[PEN-L:3750] Wall Street Applauds Clinton Pension Plan (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 12 APR 1996 3:40:46 PDT From: Reuters [EMAIL PROTECTED] Newgroups: clari.usa.top Subject: Wall Street Applauds Clinton Pension Plan WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Wall Street applauded President Clinton's pension plan proposals, saying the initiatives would boost pension and retirement plans, adding security to assets of those plans. Marc Lackritz, president of the Securities Industry Association, said Clinton's move ``is a major step forward in addressing the nation's needs for more savings incentives to prepare for retirement.'' Lackritz noted Thursday that the U.S. has the lowest savings rate among industrialized nations and savings amassed by baby boomers for retirement are insufficient to meet their retirement needs. Clinton's initiatives addresses these challenges, Lackritz said, adding the President's action is ``thoughtful and innovative.'' At the same time, Lackritz said the White House should consider other components to increase the nation's pool of savings. Among other things, Lackritz proposed a fully deductible individual retirement account for all taxpayers, regardless of income, allowing for the use of those funds after a holding period to buy a house of pay for college education. The SIA has a membership of about 700 securities firms throughout North America.
[PEN-L:3355] tax comparisons (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 16:51:25 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: tax comparisons Has anayone come up with a good way to make the case that the "right" way to compare tax burdens is on the basis of collections/$1,000 personal income? Our taxpayers' association just did a critique of this method of comparison that we need to rebut. How about a good defense of the progressive income tax (of course some of you don't have to worry about such things... Thanks, Jean Ross CA Budget Project (916)444-0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:3308] Tenure Tenacity (fwd)
From the Sunday Washington Post: HEADLINE: Tenure Tenacity SECTION: comment PUBLICATION DATE: 3/10/96 ARGUMENTS OVER the viability of tenure are now frequent enough to form a constant, underlying grumble in discussions over the future of higher education. The latest outburst came earlier this winter when the president of the University of Minnesota, Nils Hasselmo, asked the university's regents to consider changes in the tenure code that might ease the system's "rigidities" and "lack of flexibility" and make it possible to reduce the number of tenured faculty members and possibly, if necessary, lower their salaries. He also suggested that the regents try to initiate a wider national discussion on tenure. What this move initiated instead, not unexpectedly, was a flurry of protests, the formation of a new faculty alliance, and, since academia is well ahead of most professional sectors in Internet use, tremendous eddies of angry rhetoric and calls for action across cyberspace. President Hasselmo is not the only university president to struggle lately with the need to streamline departments and cut costs. That has been the leitmotif of university governance for nearly a decade. Support for lifetime professorial employment, though, remains solid among faculties -- not only, according to a recent study by the Association of American University Professors, among the tenured senior faculty who might be expected to feel this enthusiasm but also among junior faculty hoping to get tenure themselves. But even junior faculty these days are a relatively privileged bunch compared with the legions of temporary, adjunct, postdoctoral, "gypsy" and otherwise non-tenure-track types on whom universities increasingly rely to teach the courses that students need in order to get the degree that costs so much and is thought so crucial to employment in a strained economy. In this motley company at the bottom of the academic pecking order, it's no longer so clear that the tenure and tenure-track system continues to hold appeal. Tenure, according to longstanding orthodoxy, exists to protect academic freedom and to keep the employment balance tilted toward scholars who can produce long-term, unflashy work untainted by fashion. But that description hardly rings true of the most successful and high-profile current scholarship, and anyway it's hard to feel enthusiasm for the advantages of a form of employment at which you have so slim a chance as most people now entering graduate school in the humanities (the sciences are struggling with a different order of job problems). The familiar lifetime arrangement for professors worked when the size of the academic job market was expanding and, as important, when areas of teaching and scholarship expertise were broadly and humanistically enough drawn so that a student's training could outfit him or her for a broad variety of jobs. The famous publish-or-perish culture, followed by the bidding wars for a small number of top "star" scholars that began in the early 1980s, gnawed holes in that system, and the strains of 1990s financial crisis have ripped further ones. An actual national debate on tenure, if it happens, may reveal a system that no longer serves either academic freedom or academic security. --- Copyright 1996, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be archived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Corporation ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
[PEN-L:3107] Citation of Musgrave article
I understand that there is a 1986(?) article by Richard Musgrave that shows that moving from a property tax to a consumption tax would have no effect on savings. Gov. George Bush is proposing eliminating the local school property tax and replacing it with a state VAT, gross receipts tax or similar consumption tax in the name of increasing savings. A citation to the Musgrave article could be very helpful. Thanks Dick Lavine Center for Public Policy Priorities Austin, TX
