Making Sense of Politics and Events, So the Media Doesn't Have To http://www.northdecoder.com Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:14:49 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.northdecoder.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.northdecoder.com Making Sense of Politics and Events, So the Media Doesn't Have To http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Let-s-Talk-Budget-Reconciliation.html A lot of argument is swirling around right now about budget reconciliation(not to be confused with plain old reconciliation, which is what the House and Senate do in conference committee to merge a bill that has passed each house in different forms) and if it should be used to pass healthcare. A lot of it is misinformation and I want to take some time to explain the process, the reason that budget reconciliation is there, what it is supposed to be used for, and what it is not supposed to be used for. I need to start though with how this country spends money. A pretty big chunk of our federal government runs on its own as a matter of law and doesn't need to be reauthorized year to year. Social Security and Medicare(among other things) are funded directly by statute. Money goes in, checks go out. That is mandatory spending. Discretionary spending is reappropriated every year. In this catergory are things like Defense, the Dept. of Commerce, the State Department, etc. Those departments are funded on a yearly basis through the federal budget. Here's how that process works: every February or March, the President submits a budget to Congress. Congress then takes that budget and marks it up in committee, amends it on the floor, reconciles it in conference, and pass a joint budget resolution. This resolution is not signed into law and has no legal force. No money is spent by it. The purpose it serves is to act as a guide for the appropriations process. In appropriations bills you can add anything you want, you can write a new law that has nothing to do with the budget, but provisions in appropriations are subject to points of order which force them to remain in line with the budget resolution and the Congressional Budget Act(which set up this whole process). Now the fiscal year for the United States Government begins on October 1. Appropriations bills are supposed to be done prior to this point. In reality, most bills take longer than that and in the interim, Congress will pass a continuing resolution to hold the government over until the new approriations bill is passed. Make sense? Congratulations, you just passed Federal Budgeting 101. Now on to the budget reconciliation process. in order to have a reconciliation bill you first need to add instructions to the budget resolution that call for it. Once that is done you have to wait until the new fiscal year begins. The purpose of a reconciliation bill is to reign in runaway appropriations and bring down the defecit. It provides a method for correcting misjudgements about how much things were going to cost or how much revenue would be generated. The way a reconciliation bill does that is by giving it privileged status on the Senate floor. Reconciliation bills have a limit of 20 hours of debate after which the bill must be voted on. On the flip side, a reconciliation bill must meet the standards set out in the reconciliation instructions AND the Byrd rule. A provision in a reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order under the Byrd rule if it meets any of the following five provisions:• do not produce a change in outlays or revenues;• produce changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;• are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;• increase outlays or decrease revenue if the provision's title, as a whole, fails to achieve the Senate reporting committee's reconciliation instructions;• increase net outlays or decrease revenue during a fiscal year after the years covered by the reconciliation bill unless the provision's title, as a whole, remains budget neutral;• contain recommendations regarding the OASDI (social security) trust funds.So the provisions have to fall within the jurisdiction of the committee it is coming out of, it must reduce the defecit, it has to be germane(relevant) to the overall bill, and it can't touch Social Security. If it does not, any senator may raise a point of order, which-if sustained by the Chair(the Vice President or the President Pro Tem) may only be waived by 3/5 of the Senate. So I told you that it was meant to deal with runaway appropriations and miscalculations of revenue. Now lets look at what it has been used for:A couple of highlights here: COBRA was passed with Budget Reconciliation(Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act). SCHIP was passed with Budget Reconciliation. Medicare Part D was passed under Budget Reconciliation. Both the 2001 and the 2003 Bush Tax cuts were passed under Budget Reconciliation.How, you might ask, were all of these programs passed under reconciliation? Well, most of them fully complied with the Byrd rule. I would say that there were two(maybe 3) exceptions to that. The Bush Tax cuts in