U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
See Full Big Line
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
See Full Big Line
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
See Full Big Line
(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
See Full Big Line
(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
December 30, 2013 07:10 AM UTC
54 Comments
The World Braces For Retirement Crisis
Yes part of the problem is we should increase taxes. But even if we do, they can't keep up with these demographic changes and medical inflation.
You are absolutely wrong, David. Though you have thoroughly absorbed Pete Peterson, The Third Way, and possibly Grover Norquist's (sorry) talking points.
First, and this is where I'll support the idea of American Exceptionalism, we have a social contract going back decades, if not hundreds of years, that says society should help those in need when they need it and that the rich should pay their fair share. Somehow, the rich kept getting richer and have paid less and less of the costs of this great nation than ever. Check out the newest tax haven of the wealthy: South Dakota.
Second, does anyone think that the vast majority of the wealth generated by America's workers should be in the hands of so few? The Walton family is worth hundreds of billions, they are part of the "Job Creator" class. Have they created jobs? Could they live with 10, 50, 80% less? How could society be helped if the Waltons were taxed at a higher rate?
Wasn't really planning to argue so early in the week, but The Grand Bargain appears to be dead for now and here's a good explanation of how that happened and why that's a good thing:
You're advocating for the 1%-ers, Dave. Hey, it's America and that's your right and I'm sure they appreciate, but don't need, the help. And please note, I'm not a commie or a socialist or saying we should tax the Waltons into poverty.
But all the talk of a "Grand Bargain" to cut Social Security, and thereby rip the social contract that we "just can't afford", is only the latest strategy of those with the wealth to keep ever more of it.
Previously, our very own Senator Mark Udall said he could hardly wait to vote to cut Social Security. I don't hear him saying that much anymore (tho please let me know if he does). And I don't think he should ever say it again.
That would be smart policy, smart politics, and honoring some of the founding principles of this nation. The Grand Bargain is dead, for now. It should stay dead.
Well David probably is a one percenter and since he sees pretty much everything through his own personal busness model in his own particular sector of the economy, it's no surprise if he sees all economic issues only from his own personal one percenter perspective, too. David's world is a very small very David centric one.
It's more that I'm good at math. Costs that grow at a rate greater than the GDP are not sustainable. We can increase taxes to both move more from the rich to the old and from the working age to the old. But after that runs out, the growth rate will still be outpacing GDP.
You're making the assumption that the growth rate on the one side outpaces the growth rate on the other side. In fact, the growth rate of the top quintile accounts for about 90% of the total income growth in the country (note: not GDP – that's industrial, not individual). And the bottom ~40% or more are actually net losers in income growth according to many charts I've been seeing lately.
As Zapp notes, other European countries have been doing far more for far longer without ill effect – so I'd suggest that your "good math" is missing some variables.
The "without ill effect" for the European countries – uh, most of them are in a world of hurt with a 12% unemployment across the region.
It's not just healthcare. That's only part of the European equation. Most of these countries also offer far more generous benefits, overly generous, in all areas. Many, for instance, offer much earlier full retirement, a month of paid vacation time, shorter full time working hours, and on and on. We need not emulate such overboard generosity in every area.
As far as their health care situation they pay much less per capita to provide quality health care for all, including less for prescription drugs, than we pay while failing to provide quality healthcare for all. Emulating their success in this area would subtract, not add to our healthcare costs.
They also have lower child poverty rates,lower infant mortality rates and higher upward mobility rates, with more secure, comfortable retirement for the average person. So that higher unemployment rate, not that it's desirable, does not necessarily translate to an over all lesser quality of life.
But there's no reason why we couldn't avoid some of the pitfalls of their choices, including that higher unemployment rate, while still being able to well afford universal quality healthcare and control our own essentially irrational and excessive level of health care cost inflation. Just like there's no reason we can't raise the minimum wage to a living wage to correct for the loss of old industrial sector living wage jobs that weren't living wage jobs until the unions forced them to be and created the great American upwardly mobile middle class in the first place. More widely distributed decent income means more tax revenue regardless of rates. That's also good math.
And lets not forget all those banana republics that enjoyed great GDP growth a few decades back but without improving the lives of their 99% one iota because the increasing wealth was all concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. The relation of GDP to costs in and of itself doesn't translate into quality of life for the people of a "wealthy" country. It can just as easily translate into excessive wealth for a very few and widespread poverty even though the math says "prosperity".