[PEN-L:2685] Boston Globe online (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 11:30:41 -0800 From: Rob Lanphier [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Boston Globe online Western hick that I am, I hadn't been exposed to this newspaper. It's online and has lots of fodder on the election and critical analysis of Republican hot-buttons. http://www.boston.com/globe/glohome.htm Make sure you check out the Campaign '96 coverage: http://www.boston.com/globe/cgi-bin/globe.cgi?nat/glncamp96.htm ...and the article on the flat tax: http://www.boston.com/globe/nat/cgi-bin/retrieve?%2Fglobe%2Fvurdy%2F028%2Fnat%2F015 ...and the article on Forbes' ownership of the Social Register http://www.boston.com/globe/nat/cgi-bin/retrieve?%2Fglobe%2Fvurdy%2F027%2Fnat%2F023 Rob Lanphier [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.eskimo.com/~robla
[PEN-L:2617] Survey of online use of econ data (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 26 Jan 96 09:12:19 EST From: Belton, Keith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Survey of online use of econ data Solinet, a not-for-profit library service organization, as part of our U.S. Department of Commerce funded effort to develop an on-line database of economic data, has developed an on-line survey for uses and providers of economic information. The on-line survey will supplement a longer survey that was distributed through the mail. The survey resides at http://www.solinet.net/pip/survey.htm. If you maintain a web site that attracts users or providers of economic data, we are asking that you include a link to the survey on your web page. A sample "cut and paste" addition announcing the survey is attached below. Please modify it if you wish. The results of the survey will be public and will be made available via the Public Information Project web page at http://www.solinet.net/pip/pubinfo.shtml. Please see that site for further information about the project. If you have other questions or concerns, please contact me via email or telephone. This link will be "live" only until mid-February, so please try to provide the link to the survey as expeditiously as possible. If you could drop me a note that your site is participating, I would appreciate knowing that as well. Thank you very much. Keith Belton, AICPSOLINET(404)892-0943 x259 Regional Information Services Program Officer, Public Information Project [EMAIL PROTECTED] A HREF="http://www.solinet.net/pubinfo.shtml"Public Information Project/A --cut here for web page announcement- Solinet, a not-for-profit library service organization, as part of our U.S. Department of Commerce funded effort to develop an on-line database of economic data, has developed an A HREF="http://www.solinet.net/pip/survey.htm" on-line survey for uses and providers of economic information/A. The on-line survey will supplement a longer survey that was distributed through the mail. If you use or provide economic information on-line, please take a few moments to complete the survey. The results will be posted in late February on A HREF="http://www.solinet.net/pip/pubinfo.shtml"Solinet's Public Information Project home page /A. end web page announcement-
[PEN-L:2526] Reich questions (fwd)
I thought maybe this list would have some ideas.. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 13:16:20 -0900 From: C. Oleson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Reich questions I may have the opp to do a radio interview with US Labor Secretary Reich. Suggestions for questions welcome. (PLEASE: no polemics, no long-winded opinions) Assume I have read his books and many of his major publications. Thanks. Clara Oleson * [EMAIL PROTECTED] University of Iowa Labor Center * FAX: (319) 335-4077 M217 Oakdale Hall* Iowa City, Iowa 52242-5000 *
[PEN-L:2278] Re: Query
There is a good new book in this precise subject: Top Heavy: A Study of the Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America by Edward N. Wolff Twentieth Century Fund Press 1995 800-275-1447 On Thu, 4 Jan 1996, Peter J. Schledorn wrote: Can anyone point me to some research about the changes (or lack of them) in wealth distribution in the US over the past fifteen or twenty years (or longer if it is available)? Specifically, I am interested in the changes in the wealth of individuals and/or families over time--that is, how many people in each quintile are still there after a few years. I have seen some information like this on income distribution, but haven't been able to find any on the distribution of wealth--"The State of Working America" and a few other basic sources haven't helped. This is not for anything more important than personal interest and a net discussion, but I would appreciate any leads anyone can give me without expending any serious effort. Thanks in advance, Best, Peter Schledorn UNC-Chapel Hill
[PEN-L:1593] Income Distribution
Here is an recent analysis of some previously unpublished data from the Congressional Budget Office. The work is by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. Original analysis included charts that could not be posted. Please contact Michelle Bazie at CBPP for a hardcopy of the report. Revised November 22, 1995 UNEQUAL SHARES: RECENT INCOME TRENDS AMONG THE WEALTHY BY ISAAC SHAPIRO The budget debate this year has frequently focused on whether high-income families are being treated appropriately by plans to balance the budget over the next seven years while cutting taxes. To help put this discussion into context, this analysis exami nes how recent economic and policy trends have affected high-income and wealthy families. The analysis relies heavily on new data from the Congressional Budget Office, as well as on data from the Census Bureau. It finds: *Both short-term and long-term trends in income growth have heavily favored