no way complied with the Byrd rule. They in no way reduced the defecit. Far from it, the tax cuts put a $1.8 trillion hole in the defecit. How could they possibly have passed? The Chair(A.K.A. Dick Cheney) simply overruled the points of order against it. In this area, the Vice President is the decider. He says what complies with the byrd rule and what doesn't, and in Cheneyland, the Bush tax cuts didn't reduce the defecit. In fact they went so far as to fire the parliamentarian that told him that he was wrong. So given the history of budget reconciliation, lets look at how it is going to be used for healthcare reform. The Senate(the body that matters) has passed a comprehensive healthcare reform. If the House of Representatives wanted to they could pass that tomorrow and it would be over to the president's desk that same day. Unfortunately that bill doesn't really comply with some members of the house. They want a stronger bill. Everyone also wants to get rid of things like the cornhusker kickback, and the Louisiana purchase. The idea is to put these things, along with a few other tweaks to the Senate bill that will improve it, make it suitable to the House, and meet the requirements in the Byrd Rule. Then it can go to the President's desk. There are some that would argue for a public option(I would be one of them) to be put into the bill, but it seems like that is not in the cards for the current reconciliation bill at least. So here are the attacks that I have heard, which I think need to be rebutted: Reconciliation shouldn't be used for such a massive bill. We're dealing with 1/7th of our economy here. It was designed for budgetary procedures, and shifts in taxes, not for a massive government takeover of healthcare. Wrong on all counts. First, Reconciliation was designed for, and has been used to pass all sorts of healthcare reform programs, as I explained earlier. In fact, save for Medicare, pretty much every major healthcare program has been passed through reconciliation. Second, reconciliation is not being used to pass a massive government takeover of healthcare. It is being used to tweak a bill that was already passed. Third, Reconciliation was used to pass the Bush tax cuts in direct violation of the Byrd rule by the same people complaining that its being used here when it does comply with it. Reconciliation is usually used in a bipartisan fashion. It should be used for that here too. Nonsense. Utter nonsense. pretty much every reconciliation bill has been passed on a party-line vote, save for one or two crossover votes. This is a parliamentary trick. Its a power grab for the liberals that want to take over the healthcare system. Well, you may have me here. This is a parliamentary maneuver, but so is a filibuster, so is objecting to a unanimous consent request to waive the reading of a bill, so is everything that happens in a parliamentary body. Democrats have the votes for it, a majority of the Senate wants to pass this, and there is a provision that allows them to do that. Get used to it. Why should Democrats be forced to bring a spork to a gunfight?I've also heard attacks on the parliamentarian, suggesting that he might not be fair about his rulings on the Byrd rule. This is ridiculous on so many levels. First off, the Parliamentarian so far has been ruthlessly fair, as has been every officer of the Senate. He is acting in a perfectly non-partisan fashion. Second, The whiplash of republicans on this issue must be painful. These clowns are the one that FIRED the parliamentarian when he was fairly ruling the Bush tax cuts to be out of order in a reconciliation bill. They have absolutely no room to complain when Democrats pass a bill that the man that the Republicans hired to replace that guy agrees with. How two-faced can you be?So in conclusion, Democrats are probably using reconciliation, they are using it for exactly the reasion it was created, and they are operating fully with the constraints of the Byrd rule. The repbulicans really don't have a leg to stand on with this. Democrats have the votes. Get used to it. News - Latest Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:24:17 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/The-Blog-Post-That-Wrote-Itself.html [UPDATED X 2] I'm not going to write this blog post. It's not that I'm too lazy or that I don't understand it. I'm just not going to write it. The commenters should write this blog post.I will tell you just a little about what this is: This is a single page from the working papers of the audit that was done of the North Dakota Department of Commerce by the State Auditor's Office last year. The information on the page below did not make it into the State Auditor's Office's final report. (That report can probably be found somewhere else online.) NDSULeases (http://www.scribd.com/doc/28101063/NDSULeases) If you have any questions that might be answered with another document or a link to legal authority, contract or data, please ask your question in the comments section or post the link to legal authority (or ask me to, if you don't know how to find it) or ask about the data. I've got a bit more documentation relating