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« Reply #1776 on: Jul 12, 2012, 06:48 AM » |
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In the USA..............
Third Calif. city in past month declares bankruptcy
Once rare, turning to bankruptcy has become a painful but enticing option for cities whose labor costs and municipal debt far outpace anemic tax revenues.
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — San Bernardino on Tuesday became the third California city to seek bankruptcy protection in the past month as cities across the state and country slash day-to-day services and take other drastic actions to skirt a similar fiscal collapse.
"There are likely to be more in the future, but it's hard to know, since a lot of struggling cities may manage to work things out," said Michael Coleman, a fiscal policy adviser for the California League of Cities. "Some cities may not go into a bankruptcy, but they may dissolve. They may cease to exist."
Once rare, turning to bankruptcy has become a painful but enticing option for cities whose labor costs and municipal debt far outpace anemic tax revenues. The San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo began the current trend in May 2008, filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection because, city leaders said, salaries and benefits for its public-safety workers were eating up too much of the general fund.
Last month, Stockton became the largest city in the state to seek bankruptcy protection after it was unable to come to agreement with its employee unions and creditors on a plan to close a $26 million gap in its general fund. On July 2, the tiny resort town of Mammoth Lakes filed bankruptcy papers in part because it was saddled with a $43 million court judgment it couldn't pay.
Bankruptcy experts say the decision in San Bernardino — a city of 209,000 some 60 miles east of Los Angeles — could sound an alarm to cities across the state and country that are grappling with weak property- and sales-tax revenues as their pension obligations continue to rise.
"People are waiting to see whether these are the exceptions to the rule or whether we have a new trend," said Jim Spiotto, a Chicago attorney who tracks municipal bankruptcies. "I do think it may be something of a wake-up call."
In some instances, cities like Harrisburg, Pa., and Mammoth Lakes, Calif., have considered bankruptcy as a way to cope with a specific debt. In contrast, cities like Stockton, Calif., and Central Falls, R.I., have sought bankruptcy to deal with an unbearable financial outlook due to rising costs and stagnant revenues, said Michael Sweet, a bankruptcy attorney with Fox Rothschild's San Francisco office.
"Those are the ones you want to watch," Sweet said. "The cities that have a higher reliance on property-tax revenue to support their general funds are the ones that are going to feel the most pain."
San Bernardino, which soared economically during the housing boom and has suffered since the bust, couldn't close a $45.8 million budget shortfall and would be unable make its payroll this summer. Days before Tuesday's City Council vote, the city of 211,000 people had just $150,000 in the bank. The city barely scraped together enough money to cover its June payroll.
Rising public pension costs are one of the catalysts pushing cities into fiscal peril. In San Bernardino, the city's obligation to its employee retirement system rose from $1 million in the 2006-07 fiscal year to nearly double that in the current budget year. In three years, those costs are expected to swallow up 15 percent of the budget.
Pension spending grew an average of 11.4 percent a year in the state's biggest cities and counties between 1999 and 2010, roughly twice as fast as spending on public safety, social services, recreation, health and sanitation, according to a February report by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
The city had largely patched over its growing fiscal ills, exacerbated by the struggling economy, by tapping out its reserves over the last several years, according to a fiscal report submitted to the council before Tuesday's vote.
That 4-2 decision to file for bankruptcy protection was the easy part, San Bernardino Mayor Patrick Morris said Wednesday. Now the city has to pull together a plan to emerge from its fiscal crisis. It has already cut its workforce by 20 percent over the last four years.
Steve Tracy, a fire engineer and spokesman for the city firefighters union, said San Bernardino's labor groups already gave up $10 million in concessions. He blamed the financial crisis on the mayor and former city manager spending money on such pet projects as a new downtown movie theater.
"Before you start putting blame on the labor groups, get your own fiscal house in order," Tracy said.
Vallejo was in a similar bind when it filed for bankruptcy four years ago. Now Mayor Osby Davis wonders if the painful road to recovery was worth the cost.
The Bay Area city of 112,000 was forced to shut down two of its fire stations and today fixes just 10 percent of its crumbling roads. Its workforce, including police and firefighters, is about half its pre-bankruptcy size and those people left are "insanely" overworked.
Meanwhile, Vallejo spent $10 million on legal fees. It ended up with employee contracts that Osby thinks the city could have struck more cheaply if it had stayed out of bankruptcy court and turned to the bargaining table.