high-income and wealthy families. Their incomes have risen at a much faster pace in recent decades than other groups, and they are the only group which has recaptured the ground lost in the recent recession. After adjusting for inflation, the average income of the wealthiest one percent of the population has nearly doubled since 1977, while the incomes of middle-class families have been stagnant and low-income families have expe rienced a significant loss. *Although federal tax changes since the mid-1980s have improved the progressivity of the tax system, the proportion of income that the wealthy pay in federal taxes remains lower than in 1977. *In the past two decades, the share of national income received by high-income and wealthy families has risen substantially. The wealthiest one percent of the population (2.5 million people) now has nearly as much after-tax income as the bottom 40 percen t of the population (about 100 million people). The top 20 percent of the population has fully as much after-tax income as the bottom 80 percent of the population. Income inequality is at the widest level on record. In this analysis, the term "wealthy" generally applies to the richest one percent of families. According to the CBO data, the top one percent of families are projected to have AFTER-tax income averaging $438,000 in 1996; they receive 12 percent of nation al after-tax income. The term "high-income" generally applies to the 20 percent of families with the highest incomes. Their after-tax incomes are projected to average $89,000 in 1996; they receive half of national after-tax income. In light of the above trends, it would seem inadvisable to carve a path towards a balanced budget under which the incomes of wealthy families are likely to increase further while the incomes of other families -- and especially low- and moderate-income fam ilies -- are likely to decrease substantially. But, as the last part of this analysis finds, that is the current Congressional course. INCOME TRENDS Most public information on income trends is from the Census Bureau. Census data, however, do not include information on income trends for the top one percent of the population, nor do they focus on the effect of taxes on incomes. For this reason, this a nalysis also relies heavily on information from the Congressional Budget Office. For trends over time, this analysis uses unpublished CBO data covering the period from 1977 (the first year of this CBO series) to 1992 (the latest year for which actual, as opposed to projected, figures are available).(1) The data show: *From 1977 to 1992, the average AFTER-tax income of the wealthiest one percent of the population nearly doubled, increasing by 91 percent after adjusting for inflation.(2) The average after-tax income of the top fifth of families rose 28 percent during this period. *In sharp contrast, the average income of the middle fifth of families was essentially stagnant, ticking up by just one percent over this 15-year span. The bottom fifth of families experienced an average decline in after-tax income of 17 percent. (See F igure 1.) More recent data for BEFORE-tax income are available from the Census Bureau for 1994. They show that the average income of the bottom 80 percent of the population is well below what it was in 1989 -- the last year before recession set in -- and that only the top fifth of households(3) has recovered fully from the recession. *The Census data show that the average income of the bottom fifth of households in 1994 was 7.5 percent -- or $629 -- below its level in 1989, after adjusting for inflation. The average income of the middle fifth was 6.3 percent -- or $2,185 -- below its 1989 level. *By contrast, the average income of the top fifth was about one percent -- or at least $1,000 -- higher in 1994 than it was in 1989. The average income of the top five percent of households rose even more, increasing by at least four percent -- or $7,000 -- over this
[PEN-L:1581] Federal Budget Game (fwd)
Check this out - it may be fun/educational and of interest. "Reinventing America" Game Launched Today, Mon., Nov. 6, Crossover Technoloy launched the "Reinventing America" game at: http://www.pathfinder.com/reinventing An interactive political simulation game, participants will spend 26 weeks debating various issues of national importance, from drug policy to environ- mental protection to defense conversion to arts funding and school prayer. Players can come and go (and join) at any time. Throughout the duration of the game, players will debate and vote on levels of federal spending related to these issues, and, at the end of the game, will propose a new federal budget that reflects the results of these discussions. The Markle Foundation, sponsor of the game, will then present this proposed budget to Congress at a press conference in May. 2 Reasons Why You Should Join the Game 1) This game is bound to get a lot of media attention, as it is a very inventive idea 2) The right wing is bound to be represented in force. I've joined already and I can definitely see a dearth of progressive opinions. PLEASE RE-POST, PLEASE RE-POST, PLEASE RE-POST Thanks, Leif Utne [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jen Steele LBJ School of Public Affairs University of Texas at Austin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:1479] Re: State taxes
