Lamont's Blunder: Using Abortion As Business Recruiting Tool

My latest column for CTNewsJunkie.com:

Few topics get the blood boiling like abortion. But the topic here isn't the procedure itself; it's Gov. Lamont's attempt to use abortion access as a means of attracting businesses to the state.

To wit:

But there is a twist to it. Instead of touting Connecticut’s great business environment, which would be difficult to do with a straight face, Lamont is trying to exploit unfavorable reaction to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe vs. Wade by bragging about the fact that abortion is safe and legal in Connecticut, and that it will remain that way if he has anything to do with it ...

It feels like, in the absence of a favorable business climate, Lamont is devaluing abortion rights by using them as a cheap gimmick, less to offer the procedure to desperate pregnant women from red states than as an wedge issue to deploy in the service of some sort of economic war with conservative states.

Read more ...

Follow @terrycowgill

"... Lamont is devaluing abortion rights by using them as a cheap gimmick..." https://t.co/jBWAsjm1IU

— Linda Blais (@LindaB1310) July 5, 2022

Hospital Wars Intensify As Yale New Haven Plans To Buy Three More Facilities

My latest column for CTNewsJunkie.com:

There's been a lot of activity in Connecticut's healthcare industry lately. The mergers, acquisitions and lawsuits are enough to make your head spin. 

The latest move -- Yale New Haven's proposed acquisition of three community hospitals and their related operations currently owned by Prospect Medical Holdings -- raises questions.

To wit:

The three facilities, Rockville General Hospital, Manchester Memorial Hospital, and Waterbury Hospital, will revert to nonprofit status if the deal is approved by the state Office of Health Care Access ...

On its face, this looks like a promising development. As the Courant has pointed out, a ProPublica investigation from 2020 found the Prospect system, which includes some 17 hospitals and more than 165 clinics and outpatient centers, “was riddled with poor and unsanitary conditions in its hospitals and lawsuits against [its] hospitals for fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims.” Not surprisingly, a private equity group, Leonard Green & Partners, owns a majority stake in Prospect.

Read more ...

Terry Cowgill looks at the pros and cons of the latest three-facility skirmish in the state's health system wars. #opinion https://t.co/rvFTN8i6Qg

— ctnewsjunkie (@ctnewsjunkie) February 14, 2022

The Incoherence of Occupy Wall Street

Get a load of this video taken by Reason.tv of an Occupy Wall Street demonstration. Now, you must understand that Reason magazine is a libertarian-leaning organization, so I'm sure there was a certain amount of bias in the editing and selection of clips that went into the 6-minute video.

Still, some of the demands are incoherent and based on factually incorrect premises. To be fair, I suppose you could say the same about some of the Tea Party rallies, too. I'd have to go back and look at the record.

Consider some of the comments at this OWS protest:

• I like the sign saying "Please no cameras at this meeting." Isn't one of the OWS protesters' complaints that they weren't getting adequate media coverage?
• The nerdy guy in the glasses said the Citizens United decision allows "unlimited donations" to campaigns. Wrong. It upholds the rights of corporations to spend on independent political broadcasts during candidate elections, not give to the campaigns themselves. The latter has been illegal for a long time — and still is. Oh, CU also allows labor unions to do the same, but the guy didn't mention that, perhaps because it doesn't bother him? Or perhaps because the news articles on Alternet never mentioned it?
• Another guy wants to get us off the monetary system and move us toward barter. Seriously?
• Yet another interviewee wants the government to take over the banks, unless, of course, it happens to be a government run by Republicans. That was a real knee-slapper.
• Did you see the looks on the protesters' faces when the NYC councilman pointed out that fully 1/3 of the city's revenues come from Wall Street? It's as if they'd never even considered where the money comes from to run the city's social programs and schools.
• As for the anti-bailout guy who said he likes capitalism but that "when you lose, you lose," I wonder what he would have said if the feds hadn't bailed out the auto industry and 100,000 union jobs had disappeared. My guess is he had no problem with sending taxpayer cash to GM. But the interviewer didn't ask him.

Back in the day, I saw an awful lot of dope smoking, so I speak from experience. I'd say there was some pretty good weed floating around that demonstration. And a lot of unemployed people who got up at the crack of noon to join in the fun.

