Tag Archives: obama

NLRB Keeps Charging Ahead Blindly

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Categories: Business News, Government, Human Resources

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In the regulatory mess that is Washington today, the leader of the ridiculous pack just might be the National Labor Relations Board.

With union membership continuing to decline to historically low levels, the NLRB has apparently determined it will do whatever it can to help slow the erosion. It has shown no pretense of fairness in its decisions over the past four years with its rulings also often having major impacts on non-union employers.

In January, a U.S. Court of Appeals threw out three of President Obama's NLRB appointees, raising questions about the legality of recent rulings. Those same people have now been renominated by the President, so the drama continues.

The latest partisan action regards union dues expenditures. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) provides this summary:

A case currently before the NLRB could significantly alter the current way in which employees can exercise their Beck rights to object  to union dues’ expenditures.  According to the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Beck decision, employees can object to a portion of union dues’ expenditures if the dues are being used to fund political activity not related to collective bargaining or contract administration.  In a recent case, the United Nurses and Allied Professionals (Kent Hospital) and Jeanette Geary, however, the NLRB decided an employee, who objected to the union’s expenditures, did not deserve to have any verification showing proof how the union was spending its funds.
 
The NLRB proposes to go a step further to give the unions the upper hand by presuming the union is, indeed, spending all the dues correctly.  The effect would be the Board is telling employees they have to prove the union is spending money on lobbying and political activity with no means of independently verifying the union claims.
 
The Board’s new idea would unfairly and unnecessarily stack the deck against employees who have to pay dues, but disagree with the union politically.  Under the proposal, any lobbying activity the union would engage in on Capitol Hill, down to state and local seats of government, would go unchecked.
 

 

Finding the Vote Digitally and Socially

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Categories: 2012 Political Races, Indiana Politics/IBRG

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Some social media platforms may come and go in popularity, but the overall impact is only going to continue to grow. Assessing that impact in the 2012 presidential election is an Indiana Chamber partner in BIPAC (Business Industry Political Action Committee), focused on electing pro-economy, pro-jobs members of Congres.

Romney may have captured voters over 30, but he still lost. Obama on the other hand captured the women's vote, minority vote and youth vote, giving him the edge he needed to win. Digital and social media is where he found these votes and it's what set him apart from Romney. It is where he fundraised more than 700 million dollars and activated mobs of volunteers. He was able to reach more than 5 million youth votes via Facebook. Michelle Obama connected with women on Pinterest and the Obama campaign reached scores of Hispanic voters through mobile.
 
With 31 million election tweets being sent on Election Day, this cycle was not only deemed "The Twitter Election," but it is being characterized as the first full digital election. Social media is a fundamental change in how our society communicates and for those with hopes of reaching voters, employees, Members of Congress and other stakeholders, your efforts need to be online as well as offline.
 

CBO Estimate of Those Who Will Lose Employer-Provided Health Insurance Under ACA Doubles

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Categories: Health Care

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The Washington Times reports that many more Americans than previously thought will lose employer-provided health insurance due to the newly enacted health care law, supported by President Obama. This unfortunately contradicts his campaign rhetoric during the 2012 debates and speeches on the matter.

President Obama's health care law will push 7 million people out of their job-based insurance coverage — nearly twice the previous estimate, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.

CBO said that this year's tax cuts have changed the incentives for businesses and made it less attractive to pay for insurance, meaning fewer will decide to do so. Instead, they'll choose to pay a penalty to the government, totaling $13 billion in higher fees over the next decade.

But the non-partisan agency also expects fewer people to have to pay individual penalties to the IRS than it earlier projects, because of a better method for calculating incomes that found more people will be exempt.

Overall, the new health provisions are expected to cost the government $1.165 trillion over the next decade — the same as last year's projection.

With other spending cuts and tax increases called for in the health law, though, CBO still says Mr. Obama's signature achievement will reduce budget deficits in the short term.

During the health care debate Mr. Obama had said individuals would be able to keep their plans.

