I don’t envy climate change when it eventually sits down to meet the Republicans on the House Science and Technology Committee. Will climate change be offended that one member believes it originated from dinosaur flatulence? A recent draft National Climate Assessment report says there is 

“Unambiguous evidence” the Earth is warming primarily from human activity. The assessment released through U.S. Global Change Research Program tallies the wide-ranging effects of climate change, such as water supplies stressed by declining runoff and increased risk of heat stress and waterborne disease, and notes that U.S. infrastructure is already being harmed by sea-level rise, storm surges and heavy downpours.

U.S. temps will continue to rise two to four degrees F; without actions to reduce global emissions, an increase of 10 degrees F is possible by century's end. This report, as you might imagine, suggests some action be taken to increase resilience to changes that it says cannot be avoided.

 For the next few years, however, the House Committee on Science and Technology probably isn’t the place to look for progress on this issue. Here are a few quotes that fly in the face of science from the Committee's Republican members.

Committee member Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) says, “I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old.” As if not to be outdone by his fellow congressman, Commitee Vice Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI)

decried climate change theory as a “massive international scientific fraud” and evidence of what he called “scientific fascism.” Another climate skeptic on the committee this year, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), suggested in a hearing that “dinosaur flatulence” might explain historic warming patterns.

 Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), the outgoing Chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, said,

“I'm really more fearful of freezing […] And I don't have any science to prove that. But we have a lot of science that tells us they're not basing it [global warming] on real scientific facts.” 

Incoming Chairman Lamar Smith (also of Texas) questions why the “lapdog media” isn’t skeptical of climate change and says the panel will “create a forum for discussion.” 

There's about as much hope of action from the House Science Committee run by Republicans that happily have planted their heads in the sand as there is of polar bears surviving massive glacial and sea ice meltdowns.

Congress and President Obama can manage to gather themselves together on certain things. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial post-9/11 Bush-era law, will encounter no artificial congressional cliff on the way to reauthorization. It is uncomfortable to observe that while so much else in Congress is stalemated, this law – allowing warrantless review of email and eavesdropping on communications – passes with ease. None of several proposed amendments was considered in the Senate, under the pressure of “no time for reconsideration” in the House.  

The original FISA law had been expanded under President Bush in 2008.

[…] the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 did much more than shield lawbreaking telecoms from all forms of legal accountability. Jointly written by Dick Cheney and then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller, it also legalized vast new, sweeping and almost certainly  unconstitutional forms of warrantless government eavesdropping. (ACLU study)

By a solid vote of 73-23 (the losing side: 21 Democrats, fewer than half the caucus, and 2 Republicans, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul), FISA was reauthorized by the Senate. FISA was already approved by the House, and it will be signed by President Obama.

Odd, the things the House, Senate and White House can find common cause on.

 The Washington Post’s editorial board wants the country to go over a cliff. No not the fiscal cliff but,  a “milk cliff”.  I guess a “milk cliff’ is to the “fiscal cliff” like Jimmy Olsen is to Superman, an important character but not the plot driver. Anyway the lesser cliff results from the stalled farm reauthorization bill deadline. The Post suggests the bill should ultimately fail so the resulting shocks will motivate Congress to change dairy support laws.  

Once over the “milk cliff” we don’t enter into an imagined free market heaven but instead would revert to following a 63 year old farm law.  

According to CNBC Higher prices would be based on what dairy farm production costs were in 1949, when milk production was almost all done by hand.

And it would force the government to buy milk at inflated prices. Dairy farmers would experience a windfall selling to Washington but as a result less milk would make it to the consumer level and higher prices would be charged for what remained available.  

The farm bill also covers food stamp benefits and anti-hunger programs. Additionally the drought and record breaking weather this summer was also expected to drive up the price of groceries, according to the government. So, to families already struggling and everyone else, there would be another blow plus the milk shock..

But this is fine with The Washington Post’s editorial board because, although going over the cliff would “harm many consumers”,  

[…] the pain might be worth it if it finally shocks the country into demanding an end to Congress’s fiddling with the milk market.[added emphasis]

I am not suggesting the farm bill isn’t a tangle but it is surprising The Post believes the resulting painful outcry might force Congress to act. Popularly supported demands for the wealthy to pay their fair share, Obama’s decisive victory, and other Democratic gains in the recent election, haven’t been enough (yet) to drive the Republican controlled House of Representative anywhere closer to sanity. However, The Editorial board believes an $8.00 a gallon milk price shock would. So with little evidenceThe Washington Post’s editorial board calculates that their prescription for “harm to many consumers” and market disruption for others is worth the risk.  