Cuomo-Malloy: Peas In Different Pods

Yet more evidence that Andrew Cuomo has hit the ground running and is doing a commendable job of governing what is, in some ways, an ungovernable state. Tom Dudchik's CT Capitol Report (the closest thing we have to the Drudge Report in Connecticut) this morning carried a linked headline proclaiming "High tech to invest $4 billion in New York state... ".

The NYT blog post announces:

I.B.M., Intel and three other technology companies agreed Tuesday to pour $4 billion into computer-chip research in New York, promising to hire thousands of workers and giving a major boost to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as he campaigns for companies to invest in the state and create jobs.

Meanwhile, here in Connecticut, we are bribing companies to come here -- or, in some cases -- just to stay here and refrain from laying off thousands of people. What's wrong with this picture?

Granted, there are important differences between the two states, so an apples-to-apples comparison isn't really possible. But consider that, instead of paying companies to come to New York, Cuomo has attracted billions in private high-tech investment in depressed regions upstate in conjunction with state spending on research at its flagship university in Albany.

Meanwhile, here in Connecticut (have I said that before?), we are giving tax incentives to corporations in Gov. Malloy's First Five program, while spending almost a billion dollars just to prop up our hospitals.

Best of all about Cuomo's young governorship, he has managed to balance NYS's budget without major tax increases. I was highly skeptical about Cuomo's election. After all, those attorney-general types are often loathsome characters. No need to name names here, but how many times have you seen the phony stagecraft of a publicity-seeking state attorney general holding a news conference, making empty threats and waving legals papers? Yuck.

But Cuomo has surprised me. After leading NYS out of a fiscal crisis without socking it to taxpayers, he will be poised for a credible run for the White House in 2016. Meanwhile, the unpopular Malloy could be back in Stamford and, if we're lucky, the expansion of the UConn Health Center will still be under construction. Hooray!

Whither Labor?

Click here for my latest for CTNewsJunkie.com: "Whither Labor? Withering on the Vine?"

What kind of future does organized labor have in this country and in Connecticut specifically? I don't think it's particularly bright and the unions themselves are partly to blame.

Too often there is a failure on the part of public sector workers to understand that the resources to fund the government come from the private sector. And when total compensation packages in government outstrip those in the non-government sector, then the system becomes unsustainable.

I'm getting hammered in the comment thread by union trolls. No surprise there. :-)

Money for Nothin’, Loans For Free

Click here for my latest for CTNJ. Gov. Malloy's crony capitalism program offering tax cuts and subsidies might save some jobs and create a few more. However, it doesn't address the systemic problems with Connecticut's business climate.

But rather than bribe corporations to stay in Connecticut and create a few hundred jobs here and there, I’d rather nurture an environment that says we’re open for business.

'An Unhappy Birthday'

My favorite economics writer, Robert Samuelson, has written a terrific but depressing column on the occasion of this nation's 235th birthday. And it feeds right into the prevailing narrative of this blog.

Republicans and Democrats are not getting the job done. As Samuelson sees it, Democrats are "reactionaries" in refusing to face up to the limitations of what government can accomplish with the funds available. "Tax the rich," say the Dems. In other words, raise taxes on anyone who makes more than the typical Democratic voter.

Republicans, on the other hand, are "radicals." GOP "promises of more tax cuts either border on dishonesty or imply huge unspecified spending cuts that would devastate national defense, states and localities, and the poor," Samuelson said.

To that I would add a few thoughts of my own:

Neither party has really embraced the non-partisan Simpson-Bowles or Rivlin-Domenici plans for restoring fiscal discipline. Why? Both plans call for a combination of painful spending cuts and tax increases. Look at the composition of those commissions. Notice how the title of each chair is preceded by the word "former?" Former senator Alan Simpson, former budget chief Alice Rivlin.

Why? No sitting public official of either party can come out with the kinds of recommendations made by those two groups. Why? Because they belong to political parties that would, on some level, find those conclusions to be heretical. A Republican who calls for a tax increase or a Democrat who advocates for significant cuts in social programs would either lose a re-election bid or face an ugly primary challenge. Even unelected White House officials such as Rivlin and Erskine Bowles would probably have found themselves out of a job if they had promulgated such apostasies.

So what we have is a dreadful situation in which legislative gridlock has become the order of the day. Why? Because the politicians who run our government are more concerned about their careers than they are about saving the country. This brings to mind what George Washington said in his farewell address about party power struggles, which he called a "frightful despotism:"

But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Laboring To Defend The Indefensible

In my days a commentator, I've written a lot about overreaching government. But right now I'm hard pressed to think of any recent example of government tyranny that exceeds what the National Labor Relations Board is doing to Boeing.