Mr. President, It’s Time to Approve Keystone Pipeline

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Categories: Energy, Environment, Government

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It's Keystone Pipeline time again. The Obama administration rejected the original plan last year. A new route for the job-creating, energy-supplying pipeline has been proposed and supported this time by the Nebraska governor. Despite climate change discussion, here's why the President should not stand in the way, according to The American Conservative:

This should be a no-brainer at this point. The Obama administration’s refusal to approve the pipeline shadily cited a lack of time to review the proposal; a presidential statement last year noted that the delay was “not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline.” Well, time has passed. Environmental impact has been studied.

As the editors of the Washington Post observe:

TransCanada has reapplied with a new proposed route, and this week Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) signed off on the plan, following an analysis from the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. The regulators found that the new route would avoid the Sand Hills and other areas of concern. Though there is always some risk of spill, they said, “impacts on aquifers from a release should be localized, and Keystone would be responsible for any cleanup.” TransCanada will have to buy at least $200 million in insurance to cover any cleanup costs.

Adding to that, a letter signed by 53 senators, including nine Democrats, urged Obama to go ahead with the pipeline. “There is no reason to deny or further delay this long-studied project,” it said.

The decision to delay the pipeline reeked of election-year politics. Needless to say, the political calculus has changed. There’s a view that the rhetorical privileging of combating climate change in Obama’s second Inaugural Address will make it hard to throw environmentalists under the bus over Keystone. I think it makes it easier. Approving the pipeline offers Obama a small Nixon-to-China-like opportunity to say something like, We can safely fulfill our energy needs now while laying a foundation for a clean-energy future.

Common Core Remains at Center of Education Stage

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Categories: Education

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The Common Core was a critical component of the Daniels-Bennett education reforms that were pursued over the last four years. Developed through leadership of the National Governors Association and the Council of State Chief School Officers, these math and English standards are designed to provide a common and rigorous benchmark for students that can be compared across state lines and can be benchmarked against our international competitors.  Adoption of the standards is optional, but Indiana is one of 46 states that committed to the standards after a review by the Indiana Education Roundtable and the State Board of Education. The Obama administration has also supported the Common Core by offering additional points in grant competitions to states that have adopted the standards and through two large grants to help support the development of corresponding assessments.  Indeed, Indiana has been one of the lead states in helping to develop one of those assessments.

Unfortunately, that support by the Obama administration has caused some critics to suggest, incorrectly, that the standards have actually been developed by the federal government and/or have been “mandated” by the federal government. Neither accusation is correct. In fact, the real developers of the standards – a consortium of governors and state superintendents – have asked the feds to stop being so “supportive” so that such concerns can be allowed to settle. But here in Indiana, those concerns have emerged most prominently from a small fringe element of the Tea Party that have demanded Indiana withdraw from the Common Core.  Moreover, this opposition is supported by a handful of national researchers from mostly far-right think tanks that have claimed that the standards are poorly designed, lacking in rigor and too expensive to implement. Other researchers and think tanks – along with education officials from Indiana – have rebuked these criticisms; yet, the debate continues.
           
On Wednesday, Indiana took center stage in that debate as local Tea Party activists and national critics joined forces to support a proposed mandate to ban Indiana’s further participation in the Common Core. The Indiana Chamber was the lead presenter among three dozen allies, most of them organized by the education reform group, Stand for Children, which opposed the proposed ban. While the proponents of the ban were limited primarily to a small but passionate number of parents and national think tank representatives, the opponents of the ban included a broad coalition including the Fordham Institute, Lumina Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, UIndy’s CELL, Goodwill Education Industries, Indiana PTA, Indiana Association of School Principals, ISTA, Indiana Federation of Teachers and more than a dozen classroom and building-level educators.

The Indiana Chamber has acknowledged that some of the critics – at least those focused on contents of the standards rather than hysterical exaggerations of federal intrusion – may have some legitimate concerns that should be evaluated.  But we’ve also noted that those concerns, if legitimate, can be offset by the flexibilities contained within the Common Core and through corresponding adoptions of rigorous assessments and accountability measures. But more importantly, we have urged the Legislature to leave such determinations in the hands of our state’s education leaders, including the Department of Education, the Education Roundtable and the State Board of Education, rather than subjecting our standards to the politicized environment of the Legislature. Indeed, while critics of the Common Core have heaped praise on Indiana’s previous state standards, they consistently overlook the fact that those highly-rated standards were adopted through the same process as was conducted when Indiana adopted the Common Core, and that the Legislature played no role in those adoptions.