His advice to other cities on the financial brink? Don't do it.
"It takes an enormous toll on everyone," Davis said. "And you have the stigma of being a bankrupt city. How do you come out of being labeled a bankrupt city to one that is a desirable place to live?"
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Romney faces NAACP, booed for hitting 'Obamacare'
Unflinching before a skeptical NAACP crowd, Mitt Romney declared Wednesday he'd do more for African-Americans than Barack Obama, the nation's first black president. He drew jeers when he lambasted the Democrat's policies.
By KASIE HUNT
Associated Press
HOUSTON —
Unflinching before a skeptical NAACP crowd, Mitt Romney declared Wednesday he'd do more for African-Americans than Barack Obama, the nation's first black president. He drew jeers when he lambasted the Democrat's policies.
"If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him," Romney told the group's annual convention. Pausing as some in the crowd heckled, he added, "You take a look!"
"For real?" yelled someone in the crowd.
The reception was occasionally rocky though generally polite as the Republican presidential candidate sought to woo a Democratic bloc that voted heavily for Obama four years ago and is certain to do so again. Romney was booed when he vowed to repeal "Obamacare" - the Democrat's signature health care measure - and the crowd interrupted him when he accused Obama of failing to spark a more robust economic recovery.
"I know the president has said he will do those things. But he has not. He cannot. He will not," Romney said as the crowd's murmurs turned to groans.
At other points, Romney earned scattered clapping for his promises to create jobs and improve education. In an interview with Fox News after the speech, Romney said he had expected the negative reaction to some of his comments. "I am going to give the same message to the NAACP that I give across the country which is that Obamacare is killing jobs," he said.
Four months before the election, Romney's appearance at the NAACP convention was a direct, aggressive appeal for support from across the political spectrum in what polls show is a close contest. Romney doesn't expect to win a majority of black voters - 95 percent backed Obama in 2008 - but he's trying to show independent and swing voters that he's willing to reach out to diverse audiences, while demonstrating that his campaign and the Republican Party he leads are inclusive.
The stakes are high. Romney's chances in battleground states such as North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania - which have huge numbers of blacks who helped Obama win four years ago - will improve if he can cut into the president's advantage by persuading black voters to support him or if they stay home on Election Day.
As for Romney's contention that his policies would help "families of any color" more than Obama's, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president has pursued ideas that help support and expand the middle class after a devastating recession, and that as part of that black Americans and other minorities have benefited.
Obama spoke to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the 2008 campaign, as did his Republican opponent that year, Sen. John McCain. The president has dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to address the group on Thursday. Obama is scheduled to address the National Urban League later this month.
For the past year, Romney's campaign has sought to avoid any overt discussion of race. When the issue has popped up, as with talk in Republican circles about running ads about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's controversial former pastor, Romney's team has worked to quickly distance him from the topic. The campaign is mindful both of the sensitivities of Romney being a white man looking to unseat the nation's first black president and of Romney's Mormon church's complicated racial history, having barred men of African descent from the priesthood until 1978.
But on Wednesday, Romney confronted the issue more directly, with a bold assertion that he'd be a better president for the black community than one of their own.
Within minutes of taking the stage, Romney made note of his opponent's historic election achievement - and then accused him of not doing enough to help African-American families on everything from family policy to education to health care.
"If you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president," Romney said to murmuring from the crowd.
Romney added: "I want you to know that if I did not believe that my policies and my leadership would help families of color - and families of any color - more than the policies and leadership of President Obama, I would not be running for president."
It wasn't long after that the murmurs turned to boos when Romney pledged to repeal Obama's health care overhaul.
"I am going to eliminate every non-essential, expensive program that I can find - and that includes Obamacare," Romney said, standing motionless as the crowd jeered for 15 seconds. He then noted a survey from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as support for his position, and was greeted with silence.
Romney's criticism of Obama didn't set well with some in the audience.
"Dumb," said Bill Lucy, a member of the NAACP board.
William Braxton, a 59-year-old retiree from Maryland, added: "I thought he had a lot of nerve. That really took me by surprise, his attacking Obama that way."
And James Pinkett, a retired utility worker, said: "He must not know how much support there is in the African-American community for health care, and he comes in and calls it Obamacare. ... We just think it should be given a chance to work."
While more Americans oppose the law than support it, blacks are a notable exception. More African-Americans say in polls that they strongly support the law than strongly oppose it.