But even looking at it as simple math, in a consumer economy like ours even the math says a healthy, educated population with a broadly distributed decent level of disposable income will translate into real and widespread prosperity and a better quality of life for the majority. It has before and can again. Any other kind of national prosperity by any measure is meaningless. What's the point of a "rich" county with a poor majority popultion leading hand to mouth lives with declining life expectancy? Not my idea of a prosperous country no matter what the GDP/cost ratio says.
That's great – average in Greece and Spain at over 25% unemployment each… But of course Germany, with benefits as good as most of Europe, is down at 5.2% unemployment. Your statistics is as good as your math, I'm sorry to say.
I'm not saying Europe is perfect; I'd be the first in line to argue for minimum wage increases rather than guaranteed income, for example. But realize that the state of many of these countries is as much a result of our own credit derivative crisis (and their banks' over-investment in said markets) as anything else. (I'll also go so far as to say that some of the worse off nations are those that are more socialist but without as much revenue collection. That is, they have the same problem we do here in the US – their people don't want to pay taxes, but they keep on spending government money.) Further, the credit situation in many European countries makes our own tight commercial credit markets look positively lively.
(And my grammar is as horrid as any of it. "Your statistics is…"?)
Let's consider a New Year's Holiday get out of jail free card for our petty errors. We all know what you meant to say and your points are sound.
Sounds good to me!
Math….2+2 = 4. ok
But you have to define a smart equation to be "good at math".
The man's name was Corrado Ginii.
Use whatever source you want – the CIA is a good start.
What you will see is that Gini index (or coefficient) has been a good predictor.
The USA is going the wrong direction. The math is not wrong even when it's uncomfortable.
I agree 100% that the Gini index is a very good indicator and the present direction is really bad for the U.S. Where we disagree is I don't think that's the only giant problem.
You may disagree with someone that there is only one giant problem, but it is not me.
Climate change, which is not likely to get better with a healthy middle class. At least not initially.
infectious disease. Clean water. Stron pitching in the 60613. I could go on.
But your point was how the rise in healthcare costs has outpaced (something else) and continued rise was unsustainable. Which is true. Some famous economist once said "things that cannot continue, don't."
i could cite dozens of economies where that problem was mitigated or even solved. Why don't we do what we know has worked elsewhere?
Madco, please don't go!
There is plenty of room for more funding in this country through eliminating caps. Why should social security taxes be the most regressive of all taxes? Why shouldn't a billionaire, or any one percenter, pay the same proportion of income as an average earner? Medical inflation could be controlled if there was the will to do so. For instance, with single payer public coverage and the ability for the government to negotiate costs. It would also make sense to raise full retirement age in a gradual process.
And let's not forget that the benefits in this country are already far less generous than in European countries, the retirement age already higher, so we already have a head start on solving these problems if we could shake off the hold of failed, discredited conservative policies of austerity with the help of a center left Dem party with the guts to get behind smart policy with the same confidence with which the right trumpets their failed policies.
The problem is, despite the right's ridiculous accusations of socialism in the Democratic party, today's Dem politicians are overwhelmingly center right while the Republicans are overwhelmingly far right. The result is simply more or less wrong headed conservative economic policy and what we need is a sharp departure from those failed policies, not more accommodation with them.
If we can get past a tipping point, starting, as usual with more progressive states this can change. Just as gay marriage was judged a pipe dream only a few cycles ago and the possibility of a non-white president judged a pipe dream only a couple of years before it happened, universal living wage, no caps or reduced caps for the wealthiest and single payer healthcare could also cease to be pipe dreams.
Not so long ago a Dem coalition such as the Third Way ( back then it was DLC) would never have been frightened enough by an Elizabeth Warren and what she represents to bother to first attack and then back peddle. She couldn't even have been elected and ideas so out of step with the dominant center right wouldn't have been considered enough of a threat to bother refuting. She would simply have been seen as representing an easily ignored fringe.
Even if circumstances make 2014 a year of setbacks, and it's too early to predict that will be the case, a tipping point is coming just as surely as it's already come on social issues like marriage equality. Get past it and many problems, including support for retirees, controlling healthcare costs and joining the 21st century with quality universal healthcare coverage, will be solved.
I don't know about this.
