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.

Tropical Storm Lee

While the east coast is still cleaning up from Irene, areas of the Gulf coast are now getting hammered by Tropical Storm Lee. 

Originating in the Gulf of Mexico, moving north at 2 mph, and with sustained winds of 45 mph, Lee is now being termed a "Super Soaker".  Up to 20 inches of rain is expected to fall in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, and both states have declared States of Emergency.  Tornado warnings were issued for New Orleans, and according to Federal authorities, 169 of the 617 staffed production platforms have been evacuated, along with 16 of the 62 drilling rigs located along the Gulf coast.

Although it's been called "nothing compared to Katrina," and although city officials have declared otherwise, for New Orleans, this will be a substantial test for their rebuilt levees and pumping system, so ordered after the catastrophic flooding Katrina caused in the Big Easy. 

We normally wouldn't include such a storm in this blog, as it may turn out to be less significant, historically.  But, lest we forget the flooding damage caused by Irene, even after it had downgraded to tropical storm, and considering the susceptibility of New Orleans to flooding, and considering hurricane Katia still gathers strength out in the Atlantic, as it rolls in the direction of Florida, we nonetheless considered worthy of mention here, as the summer of 2011 may soon be known as the Summer of Storms.

Irene Lingers

We may have spoken too soon in our last Sunday Summary, regarding the hype centering around, and the damage caused, by Hurricane and Tropical Storm Irene, as the effects of the storm still linger.  As of this morning, the death toll had risen to at least 44 in 13 states, and nearly 2 million people were still without power.  Early estimates pin the damage somewhere between $7 billion and $10 billion.

Possibly, and ironically, the state most devastated by the storm would be one of the last states to see it--Vermont.  Up to 11 inches of rain fell in spots there, swelling creeks and rivers already flowing briskly with a rather heavy winter's runoff, which in turn washed out roads and cars and not a few of those picturesque (not to mention historical) covered bridges.  Thousands remain stranded there, cutoff by the flooding and the damage it has caused.  National Guard helicopters have had to airlift food and water into the stranded communities. 

We can see more clearly now the dynamic of what was purported to be the "hype" of the storm that didn't seem to pack the punch that everyone had expected.  Hurricanes and tropical storms are known for, and categorized by the winds generated near their core.  Hence, as she first made landfall as a category 1, then continued up the east coast as a tropical storm, all wondered where the winds were.  The initial urgency of the storm was then thought to be "hype."  Yet, the dashed expectations of heavy winds left everyone forgetful of deluge of rain that these storms also carry with them, and when that rain falls in places already saturated from recent rain and runoff, there is flooding.

Irene is now long gone, but many shall nonetheless be remembering her for some time to come.

To make matters even more compelling, as of this writing, another storm called Katia churns in the Atlantic ...

Sunday Summary

Well, most of the news this past week has been saturated (pardon the pun) with news of Hurricane Irene.  We must therefore include it in today's Sunday Summary.

Oddly enough, what is most historical about Irene is the damage that it didn't cause.  By the time its first landfall in North Carolina, it had already lost much of its steam, and had been downgraded to a category 1 hurricane.  By the time it hit New York, it was merely a tropical storm.  Yet, in New York, the subway was completely shut down, and hundreds of thousands in the low-lying areas of New York were ordered, ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to evacuate.  Yet, of the roughly 370,000 people ordered to evacuate, it is estemated that only 37,000 people complied.

To be sure, Irene did cause some damage, though in dollar terms, it's still being calculated.  As of this writing, 15 people are known to have died as a direct result of the hurricane, either from falling trees or floodwaters.  And many are still in the dark, after power outages affected more than 4 million people on the eastern seaboard.  Moreover, the deluge of rainfail inland of the coast still needs to drain, which still threatens the water level of the rivers that drain it back into the ocean.

However, the damage is rather minimal in comparison to what Irene was anticipated to cause, and so she was, on the whole, more hype than hurricane.  Without minimizing the loss of those 15 who died, (one harrowing report was of a woman's body pulled from her car, under 150 feet of water), 15 dead out of the 4 million otherwise affected by the loss of power gives one pause to consider that either the whole east coast was unbelievably lucky, or the hurricane wasn't at all what it was played up to be.  The most economical damage appears to be in New York, where a sizeable chunk of retail sales were anticipated lost this weekend--more a result of the city shutting down the entire weekend in preparation for the storm, than from the storm itself.

No doubt, much of the hype is generated by the media, which earns its bread on the sensationalism of stories, and which certainly loves natural disasters as backdrops for their "on-scene" reports.  Yet, and perhaps as an instance of poetic justice, they were let down by the rather unsensational nature of Irene.  According to one report, even CNN's Anderson Cooper, well-known for being the reporter in the thick of events like natural disasters, seemed somewhat let down as he reported from New York.  According to Toby Harnden, the U.S. Editor of the Daily Telegraph, "He looked crestfallen fell briefly silent when a weatherwoman told him that the rain was not going to get any worse. 'Wow, because this isn't so bad,' he said. 'It's an annoying rain but it isn't even a sideways rain.'"

Such hype was also, no doubt, played up by state, local and federal politicians, who, of course, would rather be safe than sorry, but also are trying to either boost or protect their image, especially after the latest hit to that image as a result of the national debt "crisis".  Moreover, the memory of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's mismanaged response to hurricane Katrina in 2005 still lingers in the minds of many, including those of politicians.  No one wants to go through that again. 

Say what we will about the hype, it is nonetheless a good thing that Irene didn't cause more damage than it did, and for that, we should truly be thankful.

Mother Nature Strikes the East Coast

Irene, a category 3 hurricane, is headed north-by-northwest, towards the United States east coast at this hour, packing 115-mph winds.  It is expected to hit the eastern seaboard this weekend from the Carolinas to New England.  All the advisories, watches and warnings have been issued by all the emergency service organizations.  Airlines have begun cancelling flights and moving planes out of harm's way.  Coastal residents are boarding up their homes and businesses.  U.S. Navy vessels homeported in Norfolk, Virginia have put to sea to "ride it out."  Governor Andrew Cuomo has already declared a State of Emergency for New York.

Of course, category 3 hurricanes that make landfall in populated cities will always make history, but we must particularly include Irene in this blog because it comes on the heels of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that rocked Washington, D.C. just two days ago.  As the largest earthquake to strike the east coast in 67 years, it also could be felt as far away as New York, though causing only minor damage to buildings and monuments.  Nonetheless, Mother Nature appears to be having quite a summer with the eastern seaboard of the United States.

This blogger anticipates a number of explanations for this.  Some will claim, if they haven't already, that these two natural disasters are an example of the global climate change.  Others might believe it's God's way of punishing Washington D.C. for not resolving its debt and budget issues.  Such is the result of the human propensity to ask why these things have to happen.

Whatever the reason, our thoughts here regard the safety of everyone in that part of the country.  Take care, you guys.