In his speech, Romney also said much more must be done to improve education in the nation's cities, and he vowed to help put blacks back to work. Citing June labor reports, he noted that the 14.4 percent unemployment rate among blacks is much higher than the 8.2 percent national average. Blacks also tend to be unemployed longer, and black families have a lower median income, Romney said.
Looking to heal wounds on civil rights, Romney said, "The Republican Party's record, by the measures you rightly apply, is not perfect." He added: "Any party that claims a perfect record doesn't know history the way you know it."
He also highlighted his personal connection to civil rights issues. His father, George Romney, spoke out against segregation in the 1960s and, as governor of Michigan, toured the state's inner cities as race riots wracked Detroit and other urban areas across the country. The elder Romney went on to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he pushed for housing reforms to help blacks.
Romney worked to connect with the crowd with religious references, noting the hymns that were played before he was introduced and telling the group that his father was "a man of faith who knew that every person was a child of God."
Left unsaid: any comments on a series of contentious new voter ID laws that critics say are aimed at making it harder for blacks and Hispanics to vote. At the NAACP convention a day earlier, Attorney General Eric Holder labeled those laws as "poll taxes" - a reference to the fees used in some Southern states after the abolition of slavery to disenfranchise black people.
Romney expressed support for such laws during a late April visit to Pennsylvania, which now has one of the toughest voter identification statutes in the nation. "We ought to have voter identification so we know who's voting and we have a record of that," Romney said then.
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July 11, 2012 07:51 PM
Romney on NAACP Booing: If They Want More Free Stuff, Tell Them to Go Vote for the Other Guy
By Heather
From Rachel Maddow's show this Wednesday evening, Mitt Romney responded to being booed during his speech at the NAACP for saying he would end "Obamacare," at a fundraiser in Hamilton, Montana and showed his true colors when he said this:
ROMNEY: Remind them of this, if they want more free stuff from the government tell them to go vote for the other guy -- more free stuff. But don't forget nothing is really free.
Wow. I guess he wants to make sure he drives that African American support from 1-2 percent all the way down to zero. As Rachel Maddow noted, it was pretty obvious Romney wanted to get booed and he's not wasting any time showing us why. He's all ready with the race baiting right out of the gate.
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Originally published Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at 7:18 AM
Both parties block quick votes on Obama tax plan
In a day of political maneuvering, Democrats and then Republicans took turns blocking a quick Senate vote on President Barack Obama's proposal to extend expiring tax cuts for a year on everyone but the highest-earning Americans.
By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
In a day of political maneuvering, Democrats and then Republicans took turns blocking a quick Senate vote on President Barack Obama's proposal to extend expiring tax cuts for a year on everyone but the highest-earning Americans.
With each side trying to embarrass the other on one of the election year's foremost issues, the result was that senators won't vote on Obama's plan this week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised they would vote on it before Congress leaves town for its August recess, despite GOP opposition to the proposal.
"We know Republicans won't do anything that helps President Obama, even if it's good for the economy, because their No.1 goal is to defeat the president," Reid said.
Republicans accused Democrats of blocking the vote because they were afraid of supporting a measure that would in effect boost taxes on high-earning business owners at a time when the country is thirsting for jobs.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would agree to arrange for votes "just as soon as the majority leader produces a bill to show us what tax increases they have in mind."
The moves came just two days after Obama urged Congress to vote on his proposal. The president would exclude families earning over $250,000 a year from the renewed tax cuts, saying they should contribute to deficit reduction.
Without action by lawmakers, wide-ranging tax cuts enacted a decade ago under President George W. Bush will expire on New Year's Day, which economists say would be a blow to the already weak economy.
The back and forth put the Senate on track to voting Thursday or Friday on a Democratic bill cutting taxes for businesses that hire workers, grant raises or make major investments in equipment. It will also vote on a House-passed GOP version that grants tax deductions to all companies with fewer than 500 employees.
Both measures seem destined for certain defeat.
Wednesday morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., proposed votes on two amendments to the Democrats' business tax-cut bill.
One was on Obama's plan, the other on a Republican alternative that would include top earners in the extended tax reductions. Republicans say excluding the highest earners would raise taxes on many business people and stifle job creation.
Reid blocked the votes on both for now, at a time when a handful of Democrats - including several in tight re-election races - are wary of supporting Obama's proposal because their GOP opponents label it a tax increase. Democratic aides said they would vote on the measure by early August, after Obama spends more time bringing public attention to his proposal.