Here's the reality of trying to deal with state and local taxes: Arguments for progressivity are nice, but the reality is that only the very best state and local systems (Minnesota, Vermont) are even close to proportional when all taxes are considered -- sales, property, cigarette, gasoline, etc. -- and that's not including the notoriously regressive state lotteries. I would consider it a great step forward if we could direct the current public discussion on tax reform in Texas toward a consideration of distributional impact. Once there, we could get into ability to pay, etc. and I would be happy to settle for moving toward proportionality. In fact, Gov. Bush is pushing hard to replace $9 billion in local school property taxes (and $1 billion in corporate franchise taxes, tipping off who is really pushing tax reform to begin with) with some kind of consumption tax. His argument is that a consumption tax would promote savings, and thus economic growth (the Holy Grail of all state politicians). The fight will probably not be over the regressivity of any changes (although I'll do my best), but instead over the role of consumption taxes. So I need something to say about the role of consumption taxes (broad-based sales tax, VAT) in a state economy. This may be a big national issue if the Republicans keep their Congressional majorities in Nov 96, but Texas could serve as the out-of-town opening. Bush has made this his major issue and if he succeeds here, he could easily ride consumption taxes (and his famous name) onto the national scene. Therefore I need something other than equity arguments to combat a move from property taxes (which are at least partially absorbed by landlords and owners of capital) to consumption taxes (which are paid strictly according to the percentage of income spent, i.e. regressive as hell). Your help would be greatly appreciated and could make a real difference in the real world. Dick Lavine Center for Public Policy Priorities Austin, TX
[PEN-L:1425] State taxes
You may have noticed the op-ed in the Wall St Journal by a Richard Vedder, who apparently creating arguments for the Joint Economic Committee in favor on abandoning progressivity in federal taxation. His article makes several claims about state taxation: 1. "A state can dramatically improve its economic performance by lowering the overall tax burden." 2. "The experience of the states suggests that a move in the direction of taxing consumption as opposed to income would increase our nation's wealth and prosperity." 3. "The econometric evidence demonstrates that flat-rate income taxes lead to superior economic performance over variable-rate taxes that raise the same amount of money." I would appreciate help in combating each of these propositions. Our governor is particularly responsive to demands from the business sector for lower property taxes and is considering offering to replace school taxes with a consumption tax, with disastrous consequences for working people and the poor. Dick Lavine Center for Public Policy Priorities Austin, TX
[PEN-L:1389] Minimum wage hotline
The Labor Department has set up a toll free number for workers to call "to describe the impact that increasing the minimum wage would have on their lives." Open 24 hours a day until November 17. 1-800-786-4975. There is also an e-mail address (for low-wage workers with computers?): [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reich is apparently looking for stories to use in his testimony in upcoming Senate minimum wage hearings, which are expected in late November or early December. For more info on the hearings, call Christine Owens at the Citizens Committee, 202-265-9573. Dick Lavine Center for Public Policy Priorities Austin, TX
[PEN-L:1156] Shorter Work-Time Group
There is a U.S. group, as well as the Canadian one mentioned recently. They work together in the North American Network for Shorter Hours of Work (NANSHOW). Shorter Work-Time Group c/o 69 Dover St., #1 Somerville, MA 02144 617-628-5558 Dick Lavine Center for Public Policy Priorities Austin, TX
[PEN-L:1074] Re: (PEN-L:1054) Mary had a little Lambda
Try the House Progressive Caucus, c/o Rep. Peter DeFazio - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dick Lavine On Fri, 20 Oct 1995, Alan Freeman wrote: Hi Jim, Didn't respond because I thought someone better informed would. However I did go to the community action workshop at the URPE summer camp which I found interesting and where a number of information packs got handed round on the Contract on America. One compendium with lots of short, informative backup facts came from the American Friends Service Committee at 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia Pennsylvania 19102-1479. Emily Kawano, a staffer at this organisation, made a presentation on it.I hoped to send you her E-Mail but I've mislaid it.. She may already be on this list in which case (a) hi (b) hope I haven't duplicated or misrepresented. I also have a request for information. One of the participants in the workshop mentioned that the Black Congressional Caucus had produced an Economic Programme in response to the Contract On America. This is very much needed over here; does anyone know of a primary contact for it? Alan
[PEN-L:38] re: our contract with america
I think Abby Hoffman's slogan was "Full Unemployment." On Wed, 26 Jul 1995, Blair Sandler wrote: In the spirit of "Food Not Bombs" and "Homes Not Jails," how about "Work Not Jobs"? This could go with "Work for all, jobs for none." After all, as a Marxist, I'm not all that keen on promoting capitalist exploitation. Yes, I'm aware that "in capitalism, the only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited." The question is whether we must accept capitalism. (See Gibson-Graham, _Rethinking Marxism _ 6.2, Summer 93.) How about, instead of money for training programs that (supposedly) prepare people for capitalist wage labor, or for creating capitalist jobs, spending money on organizing groups of workers to initiate worker-managed community-owned collectives specifically to meed community-determined needs. The money would provide organizational (planning, marketing, administrative,...) training, a period of wages for the workers until they could get established, and...? Just the sketchiest sketch of an idea. Probably been done already, probably didn't work. No sense trying it, huh? Blair Sandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Duncan St. #1 San Francisco, CA 94110 415-282-2163