The NLRB has filed a complaint against Boeing alleging the company has engaged in illegal retaliation against its labor unions in the state of Washington by electing to locate a new non-union plant in South Carolina. Now, one would think that illegal retaliation would have to take the form of punishing union workers already on the payroll or closing an existing plant, firing its workers and relocating it out of reach of the unions (federal law rightly prohibits management from punishing workers for striking).

The plants in Washington have been plagued by strikes, so in needing to build a new fleet of 787 Dreamliners, Boeing elected to locate a second Dreamliner plant in a right-to-work state where the risk of labor disruptions is minimal. In its public statements, the company was quite candid about its motives.

In taking this action, Boeing did not cut one job from its unionized work force in Washington. Instead, thousands of additional jobs will come to Charleston. And this constitutes "punishment" against union workers on the West Coast?

Perhaps the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers would prefer that Boeing moved those jobs to Mexico? Truth be told, the union doesn't care where the new plant is located if its workers aren't dues-paying.

And we wonder why so many U.S. corporations are opening plants in China and India. Oh, I forgot. Boeing has already done some of that. Heavy industry is already dying in this country; if the NLRB keeps this up, the final nail will be poised to enter the coffin.

What does President Obama think about all this? He won't say, preferring, his spokesman Jay Carney said, to remain neutral in labor disputes. As Col. Potter would say, "Horse hockey!" Obama had no problem wading into the intense struggle in Wisconsin between public employee labor unions and Gov. Scott Walker.

"This is neither good law nor good business," the Washington Post thundered in an editorial. Amen.

Democrats used to insist, with some justification, that the Bush administration routinely politicized the Justice Department. Now the Obama administration, which sailed into Washington on the support of organized labor, is doing the same thing with the NLRB. Shame on him.

Watch What He Does, Not What He Says

I was trying to find a diversion from the dramatic news in Egypt when I noticed this piece in today's Washington Times on one of the biggest phonies on the planet. Reading about what a hypocrite Michael Moore is begs the question: should I be allowed to have this much fun?

It's curious. I have friends on the left who think Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite because he's a family-values guy who also happens to be a drug addict and was married four times. They're right about Rush. He's a major-league charlatan. But for some reason, those same people can't see through Michael Moore. They fail to grasp the irony of a man who denounces capitalism at every available opportunity, while profiting handsomely from it.

From the WT:

Mr. Moore is a jet-setting multimillionaire living a life of luxury, leisure and fame. He travels in a private plane and a fleet of SUVs ... He also dislikes using union workers on his sets - or paying them union wages ... He is completely detached from the workers he claims to defend.

and this:

He claims that white flight from the cities to the suburbs is based on fear of blacks ... Yet ... he does not live in an interracial neighborhood. Instead, he has made his home at a swanky mansion in Central Lake, in an upscale, exclusive and overwhelmingly white community in northern Michigan.

Ironically, I defended Moore when Republicans in Enfield, Conn., foolishly tried to prevent the public library there from showing Sicko, Moore's scathing film on the U.S. healthcare system.

Also, there is the irony of a 400-pound man with a private plane lecturing us on over-consumption, but we won't go there ...

What's The Matter With Westport?

I have witnessed yet another letter to the editor of The Lakeville Journal (no link available) wondering how working people could possibly act against their own self-interest by voting for Republicans. Click here for a recent similar letter in a NYS paper.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether it's true that Republican policies place the middle class at a disadvantage, it's just plain foolish to suggest that people should only vote their pocketbooks.

It's an old notion, put forth most recently by Thomas Franks in his 2004 book What's The Matter With Kansas?.

According to Franks, Republicans have convinced the working-class that hot-button social issues such as abortion, gun control and gay marriage are more important than the social programs that would benefit them economically. Evil geniuses such as Karl Rove have used those issues to stoke the uneducated masses into a frenzy of anger against liberal elites.

There is certainly some truth to the notion that, on policies such as the minimum wage, consumer protections and the maintenance of the welfare state, the poor and under-educated are better off under Democrats.

But higher educated taxpayers also vote against their own economic interests. According to exit polls in 2008, President Obama received 52% of the votes of those earning $200,000 or more — roughly the same group on whom he had vowed to raise taxes.