"The president's tax increase plan is not just an economic disaster, it's a political loser and they know it," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, sponsor of the GOP proposal.
Later Wednesday, it was Reid who proposed holding separate votes on Obama's plan and the rival GOP measure. He had a new condition: Letting either measure pass with a simple majority, instead of the 60 votes demanded for many Senate roll calls.
McConnell objected, saying he had not seen details of the bills.
Reid can usually count on votes from 51 Democrats plus two independents.
Late Wednesday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who is retiring in January, said he would vote against both parties' tax-cut extensions, saying Congress should instead be working on a major deficit-reduction package. Other Democrats have been unclear about whether they will back Obama's plan, including Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, who face tight re-election races in November.
"We'll get to the tax issues," Reid said. "That way we'll be able to talk in more detail about Gov. Romney's taxes," a reference to Democratic demands that wealthy GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney release more of his income tax returns.
Trying to take the offensive, Obama's re-election campaign released a television ad it will air in nine states where the election could be close, contrasting the middle-income tax breaks Obama has proposed with the tax cuts Romney's plan would provide for wealthy individuals and corporations. "Two plans, your choice," the announcer says.
Out of 119 million U.S. households, just 2.5 million - or 2 percent - reported making at least $250,000 in 2010, according to Census Bureau figures.
Just 3.5 percent of taxpayers reporting business earnings will earn enough money to see their tax rates rise next year unless lawmakers act, according to Congress' nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. Democrats use that figure to show how few businesses would pay higher tax rates under Obama's plan.
The committee also estimated that those taxpayers will account for 53 percent of the $1.3 trillion in business earnings reported in 2013 - a number Republicans cite to argue that the higher rates will hurt the economy.
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Number of women running for Congress at record level
By Karen McVeigh, The Guardian
Wednesday, July 11, 2012 20:08 EDT
The number of women running for Congress this year is higher than ever before, according to research.
Analysis of female candidates in the upcoming election shows 295 so far have filed for seats in the House of Representatives, with another due to file in August. The previous record of 262 was set in 2010.
Women are also on track to break the record for the number of who have won their nomination battles, according to the non-partisan 2012 Project and the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP).
One hundred and thirteen women have already won their primaries, at a time when over half of the states have had primaries. The previous record, in 2004, was 141.
There remains a large disparity in the political make-up of those running, however. Democrats have filed in much greater numbers – 185 compared to 110 Republican women – and have also won their nominations at a higher rate, 85 Democrats to 28 Republicans.
Debbie Walsh, director of CAWP, described the results as “encouraging”. If the pattern continued, Walsh said, she could envisage a post-election America where women made up 20% of the House, compared to 17% now.
“There is a scenario where we could reach 20%, but it depends on how the Democratic party overall does,” said Walsh.
The analysis showed a “partisan story of lopsided politics,” she said. “If it is a good year for Democrats, it is likely to be a good year for women. Obviously we would be happy with 50% but we’re not going to go from 17 to 50 in a single election cycle.”
The US ranks 78th, behind 95 other countries, in terms of women’s representation, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The 2012 Project was set up to encourage more women to run for office because research shows that, unlike men, women have to be asked to run.
Walsh said that Democratic women have been more successful at winning primaries and getting elected. They now make up 31% of their party’s legislators, compared to just 17% for the Republican party.
Bonne Grabenhofer, the executive vice-president of the National Organisation of Women, said redistricting and the retirement of a number of female incumbents had created more opportunities for women, who always do better against non-incumbents.
Asked what would bump up the number of women candidates significantly, she said: “Money. Always money. It takes more encouragement for women to run. They need to feel more qualified. It is incumbent on all of us who are interested in politics to encourage women to run.”
Tammy Bruce, a political commentator and talk radio host who worked on the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign before joining the Tea Party, said women in general and Republican women in particular are put off running for office because of the treatment they receive in the media.
She cited research on media behaviour in the 2010 midterms that revealed women candidates received 68% less coverage than men on issues, and three times more coverage of their appearance than their male counterparts.
“Women look at that and think: ‘Do I want to go through that?’” said Bruce. She pointed to two high-profile women, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, who, she says, were pilloried in the press for issues other than their politics.