Senator Schneider has already drafted one amendment to his bill that would remove the ban from Common Core but would invalidate our state’s previous adoption, require a new adoption process with extensive public input and implement a new ban on Indiana participation in either of the Common Core assessments. Newly-elected State Superintendent Glenda Ritz, who has occasionally expressed some concerns about the new standards, has urged the Legislature to allow Common Core implementation to continue but has promised to conduct a review of the standards that would be completed by the end of 2013. The Indiana Chamber supports the Ritz recommendation and notes that such a review would be helpful for determining how best to use the flexibilities that are allowed in the multi-state agreement. The next step of this debate will likely occur on January 30, when the Senate Education Committee is expected to amend and vote on SB 193.

Double Standard Approach Not Helping Teamsters

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Categories: Business News

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Having worked in Democratic politics, my take on labor in America has certainly been influenced. Without getting too deep in the woods, I think there is definitely a time and place for organization in some industries — and a functional coexistence between a union and an employer can be a healthy thing if both sides act responsibly. The unfortunate aspect of that, however, is that sometimes union tactics become so aggressive — and even hypocritical – they hinder their relevance and hardly endear anyone to their cause. Red State takes a look at a recent Teamsters strategy that even had the National Labor Relations Board irritated. As the author of the post points out, their actions seem to punish the very workers they purport to help.

Now, a Teamsters union local in Memphis is fighting its two clerical workers from unionizing with the Steelworkers and–again, the Obama labor board is having none of it.

In November, the regional office of the NLRB held a hearing to determine whether or not two clerical workers employed by Teamsters local 667 should be allowed to unionize by the United Steelworkers International Union.

Like the vast majority of employers, the Teamsters hired an outside lawyer.

In the NLRB’s Decision and Direction of Election [PDF], the Acting Regional Director notes that the Employer [the Teamsters] tried to claim that one of the two clerical employees the Steelworkers is trying to unionize should be ineligible because she is confidential.

If the NLRB found that the one employee was a confidential employee, she would have been excluded from being in a bargaining unit and the unit would have been inappropriate since there must be two or more.

The Acting Regional Director found that the individual was not confidential and, as a result, order an election to be held.

The case didn’t end there, however.

The Teamsters deployed their outside attorney to file a lengthy appeal (known as a Request for Review) to the NLRB in Washington.

On December 31, the union NLRB members in Washington denied the Teamsters request for review as it raised “no substantial issues warranting review.”

While the NLRB may not have found any substantial issues warranting a review, here are a couple:

Why is the Teamsters union spending thousands of dollars on hiring lawyers to fight unionization of their own workers?

Couldn’t the Teamster bosses just practiced what they preached and voluntarily recognized the Steelworkers and bargain a…you know…fair contract?

Note: Unions usually call these types of tactics “union busting”…Except, apparently, when it’s unions engaging in said tactics.

American Paychecks to Shrink, to Chagrin of Employers and Employees

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Categories: Government, Tax/Finance

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Get ready for a heaping dose of bummersauce: They say the only certainties are death and taxes — but you can also count on your 2013 checks being smaller because of those taxes. CNN Money has the bad news:

Payroll taxes are key for financing Social Security, and the break of the past two years has forced the government to replenish the funds with borrowed money. The tax break was always meant to be temporary.

Workers earning the national average salary of $41,000 will receive $32 less on every biweekly paycheck. The higher the salary (up to $113,700), the bigger the bite, but business owners say their lower wage employees will feel it most.

Deborah Koenigsberger, who owns the Noir et Blanc fashion store in Manhattan, has yet to have the talk with her only part-time employee, a college student.

"It's going to hurt me to tell her this. She can't afford a decrease," Koenigsberger said. What unnerves her is the feeling that she's lost control as a business owner watching out for her employees.