We've long had companies and government agencies who hand out full pensions after a 30 year service period. That means we've had people retiring in their 50s for a very long time now. That hasn't seemed to hurt those organizations. Perhaps that's because they plan for it, rather than the current practice of under-funding pension programs and then declaring some fiscal emergency and letting the government pick up the pension program at 2/3 off.
In my not so humble opinion, the first bit of reform should be to reform bankruptcy laws and the pension guarantee system. Workers, who have donated their "physical credit" – i.e. their lives – go before "secured credit".
The core problems are people are living longer, healthcare inflation is far greater than the overall inflation rate (even for single payer medicare), and a larger percentage of the population is over retirement age. No matter what the tax rates, those growth curves are a giant problem.
…and the people who negotiated these things couldn't have predicted that? Didn't figure it into their math? What did they think would happen?
They must have calculated they could find a way to rip off the people they made promises to, and signed deals which they knew they would never have to fulfill.
Hard to find sympathy for the companies there, David…
Are you assuming that this growth curve continues as-is in to the future?
We're already seeing a slowdown in medical cost growth. We'll be seeing a dip in the older population once we get past the baby boom era.
Sounds like you are doing what Republicans tend to do – pick a really bad point in time to make a comparison. Remember how horrible the deficit was back when the economy sucked? Not so much now…
If we can get the growth rate down that will be terriffic. But at present the trend lines do not look sustainable. People living longer on average is a wonderful thing, but it plays havoc with retirement programs. And the medical cost slowdown may be real, or may be due to the recession and will take off again when the recession ends.
Visibility in healthcare charges (nothing related to costs) will put the brakes on medical inflation.
Then the perverse incentives currently driving prices will be reduced:
Including practices like —
Insurance companies demanding fixed discounts leading hospitals to raise base prices to guarantee profits "after discount"
Standalone ERs that allow surcharges far above standard clinic rates, trolling for non-emergency cases.
Suggestions for Democrats and the upcoming
Legislative session. The problems illuminated by
The recall successes and the Hudak resignation should be addressed. These are my suggestions for legislative remedies.
1) Funding should be authorized to put prepaid Postage on all return envelopes for mail ballots.
2) The conflict between the Constitutional amendment stipulating deadline for inclusion on the ballot and the technical deadline necessary to allow adequate time to print and mail ballots should be addressed to allow the all mail ballot elections. However, I don’t know if that ballot deadline applies to all elections or just recall elections. In either case, the legislature should place an amendment to the Constitution to resolve the conflict between the Constitution and the state law.
3) If it involves all elections, the conflict can not be resolved before the 2014 election. Therefore, for the 2014 elections, only, the legislature should find a way to ensure that citizens get the mail ballots, even if this means mandating the use of express mail or other extraordinary means.
4) Legislation should be passed directing tthe Secretary of State to collect all petitions circulated for recall elections, regardless of the outcome of the effort. If the targeted official resigns or the petitioners don’t think they have collected sufficient signatures, the petitions should still be turned in to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State should be required to verify the signatures and publish the results.
No one really knows what happened with the Hudak recall. The anti-recall strategy was to ask citizens not to sign the petitions. No one knows if this effort was successful. The charge was also made that out of district people came in and signed the petition. No one knows to what extent this may have happened.
As I understand it, even though the law gives the targeted official a specific time to resign after the recall petitions have been turned in and the recall election set up, there was some concern that a challenge could be made. The argument being that the recall petitions actually caused the office to be vacant and the official does not have the option of resigning and allowing the party to appoint a replacement.
This should prevent the recall process becoming a game of electoral chicken.
Suggestions for Democrats and the upcoming
Legislative session. The problems illuminated by
The recall successes and the Hudak resignation should be addressed. These are my suggestions for legislative remedies.
1) Funding should be authorized to put prepaid Postage on all return envelopes for mail ballots.
2) The conflict between the Constitutional amendment stipulating deadline for inclusion on the ballot and the technical deadline necessary to allow adequate time to print and mail ballots should be addressed to allow the all mail ballot elections. However, I don’t know if that ballot deadline applies to all elections or just recall elections. In either case, the legislature should place an amendment to the Constitution to resolve the conflict between the Constitution and the state law.
3) If it involves all elections, the conflict can not be resolved before the 2014 election. Therefore, for the 2014 elections, only, the legislature should find a way to ensure that citizens get the mail ballots, even if this means mandating the use of express mail or other extraordinary means.
