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California Bullet Train Might Be Breathing Its Last

by ShaniHMTjxkn Posted on November 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny, following up on a ruling earlier this year, might have finally put a stake through the LA-San Francisco bullet train:

Kenny ruled that the state does not have a valid financing plan, which was required under the 2008 bond measure, Proposition 1A. The measure included provisions intended to ensure the state did not start the project if it did not have all of the necessary funds to complete a self-supporting, initial operating segment.

The state rail agency created a funding plan, but it was an estimated $25 billion short of the amount needed to complete a first working section of the line. Kenny ruled that the state must rescind the plan and create a new one, a difficult task because the state High-Speed Rail Authority hasn’t identified sources of additional revenue to allocate to the project.

As near as I can tell, the HSR authority’s plan all along has been to simply ignore the law and spend the bond money on a few initial miles of track. Once that was done, no one would ever have the guts to halt the project because it would already have $9 billion sunk into it. So one way or another, the legislature would keep it on a funding drip.

It’s a time-tested strategy, and it might have worked if not for a meddling judge. But I don’t see how Kenny could have ruled any other way. The bond measure is clear about the financing requirement, and the authority’s flouting of the requirement is equally clear. Not only does it not have a plan to fully fund even a part of the HSR project, there’s no remotely plausible plan they can put forward. The federal government is plainly not going to provide any further money, and the prospect of private funding is laughable. No one in his right mind believes either the authority’s ridership projections or its cost projections anymore.

I’ve been a skeptic of this project from the start. Its numbers never added up, its projections were woefully rose-colored, and it was fanciful to think it would ever provide the performance necessary to compete against air and highway travel. Since then, things have only gotten worse as cost projections have gone up, ridership projections have gone down, and travel time estimates have struggled to stay under three hours.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is the kind of project that gives liberals a bad name. It’s time to kill it. For a whole bunch of reasons, LA to San Francisco just isn’t a good choice for high-speed rail.

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California Bullet Train Might Be Breathing Its Last

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FDA Reviewing Evidence That Morning-After Pill Doesn’t Work in Women Weighing Over 176 Pounds

by sreg2 Posted on November 25, 2013

Mother Jones

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Monday morning, Mother Jones reported that the European manufacturer of an emergency contraceptive pill identical to Plan B, also known as the morning-after pill, will warn women that the drug is completely ineffective in women weighing more than 176 pounds, and begins to lose effectiveness in women weighing more than 165 pounds. HRA Pharma, which makes the European drug, Norlevo, asked European regulators for permission to change the drug’s labeling after reviewing its own clinical data and scientific research from 2011 which showed emergency contraceptives are prone to fail in women with higher body mass indexes.

Now the Food and Drug Administration has responded to this story, telling Mother Jones that FDA officials are weighing whether pharmaceutical companies that sell similar emergency contraceptive pills in the US must change their labeling. Many popular morning-after pills sold in the US—including one-pill emergency contraceptives Plan B One-Step, Next Choice One Dose, and My Way, as well as a number of generic two-pill emergency contraceptives—are chemically identical to Norlevo, which also uses the chemical compound levonorgestrel to prevent pregnancy after sex.

“The FDA is currently reviewing the available and related scientific information on this issue, including the publication upon which the Norlevo labeling change was based,” FDA spokeswoman Erica Jefferson writes in an email. “The agency will then determine what, if any, labeling changes to approved emergency contraceptives are warranted.”

Jefferson declined to say when the FDA began its review. If FDA officials feel they have sufficient data to justify a change to product information, the FDA can order companies to update their labels. Jefferson adds that US drug companies have a legal obligation to alert the FDA if new information makes their existing labeling inaccurate.

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FDA Reviewing Evidence That Morning-After Pill Doesn’t Work in Women Weighing Over 176 Pounds

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Western Powers Sign Historic Interim Nuclear Deal With Iran

by adndeu13da Posted on November 24, 2013

Mother Jones

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I wasn’t too bothered when negotiators failed to reach a deal with Iran over its nuclear program last week. An interim deal is only worthwhile if it’s clear that both sides are likely to progress to a final deal, and Iran’s position didn’t really inspire a lot of confidence on that front. Today, though, a deal was announced, and it appears to be a good one:

From the New York Times: “According to the agreement, Iran would agree to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 percent… All of Iran’s stockpile of uranium that has been enriched to 20 percent, a short hop to weapons-grade fuel, would be diluted or converted into oxide so that it could not be readily used for military purposes.” However, Iran can continue to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent.

