Month: March 2021

Democrats make low-tax states an offer they should refuse

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/543992-democrats-make-low-tax-states-an-offer-they-should-refuse#new_tab

Excerpt:

States are discovering and news outlets are reporting some surprising features of the new law. For starters, the President Biden-approved American Rescue Plan tweaks the funding formula to distribute funding based on average unemployment during the three final months of 2020 — rewarding Democratic-controlled states like New York, California and Illinois for their draconian COVID policies that resulted in the nation’s highest levels of unemployment. And it offers states billions more in Medicaid funding if they agree to boost their own Medicaid spending. 

Perhaps the most troubling is a legislative rider barring states that accept the aid from using the funds “to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue” derived “from a change in law, regulation, or administrative interpretation during the covered period that reduces any tax (by providing for a reduction in a rate, a rebate, a deduction, a credit, or otherwise) or delays the imposition of any tax or tax increase.” 

Author(s): MICHAEL G. FRANC

Publication Date: 19 March 2021

Publication Site: The Hill

Did IL state lawmakers unconstitutionally borrow billions of dollars? IL Supreme Court to decide

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://cookcountyrecord.com/stories/580283019-did-il-state-lawmakers-unconstitutionally-borrow-billions-of-dollars-il-supreme-court-to-decide

Excerpt:

Tillman, of suburban Golf, centered his claims on Article IX Section 9(b) of the Illinois state constitution. Tillman argued that provision of the state constitution limits the state’s ability to borrow money.

The complaint particularly focuses on text requiring lawmakers to identify “specific purposes” for debt when issuing new long-term bonds. Tillman argues that “specific purposes” clause should be read to forbid state lawmakers from borrowing money to finance deficits or “plug holes” in the state’s budget, such as the shortfall faced by the state when funding pension obligations.

Tillman has argued lawmakers in both 2003 and 2017 failed to identify “specific purposes” when it issued bonds, and then unconstitutionally assigned to the state comptroller the power to decide how the borrowed money was spent.

Author(s): Jonathan Bilyk

Publication Date: 19 March 2021

Publication Site: Cook County Record

MathHistory: A course in the History of Mathematics

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL55C7C83781CF4316

Video example:

Description:

Starting with the ancient Greeks, we discuss Arab, Chinese and Hindu developments, polynomial equations and algebra, analytic and projective geometry, calculus and infinite series, Stevin’s decimal system, number theory, mechanics and curves, complex numbers and algebra, differential geometry, topology, the origins of group theory, hyperbolic geometry and more. Meant for a broad audience, not necessarily mathematics majors.

Author(s): N.J. Wildberger

Publication Date: 3 March 2020 [last time list updated]

Publication Site: Insights into Mathematics at YouTube

Alicia Munnell: Biden’s Social Security Tax Hike Plan Falls Short

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/03/19/alicia-munnell-bidens-social-security-plan-falls-short/

Excerpt:

THINKADVISOR: What’s your take on President Biden’s proposal for fixing Social Security?

ALICIA MUNNELL: A step in the right direction. Good ideas but incomplete. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just not complete. He wants to have a few benefit enhancements and to increase taxes for people earning over $400,000. But I don’t think his numbers close the full 75-year Social Security [system] shortfall.

Author(s): Jane Wollman Rusoff

Publication Date: 19 March 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor

PSERS hires two outside law firms to investigate $25 million error

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/03/psers-hires-two-outside-law-firms-to-investigate-25-million-error.html

Excerpt:

In December, consulting actuary Buck reported that PSERS had reached a 6.38 percent average annual rate of return across the prior nine years, just barely above the minimum threshold of 6.36 percent and thus averting a rate increase.

Those calculations were called into question at the time and, more recently, PSERS admitted that they may have been incorrect.

On Friday night, after a nearly 2-hour-long executive session with no public discussion, PSERS’ audit committee approved hiring two law firms to investigate the error and offer recommendations.

Author(s): Wallace McKelvey

Publication Date: 19 March 2021

Publication Site: PennLive

The danger of high public debt is not what you think

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2021/danger-high-public-debt-is-not-what-you-think

Excerpt:

At the start of 2020, the ratio of debt to gross domestic product surpassed 107 percent in the US — before any pandemic spending. In other words, our government debt now exceeds the total annual production of our economy.

The decline in Americans’ trust in government is roughly correlated with the rise in public debt over the same time frame (although data analysis can’t control for all the factors necessary to prove the point). In the mid-’60s, about 75 percent of people in the US said they trusted the government always or most of the time; by 2019 that number was down to 17 percent. 

Author(s): Edgar Kiser

Publication Date: 12 March 2021

Publication Site: Knowable Magazine

The Tax Cut Ban and the Constitution

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tax-cut-ban-and-the-constitution-11616107345?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Excerpt:

The $1.9 trillion bill marketed as Covid relief includes $350 billion in federal aid to states and localities. While states can use the money to increase spending, Congress decreed that they can’t use it to cut taxes. “A state or territory shall not use the funds,” the bill says, “to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue” from a new law or regulation.