4) Legislation should be passed directing tthe Secretary of State to collect all petitions circulated for recall elections, regardless of the outcome of the effort. If the targeted official resigns or the petitioners don’t think they have collected sufficient signatures, the petitions should still be turned in to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State should be required to verify the signatures and publish the results.
No one really knows what happened with the Hudak recall. The anti-recall strategy was to ask citizens not to sign the petitions. No one knows if this effort was successful. The charge was also made that out of district people came in and signed the petition. No one knows to what extent this may have happened.
As I understand it, even though the law gives the targeted official a specific time to resign after the recall petitions have been turned in and the recall election set up, there was some concern that a challenge could be made. The argument being that the recall petitions actually caused the office to be vacant and the official does not have the option of resigning and allowing the party to appoint a replacement.
This should prevent the recall process becoming a game of electoral chicken.
Suggestions for Democrats and the upcoming
Legislative session. The problems illuminated by
The recall successes and the Hudak resignation should be addressed. These are my suggestions for legislative remedies.
1) Funding should be authorized to put prepaid Postage on all return envelopes for mail ballots.
2) The conflict between the Constitutional amendment stipulating deadline for inclusion on the ballot and the technical deadline necessary to allow adequate time to print and mail ballots should be addressed to allow the all mail ballot elections. However, I don’t know if that ballot deadline applies to all elections or just recall elections. In either case, the legislature should place an amendment to the Constitution to resolve the conflict between the Constitution and the state law.
3) If it involves all elections, the conflict can not be resolved before the 2014 election. Therefore, for the 2014 elections, only, the legislature should find a way to ensure that citizens get the mail ballots, even if this means mandating the use of express mail or other extraordinary means.
4) Legislation should be passed directing tthe Secretary of State to collect all petitions circulated for recall elections, regardless of the outcome of the effort. If the targeted official resigns or the petitioners don’t think they have collected sufficient signatures, the petitions should still be turned in to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State should be required to verify the signatures and publish the results.
No one really knows what happened with the Hudak recall. The anti-recall strategy was to ask citizens not to sign the petitions. No one knows if this effort was successful. The charge was also made that out of district people came in and signed the petition. No one knows to what extent this may have happened.
As I understand it, even though the law gives the targeted official a specific time to resign after the recall petitions have been turned in and the recall election set up, there was some concern that a challenge could be made. The argument being that the recall petitions actually caused the office to be vacant and the official does not have the option of resigning and allowing the party to appoint a replacement.
This should prevent the recall process becoming a game of electoral chicken.
If you invoke it thrice, does it magically become law? 🙂
The problem with the ballot deadlines is strictly a recall issue, created by the 15-day prior to election allowance for candidate petitioning. Regular elections don't have this constitutional restriction.
It can be largely addressed legislatively if we alllow ballots to be postmarked by election day rather than received by election day. However, to best allow overseas voters to particpate, a constitutional change must be enacted.
@PR,
Thank you very much, I really appreciate the clarification. Then I would suggest that the recall deadline be addressed by placing an amendment on the ballot and that legislation allowing that ballots postmarked on election day be counted.
OMG, This was a cut and paste, I couldn't see what I had copied. So I keep pasting….Is there anyway I can delete the triple posting???
Pols can do it. Next time you cut and paste, press the "source" button. It's the only way to see what you're pasting, if there's possibility of dupes or unwanted text. With "source" on, you can delete unwanted text, then press it again to see it WYSIWIG.
BTW, regular elections are still mandated by HB1303 to be all mail ballot elections in Colorado. Only recall elections trigger the Constitutional conflict. So unless there is another recall in 2014 (and the right does seem to be fond of the tactic), the regular 2014 elections will be all mail ballot. I don't know how primaries work on the Republican side. Do they have caucuses like Dems?
I don't know that prepaid ballot envelopes would help the return rate. In the 2012 regular election, Colorado already had a 97% return rate without prepaid postage. Most people drop them off. But, my understanding is that only ballots which are actually mailed would incur the postage cost, so the outlay would be minimal. Prepaid postage would be unnecessary, but it wouldn't hurt.
The Constitutional conflict on recall election timelines is more pressing, since the right is unlikely to abandon such a successful tactic. I don't know enough about the legislative process to address it, although I think that Constitutional questions have to be petitioned onto the ballot by initiative, then voted on. Anyone know?
