The nation as a whole seems to be in a tentative, fragile--and jobless--recovery. Although GDP is growing, employment is still falling, and payroll employment in the last quarter of 2009 was still 4.9 percent below its level of the last quarter of 2007, when the Great Recession started. While jobless recoveries are now commonplace, this one isn’t the same old jobless recovery. It’s worse--worse than the recovery from any of the previous three recessions.
Recently I was rummaging through the living mess of papers in my office--my nachlass, however hard-driven, will not be a hard drive--when I discovered a fading sheet I had not seen in decades. It was a copy of a letter that was given to me by a little man in the municipal hall in Hebron in 1980. I had traveled to Hebron to look into an incident that occurred a few days earlier on Purim, a triumphalist holiday on which Jews are enjoined to revel in inversions and to drink themselves out of their capacity to distinguish between good and evil.
A few years ago, Tom Edsall wrote a great Diarist for TNR arguing, based on his years of playing poker in Washington, that Republicans are better players than Democrats:
Here's President Obama's letter to Congress. He submitting a similar proposal to the one he brought to the Blair House Summit, adding to it several ideas Republicans brought to the meeting.
As I predicted at the time, the Florida Medicare Advantage side-deal is gone. Good for you, John McCain.
You’d have to be pretty cold-hearted to think somebody should go without insurance just because she has a kid with asthma, was born with diabetes, or survived a bout of breast cancer--just three of the conditions that today would render an individual “uninsurable” in the eyes of the industry.
All across the country, Republicans are fantasizing about a gigantic electoral tide that will sweep out deeply entrenched Democratic incumbents this November. In their telling, this deep-red surge will be so forceful as to dislodge even legislators who don’t look vulnerable now, securing GOP control of both houses of Congress.
But could this scenario really come to pass? That will depend, in part, on what type of Republican Party the Democrats are running against in the fall.
All across the country, Republicans are fantasizing about a gigantic electoral tide that will sweep out deeply entrenched Democratic incumbents this November. In their telling, this deep-red surge will be so forceful as to dislodge even legislators who don’t look vulnerable now, securing GOP control of both houses of Congress.
But could this scenario really come to pass? That will depend, in part, on what type of Republican Party the Democrats are running against in the fall.
The White House on Tuesday released a letter from President Obama to the congressional leadership of both parties. In it, Obama urges them to incorporate a handful of Republican ideas into health care reform and then get on with passing a comprehensive bill, even if the Republicans still refuse to support it.
President Obama has persuasively explained why Medicare Advantage costs more money to the government without providing a superior service. John McCain interjected to ask why, then, Florida seniors should get a special break to keep their Medicare Advantage. Obama replied that it's a legitimate point.
Of course, the Florida break was inserted by Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. It's going to be awfully hard to keep that in now that Obama has agreed with McCain that it's unjustifiable.
Politicians who hold or aspire to high office have learned the hard way (e.g Trent Lott speaking at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party) that when you speak to a select group of loyalists in these viral times, you are also addressing a national audience, including people who would like nothing better than to latch onto some gaffe or fringe conviction.
Now that we’re a full week past the initial high-speed rail announcement, we’ve taken the time to resurvey some of the elements of this massive investment. Demand is one of those elements and it’s critical to projecting ridership.
On night one of the Conservative Political Action Conference, as George Will entertained GOP mucketymucks in the Marriott Wardman’s cavernous banquet hall, the next generation of Republicans was downstairs, in the basement, enjoying something more hip. Or, at least, Stephen Baldwin’s idea of hip.
“I know you don’t hear the word gnarly too much in conservative circles, but you’re gonna start hearing it in the future!” the 44-year-old ex-actor told a crowd of about 200 assembled youths.
Former Dick Cheney aid Cesar Conda has a post at National Review announcing that he has switched his loyalties in the Florida Senate race from Charlie Crist, once seen as the prohibitive favorite, to Marco Rubio, conservative darling and now all-but-inevitable Republican nominee:
In any highly fluid political situation, you will always find some observers determined to argue that it's not fluid at all--that underneath the surface, the status quo prevails, and anyone thinking otherwise is naive or poorly informed.
These days, liberals don’t know whether to feel betrayed by or merely disappointed with Barack Obama. They have gone from decrying his willingness to remove the public option from his health care plan to worrying that, in the wake of Democrat Martha Coakley’s defeat in Massachusetts, he won’t get any plan through Congress. On other subjects, too, from Afghanistan to Wall Street, Obama has thoroughly let down his party’s left flank.
