One of my pet peeves with Politifact is that they generally debunk trivial facts and completely ignore the significant issues. I view them as a Snopes competitor. Here is an example of them ignoring major issues.

1. Congress is voting on the DREAM Act and Politifact says there are several versions in Congress. Did Politifact just flunk Journalism 101? Does Congress know what is in the DREAM Act?
2. When did a thirty five year old person become a minor? Don’t you think that age limit opens the door to fraud and is the key complaint by the conservatives?

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act would allow children brought to the United States illegally to obtain permanent legal status if they complete two years of college or in the military.

There are currently several versions of the DREAM Act kicking around in Congress, but under the version introduced in March 2009, people under 35 who arrived in the United States before the age of 16 and have lived here at least the last five years would be able to apply for legal permanent resident status on a conditional basis if they have obtained a U.S. high school diploma or GED.

PolitiFact | Fact-checking attacks on the DREAM Act

In the article, Do Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Create Jobs? – Megan McArdle – Business – The Atlantic, Megan makes some good points about the economic impact of extending the tax cuts.

We’ve got a massive fiscal problem ahead of us, and extending all these tax cuts until 2012 will simply mean that both parties will be vying with each other to bust the budget ahead of the election. But it seems ludicrous to me to claim that tax cuts for the middle class are affordable, excellent stimulus, while the much smaller tax cuts for the wealthy cost too much relative to the stimulus they deliver. The differences are really pretty marginal, and not particularly well measured.

I think she wandered off of the question, “Do Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Create Jobs?”, and attempted to answer the question what is the impact on jobs by extending tax cuts. The differences between the two questions are very apparent when you focus on the psychology of spending. In the first case the question is whether the wealthy will spend or save their incremental income when their taxes are cut. Unfortunately that is not our situation. In the second case the question is what will the wealthy do if their income stays the same or is reduced. That is the question we are facing when we look at extending existing tax cuts. If the tax cuts are extended then it is generally assumed that the wealthy will not change their spending habits. No new jobs will be created but we will not lose any existing jobs. If the tax cuts are not extended it is generally assumed that the wealthy will cut back their spending and this will likely result in jobs lost. So we are confronted with a lose-lose proposition. If we extend the tax cuts on the wealthy we will expand the deficit but will keep our existing jobs. If we do not extend the tax cuts we will likely lose some unknown number of existing jobs. Depending on your estimate of job losses and your guess at whether past economic data is relevant in this situation, the impact on the deficit could be good or bad.

The fascinating question that this situation brings up is where do people cut spending when tax cuts are taken away? As an example a person receiving a tax cut might purchase an automobile or an appliance. Will that same person sell their car or appliance when the tax cut is taken away? I don’t think so. The cuts will likely come from reduced discretionary spending? This logic is probably appropriate for both the middle class and the wealthy tax cuts. Removing tax cuts probably has a larger effect on consumer spending that granting tax cuts.

For the average person it is hard to figure out the ruckus over government deficits. Everyone seems to be an expert who has their favorite facts that support their conclusion. The biggest problem I have with experts is that there are so many of them and they all come up with different conclusions. Recently I was amused to read Is California’s Decline Just More Right-Wing Propaganda? by Tim Cavanaugh  which he wrote in response to the article, The truth about California by Brett Arends. So many experts, so little consensus. For a person in Ohio who finds it very hard to figure out what the local governments are doing, it seems foolish to compete with these experts but it may be reasonable to develop a laymen’s guide to the Truth about California. Even though I live in Ohio I understand that the importance of California to Ohio and the rest of the country. It is hard to ignore the plight of the eighth largest economy in the world and naively assume that the problems on the west coast will stay there. So I decided to back off from the more esoteric economic facts and dwell on the simple facts that the average person can understand.

1. Late Payment Fact: Is California issuing IOUs or paying its vendors over 90 days late?
2. Selling the Family Jewels Fact: Is California is selling off state assets or laying off people in some of its politically favored programs?
3. Can We Tell the Truth Fact: Is California calling special sessions for legislators to rework the budget they just passed?
4. Civil Unrest Fact: Are they rioting in the streets?