Because the mandate applies to “indirect” revenue offsets, states are at risk of violating the law for any tax reduction “during the covered period,” which stretches through 2024. Ohio’s lawsuit by Attorney General Dave Yost argues that “this coercive offer of federal funds violates the Constitution.”

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 18 March 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Rising costs of CalSTRS debt takes money from students, classrooms

Mary Pat Campbell
Rising costs of CalSTRS debt takes money from students, classrooms

Excerpt:

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) recently reported a 26 percent increase in early teacher retirements in the second half of 2020 relative to the previous year. CalSTRS officials suggest that the COVID-19-driven spike in retirements will not affect the pension plan’s long-term solvency. But even if that holds true, CalSTRS is currently only 66 percent funded and has $100 billion in unfunded benefits. The costs associated with paying off this pension debt are skyrocketing and siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from classrooms each year.

Like many states, California has made decades of legally ironclad promises to teachers regarding retirement benefits that, for a variety of reasons, have become massively underfunded.  The most notable factors contributing to growing debt are underperforming investments, inaccurate actuarial assumptions, and politicians’ longstanding preference to spend money on sexier things than retirement plans. When a public pension plan accrues debt, states and school districts need to start paying down that debt in addition to covering the normal operating costs associated with pensions. While California’s ledger would indicate it has been making pension debt payments, CalSTRS funding has only gotten worse over the last decade.

Author(s): LEONARD GILROY and ZACHARY CHRISTENSEN

Publication Date: 5 March 2021

Publication Site: Orange County Register

Employee Costs and Pensions are driving Connecticut Toward Insolvency

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://ctexaminer.com/2021/03/20/employee-costs-and-pensions-are-driving-connecticut-toward-insolvency/

Excerpt:

Indeed, Jahncke provided public testimony before the Connecticut General Assembly in January 2020 in which he cited the two 50-state studies and then explained why he relied upon multi-state studies rather than single-state studies: “when you are being compared to 50 other states, there is no way that anyone can complain that somebody is jimmying the numbers about Connecticut… these are across-the-board, level playing field [results.]”

Goldrick is just such a complainer, seeking to discredit Yankee’s 2015 study, by stating that “Yankee is not a reputable source of research but rather a right-wing, dark-money fueled, propaganda outlet…”

Then, Goldrick cites “meticulous analysis” supposedly “debunking the Yankee Institute report” – analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, which even The New York Times calls “a left-leaning research group.”

Goldrick’s extreme bias has colored his view of Jahncke’s column and led him to make baseless criticisms while omitting important facts supporting Jahncke’s argument.

Author(s): Edward Dadakis 

Publication Date: 20 March 2021

Publication Site: CT Examiner

Keeping promises to pensioners

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2021/03/20/Keeping-promises-to-pensioners/stories/202103050023

Excerpt:

In 2018, administrators of the Western Pennsylvania Teamsters and Employers Pension Fund announced it would cut benefits by 30% for 17,000 Pittsburgh-area retirees or their beneficiary survivors. The cut was needed to avoid insolvency and an accompanying collapse of the pension structure. Now, it is expected that those cuts will be restored.

Pension protection is critical, both for its morality and for its necessity. Pensions are a lifeline for older citizens. They should not lose their retirement money at the time they are depending on it — when they are no longer able or intending to work. The alternative reasonably could be poverty.

Were it not for the language in the new federal law, many people who spent decades toiling in union jobs would be in jeopardy of losing their benefits through no wrongdoing on their part. Forces conspired to put their retirement plans at risk. These are plans that were negotiated. These are plans that were promised. Nonetheless, many of the employers have gone out of business and have left their pension liabilities inadequately funded.

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 20 March 2021

Publication Site: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pa.’s largest pension plan hires lawyers to probe its mistake

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-pension-plan-mistake-20210320-stmldhnvkzhrblhdy5wizltiay-htmlstory.html

Excerpt:

The board of the $62 billion Pennsylvania public school pension system on Friday hired a pair of law firms to look into what the fund is now calling a “misstatement” in its profit reporting.

The Anglo-American law firm Womble Bond Dickinson will investigate what the board had previously called an “error,” while Philadelphia-based Morgan Lewis will check the math and tax issues.

The mistake may have wrongly spared teachers a potential hike in their pension payments while simultaneously passing that burden onto taxpayers.

Author(s): JOSEPH N. DISTEFANO

Publication Date: 20 March 2021

Publication Site: The Morning Call

Quick-Takes: Mortality Update, Meep’s Math Matters, and a Few Bailout Reactions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/quick-takes-mortality-update-meeps

Excerpt:

A few remarks — the total public pension unfunded liability (using the discount rates they themselves use, that is, too high, and thus valuing the unfunded liability too little) is the same size as the full American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — that is, $1.9 trillion.

That is not how much is getting shoveled to the various state and local governments.

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Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 21 March 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at Substack