in 2005, his benefits would be cut by $9,082, or 31 percent, from currently scheduled levels. If nothing were done to Social Security, the worker would still get $813 more a year under a "bankrupt" system than under progressive indexing.
Democratic economists say such numbers prove that policymakers will have to combine benefit cuts with some form of tax increase to spread the pain and close Social Security's projected funding gap.
"Even if you whack high-income people, you still need deep cuts on middle-income people," said Jason Furman of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
In an interview, Pozen said yesterday he would be willing to discuss some tax increases to mitigate the impact of benefit cuts, but he said it was unfair to compare benefits under his plan with benefits currently promised but unaffordable. Bush last night reiterated his opposition to increasing the payroll tax rate.
Some conservatives are no less blunt in their opposition to Pozen's approach. Under progressive indexing, the rate of return from what middle- and upper-income workers pay into the system and what they get back will get worse every year, said Peter Ferrara, a conservative Social Security analyst. Benefits would be an ever smaller percentage of workers' pre-retirement income.
Such conservatives maintain that large, private investment accounts could replace Social Security with no cuts in promised benefits. But Pozen said their proposals are simply avoiding the difficult choices that he -- and the president -- are willing to make.
"You have to suffer some pain," Pozen said. "The question is, what's a reasonable amount of pain and who should suffer it?" |
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| To: Ilaine who wrote (111734) | 4/29/2005 10:29:01 AM | | From: gamesmistress | | | | 2) after he was arrested it seemed to me that he was still admired (not by me.)
Sick-o.
The ones I want to kill are the ones who are attracted to five year olds. And we won't even talk about the ones who are attracted to younger kids. Death is too good for them.
You betcha.
If it weren't Star Trek for many pedos, it might be Dungeons & Dragons, or some other fantasy world. NASCAR, no. Paramilitary doesn't seem to fit either. |
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