467K jobs cut in June; jobless rate at 9.5 percent
WASHINGTON - Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, driving the unemployment rate up to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, suggesting that the economy's road to recovery will be bumpy.
(The Hacks are talking over the corner office. Also @massdems have been talking a lot about the Patrick Murray administration lately........... - promoted by EaBo Clipper)
Patrick's chief of staff to step down
Doug Rubin, Governor Deval Patrick's chief of staff, is stepping down. He will be replaced by Arthur Bernard, a top Patrick aide who served as chief of staff to former Senate President Robert Travaglini.
Join Red Mass Group Publisher Robert Eno, and Editor Garrett Quinn this evening as we talk to Dr. David G. Tuerck of the Beacon Hill Institute. Our topic for this evening will be the Massachusetts Prevailing Wage law, which according to the Beacon Hill Institute wastes $177 of every $1,000 spent on public works projects in the Commonwealth. The show starts at 6:30 and you can listen right here. Radio Free Mass is a project of MassConservatives.com.
19 Pro-Life Democrats bolt Obama-care over abortion funding. They issued a letter to Speaker Pelosi that included the following statement:
We cannot support any health-care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.
Last Sunday, the Boston Herald cited BHI's critical analysis of three studies extolling the creation of green jobs. The problem with green job creation is that it's mostly a myth and comes with a hefty price tag. And green jobs aren't going to help us out of the current economic crisis.
Supporters of a green job-driven economy overlook the fact that jobs are a cost -- not a benefit -- in the economic process.
The Beacon Hill Institute examined reports from the Worldwatch Institute done with support from several international agencies, from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst for the Center for American Progress and from Global Insight, a consulting firm, for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
All count jobs as benefits - as the Beacon Hill Institute puts it, they are "mistakenly arguing that a cost is actually a benefit." None calculates jobs destroyed or not created.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state's long-running Senate race.
Accrding to the Boston Herald Gov. Deval Patrick is continuing his Hollywood tax credit program.
Deval Patrick acts on stars' behalf Gov reinstates 25% credit for actors' salaries
By Edward Mason
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 - Updated 5h ago
Gov. Deval Patrick greenlighted the renewal of a controversial multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded giveaway to Hollywood stars yesterday, even as he signed a $27.05 billion budget that squeezes the Bay State for another $860 million in new taxes.
I have to wonder what the Governor is thinking. Every tax increase he proposes directly targets the citizens of Massachusetts while all his breaks are for everyone else. The sales tax, gas tax, "use" taxes are all regressive as the hit lower income people harder than upper income people. Yet he signs our sales tax increase at the same time he cuts taxes for Hollywood millionaires. Hollywood shoot a movie once and leaves. Small business owners who create long term employment and revenue get squeezed.
Well that didn't take long. The same day he "reluctantly" signed $1,000,000,000 in new taxes, Deval Patrick "hinted" at raising the gas tax. The Boston Globe has the story.
Patrick, whose earlier proposal for a 19-cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax was largely ignored by the Legislature, continued to make the case yesterday that the tax could be necessary to put the state's transportation network on sounder financial footing.
"We haven't done that yet. We haven't finished that work yet,'' Patrick said, when asked if he would keep pushing for a gas tax. "And whether that's the gas tax or something else, we're going to have to face those issues, I think sooner rather than later.''
It occurred to the Redhead Republican that we have elected a King in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. With $1 billion in new taxes, a 25% sales tax increase, and scores of pet projects being funded, England is looking like a good alternative to Gov. Deval Patrick's ways. So get some popcorn and put your feet up! The Redhead is ready to entertain...
The poll also shows strong majority support for the legislature cutting it's own pay and returning from full time to part time. The poll was conducted by Rassmussen Reports with a sample size of 500.
Accrding to CBS News The Obama administration and the EPA may be covering up scientific reports on the causes of global warming.
The Environmental Protection Agency may have suppressed an internal report that was skeptical of claims about global warming, including whether carbon dioxide must be strictly regulated by the federal government, according to a series of newly disclosed e-mail messages.
Less than two weeks before the agency formally submitted its pro-regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty "decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."
The EPA official, Al McGartland, said in an e-mail message to a staff researcher on March 17: "The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward... and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision."