to this. If you ask the right question(s), I'll probably post updates with info I've got that might answer your question or clear up an issue. That's all I have for now. Carry on. [UPDATE #1: Answer to the first question that was submitted to me (privately): Click here to view appraisal (http://www.scribd.com/doc/28105660/NDSUAppriasal).][UPDATE #2: In a comment, below, What the heck asked how much money the state pays out renting offices around the state. Click here to read a document that shows (http://www.scribd.com/full/28124368?access_key=key-1py2chik03t8d5kdx6il) (among other things) how much NDSU is paying to lease back some of the property it leases out for $1.00 a year.] News - Latest Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:27:21 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Bell-Lake-and-Bullion-Butte.html Crossposted with permission from The Prairie Blog (http://theprairieblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/bell-lake-and-bullion-butte.html) When I was a young man living in Dickinson in the early 1970’s, a friend of mine and I used to occasionally take a drive north of Medora to a place we called the Bell Lake Wilderness (the locals called it the Bell Lake Pasture). We’d drive a little ways off the West River Road onto a two-track trail that led to a little draw with some ash and cottonwood trees alongside Bell Lake Creek. We’d throw our sleeping bags, mostly of the Boy Scouts era, on the ground (no tents or air mattresses for hardy young twenty-somethings) on a quiet summer night and fall asleep under the stars. In the morning, we’d make some coffee on an old white gas Coleman stove, eat a handful of Baker Boy donuts, and take off across the prairie for a long day’s hike.The Bell Lake Wilderness was about a township full of short grass prairie, part of the publicly owned Little Missouri National Grasslands (http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/dakotaprairie/). There were no roads through it, except a couple of two-tracks used by ranchers who had grazing leases, and not many fences. Open range, mostly, as I recall.Today, if you drive up West River Road west of the Elkhorn Ranch Site, you’ll see a sign that says “Bell Lake Oil Field,” and you can turn off on any number of bright red scoria roads leading to oil well sites, and storage and pumping stations.The Bell Lake Wilderness is gone, as are most of the other public land roadless areas in North Dakota. The RARE II study completed in 1979 (Remember that? I still have a copy!) identified 265,000 acres of that public land that were being managed as roadless areas in the Little Missouri National Grasslands—about half of what existed when I first started going there in the early 1970’s. Today there are only about 40,000 of those acres left that the Forest Service still manages as Suitable for Wilderness. The Forest Service has leased the rest to private companies who have gone in and developed the minerals, building a vast network of roads to connect oil wells and storage facilities with the outside world, and creating a noisy, dusty, thirsty landscape that most of us who went there thirty years ago hardly recognize. Uffda.Comes now an organization called the Badlands Conservation Alliance (BCA), a small North Dakota-based grass roots organization (full disclosure—my wife is the founder, and I am a member) with a big idea: to save a few small areas still existing as mostly roadless areas, as North Dakota Wilderness. I use a capital W on Wilderness here because we have so little of it in North Dakota, it needs some calling attention to. If you go to BCA’s website (http://www.badlandsconservationalliance.org/) and click on the little box in the bottom left hand corner of the home page, you can download a brochure that explains the entire proposal (and you can also become a member for just a few bucks and help their cause).Theirs is a modest proposal. It would classify those 40,000 acres, plus another 11,500 in the Lone Butte area, where there are no private mineral leases, and 5,000 over in the Sheyenne National Grasslands, as Wilderness. It would be called The Prairie Legacy Wilderness.Wilderness designation would allow almost all existing uses to continue, but it would not allow any more roads or wells, and it would not allow anyone except the ranchers who lease those acres to drive on the existing two-track trails. The rest of us would just ride horses or hike in these areas. The parcels are small enough that if you take a good long day-hike through each of them, you can see much of the landscape, and get a pretty good sense of why we should save them as Wilderness. I know. I've done it. And seen the Golden Eagle and Prairie Falcon nests and the Prairie Fringed Orchids that are going to disappear one day, soon, if we do not preserve these areas.There are a million acres of Little Missouri National Grasslands. This proposal would set aside just 5 per cent of them as permanent native prairie. Ninety-five percent--950,000 of those acres--would remain open to oil development under this proposal. The last time I was up on Bullion Butte (http://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/detail.asp?fid=1749256) there was a 4-wheeler rally going on. Under this proposal, they'd have to ride their 4-wheelers on that 950,000 acres that are not off limits to motorized vehicles. That ought to be enough room. That’s a pretty reasonable proposal, don’t you think?Despite its vast areas of wide open spaces, North Dakota has surprisingly little Wilderness area now—about 40,000 acres, divided among the Chase Lake (http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS sec=wildView WID=113) and Lostwood (http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS sec=wildView WID=332) National Wildlife Refuges and Theodore Roosevelt National Park (http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS sec=wildView WID=598). (If you click on any of those links, you’ll go to great day trip planning sites.)So why am I writing about this proposal? Well, just last month, South Dakota U.S. Senator Tim Johnson announced that he would introduce a bill in Congress this year to designate between 40,000 and 50,000 acres of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland east of Rapid City, South Dakota, as Wilderness. An area similar to our own Little Missouri National Grasslands here in North Dakota. So some of us think the timing is right to initiate this effort in North Dakota too.I hope BCA is successful. I hope we get our North Dakota Senators to introduce a bill too. If you want to help, send me an e-mail (mailto:jimfuglie@hotmail.com). Or e-mail) Jan Swenson (mailto:bcajan@bis.midco.net), BCA’s executive director, and ask her how you can help. Or just go ahead and contact your Senators or Congressmen. This takes an Act of Congress. Somebody has to sponsor it. It’s a reasonable proposal. One of them should be willing to get the ball rolling. It’s time to get this done.It’s too late for Bell Lake. But not for Bullion Butte. News - Latest Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:27:32 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Saturday-Night-Diversion-Counting-Crows.html Washington Square.Or this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWazF511OQg). News - Latest Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:36:02 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Saturday-Diversion-Toto.html AfricaHooray for cheezy lip synced 80s video! News - Diversions Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:08:54 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Republican-Party-s-Official-Campaign-of-Fear.html Democrats have been accusing Republicans of using fear to chase numbers to the polls every November since the beginning of time. But before today they've never had proof in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to save the country from trending toward socialism. The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.Politico.com (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33866.html) You can look at the entire PowerPoint presentation by clicking here (http://www.politico.com/static/PPM136_100303_rnc_finance_leadership.html). In the presentation, Republican operatives address the fact they will be helping John Hoeven in North Dakota with the strategies in the presentation. On page 21 of 72, the presentation characterizes North Dakota as an Offensive Target. The strategies to look out for here in North Dakota are laid out on pages 29, 30 and 31. On page 29, the official Republican presentation talks about how they will use Fear to motivate visceral giving. On page 30, Republicans say they will sell their agenda by suggesting they will save the country from trending toward Socialism! Then, on page 31, you get this: I used to naïvely think the hate-mongering and fear-mongering you see on Fox News, on right-wing radio and on right-wing blogs was the work of a few, rogue conservative outsiders. I thought all the unthinking hate just came from liars and propagandists like right-wing radio puke Scott Hennen and blogger Rob Port; people who lack any credibility at all. It's troubling to learn that those clowns are actually being spoon-fed their trash in a focus-grouped, orchestrated, official program devised by Republican Party insiders and circulated by PowerPoint presentations at official RNC training sessions.If I were one of the many cowering, party-line Republican voters out there, I'd feel like a pathetic, manipulated guppy right now. The only thing they have to fear is the Republican Party itself. News - Latest Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:13:14 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/NDGOP-Whoring-Itselt-Out-To-Insurance-Industry.html Hotline is reporting the North Dakota Republican Party ( ND GOP ) is affirmatively seeking out campaign funds from the insurance industry and expects to raise as much as $50,000 from insurance companies in June of this year:Amid a flap over an embarrassing fundraising presentation, another presentation appears to show at least one state GOP is ready to reap rewards from the insurance industry, which could open the party up to charges that it is in the pocket of an industry that would be hurt by health care reform.A