From the Washington Post: “Iran also agreed to halt work on key components of a heavy-water reactor that could someday provide Iran with a source of plutonium. In addition, Iran accepted a dramatic increase in oversight, including daily monitoring by international nuclear inspectors, the officials said.” This was a key concern of the French last week, and with good reason. A deal on uranium isn’t much good if a plutonium reactor continues to run in the background.

From the Guardian: An Obama administration official said Iran has “agreed to intrusive inspections.”

In return, the Western allies have agreed to soften their existing economic sanctions to the tune of about $7 billion.

It’s too soon to tell whether this will lead to a permanent deal. Iran hasn’t agreed, even in principle, to stop enriching uranium, and for our part, the sanctions relief is fairly minor. Still, my sense is that this is the kind of interim deal you might see from two sides that genuinely want to reach a final deal, so we should take it as tentative good news.

It’s too early to have much in the way of reactions to this news, but I think we can assume that Benjamin Netanyahu is still unhappy about it. We can probably also assume that Republicans will be unhappy too. Because, you know, they’re Republicans. Steve Benen amusingly points out that Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a man who obviously doesn’t ever want to be off message, tweeted this reaction: “Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care.” Amazing indeed.

A State Department fact sheet on the deal is here. President Obama’s remarks are here.

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Western Powers Sign Historic Interim Nuclear Deal With Iran

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Retiree "Replacement Rates" Are Tricky Things (A Bit Wonkish, Sorry)

by zpvgyf Posted on November 22, 2013

Mother Jones

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A couple of days ago I wrote about Social Security MINT projections, which suggest that retiree income will continue on a fairly steady upward path for the next few decades. “It suggests that we don’t really face a historic retirement crisis,” I said.

Dean Baker has a response up today, which I’ll respond to in more detail later. I agree in part and dissent in part with what he says. For now, though, I just want to do two things. First, call attention to his post so you can go read his objections. Second, I want to make a point about “replacement rates” that’s subtle enough (and lengthy enough) to require a post of its own.

As both Baker and I point out, the MINT projection suggests that future retirees will be better off than current retirees in absolute dollar terms (adjusted for inflation, of course), but will have lower income replacement rates. In particular, MINT projects that past retirees, on average, received 95 percent of their working-age income. Future retirees will receive only 84 percent. What’s going on?

Part of the answer has to do with stagnant wages. In the past, wage growth was strong, so workers could expect to see their incomes grow strongly throughout their lifetimes (again, adjusted for inflation). More recently, wage growth has been weak. Incomes still rise over a worker’s lifetime, but not as much.

So take a look at the stylized chart on the right. Our first worker started out earning $50,000 and ended up at $100,000. (Yes, those are big numbers. I’m using them to make the math come out nice.) Her average lifetime income is $75,000.

Our second worker started out earning $75,000 and ended up at the same $100,000. Her average income is $85,000.

They both retired making $100,000. And suppose their retirement incomes are also identical at $71,000. What does that mean? Replacement rates are calculated as a percentage of average lifetime income, so worker #1 is receiving a 95 percent replacement. Worker #2 is receiving an 84 percent replacement.

It seems like our second worker has gotten the shaft. But did she? Both workers ended their careers making the same amount of money, and both are receiving the same retirement income. The difference in replacement rates is more a statistical artifact than a meaningful number.

Now, you can draw different conclusions from all this. It’s just raw data. But I want to make the point that replacement rates can be tricky things. In many cases, I think they tell us less about retirement income per se, and more about the fact that working-age incomes have suffered from sluggish growth over the past four decades. My underlying concern in this conversation has always been to wrest liberal attention away from retirees, who I think are doing relatively well, and keep it focused like a laser on rising income inequality and sluggish wage growth among middle-class workers.

In a sense, this is more a matter of emphasis than real dispute, since I doubt that Baker seriously disagrees here. But I do think the emphasis is important. It’s a thriving and vibrant middle class—and by this I mean the working-age middle class—that’s truly critical to a healthy modern democracy. If we get that, everything else will follow. I’ll have more to say about this later.

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Retiree "Replacement Rates" Are Tricky Things (A Bit Wonkish, Sorry)

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We Spend a Ton on Health Care, And We Get Lousy Service in Return

by Robert0689 Posted on November 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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The 2013 version of the OECD’s “Health at a Glance” is out today, which means that if I’d waited a day I could have posted the very latest data on the number of doctors per capita in the United States compared to other countries. Not to worry, though: nothing much has changed since yesterday. We still don’t have very many doctors, even though we pay them far more than in most other countries.