According to the 98 page report the EPA and other government agencies have not been paying close enough attention to the actual causes of global warming and have relied too heavily on outdated third party reports. It further states that 68% of global warming has been caused by solar variances, global temperatures have declined over the last decade, and that major elements of the theory of global warming remain unexplained. I highly recommend that people read this report.
Accrding to Rasmussen Reports government managed health care is seen as a failure.
Twenty-six percent (26%) of Massachusetts voters say their state's health care reform effort has been a success. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds that 37% say the reform effort has been a failure, while another 37% are not sure.
Only 10% of Bay State voters say the quality of health care has gotten better as a result of the reform plan while 29% say it has gotten worse. Most (53%) say the quality of care has not changed.
As for cost, 21% say the reform has made health care more affordable in Massachusetts. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say health care is now less affordable while 44% see no change.
Lower quality. More expensive. A failure.
This is a very important lesson for the National Health Care debate. There are many elements of Obama's plan that mirror the bad healthcare system we have created here in MA. Those inherent problems would likely be multiplied as the percentage of uninsured nationwide is much higher than it is in Massachusetts.
Government health care does nothing to keep down costs. It increases costs exponentially. According to the Accrding to the Boston Globe Costs of government subsidized medicine even outstrips the government estimates.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.
The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.
"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
This is not only a win for a color-blind society but also a blow for Obama Supreme Court nominee Susan Sotomayor.
Gov. Deval Patrick is exploring a multimillion-dollar digital cigarette tax system proposed by a controversial lobbyist despite little evidence of a counterfeit stamping problem in the Bay State.
Did this story stand out for anyone else today? Is the state just looking for ways to waste our money? Deval is going to sign a budget today with $1 billion in tax hikes, but yet he wants to spend another $3 million for something that doesn't existjust because another lobbyist has connections? Didn't they just get through with a dog and pony show on ethics reform?
Another brilliant plan, Massachusetts.
Lobbyist Paul Caron, a former state representative who doubled his pension under a loophole now against the law, represents Authentix, one of only two companies in the country that produce the digital tax stamping equipment.
Thanks Deval - yet another example of Ethics Reform Failure.
Part of me was going to right a tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic jab at the US House of Representatives passing the "Cap and Trade" Bill this past week. I'm naturally quite flustered over it like many fellow conservatives, but for once I would rather not preach to the choir. Instead I'll tell you about my week, and bear with me as I get a little anecdotal in trying to put into perspective what I perceive to be Congress' poor priorities and callous indifference to real problems.
I'm a temp worker in an office outside of Boston and our company just let go about 80% of our project team when work dried up this week. I survived, but watched as hundreds of my coworkers went home to tell their families (again probably) that they had lost their jobs. As I glanced out the window on the final day of those terminated, I saw one of the women I had worked with. I could tell that she had almost made the cut, and sadly as a single mother needed the job more than any of us. When I saw her step out I saw that her face betrayed the hopelessness and despair that she felt. Though not a very emotional guy, I almost started crying. While our country is still a place with more opportunity than anywhere else in the world, in tough times like these I knew she faced a tough road and felt a world of pain.
I don't know what her politics are, or those of any of the people I work with (in fact I suspect they are probably quite different than mine), but it caused me to reflect on what their government was doing to help them out and get them back on their feet. Would the government help or at least stand out of the way, and allow the economy to pick back up and get companies hiring again? Or would it enact policies to enrich special interests in order to pay back favors and secure more power?
Indeed, what is Congress REALLY doing for all of those who have been let go or who are unemployed? Is a "Cap and Trade" Bill that would cost average Americans even a dollar more in cost-of-living expenses worth it when people are so desperately struggling to make ends meet? As we face double digit unemployment, and looming inflation, is it wise to tell companies to put aside assets for "carbon credits" that they might have otherwise spent on job creation? Sometimes we take joy in pointing out the faults of our political opponents, but right now I'm not enjoying this at all. All I can do is despair for the poor people out there caught in a tough spot, with a Congress that cares more about feeling good about their legislative "accomplishments" than getting these Americans back on their feet. When are our elected officials going to stop and ask themselves before every vote, "Is this going to help to get our economy moving again, and get people back to work?". Clearly they weren't doing that this past week, and I know I watched some real people suffer the consequences.