So, I would ask the LJ letter writer, why is it fine when the rich vote against their economic self-interest but appalling when the great unwashed do the same? Maybe those wealthy Americans who voted for Obama buy into Vice President Biden's assertion that paying higher taxes is patriotic.

By that same token, perhaps the people in fly-over country see a higher purpose in preserving the right to bear arms, protecting the unborn and not redefining marriage.

So remind me again. What's wrong with voting against your economic self-interest? And to paraphrase Mr. Franks, What's The Matter With Westport?

Malloy the Veteran, Foley the Rookie?

Remember the old Adam 12 police series with Martin Milner and Kent McCord? I'm reminded of that old show every time I hear the name Malloy (the surname of Milner's character): "Malloy the Veteran, Reed the Rookie," intoned the announcer.

The namesake of Milner's character, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dannel Malloy (didn't his parents know how to spell "Daniel?") was trying to convey the same impression of his opponent, Republican businessman Tom Foley, in this week's debate at The Bushnell.

Malloy repeatedly asserted that, as the longtime mayor of Stamford, he had the political experience to lead Connecticut through its worst financial crisis in 20 years, while Foley is headstrong, untested and would not no know how to navigate the complicated and turbulent waters at the State Capitol.

And on some levels, Malloy's probably right. Foley is a business executive unaccustomed to the give-and-take of political life. He has an interesting past and is no doubt used to getting his way. Frankly, he sounds like a jerk. Then again, it's hard to be successful as a turnaround artist who shakes things up and have a low sense of self-esteem.

A Mob of a Different Color

How bizarre is it when news accounts of rioting in Europe describe the frenzied protesters as an "anti-government mob?" Is that an accurate description? The criminals setting fire to banks and murdering their fellow citizens are public-sector workers. In other words, they're a "government mob" -- plain and simple.

I was reminded of that image when I noticed this morning  that officials in several European nations are bracing for mayhem in anticipation of widespread strikes by public-sector workers. A number of  labor leaders as well as the head of the European Socialists party howled in outrage at the proposed cuts in public-sector spending. And the only solution they seemed to be offering for the crisis was to tax the banks.

That, combined with today's Thomas Friedman column in the NYT, got me to thinking about people who complain loudly about perceived problems but offer no viable solution. Friedman, who usually irritates me to no end, nonetheless did a commendable job of boiling the noisiest and most incoherent faction of the Tea Party down to its essence. He calls them the Tea Kettle Party -- just a bunch of alienated folks loudly blowing off steam to little effect (other than generating lots of cable news coverage!).

I'd say the government mobs in Europe display much of the same tendencies, although to be fair, the Tea Partiers appear to be far less violent. Still, both sides are in high dudgeon but are at a loss to offer any long-term solutions to systemic governmental and economic problems. Actually, I'd say they're in denial.

The Tea Partiers think we can cut taxes yet again, take a meat axe to the federal budget and everything will be fine. The government mobs think Europeans can simply tax and spend their way to prosperity -- the mob's prosperity, I guess.

And then there's would-be U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal. He thinks we can sue our way to prosperity, but ah, that's another matter entirely ...

Gender Bender

If the Obama administration wants to lurch to the center in advance of the midterm elections and in preparation for an Obama re-election campaign in 2012, it had better reconsider this harebrained scheme to enforce gender pay equity in the workplace.

Pleasantly named the Paycheck Fairness Act, the bill would require employers to offer equal pay for equal work. Here's how the conservative columnist George Will described it:

It would further enrich a Democratic constituency — trial lawyers — by saying that differences in pay between men and women cannot be based on differences of education, training, and experience unless there is a "business necessity" — an invitation to litigation.

The only public case for the act that I've seen was penned by White House congressional lobbyist Valerie Jarrett in The Washington Post. Essentially, Jarrett insists that it's not fair that women make, on average, 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

Nowhere, though, does Jarrett try to look seriously for the causes of this disparity. She simply assumes that the wage difference is a result of gender discrimination.

Over the decades since women entered workforce en masse, there is no denying that discrimination played a role in keeping them down. Heck, just watch an episode of Mad Men or ask someone who was around 50 years ago when women earned 59 cents in relation to men.