Although some may argue that this overly simplifies California’s issues we can express some faint praise about California’s plight since it has not issued IOUs this year. On the other hand the latest budget appears to be selling some family jewels and antagonizing some politically well connected constituencies. Despite these revenue raising and cost cutting measures, Governor Schwarzenegger recently asked for a special legislative session to rework the budget. This sounds like more layoffs to politically well connected constituencies. Although it would be premature to expect to see demonstrations against the recent budget cuts, none of this bodes well for the United States as California cranks up its austerity program.

Although I am modestly hopeful that Congress will embrace spending cuts through a civil debate, I suspect that it is more likely the process will look a lot like the “California budget debate”.  The saving grace for the American people is if the California situation gets uglier, Congress may be more willing to embrace a “real world” compromise to avoid more drastic cuts. So far the California government is stuck in an alternative reality due to fanciful estimates of government revenues and spending. Part of the problem is that our local, state, and federal governments  have been lying about their financial position for so long it is difficult to trust the current estimates. If a budget compromise cannot be reached, the de facto result is a “do nothing” strategy. When we have another financial crisis the de facto strategy results in flat cuts to every department. We can see the de facto strategy at work in the California budget debate. Due to the relative size of social services in the budget, these categories are getting the larger portion of the cuts. The same situation exists in the federal budget. A flat budget cut is a difficult political issue to demonize your opponents with. This is a lose-lose position for the progressive wing of the Democrat party.

California’s Budget Blues Get Deeper | KCET

In a little more than month, the state of California lost over $6 billion in ground on its latest budget. With the deficit now thought to be $25.4 billion, Gov. Schwarzenegger calls a special session of the legislature to start on December 6.

Some Assembly Democrats think this is a political gimmick–what’s changed in the 5 weeks since they last approved a budget that could make things better?–and their biggest priority is something that would make the deficit bigger, not smaller–reversing a Schwarzenegger line item veto of $256 million worth of day care.

I was wondering what polices would Archie Wilson like to see implemented to control cronyism. Here are some of my ideas:

1. Public notice of pending TIFs
2. Public comment on pending TIFs
3. Background material on pending TIFs displayed on county web site.

Recently I have been looking at the Jungle Jim’s agreement with Union Township, http://communitypress.cincinnati.com/article/20101015/NEWS/10150367/Union-Twp-defends-Jungle-Jim-s-agreement. It is close to where I work so I drove by. I was surprised to find that the property had a variety of small tenants including a movie theater and gas station. There are two things that bother me.

1. When I looked up the tax records on this property, the owner paid $450,196 in 2009. This is a lot of money when you compare it to taxes paid by the Meijer down the street, $159,852. The Meijer property has a similar amount of acreage and square footage but the Jungle Jim building is considerably older and more expensive. So who is going to pay the property tax and at what rate? As a resident of Clermont County I would like to see the larger amount going into the county coffers so we can avoid layoffs. If I understand the concept of TIF correctly, the tax on the value added by the improvement is used to pay off the loan while the base amount goes to the county.
2. There are two competitors to the proposed development within a mile, Walmart and Meijer. I wonder how they feel about the development? I cannot help but wonder whether this development will force one of those competitors to abandon their location unless they get the same deal. Jungle Jim’s is special but probably not special enough to increase spending in the area. It sure looks like we have three grocery stores fighting for the same grocery dollar.

Although I respect Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s past accomplishments, this attempt by them to get billionaires to pledge $125 billion to charity is not the best use of our billionaires talents. Although there are many worthwhile charities, the greater good for this country would be served by creating sustainable, long-term jobs. It is these “good jobs” that the people want and need. Nurturing new businesses that create these jobs is a natural match for some of these billionaires. In my opinion these billionaires have a much greater chance of creating good jobs than any charity or government program.