Tag: editorial

Start apologizing, Gov. Cuomo — and stop the lies

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nypost.com/2021/02/15/start-apologizing-gov-cuomo-and-stop-the-lies/

Excerpt:

Indeed, it seems to have started as soon as The Post’s Bernadette Hogan first revealed the existence of the deadly March 25 order by asking about it at a press conference weeks later. At that April 20 presser, the gov pretended he’d never heard of the order before. (And never mind that he is tight as a bug with the state hospital lobby, which plainly requested the order if only to clear beds for more urgent COVID cases. Nor that Cuomo is a notorious micromanager unlikely to let such a deadly mandate be issued without his personal signoff.)

It’s at about this point that the state Department of Health suddenly started reporting “nursing home COVID deaths” in a way unique to New York — leaving out residents who died only after transfer to a hospital. This, even as the DOH continued to record the full truth but refused to share it.

Indeed, the Cuomoites stonewalled Freedom of Information Law requests from the Empire Center and the Associated Press for most of the next year — again, starting long before the feds showed any interest.

The state only finally started releasing that info after 1) Attorney General Tish James’ report outlined the basic fact that the nursing-home death toll was 50 percent higher than Cuomo or Health Commissioner Howard Zucker had been admitting, and 2) a judge outright ordered the DOH to comply with the Empire Center FOIL request.

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Post

Editorial: Get tough, Gov. Pritzker, on AFSCME

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-fixing-illinois-chicago-budget-afscme-furlough-20210215-b6odtzttd5cjfkwu6vrde3e3be-story.html#new_tab

Excerpt:

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is scheduled to outline his budget plan on Wednesday for the fiscal year that starts July 1. It should include sacrifice from the nearly 40,000 state workers whose jobs have not been at risk like millions in the private sector and who got generous pay raises, funded by taxpayers, during the pandemic when Illinois’ unemployment soared to 16%. It is high time the state’s unionized workforce be part of the “shared sacrifice” our politicians so often expect of the private sector workforce.

….

While sectors of the state workforce have been extra busy due to COVID-19’s strain on unemployment benefits and health care systems, many state offices and agencies have been closed, services backlogged and workers learning to perform their jobs from home. Taking unpaid furlough days should not be a big “ask” compared with what the private sector has endured under Pritzker’s shutdown orders — restaurants, hotels, convention business, sports and marketing jobs — entire industries sidelined and in some cases, wiped out.

Other blue state governors confronted their unionized workforces months ago and showed leadership in doing so. Democratic governors in Wisconsin, California and New York cut public sector pay, instituted across-the-board spending cuts throughout state government, froze hiring and scheduled raises, and prepared for what would become a nearly yearslong economic slump due to COVID-19. They did it to protect all taxpayers.

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: Chicago Tribune

States of Budget Surplus

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/states-of-budget-surplus-11612999662?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Excerpt:

Governors—especially from Democratic states—have been pleading revenue poverty since the pandemic began. But as we approach the anniversary of Covid-19 in America, that tall tale is becoming more difficult to sell.

Even the left-tilting media are beginning to figure out what we’ve been reporting for some time. One of our sources is Dan Clifton, of Strategas Research Partners, who has been tracking state revenue trends and Covid relief from the beginning. His latest analysis shows that state revenues have been doing far better than advertised, especially states that have kept their economies largely open.

He estimates that a majority of the 50 states are seeing revenues arrive above their pre-Covid levels despite the 2020 economic damage. The big exceptions are states that had the most restrictive business lockdowns (New York), those that rely on sales taxes and have no income tax (Florida and Texas), and those that depend on travel and tourism (Nevada).

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 10 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Junk Has Never Been So Valued

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/junk-has-never-been-so-valued-11612915150

Excerpt:

If you’re an over-leveraged company at risk of default, now’s your moment to load up on more debt. The average yield on U.S. junk bonds dropped below 4% for the first time on Monday amid a market scavenger hunt for higher returns.

The Federal Reserve has pushed down long-term interest rates by buying bonds and committed to keep short-term interest rates at near zero through 2023. While the central bank’s interventions were needed in March, it continued to buy corporate bonds well into the summer when markets didn’t need the support.

