President Proposes a Plan for Jobs

President Barack Obama spoke before a joint session of Congress last night, proposing a plan to create jobs. 

Much political ado had been made over the past week, particularly over the scheduling and the anticipated attendance of the speech.  Initially, the White House scheduled it to coincide with the Republican debate on Wednesday evening, causing no small amount of disgruntlement among Republicans, who would have had to quickly reschedule the debate, were it not for an unprecedented letter from House Speaker John Boehner to the White House, claiming that the date and time of the scheduled speech conflicted with pre-scheduled House voting.  Hence, the speech was rescheduled for last night, then rescheduled again, so as not to conflict with the first official game commencing football season.  As if tensions weren't high enough, already, some Republican Congresional representatives voiced their indifference to the media to even attending the speech, opting instead to watch the football game.  Affronted by the Republican speech-skippers indifference, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid astutely scheduled the procedural vote to disapprove the debt ceiling increase to commence immediatly after the speech.

It was then no wonder that in the preamble of the speech itself, the President referred to the "political circus" that characterizes Washington, these days.

In summary, the President's roughly $450 billion plan proposes--
--a significant reduction in employer payroll taxes, to make it cheaper for businesses to hire
--spending on infrastructure and education, to provide for construction and teaching jobs
--funds to retain teachers in budget-crunched states and retrain the long-term unemloyed, and
--a broad-based tax cut in 2012, to put more money in people's pockets.

Although stipulating that "everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything," the detail of precisely where the money to pay for the plan wasn't so clear.  The President expects to deliver that apparently minor detail to Congress next week.  At this point, it is assumed that it will be paid for with the budget cuts to be laid out by Congresses' special committee before December 31 of this year.

In regards to the delivery of the speech, notable was the President's tone, through which, he was adamant that the bill, called the "American Jobs Act" (though it's not officially an "act" until it is passed and signed), be "passed right away."  In fact, he used the phrase, "right away" eight times.

We'll let you draw your own conclusions from all that.

More Northeast Flooding

The remnants of tropical storm Lee have made its way to an already saturated northeast, has caused and threatens to cause, more flooding.  Roughly 100,000 residents along the Susquehanna River have been ordered to evacuate.

This summer is certainly gearing up to be a "Summer of Storms" for the eastern United States.  Although hurricane Katia is projected to veer northeast, away from the U.S., tropical storm Maria now brews in the Atlantic, and is headed straight towards Florida.

As long as they continue to roll in, we'll be updating.

Sunday Summary

In what is possibly the saddest result of the boom in technology of the last twenty years is the reduction of physical mail we send and receive.  The reason it is sad, is because, well, as a result, the United States Postal Service is broke.  Flat broke.  If they were a private company, they'd be bankrupt.

As it is with any private company, we say this because the costs to operate the USPS far outweigh the revenue it generates, currently by $9.2 billion.  Like the rest of the federal government, they've lately had to borrow the funds necessary to make its payments, and currently, they've reached their credit limit of $15 billion.  At the end of this month, they expect to default on $5.5 billion that covers future retirees' health benefits.  Hence, they're looking to Congress for some kind of action.

Two causes have brought about the USPS's difficulties.  First, thanks to digital technology such as email and online bill-paying as well as competition from private carriers such as UPS, the federal service has simply lost the volume of business, and the revenue that it generates.  In any private company, such loss of revenue would likely mean downsizing through employee layoffs.  However, and the second and more serious cause of the USPS's plight, because of no-layoff clauses in their contracts with the American Postal Workers Union, they cannot legally lay anyone off.  Moreover, a 2006 law requires the postal service to pay an average of $5.5 billion annually for 10 years to finance retiree health costs for the next 75 years.  Thus, the situation is "extremely serious,” according to postmaster general Patrick R. Donahoe.  "If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.”

Donahoe has proposed some measures to resolve the crisis, but most aren't likely to go over well with a number of folks.  They've already suggested ceasing Saturday deliveries, but such an idea has gotten flak from Congressional Representatives, who argue that such is a serious disruption for those who receive medications and newspapers via snail mail.  They have the legal authority to close facilities, and have proposed doing so, but who wants to lose their local post office?  They don't have the legal authority to layoff employees, so they have asked Congress to enact legislation that would overturn the job protections, but the very idea has enraged the postal workers union.  Cliff Guffey, president of the APWU, has already said, "we’re going to fight this and we’re going to fight it hard."

As Donahoe suggests, this is a serious problem that requires immediate attention.  As one member of an oversight committee put it, "Unless there is real structural reform, the Postal Service won’t be here in two years."  As it is, the funds necessary to even cover the current payroll will be depleted by early next year, and so there is talk of shutting down the service entirely this winter.

Ben Franklin, the country's first Postmaster General, must be rolling in his grave.