In any case, “at a glance” means 209 pages to the OECD, so there’s plenty of other stuff to chew on today. I’ll pick out two tidbits for you. First, the chart below shows the number of doctor visits per year. We’re very low. Despite spending far, far more on health care than any other country—$8,500 per person compared to about $4,000 for other rich countries—we don’t get to see our doctors very often—about four times a year compared to six for the rest of the world. So does this mean that American doctors are lightly worked compared to other countries? As the next chart down shows, yes it does! The average American doc sees about 1,800 patients per year. The average for other rich countries is about 2,500. Again, this is despite the fact that American doctors are very highly paid.

Next up is a chart brought to my attention by Paul Waldman, and it could be one of the greatest and most instructive health care charts ever made. It shows what people think about their health. And despite the fact that by any objective measure, American health is mediocre at best and our health system is both expensive and lousy, Americans think they’re in great health. They think they’re in the best health of any country in the world!

This is Stockholm Syndrome at its finest. Apparently one of the reasons we don’t mind the lousy service and high cost of our health care system is because our health care system has convinced us that it’s great and, therefore, our health must be great too. We’re Number 1, and we won’t put up with anyone who tells us otherwise.

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We Spend a Ton on Health Care, And We Get Lousy Service in Return

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Senate Dems Just Went Nuclear and Changed the Filibuster. Here’s Why.

by BroderickDuong Posted on November 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats changed the Senate’s rules Thursday, freeing President Barack Obama to staff his administration with the people he wants and fill the federal bench with judges of his choosing.

There are 100 senators, and winning a simple majority (51 senators, or 50 if the vice president votes to break a tie) was once sufficient to confirm presidential nominees and pass legislation. But over the past several decades, both parties have increasingly used the filibuster—a procedural move that requires 60 senators to end debate and force a vote—to block the other side’s agenda. Since 2009, when Obama took office, Senate Republicans have used constant filibuster threats to force Democrats to win 60 votes to do almost anything. On Thursday, Democrats finally decided they’d had enough, and changed the rules. In the future, executive-branch and judicial nominees will be subject to simple up-or-down majority votes. But the filibuster lives on partially: Legislation and Supreme Court nominees will still be subject to filibusters.

The filibuster has bedeviled Democrats ever since Obama took office. A world without the filibuster would include major pieces of progressive legislation: The Affordable Care Act would have a single-payer option, the stimulus act would have been much larger, and gun control would have passed the Senate. The Senate might have even managed to pass a version of a cap-and-trade climate change mitigation bill in 2010 if it hadn’t been for the filibuster. Despite this constant obstruction, Democrats were timid, afraid to upend Senate tradition.

Then, over the past several months, a fight over nominees to a little-known but influential court pushed Reid to finally change the rules.

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Senate Dems Just Went Nuclear and Changed the Filibuster. Here’s Why.

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Once Again, Republican Obstinacy Bites Them in the Ass

by Benny Roye Posted on November 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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So, the filibuster. Did Harry Reid do the right thing getting rid of it for judicial and executive branch nominees?

I’d say so. And yet, I think Republicans missed a bet here. I’ve never personally been a fan of the idea that the Senate’s raison d’être is to be the slowest, most deliberative, and most obstructive branch of government. Hell, legislation already has to pass two houses and get signed by a president and be approved by the Supreme Court before it becomes law. Do we really need even more obstacles in the way of routine legislating?

Still, I’ll concede that my own feelings aside, the Senate really was designed with just that in mind. It wasn’t designed to be an automatic veto point for minority parties, but it was designed to slow things down and keep the red-hot passions of the mob at bay. So here’s what I wonder: why weren’t Republicans ever willing to negotiate a reform of the filibuster that might have kept it within the spirit of the original founding intent of the Senate?

What I have in mind is a reform that would have allowed the minority party to slow things down, but would have forced them to pay a price when they did it. Because the real problem with the filibuster as it stands now is that it’s basically cost-free. All it takes to start a filibuster is a nod from any member of the Senate, which means that every bill, every judge, every nominee is filibustered. The minority party has the untrammeled power to stop everything, and these days they do.