“If the liberal media are going to eviscerate two women pursuing the highest office in the land, that’s going to send a message to other women. If we are going to have an increase in women running, we have to get women who do not have a background in politics, we are asking them to move out of their comfort zone of what they traditionally do.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2012
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Futures firm PFG collapses amid fraud accusations
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, July 11, 2012 17:32 EDT
NEW YORK — US futures brokerage Peregrine Financial Group filed for bankruptcy protection late Tuesday amid fraud allegations by regulators and after its founder attempted suicide.
PFG, also known as PFG Best, filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which involves the sale of assets to pay off creditors.
The liquidation filing in an Illinois bankruptcy court came a day after the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued PFG and its sole owner and chief executive, Russell Wasendorf.
The CFTC alleged they falsified information in filings and overstated the company’s bank deposits, leaving a shortfall that currently, and has previously since 2010, exceeded $200 million.
In the complaint, the CFTC alleged that PFG and Wasendorf — who it is said tried to commit suicide on Monday — “failed to maintain adequate customer funds in segregated accounts.”
The CFTC alleged that PFG and Wasendorf used funds for purposes other than those intended by its customers, and said “the whereabouts of the funds is currently unknown.”
On Monday the National Futures Association (NFA), responsible for monitoring PFG for compliance with reporting requirements, took an emergency enforcement action against PFG and Peregrine Asset Management.
The NFA blocked new or additional customer accounts or funds, alleging PFG had failed to prove it had met capital and segregated funds requirements.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday it was reviewing the facts in the case.
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Democrats call food stamp cuts ‘immoral’
By Chris McGreal, The Guardian
Wednesday, July 11, 2012 16:47 EDT
Republican attempts to cut billions of dollars in food assistance to poor American families have been denounced as an “abomination” and “immoral” by Democrats who have vowed to block the measure in Congress.
The cuts, part of a five-year farm bill under debate in the House of Representatives agricultural committee on Wednesday, slash $16bn from the food stamp programme over the next decade.
The move appears intended in part to highlight Republican disparagement of Barack Obama as the “food stamp president” because record numbers of Americans now claim the benefit, doubling the cost of the programme since 2008 to $80bn a year.
More than 46 million Americans receive food stamps, nearly half of them children.
The agricultural committee chairman, Frank Lucas, justified the cuts in part by claiming that the system has been manipulated by some US states to have the federal government provide food to households not entitled to assistance under what is formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap).
“Snap’s resources have been stretched because this administration has encouraged states to take liberties in how the programme is administered,” he said at the hearing to consider the bill.
“I’d like to be clear that this legislation will not prevent families that qualify for assistance under Snap law from receiving their benefits. We are working to better target the programme and improve its integrity so that families most in need can continue to receive nutrition assistance.”
But the proposal has met with strong objection from some Democrats.
Congressman Jim Clyburn, the third most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives said: “For us to be marking up this farm bill with this big a cut in Snap programs is an abomination”.
“I know what it is to try and teach world history when you know the students in front of you did not eat breakfast,” Clyburn said. “We should not set ourselves up as protectors of the wealthy, which seems to be what we are doing in this farm bill.”
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a member of the committee that funds administration of the food stamp programme, said up to 3 million people would lose access to the programme and almost 300,000 children would lose access to free school meals.
She said: “These proposed cuts show a total disregard for the real impact they would have on hungry kids and families across the country … This is immoral. We have to stop these cuts. We cannot let American families face the threat of hunger.”
Lynn Woolsey was one of several Democratic members of Congress who defended the food stamp programme because at one time she relied on it.
“This is personal for me. When my husband walked out on us, my pay cheque wasn’t enough. I enrolled in the food stamp programme not because I wanted to but because I had to.”
Representative Joe Baca said: “I received food stamps. I’m not proud of it, but the fact is, I did, and that makes me a warrior for those who need it.”
But the leading Democrat on the committee, Collin Peterson, suggested that the cuts might remain in the legislation for now because it needs to pass by next month in time to replace the existing farm bill, which expires in September. He has said he expects the Senate to remove the cuts to food stamps when it considers the bill.
“I remain concerned with the proposed changes to nutrition programmes. There are better, more responsible ways to improve and reform federal nutrition programmes; ways that would clean up some of the mess states have made with these programmes,” he said. “However, the bottom lines is that we need to move the legislation.”
But the fate of the legislation isn’t clear after it also met resistance from some Republicans who objected to the cost of the $100bn a year bill – 80% of it on the food stamp programme but also spending on price support to guarantee farmers minimum payments.
© Guardian News and Media 2012
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