I was a child of the J.D. Salinger generation. Not of his generation, but of his stories and one novel, The Catcher in the Rye. I read Catcher in Rye in prep school when I was fourteen, using a flash light after lights-out. I didn’t get expelled like Holden Caulfield did, but my roommate and I would sometimes sneak off to New York with phony permission slips signed by our parents and fake IDs to roam around bars and dream of escaping to the West (which I eventually did).
With much excitement across the country, this week marked the true beginning of America’s recommitment to passenger rail service. Eight billion dollars in stimulus funding was doled out to Continue reading "High Speed Rail Dollars Flow--But Not to the Desert"
Whispered in July, rumored in December, and nearly shouted earlier this week, today marks the official announcement of Florida’s high-speed rail investment by the federal government. Many will talk about what this day means for a new age of American infrastructure, and even more, including my colleagues, will debate the overall efficacy of such an investment. For me, I’d rather get into some of the nitty-gritty of what appears to be, thanks to the president’s Tampa event, the flagship project in Florida.
First off, there’s much to like for Florida’s current residents and future tourists. The Tampa and Orlando metropolitan areas, along with their sandwiched neighbor Lakeland, were home to almost 3.4 million people in 2008. That year their economies produced $230.6 billion of economic output, more than the Czech Republic. A huge part of this is the vibrant tourist industry: Few places in the world give visitors simultaneous access to many top theme parks, multiple world-class beaches, and bona fide big city culture all within 120 miles. A pleasurable and useful train ride won’t just benefit Floridians, and could become an additional beacon to visitors across the country.
Florida also offers the Federal Railroad Administration, the official administrator of the high speed rail (HSR) stimulus grants, a well-prepared recipient. Florida already owns over 90 percent of the route’s right-of-way, they’ve already completed the environmental impact assessment, and the deal is structured to take advantage of private donations and operational risk. Just as importantly, Florida projects to open the line in 2015, making sure these funds get spent in short order and users will see the benefits quickly. Florida also has wanted this for some time; they originally passed a ballot initiative back in 2000.
But, let’ be clear--this isn’t a perfect plan. A major problem is that the Orlando Convention Center station is over eight miles from a soon-to-open SunRail commuter rail station. This disconnect represents a missed opportunity for intermodal linkage, especially since SunRail reaches downtown Orlando and the HSR route does not. Intermodal links, including the ease by which one can rent a car at the HSR stations, are critical in a state like Florida that’s been developed in an auto-centric manner.
So the White House has finally announced the full list of where that $8 billion in stimulus money for high-speed rail is going. Here are the two big, headline-grabbing projects:
A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Alabama and University of Florida, sponsored by the Natural Resource Defense Council , shows that car-dependent communities have statistically higher rates of mortgage foreclosure than communities with multiple transportation options, such as transit, biking and walking. This also explains to some extent why across the country that “walkable urban” home values over the past two years have been flat or slightly down while fringe “drivable sub-urban” communities have suffered the worst price declines.
The average American household spends 17 percent of their pre-tax income on transportation, 94 percent of this amount is for ownership and maintenance of cars. However when the data are disaggregated, drivable sub-urban households spend about 25 percent on transportation while walkable urban households only spend about 9 percent. This 16 percent difference represents well over a trillion dollars in households spending each year. If this spending was redeployed from cars to housing, education, and savings, it would be a major economic driver (excuse the pun).
The major implication of this study is on the largest peace-time intervention in the American economy by the federal government, and, no, it’s not the bank bailouts. As reported on the front page of the Washington Post earlier this week, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have spent well over $1 trillion over the past year in propping up the securitized mortgage market and assuming untold risk of further mortgage defaults in the future. This is more than the bailout of the banks, AIG, and the car companies combined.
Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery
The State of the Union
Wednesday, January 27, 2009
Washington, DC
Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:
Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union. For two hundred and twenty years, our leaders have fulfilled this duty. They have done so during periods of prosperity and tranquility. And they have done so in the midst of war and depression; at moments of great strife and great struggle.
A new poll has Marco Rubio ahead of Charlie Crist in the Florida GOP Senate primary. The trajectory here is pretty obvious: Crist built an early lead based on name recognition, but Rubio is obviously the candidate Florida Republicans prefer and are going to nominate.
So it looks like tomorrow, after the State of the Union, President Obama is planning to announce how the $8 billion in stimulus money for high-speed rail projects will get spent. As noted earlier, a line between Tampa Bay and Orlando will probably be the first lucky recipient, getting federal funds to supplant private investment. But what about the rest?