Keval Mehta, CEO of In-R-Food, a smartphone app developer in Durham, N.C., worried the tax increase will threaten morale. "They don't get paid enough for what they do," Mehta said.

The 1-year-old company has yet to make a profit, having just launched software that scans grocery products and lists ingredients and nutritional values. His four employees could make upwards of $80,000 a year elsewhere, but three of them earn less than half that. They put in long hours, must work from laptops while on vacation, and no, there isn't a health insurance plan.

All that made it even more difficult to warn them during the holidays about the oncoming pay cut. Mehta promised them he'd make up the lost pay if the company's finances improve next year.

"Currently, they're working on passion. But that can only drive you so much," Mehta said. "I don't like that I don't have control over this. It wasn't a decision I made. But as a CEO, you take responsibility for everything. You're automatically at fault, because you're the captain of the ship."

Chamber Statement on the Fiscal Cliff Deal

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Categories: Chamber News, Government, Tax/Finance

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President Obama and a divided Congress have come to an agreement on the so-called fiscal cliff. Indiana Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Kevin Brinegar reacts:

"The Indiana Chamber applauds the President and Congress for their ability to compromise in the eleventh hour. However, the measures agreed to are inadequate, some potentially counter-productive, and fall far short of addressing the long-term fiscal challenges facing our federal government.

"Despite tax increases, long-term spending remains unsustainable and a threat to our economic and national security. We must rigorously reform entitlement and social welfare programs and look for real, lasting savings across all federal activities. We can no longer borrow and spend as if there were no consequences, because the day of reckoning fast approaches. We look forward to working with our congressional delegation in the weeks and months ahead to fashion workable and responsible reforms."

In early December, the Indiana Chamber released the results of a federal tax survey, done in in partnership with Congressman Todd Young (R-9th District), who is a new appointee to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. The survey of Hoosier businesses revealed a willingness to share the tax burden, provided there is real and significant reduction in federal spending and substantive reform to simplify the tax code. The press release and charts detailing the results can be found online at www.indianachamber.com/federal.
 

Chamber and Rep. Young Release Business Tax Survey Results

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Categories: Government, Tax/Finance

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As President Obama calls for a “balanced approach” and shared burden to end the current federal fiscal crisis, the Indiana business community is showing willingness to make such a sacrifice, provided there is real reduction in federal spending and substantive reform to simplify the tax code. That’s the overriding message from a recent survey conducted by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Congressman Todd Young (R-9th District), who is a new appointee to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.

The electronic survey of Indiana Chamber members and the business community at-large focused on the fiscal cliff, federal tax code, tax reductions, corporate tax system and the U.S. tax structure in general. A total of 188 respondents took part, representing both larger companies (27%) and small businesses (73%).

“Raising tax rates isn’t the right way to go to raise revenue. It may be good politics, but it is lousy economics. Reforming and simplifying the tax code, which will stimulate job creation and economic growth, is the preferred and needed path for Indiana businesses and their employees,” explains Indiana Chamber President Kevin Brinegar.

“We also need to reject Washington’s usual accounting gimmicks and cut actual spending, not just cut the rate of spending growth. We must reform federal entitlement programs – Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – to address fiscal and demographic realities.”

Survey respondents clearly determined the fiscal crisis was more a spending problem (67%) than a revenue one (less than 1%). Additionally, 33% felt both spending and revenue were the culprits.

When asked to rate the most important principles which should guide tax reform, the top four answers respondents selected were: 1) emphasize shared sacrifice; 2) emphasize global competitiveness; 3) refrain from picking winners and losers; and 4) simplify the tax code.

Many businesses and individuals find the complexity of the tax code too much of a burden, resulting in 60% of individual taxpayers and 71% of unincorporated businesses hiring out their tax compliance. In the survey, nearly 30% said tax code simplification was even more important than rate reduction; 62% labeled simplification important, but not as important as rate reduction. To that end, some 71% of businesses surveyed indicated a willingness to give up some of their favorable tax credits and/or deductions for lower individual and corporate tax rates.

Brinegar and Young both acknowledge that, despite what needs to happen, a short-term measure – extension of credits, etc. for six months, for example – to buy more time for substantive and comprehensive reform is likely the most positive outcome that can be expected this month. 

