Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

President Proposes to Make Tax Benefits of Health Savings Accounts More Lucrative for Higher-Income Individuals – Revised 1/26/04

The President’s proposal to permit individuals with Health Savings Accounts to deduct their health insurance premium costs would do little to help low- and moderate-income uninsured families obtain health insurance, would primarily benefit the higher-income individuals who can already use HSAs as a lucrative tax shelter, and would further weaken comprehensive employer-based coverage.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has plenty of wonkish article — check it out. mjh

CBO Figures Indicate Lower Revenues, Not Higher Spending, Account For The Large Deficit – 1/26/04
New CBO estimates show revenues in 2004 will be exceptionally low, falling to their smallest share of GDP since 1950. Spending won’t be particularly high; as a share of GDP it will be lower than throughout the administrations of Presidents Carter and Reagan, and the first President Bush.

The advocates of ”starve the beast” (kill the federal government by cutting off funds) are still demanding less spending, and in this they are a bit frustrated with Bush and the Republicans in Congress. mjh

Op-Ed Columnist: Red Ink Realities By PAUL KRUGMAN, NYTimes

According to cleverly misleading reports from the Heritage Foundation and other like-minded sources, the deficit is growing because Mr. Bush isn’t sufficiently conservative: he’s allowing runaway growth in domestic spending. This myth is intended to divert attention from the real culprit: sharply reduced tax collections, mainly from corporations and the wealthy.

Is domestic spending really exploding? Think about it: farm subsidies aside, which domestic programs have received lavish budget increases over the last three years? Education? Don’t be silly: No Child Left Behind is rapidly turning into a sick joke.

In fact, many government agencies are severely underfinanced. For example, last month the head of the National Park Service’s police admitted to reporters that her force faced serious budget and staff shortages, and was promptly suspended.

A recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities does the math. While overall government spending has risen rapidly since 2001, the great bulk of that increase can be attributed either to outlays on defense and homeland security, or to types of government spending, like unemployment insurance, that automatically rise when the economy is depressed.

Why, then, do we face the prospect of huge deficits as far as the eye can see? Part of the answer is the surge in defense and homeland security spending. The main reason for deficits, however, is that revenues have plunged. Federal tax receipts as a share of national income are now at their lowest level since 1950.

Mr. Cheney, Meet Mr. Kay NYTimes Editorial

Vice President Dick Cheney continued to insist last week that Iraq had been trying to make weapons of mass destruction, apparently oblivious to the findings of the administration’s own chief weapons inspector that Iraq had possessed only rudimentary capabilities and unrealized intentions. The vice president’s myopia suggests a breathtaking unwillingness to accept a reality that conflicts with the administration’s preconceived notions. This kind of rigid thinking helped propel us into an invasion without broad international support and, if Mr. Cheney is as influential as many say, could propel us into further misadventures down the road.

CNN.com – Federal judge rules part of Patriot Act unconstitutional – Jan. 27, 2004 From Terry Frieden, CNN

The court said a paragraph that prohibits providing ”expert advice or assistance” to designated international terrorist organizations is a violation of the First and Fifth Amendments because it is impermissibly vague.

”It was in part a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution which allows free association and free speech and also the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which grants due process before criminalizing someone,” said Ralph Fertig, president of the Humanitarian Law Project, the organization that brought the suit.

PCWorld.com – Online Voting Plan Draws Concern by Joris Evers, IDG News Service

SERVE [Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment] is part of the U.S. Federal Voting Assistance Program. All mail-in absentee election functions have been placed on the Internet. This enables about 6 million U.S. citizens overseas, including uniformed services members, to cast their ballots online. The FVAP falls under the U.S. Department of Defense.

“We’re very concerned that a system we feel is insecure is going to be deployed,” says Barbara Simons, a computer scientist and technology policy consultant. “SERVE is called an experiment, but it is in fact not an experiment. There are not paper ballots, there is no way to verify after the fact to see if votes were correctly received and tabulated.”

Teenage hackers, terrorists, political parties–essentially anyone with an agenda and enough technical know-how–could subvert an election if the online system is put into use, according to Simons. The Internet is not secure enough for something as serious as electing a government official, the experts agree in their statement.

“What gives me nightmares is that SERVE might go forward and appear to work correctly … then Internet voting might come widespread for the whole country, perhaps in the 2008 election, and that could be a serious threat to our democracy,” Simons says.

Regardless of the experts’ opinions, the Department of Defense is moving ahead with SERVE. The system could be used for a primary election as early as February, and will certainly be up and running for the November presidential election, says Glenn Flood, a Defense Department spokesperson.

“We’re not stopping the SERVE program,” he says. “We’re aware of the concerns and we’re calling it a minority report because it is only four out of the ten review group members who felt they had to express themselves.”

Note this is not just a plan but a real program that will be ready for November this year. This may make Florida in 2000 look straight-forward. mjh

Tapes From Vermont TV Show a Howard Dean Rarely Seen on Campaign Trail

During Mr. Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, Dr. Dean took a now-familiar jab at Washington and at Mr. Clinton’s Republican accusers, saying, ”Who would want to listen to those windbags pontificate about morality when they are so incapable of illustrating it themselves?”

Rule Change May Alter Strip-Mine Fight By JAMES DAO, NYTimes

The Bush administration is moving to revamp a rule protecting streams that Appalachian environmentalists view as their best weapon for fighting the strip-mining technique of mountaintop removal.

Over the past six years, environmental groups have used the rule, which restricts mining within 100 feet of a stream, to block or slow the issuing of state permits for mountaintop removal.

Strip mining involves dynamiting away mountaintops to expose seams of low-sulfur coal, then dumping the leftover rubble into nearby valleys and streams. Some of those valley fills, as they are known, are hundreds of feet deep and several miles long, making them among the largest man-made earthen structures in the East.

The proposed rule change by the Office of Surface Mining would make clear that filling valleys and covering streams is permitted under federal law if companies show they are minimizing mining waste and the environmental damage caused by it.

Administration officials say the proposed changes to the rule, affecting the stream buffer zone, will clarify conflicting federal regulations and thereby reduce litigation. …

The struggle over the stream buffer zone underscores how some of the most significant battles over government policy are waged on the overlooked fields of little-known laws and lesser-known regulations.

And the struggle comes as mountaintop mining has emerged as the most common form of surface mining in central Appalachia. The process produces more coal, requires fewer employees and is less costly than other forms of mining.

But opponents contend that strip mining also levels mountains, fills narrow valleys, covers streams and destroys forests. Mining companies are required to reconfigure hilltops and replant forests, but those efforts rarely approach the natural beauty of the original landscape, residents argue.

Again, Bush uses executive fiat to change things to benefit corporations at the expense of everything else. mjh