But it is equally undeniable that we have made significant progress since that time. And what about the choices women make? If a woman takes five years off to raise her family, should she return making the same amount as a comparable man who has been toiling away at the company all that time? For Jarrett, the answer seems to be yes.

If a man were to take that same time off, then he is the one who should come back making less, but of course, that rarely happens because traditional gender roles mitigate against it.

Sock It To Me, Baby

I'm glad this idea is gaining currency, so to speak. In yesterday's Washington Post, there was a piece on the current political climate and what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts. The prevailing options so far seem to be: 1) keep them indefinitely or 2) keep them only for households with incomes below $250,000.

I have a third option — the one floated in yesterday's Post: extend them across-the-board for a year or two and then let them expire for everyone. Now before you slam me for being an a populist — or an elitist — hear me out. There is simply no way to get out of the financial hole we are in without increasing taxes. We cannot cut our way out, nor can we simply grow our way out. That is painfully obvious to everyone by now— even Ayn Rand aficionado Alan Greenspan.

This nation's finances and its political climate are a hideous mess. We will never agree on what to cut, at least not to the extent that we can cover years of out-of-control spending and insufficient revenues. That leaves us with the option of cutting around the margins and finding new sources of revenues to cover an estimated $13.5 trillion debt.

And the most likely place to turn is the federal income tax -- the largest source of revenue in the budget. Now, even if you let the Bush tax cuts expire for everyone, the income tax structure would still be progressive with higher rates on higher incomes.

Indeed, all the shopworn outcry over the rich getting away with murder while those in the lower brackets get screwed is nonsense, according to data assembled below by the National Taxpayers Union via the IRS. Indeed, as of 2007, the bottom 40% paid no federal income tax at all — and would continue to avoid doing so if the Bush tax cuts expire:

Sorry, I'm Not Buyin' It

Near the intersection of Rt. 41 and Wells Hill Rd. in Lakeville.

So let me get this straight. We have fiscal problems out the wazoo — both here in Connecticut and nationally — and I'm supposed to believe if I vote the party line, then everything will be just fine? It's the ultimate in one-stop shopping. Vote for the X party and they'll fix everything. Vote for the Y party and everything will be terrible. Got that?

As an unaffiliated voter, I have long been fascinated with this notion of party loyalty — the idea that one side alone has all the answers and, dammit, you'd better vote for that party's candidates through thick and thin because, well, it's the right thing to do. Plus, my family has belonged to Party Y since Lincoln, so there must be something to it, or so the thinking goes.

From my perspective, both sides have something to offer but neither can see the forest for the trees. We certainly need to get our financial house in order and keep a closer regulatory eye on it, as the Dems want to do. But nor do we want to stifle the financial sector and increase taxes to the point that people won't want to invest on America.

We need to address the deficit by cutting spending aggressively — except for the military — but not raising any taxes (GOP). We need to raise taxes for "the rich" but not cut spending — except for the military and "corporate welfare" (Dems).

This is but one example of the boneheaded logic that passes for intelligent thought in Washington. Hey Repubs and Dems, the simple fact is that the political will does not exist to cut spending enough to fill the hole in our budget. Nor can we expect tax increases and military cuts to do the job alone. There simply isn't enough money to be had.

If we want to get serious about bringing our budget under control, we will need some combination of tax increases and spending cuts. Do none of the party bosses understand this or are they just striking a pose?

I hate our current political climate and — boy! — would I ever like to see a viable third party emerge to compete with the existing duopoly. Unfortunately, Americans talk a good game about third parties, but when push comes to shove, the always go back to donkeys and elephants. Ugh ...



It's like that old Steelers Wheel Song, no?

Hope and What?

Gee, I thought the hope-and-change guy was fed up with overfed corporate fat cats, especially those who are the recipients of government largesse. I guess it's different if the company happens to be Government Motors.

Thank You, Michael Barone ...

... for this piece that reminds us that, yes, the higher education bubble is likely to burst — in part because of a flood of federal money that has left The Academy with little incentive to keep costs down:

Imagine that you have a product whose price tag for decades rises faster than inflation. But people keep buying it because they're told that it will make them wealthier in the long run. Then, suddenly, they find it doesn't. Prices fall sharply, bankruptcies ensue, great institutions disappear.

Sound like the housing market? Wait, that bubble burst a couple of years ago. We're talking about the nation's colleges and universities, which have raised tuition and fees at twice the rate of inflation for 30 years now. RIP!