IIRC, Colorado law requires major parties (which the Republican Party remains despite the Dan Maes debacle…) to hold caucuses and conventions.
As to a Constitutional fix to the recall election problem, the legislature can (and should) add a fix via Referendum – this is a legal issue, and as such a legislature initiated fix is more than appropriate. In fact, given the logistical pain of getting ballots printed within a 15-day window (less given the possibility for challenges), this is something SOS Gessler should be willing to sign on to – the moreso because his office was involved in recommending the change. (Remember, this isn't a problem caused by the 2013 election reforms – it was part of an earlier package…)
Since the change requires an amendment to the Constitution, does this require just a majority of the legislature (can be done with Dems alone) or does it require 2/3rds of legislature (won't be done because Reps will oppose)?
It does require a 2/3 majority, but it would be a mistake IMHO to write it off thinking that Republicans will oppose it. Republicans helped pass it, and Republican clerks will want it fixed, including at least one of the two running for Secretary of State.
@mj55
Thank you, too. for the posting instructions.
I use the paste symbol in the string of symbols next to source. It gives me a box in which to put what I cut or copied. Misspelled words are underlined. I fix them and hit OK.
Thanks.
Was it a paste from Word or some other program? If you're pasting from Word, use either the 'Paste as plain text' or 'Paste from Word' icons to get rid of formatting issues. If you just want plain text, use the 'Paste as plain text' icon. (They're the icons directly to the left of the undo arrow – they look like a notepad holder with a Notepad icon and a Word icon, respectively.)
@PR
Thank you, again. I was posting from Word because I wanted to use a spell check. I have done this before and have not had the problem. But, I will absolutely follow your direction. I just copied the instructions and pasted them into Word in my Document file. I just hope it does suddenly appear on the blog!
would be nice to have an edit function for those who aren't admins. would eliminate a lot of these frantic entries. Thanks, Pols!
Where was it cut and pasted from ?
Correction: Does not appear
Tom Tomorrow's Year in Crazy, Part 2:
Ironically, our computer is going into the “shop” for a new hard drive. So I will wish you all a Happy New Year, now, and attempt to post this using the good instructions I received. See you all in 2014.
a) buy a new computer – it will have a new hard drive and be 1000x better in every other way (unless it has Windows 8)
b) No you won't. MADCO is taking 2014 off.
Could you be tempted to attend a Pols meet up?
Name the time and place and I'll help set it up!
It worked! Thanks, all.
In the spirit of the season… Happy New Year to you, too, dwyer. Good luck with the hard drive.
Dave Barry's year in review. It's hilarious (and tears into the political class big time)
Now this is a politician focused on the critical issues he faces:
Yeah ,but who would?
Cruz, who's criticized his fellow Republicans for training "cannon fire" at one anothereven as he's kept his own howitzers warm, has been a one-man wrecking ball against the efforts of the RNC's "Growth And Opportunity Project." Even as he's served as the vice chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he's raised the profile of the Senate Conservatives Fund and used that perch to harangue his colleagues for what he's perceived as a lack of purity. He hasn't even endorsed Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the head of the NRSC, who's facing a primary in Cruz's home state!Dissatisfaction with our current leadership isn't limited to only one party, but it looks like the GOP is still trying to find their ass with both hands in the dark:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/30/rnc-autopsy-2013_n_4520289.html?1388441289&utm_hp_ref=politics
Argh–tried the paste button and it wiped out my comment and didn't indent the quote!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/30/rnc-autopsy-2013_n_4520289.html?1388441289&utm_hp_ref=politics
A Progressive's New Year's resolution:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/fourteen-2014-new-years-r_b_4518591.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
The model to emulate:
Calvin Coolidge
Ah yes, persistence & determination will see you to success, or a wasted 50 years.
True..sometimes even persistence doesn't guarantee success. There are no guarantees except death and taxes…I have heard.
Persistently dedicating oneself to something one clearly isn't cut out for probably isn't the best choice.
This is why I'm not an ideologue. You take any ideology or basic principle, such as persistence and dedication being the key to success, all the way through to its logical conclusion and, I don't care what it is, it becomes unworkable. The real world, as opposed to the ideal world which has no material existence, requires practical adjustments.
Here's to a New Year full of positive practical adjustments.