But what if filibusters came at a cost of some sort? There have been several proposals along these lines, and all of them would have allowed the minority party to obstruct things they truly felt strongly about. But there would have been a limit to how many things could be obstructed, or how long the obstruction could go on, and the majority party could eventually have gotten its way if it felt strongly enough. It would have been ugly, but at least Republicans would have retained some ability to gum up the works.

Instead, by refusing to compromise in any way, they’ve lost everything. Just as they lost everything on health care by refusing to engage with Democrats on the Affordable Care Act. Just as they lost everything on the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. Just as they lost the 2012 election.

Hard-nosed obstinacy plays well with the base, but it’s not a winning strategy in the end. Republicans never seem to learn that lesson.

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Once Again, Republican Obstinacy Bites Them in the Ass

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The Filibuster Is Dead (Partly)

by q1jurse Posted on November 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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CNN reports that by a vote of 52-48 in the Senate, the filibuster of judicial and executive branch nominees has been eliminated. The nuclear option has been detonated.

UPDATE: I was in the middle of writing a post about this when the vote was taken. Here’s what I was writing:

A few minutes before the vote, Dana Bash was on CNN talking about the Democratic effort to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominees. “It’s going to make things a lot more tense in the Senate, if you can believe that,” she said. “I imagine it will provoke a lot of anger on the Republican side,” said another anchor. This was followed by some back-and-forth about just how angry Republicans would get and how they’d take advantage of this during next year’s midterms.

This is typical, and telling. Republican anger is always taken as a given, and always treated as genuine. But for some reason Democrats don’t get the same consideration. This despite the fact that Democrats stepped away from this brink several times already earlier this year, and the only reason they’re going forward now is because Republicans have finally pissed them off beyond endurance. Even the moderates have reached the end of their ropes. If things are tenser now in the Senate, Republican need only look in the mirror to find the cause. They’re no longer even pretending that they’ll allow President Obama to perform the normal functions of his office—functions that every other president in history has performed without any serious obstacles.

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The Filibuster Is Dead (Partly)

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Filibuster Reform May Be Just Hours Away

by Michael Rinchen Posted on November 21, 2013

Mother Jones

Is filibuster reform coming as soon as tomorrow? Maybe so:

“We’re not bluffing,” said one senior aide who has spoken with Mr. Reid directly and expects a vote on Thursday, barring any unforeseen breakthrough on blocked judges.

The threat that Democrats could significantly limit how the filibuster can be used against nominees has rattled Republicans. Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has brokered last-minute deals that have averted a change to filibuster rules in the past, visited Mr. Reid in his office on Thursday but failed to strike a compromise.

Of course, as Rick Hasen says, “If Democrats were bluffing, they’d have every incentive to say ‘We’re not bluffing.'” Still, it sure doesn’t look like any serious negotiations are taking place, and Harry Reid wouldn’t bring something to the floor unless he knew he had the votes to pass it. Thursday could be a very interesting day in Washington DC.

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Filibuster Reform May Be Just Hours Away

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The Media Once Again Refuses to Answer Questions From the Media

by genestrong2484 Posted on November 21, 2013

Mother Jones

Personally, I’ve never really understood the appeal of Mike Allen’s “Playbook”—or any of the other morning briefing newsletters. Why would reporters deliberately read something whose explicit goal is to make sure that everyone is saying and chasing the same stories? This has never made any sense to me.

That’s not really the topic of this post, though. I just wanted to get it off my chest as a prelude to the latest example of the press going into full stonewall mode whenever they’re the ones a story is about. Today, Erik Wemple reported the results of a deep dive into the contents of Playbook, and it wasn’t pretty: organizations that advertise with Allen, such as the Chamber of Commerce, get an awful lot of friendly mentions that are presented as straight news. Does Allen do this as part of his deal with his advertisers without telling his readers, or is there a more innocent explanation? We’ll never know:

Politico’s leaders didn’t cooperate for this piece. In rejecting a sit-down discussion, Editor-in-Chief John Harris said the premise “is without merit in any shape or form.” Without an interview, it’s impossible to judge Allen’s motivations. For example, does he write nice things about the chamber because he wants more advertisers or because he feels their agenda doesn’t get fair play in other outlets? Did he publish those BP plugs because he thought they were newsworthy or because he’s got a friend at the company?

Of course Harris refused to say anything. It’s standard journalistic practice. It’s only other people who have to answer questions. It’s outrageous to expect news organizations themselves to do the same.

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The Media Once Again Refuses to Answer Questions From the Media

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