Author(s): WSJ Editorial Board

Publication Date: 9 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Editorial: Marin pension changes are painful but necessary

Mary Pat Campbell
Editorial: Marin pension changes are painful but necessary

Excerpt:

The combination of reality and responsible caution is getting expensive for Marin public agencies that provide their workers with generous pensions.

The member agencies in the Marin County Employees’ Retirement Association are getting the latest dose and the association’s board voted to reduce its annual assumption rate on investment returns to 6.75%. It is a quarter of one percent reduction, but one that will cost agencies such as the county and the city of San Rafael thousands of dollars every year.

….

It recognizes a combination of expected returns on its stock market and real estate investments and that the number of pensioners is not only growing, but they are living longer and drawing more from the fund.

Living longer may be great news for the retirees, but it is an increased cost for MCERA.

Author(s): MARIN IJ EDITORIAL BOARD

Publication Date: 28 January 2021

Publication Site: Marin Independent Journal

What Are the Values of Data, Data Science, or Data Scientists?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/bj2dfcwg/release/1

Excerpt:

Difficult trade-offs therefore need to be made, and this is where things can be deadly controversial—pun intended—when lives and livelihoods are involved, especially on a massive scale. As Leonelli asks, “What are the priorities underpinning alternative construals of ‘life with covid’? … Whose advice should be followed, whose interests should be most closely protected, which losses are acceptable and which are not?” Such questions clearly cannot (and should not) be answered by data science or data scientists alone, but the data science community has both the ability and responsibility to establish scientific and persuasive evidence to help to reach sustainable compromises that are critical for maintaining a healthy human ecosystem.

Author: Xiao-Li Meng

Publication Date: 29 January 2021

Publication Site: Harvard Data Science Review

Cuomo’s Tax Ultimatum

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuomos-tax-ultimatum-11611359134?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Excerpt:

Viewers of Andrew Cuomo’s Emmy-award winning Covid-19 briefings may have noticed how the New York Governor has become increasingly excitable. In this week’s budget show, he pointed an economic gun at New York and threatened to shoot if Washington doesn’t fork over $15 billion.

“If the federal government doesn’t fund state and local governments, it’s going to hurt all New Yorkers,” Mr. Cuomo warned Tuesday while proposing to raise the state’s top income tax rate in New York City to 14.7%. This would be the highest rate in the country, at least until New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy makes a competing bid.

Publication Date: 22 January 2021

Publication Site: WSJ

Editorial | Legislative lunacy

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-legislative-lunacy/article_967b0ad5-3d2e-544a-b7ae-83f75d384af4.html

Excerpt:

When it comes to politics and government, Chicago is a force unto itself. Its strengths and weaknesses are, mostly, of its own making.

But the city was recently victimized by the General Assembly, and it’s important for the people of Illinois to know why. What happened speaks to a serious problem — a Legislature seemingly untethered to reality.

…..

Unfortunately, state legislators voted during the recent lame-duck session to increase retirement benefits for 2,200 Chicago firefighters.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, as a newspaper headline put it, objected “strenuously” to the Legislature’s action.

She correctly described it as a “massive unfunded mandate to the taxpayers of Chicago at a time when there are no funds to cover this new obligation.”

Publication Date: 22 January 2021

Publication Site: The News-Gazette

Editorial: Vote-conscious aldermen embrace a fiscally unsustainable pension idea

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-vote-conscious-aldermen-embrace-a-fiscally-unsustainable-pension-idea/article_f4050760-f8bc-575d-9995-cb0fa5112f1c.html

Description: Editorial saying that St. Louis, Missouri aldermen are considering merging locally-controlled pension plan for firefighters with state-controlled plan, which will make pension costs skyrocket again.

Excerpt:

A major problem in controlling costs was that the pension was under state control. Firefighters were historically very successful at lobbying state lawmakers for generous benefits, regardless of how much it cost city taxpayers. The city passed pension reform legislation in 2012 creating a new, locally controlled pension system for newly hired firefighters. Existing and retired firefighters stayed in the old system. By 2020, costs dropped back down to $12.4 million, less than half of their 2013 peak.

Publication Date: 23 January 2021

Publication Site: St. Louis Post-Dispatch