Suppose the US Congress were trading on the stock exchange and you followed the old saying that advises “buy on the dips”? Well then you would likely buy congressional stock because it can’t get much lower. But keep in mind that an upswing might be a long way off and past performance is no guarantee of future appreciation. Congressional job performance approval, according to a recent poll is just 9 percent. The poll of 1,000 people nationwide had a margin of error of 3.5 percent. 

That means Congress’ approval rating could be as high[!] as 12.5 percent or as low as 5.5 percent

 And while Congress struggles with a low and falling approval rating, a different pollster shows President Obama’s approval is on the move up.

Obama’s approval rating stands at 57 percent, the highest since May 2011, […] up 5 percentage points from before the election. And 42 percent [of poll respondents] say the country is on the right track, up from 35 percent in January 2009.

 This poll also indicates:

…overall, the public gives Democrats the advantage on handling the economy, 45 percent saying they trust the president’s party to do a better job on it, 39 percent favoring Republicans

But now there are reports that Democrats might take their advantage and consider Medicare and other entitlement cuts. With polls showing that large margins(70-25 percent) of voters oppose cutting Medicare, odds are the Democrats' stock might tank too.

 Bruce Lisman’s self described “centrist” Campaign for Vermont is still stocking the shelves with Republicans. Lisman added to his inventory the brand new public relations firm started by former Douglas administration spokesperson Jason Gibbs. Gowithgibbs.com is where the company’s webpage will be someday soon.

VtBuzz.com reports Gibbs’ “strategic communication and project managment business” has been retained by a variety of clients but only Campaign for Vermont is named.The biggest news here may be that, at least according to Gibbs the Campaign for Vermont has started to focus on policy.Color me doubtful that any specifics will ever be brought forth.

He [Gibbs] said, “The work CFV is doing to encourage non-partisan dialogue around the issues most important to Vermonters will be productive and help move Vermont forward. For example, while the governor and legislature are debating physician assisted suicide and marijuana decriminalization, CFV is focused on growing the economy, creating better jobs and eliminating poverty; improving education outcomes and increasing teacher pay; and making government more efficient, productive and accountable through transparency.”

His nibs young Jason Gibbs was last seen in the public spotlight in his 2010 losing a bid for Vermont Secretary of State. Prior to that he was appointed by Governor Douglas to the Vermont Department of Forests and Parks and most recently worked at Vermont Ski Association.  

So go with Gibbs, when your Campaign for Vermont isn’t able to.  

 Friends of poor Ann Romney reported that she believed up until the end that ascending to the White House was their destiny. Well she isn’t the only Republican feeling robbed.

A new Public Policy Polling (PPP) post election poll shows a substantial number of Republicans believe they were robbed by a group disbanded years ago.

49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.(full poll PDF)

And a quarter of Republicans polled want to leave the Union.

Some GOP voters are so unhappy with the outcome that they no longer care to be a part of the United States. 25% of Republicans say they would like their state to secede from the union compared to 56% who want to stay and 19% who aren't sure.

And guess what? There has been a five-point decrease since the election in Republican Party identification.

We've seen a 5-point increase in Democratic identification to 44%, and a 5-point decrease in Republican identification to 32%.

This decrease to 32%, the PPP charitably suggests, may have contributed to the extreme views shown by the poll.

The GOP, now with only 32% extremist views!  

 It’s the beginning of the month and the NYTimes.com pay-wall lets its guard down. One item I found while binging on ten free articles was a detailed report about government tax incentives and assorted breaks given to companies nationwide. The accompanying state by state data base shows Vermont spends $407 million per year on incentive programs.

States, counties and cities nationwide are, by The Times’ best estimate, giving large and small companies $80 billion per year in assorted breaks. Yet accountability and oversight is often spotty even though the amounts are often substantial.

A full accounting, The Times discovered, is not possible because the incentives are granted by thousands of government agencies and officials, and many do not know the value of all their awards. […] Even where officials do track incentives, they acknowledge that it is impossible to know whether the jobs would have been created without the aid.

Endlessly it seems large and small companies are asking for and receive tax breaks, grants, and waivers designed supposedly to encourage them to hire, expand or just not abandon their location for greener pastures. These are behaviors business would perform anyway in the normal course of events, but in theory, incentives nudge businesses this way or that in hopes of benefiting the public good. Many jobs are certainly saved or created, but the leverage is with corporations and businesses in what is called

a high-stakes bazaar where they [corporations] pit local officials against one another to get the most lucrative packages.