photo posted to a Facebook profile of the ND GOP [reproduced at NorthDecoder.com, appropriately, to the upper-right] appears to show a recent RNC campaign school presentation. Part of that presentation included laying out the state party's fundraising goals, one of which is to hit up the insurance industry for $50K.Under the Major Donors category, Insurance Industry is listed next to a figure of $50K. The ND GOP also appears to be planning an event in the Hamptons in June with 120 attendees.Hotline On Call (http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/03/rnc_plan_includ.php) It takes a special kind of pathological liar to go out into the world, claiming to fight for the little guy, and then go raise tens of thousands of dollars from the insurance industry. I'd bet I know exactly where the NDGOP is planning to get this kind of insurance industry dough. And what's with the fundraiser in the Hamptons?!? Isn't that a fancy, expensive vacation venue in New York where all the East Coast Who's-Who s spend all their time? Is that where North Dakota's Republican Party has found its base? Guess so.No wonder they've scheduled the coronation of a socialist banking heir as North Dakota's next U.S. Senator. NorthDecoder.com contacted the North Dakota Republican Party seeking comment regarding this story. The NDGOP has not yet responded. News - Latest Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:04:14 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Corporatist-Republicans-Attack-Their-Own-Health-Plan.html I got this doozy in yesterday's mail:Hit Piece (http://www.scribd.com/doc/27820497/Hit-Piece?secret_password=1q7fjnoofdrgjn4mw6bz) Why is that a doozy, you ask?Highlighted on the second page are (apparently important) words, government-controlled healthcare in this country won't work. I think that's hilarious. Think about who this hit piece is being distributed by: it's being distributed by U.S. House Republicans. Where do U.S. House Republicans get their healthcare?!? You guessed it. They get their healthcare from a government-controlled healthcare program. If Republicans were really against government-controlled healthcare, they'd all cancel their tax-dollar funded congressional health plans.The other highlighted language in the hit piece is this: Cuts to Medicare. That's equally funny. Democrats are proposing that medicare spending be reduced through the elimination of fraud, abuse and waste. I thought Republicans were against fraud, abuse and waste. Maybe not. If Republicans really think passage of the proposed healthcare reform measures will be the end of the Democratic Party, why don't they just let it pass and take over the House and Senate in less than a year?!? These Republican leaders are the worst kind of hypocrites. News - Latest Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:48:01 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Doug-Goehring-s-impressive-campaign-website-launch.html I happened across the 2010 campaign website (http://www.douggoehring.com) of North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner. It appears that he is spending his warchest very wisely. It takes me two whole screenshots to show you the entire page. Here's the homepage:Notice that there is only one active link, "Meet Doug." Here's what's behind that link:there you have it, Doug Goehring's website, in its entirety circa 3:30 March 3rd. Impressive indeed. Horrendous design, check. No content, check. This baby is ready to launch. A note to all you aspiring campaign webmasters out there: make sure your site is done before you launch it. Have your "under construction" page up until then. Don't have a barely started site out there for us to point and laugh at while you start generating content. I'd also suggest that your site look like is was made in the last decade. This site appears to have been designed in 1997. White and light blue with black text is a terrible color scheme. Get with the program. It's 2010. News - Latest Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:09:22 +0100 http://www.northdecoder.com/index.php/Is-Clay-Jenkinson-Considering-U.S.-Senate-Run.html TheHill.com is reporting that Clay Jenkinson, author and humanities scholar, may be considering a run for the United States Senate...State Sen. Tracy Potter is so far the only Democrat running for the seat, and Heitkamp's exit means Dorgan will be a heavy, heavy favorite in November.Another name that will likely surface after Heitkamp's announcement is that of author Clay Straus Jenkinson.TheHill.com (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/84707-heitkamp-to-announce-senate-plans)I don't know what to think about that. I like Jenkinson's work, but he's definitely not someone anybody could ever accuse of being a politician. I suspect he'd be more statesman than a poltician. From some folks' perspective, that's probably a good thing.I like Tracy Potter (he's my state senator) and look forward to watching his campaign, but I gotta confess that I think a Jenkinson vs. Hoeven debate would be very, very fun to watch too. News - Latest Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:12:59 +0100