In addition to the survey of businesses, Young’s office also electronically surveyed constituents in his district with similar questions. The results from the more than 2,700 individual respondents largely echoed the findings on the business survey.

“It’s clear to me there is a real appetite right now for comprehensive tax reform,” said Young.  “As negotiations continue on the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’, tax reform paired with spending cuts isn’t just my desired approach, it’s also the approach favored by individual Hoosiers and Indiana businesses. As a new member of the Ways and Means Committee, I look forward to representing those wishes as we move forward on this front.”

A plurality of individuals said the fiscal crisis was more of a spending problem (46%) than a revenue problem (11%), while 40% said both are to blame. 

Additionally, 54% (compared to 26% opposed) of individuals support a model of tax reform similar to the House Republican proposal of eliminating deductions in order to simplify the tax code. But regardless of what approach is taken, 85.5% of individuals said they support extending most or all of the current tax rates while Congress works through the issue.

Congressman Young is using the information gathered in the survey and via constituent research to help inform his approach to these fiscal issues. Likewise, the Indiana Chamber’s lobbying efforts on federal tax reform are relying heavily on the survey findings.

Charts detailing the results of the tax surveys of business owners and Congressman Young’s individual constituents can be found online at www.indianachamber.com/federal.

The Mona Lisa, The Scream, The Tom Vilsack: All Pricy Pieces of Art

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Categories: Government

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Nice article here by The Washington Times showing what some could argue is government excess by the Obama and Bush administrations. I think it’s certainly worthy to keep funding portraits of Presidents and Vice Presidents for history’s sake. However, does every cabinet official need a portrait at these costs? I get that women in future generations shouldn’t be deprived of John Ashcroft’s rugged good looks — or songbird voice, for that matter — but is this necessary?

The Environmental Protection Agency spent nearly $40,000 on a portrait of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, while a painting of Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley will cost $41,200, according to federal purchasing records. The price tag for a 3-by-4-foot oil portrait of Agriculture Department Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack: $22,500.

All told, the government has paid out at least $180,000 for official portraits since last year, according to a review by The Washington Times of spending records at federal agencies and military offices across government.

Painting people high up in all branches of the federal government is a long-held tradition for Republicans and Democrats alike in Washington. Taxpayers picked up the tab for official portraits of top appointees in the Bush administration, too, including more than $40,000 spent on a painting of former Attorney General John Ashcroft, records show.

A portrait of former EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, another Bush appointee, cost about $30,000, according to EPA records.

Like most other agencies, USDA officials wouldn’t say one way or another whether the $22,500 it’s spending to commission a portrait of Mr. Vilsack signals his intent to leave the Obama administration.

“Consistent with previous administrations, the department has commissioned a portrait to be unveiled at some point following Secretary Vilsack’s tenure,” USDA spokesman Justin DeJong wrote in an email to The Times. “USDA solicited bids for the portrait and selected the lowest of five bids.”

In April, Mr. Vilsack hosted the unveiling of a portrait of former Bush USDA Secretary Ed Schaefer, a painting that cost $30,500, while the portrait of another former Bush USDA chief, Michael Johanns, cost $34,425, records show.

Ann Fader, president of Portrait Consultants in Washington, which represents portrait artists, said that because of policy, she could not discuss any specific government commissions. But she said some agencies start the search for an artist long before secretaries leave because paintings can take from eight to 14 months to complete and frame.

“These are done for future generations to see how we live now, and it’s really a tribute as well as part of a person’s legacy,” she said.

“It’s a tremendous privilege to paint a portrait of somebody as accomplished as these people,” she said, adding that agencies have made a “concerted effort to be cost conscious” over the past few years.

Not everyone agrees.

David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a watchdog group, questioned whether the government ought to be spending tens of thousands of dollars for oil paintings of Cabinet secretaries often outside the public’s view.

“It’s not like people are going to be lining up for an exhibit, ‘HUD Secretaries Through the Years,’” Mr. Williams said. “And just because it’s a Washington tradition doesn’t mean they have to keep doing it.”