Here in Vermont 31cents per dollar of budget is spent on incentive programs according to the Times.

More after the break

In the New England states the high rollers understandably are Massachusetts at $3.08 billion and Connecticut at $860 million. Then comes Maine which is third at $504 million, followed by Vermont’s $407 million, Rhode Island’s $356 million, and New Hampshire lives free or dies at $39 million.  

Vermont spends at least $407 million per year on incentive programs, according to the most recent data available. That is roughly: $650 per capita or 31¢ per dollar of state budget  

• Top Incentives by type

1. $359 million in sales tax refunds, exemptions or other sales tax discounts

2. $40.8 million in cash grants, loans or loan guarantees

3. $3.15 million in corporate income tax credits, rebates or reductions

• Top Incentives by industry

1. $333 million in Manufacturing

2. $24.8 million in Agriculture

3. $1.8 million in Alternative energy

• Grants to Companies (601); State Programs (22)

VtDigger.com reports that in 2012 a report by the Vermont Economic Progress Council which oversees the VEGI (Vermont Employment Growth Incentive) program, created 1,328 jobs in three years, and paid out $1.95 million in cash incentives. The jobs they report brought the state $5.26 million in income tax revenue.

Thirty one cents per dollar of budget is something to keep in mind as Vermont’s annual budget cutting season nears.  

Corporate profits for US corporations hit record highs in the third quarter.

 blue =wages    red=profits    This chart and more found here

Whew! I kind of wish I hadn’t even seen that chart. Huffington Post reports that special year end bonuses for many companies are in the works ahead of expected 2013 tax increases and of course the S&P 500 has more than doubled since the bottom of the recession.

And how about everybody else?

Average hourly pay, when adjusted for inflation, has fallen 0.7 percent over the past year, according to the Labor Department. And the unemployment rate in October was 7.9 percent — it was at a low of 4.4 percent in May 2007 before the recession.

All this reminds me of an old cartoon from WWII that I saw in a book. It shows a bemedaled general viewing a gorgeous sunrise (or perhaps sunset) and remarking to his aide.”Wonderful sunrise Lieutenant, do the troops have one too?”

 Riding Shotgun is a story in Seven Days about the recent deer hunting trip reporter Paul Heintz was taken on by Governor Shumlin. Reading it made me wonder just a little – and by that I mean not a lot, but still a little – about his closeness to the politician he covers.  

It all started with an apparent off the cuff manly taunt from the governor about hunting but led fairly quickly to a serious invitation.

Five days later, I was riding shotgun in Shumlin’s Dodge Ram pickup truck along the back roads of East Montpelier. It was three days into rifle season, and the governor had finagled an afternoon off after speaking at a Veteran’s Day ceremony in Burlington.

The uneventful politician/reporter hunting trip during which no deer were taken is related in a friendly, all-in-good-fun manner.  

While sharing a snack with his new hunting partner, Heintz might have been thinking back to the term ‘reporter on the tire swing’ coined back in the ’08 McCain presidential campaign as he wondered:

Oh, shit, I thought, I’ve been co-opted. What would Bob Kinzel say if he could see me now?!

However I’d worry less about Kinzel and more about the possible double meaning of the quip the Governor reportedly made earlier to his team

“I told my team I’d have you gutted out and hung up by 4:30,” Shumlin said.

So who’s fair game now?  

  Riding Shotgun is a story in Seven Days about the recent deer hunting trip reporter Paul Heintz was taken on by Governor Shumlin. Reading it made me wonder just a little and by that I mean not a lot-but still a little about his closeness to the politician he covers.  

It all started with an apparent off the cuff manly taunt about hunting from the governor but led fairly quickly to a serious invitation.

Five days later, I was riding shotgun in Shumlin’s Dodge Ram pickup truck along the back roads of East Montpelier. It was three days into rifle season, and the governor had finagled an afternoon off after speaking at a Veteran’s Day ceremony in Burlington.

The uneventful politician/reporter hunting trip during which no deer were taken is related in a friendly, all-in-good-fun manner.  

While sharing a snack with his new hunting partner Heintz might have been thinking back to the term ‘reporter on the tire swing’ coined back in the ’08 McCain presidential campaign when he wondered

Oh, shit, I thought, I’ve been co-opted. What would Bob Kinzel say if he could see me now?!

  However I’d worry less about what Kinzel might think and more about the possible double meaning of the quip the Governor reportedly made earlier to his team

“I told my team I’d have you gutted out and hung up by 4:30,” Shumlin said.

 

So who’s fair game now ?