Talking Points Memo has some good coverage of the cagematch between our Governor Nixon and Texas Governor Rick Perry that centers on the relationship between tax rates and jobs. TPM raises a point that is significant in view of the upcoming veto session, where at least some state GOP lawmakers will vote to override the Governor’s veto of the disastrous HB253, which would take a tiny nibble out of the income taxes of most middle-income earners and a great big giant bite out of already very low corporate income taxes:

Tax rates, like what Perry and Scott have been flaunting, are oftentimes the favored incentive for governors hoping to lure new business from elsewhere. Actually, Muro said, there is little research to suggest that a business actually sees larger profits or more job creation from moving to a state with a lower tax rate.

“That one’s a particularly fatuous offering because many relocation studies notice that taxes often aren’t a huge part of the operating budget so that that is often the peripheral consideration,” Muro said.

Muro pointed to a study he did with Kenan Fikri, also of Brookings, which found that states are better off trying to foster homegrown businesses rather than through bringing in business from other states.

“The best way to create more jobs in a state is to grow them at home, rather than poach them from elsewhere,” the report said. “Some 95 percent of all job gains in a year in an average state come from the expansion of existing businesses or the birth of new establishments.”

The article notes that Texas has had its credit rating downgraded under Perry’s leadership. Kansas has also seen its creditworthiness downgraded since it started the process of eliminating income taxes – a somewhat cloudy effort it should be noted, since in order to avert total disaster, Governor Brownbeck is trying to come up with more indirect revenue raising schemes, including higher sales taxes.

What is clear about the Kansas experiment, though, is that whether or not there is eventual growth it will be hard times for many years:

What these changes will mean for the Kansas economy over the long-term is a matter of intense debate. A study by the state Department of Revenue predicted 23,000 new jobs for the state by 2020, above and beyond the job growth Kansas otherwise would have experienced. Others are skeptical. A forecast from the Kansas Legislative Research Department, which didn’t account for any economic benefits from the tax cuts, said that they will result in a series of shortfalls that add up to $2.5 billion through fiscal year 2018.

As for job growth, if it ever happens in Kansas,  expect to see low-wage jobs and sweat-shop conditions, especially since wrecking unions seems to be a related goal of the tax-cutters. Bad schools, a poorly educated, poorly paid population with no public services to alleviate their situation, equals a corporate paradise for select types of industry – the type that have mostly preyed on third world countries in the past. As for forward-looking, entrepreneurial businesses offering good salaries, expect to see them thriving in more enlightened parts of the country.

The current employment situation in Texas tends to support this thesis:

As Gov. Rick Perry continues to tout Texas’ low-tax, low-regulation business climate as the secret to the state’s relative economic strength, critics have pointed to Texas’ [high] unemployment rate and low-wage jobs, noting that Texas ties Mississippi for the highest percentage of minimum wage workers.

While loose regulatory policies have permitted many environmentally dangerous practices in the energy sector have probably contributed to growth of Texas biggest engine of new jobs, energy extraction, even supporters of the Texas low-tax climate have to admit that as far as the energy industry goes:

… the governor cannot take credit for recent discoveries of shale formations, the price of oil or “many other factors that have provided Texas with a competitive advantage in recent years.”

I have to admit that I am beginning to think that all the talk about growth is a smokescreen and that the point of this tax-cutting is precisely the social service cuts that everybody pretends to deplore. Jobs – who cares? If job creation were to pick up in Kansas while the same folks hold the reins of the state government, you shouldnt expect to see any new revenue going to education, which has been cut way past the bone, or to provide other services – the tax cutting experimenters, after all, are usually the ideologues who oppose the very idea of public education, call for privately-owned toll roads, and privatization of almost all government functions. I suspect that these folks are getting just what they want – and that many of their compères in Missouri, the ones that are capable of figuring out how to open a paper bag unaided, that is, actually want the same thing.

If none of this sounds too appealing, perhaps you should let your state legislators know that you won’t be too happy if they vote to override HB253, Senators can be found here and representatives here.

A video from the Missouri Democratic Party:

Narrator: You know, here’s the thing, Governor Rick Perry’s ads about HB 253 sound pretty good.

Texas Governor Rick Perry (r): This is Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Narrator: If you don’t happen to know anything about what HB 253 actually does. You see, it’s the GOP tax scheme that would give the favored few a tax cut of twelve hundred bucks a year. And the average Missourian? Their tax cut would only be enough to pay for a Big Mac.

As Governor [Jay] Nixon’s [D] pointed out, it would make devastating cuts to our schools and to mental health services. And it would even raise the tax on prescription drugs.

And the worst part? Is Governor Perry’s running ads trying to steal Missouri Jobs.

Texas Governor Rick Perry (r): Because Missouri families and businesses know Texas is a great place to live and work.

Narrator: Maybe Governor Perry gets by with silliness like this in Texas.

[Texas has a lower graduation rate than Missouri.]

After all, he doesn’t take very good care of his schools.

But I’ve got bad news for Governor Perry. Missourians are too smart to fall for his nonsense.

[emphasis in original]

That left a mark. Heh.

It just goes to show, you don’t bring an idiot to a knife fight.

Previously:

New Missouri Rule: if the governor governs right of center you can’t call him a “liberal” (July 1, 2013)

Bill signing Kabuki (July 12, 2013)

Rep. Chris Kelly (D): HB 253 – “I’d like to know what your opinion is.” (July 19, 2013)

Rep. Denny Hoskins (r): probably not gonna sustain the Governor’s veto of HB 253 (August 19, 2013)

Sec. of State Jason Kander (D) to Texas Gov. Rick Perry (r): You forgot about that Medicaid thing? (August 23, 2013)

Rep. Denny Hoskins (r) to UCM on HB 253: I don’t care, I’d rather be the new Speaker Pro Tem (August 24, 2013)

Rep. Denny Hoskins (r): your constituents know what you’re doing to them (August 26, 2013)

HB 253: Because those dissolute leeches at the public trough should shut up, that’s why! (August 28, 2013)

Texas Governor Rick Perry (r) is making a trip to Missouri to supposedly poach jobs. The television and radio ad text running in Missouri from a press release from Governor Perry (r):

….This is Texas Governor Rick Perry. Like most businesses, Missouri companies are looking for stability in their state’s business environment. Before they invest in the future, they want to know they’re investing wisely.

Unfortunately your governor vetoed a bill that would have lowered taxes and controlled wasteful spending, making Missouri more competitive.

Vetoing a tax cut is the same thing as raising your taxes….

Governor Perry (r) is wasting money traveling to Missouri (paid for by TexasOne) to poach jobs and advocate for a change in Missouri law (HB 253) that would ostensibly (in his opinion) make it more difficult for Texas to poach Missouri jobs? Uh, definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Yesterday Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) called out Texas Governor Rick Perry’s (r) Missouri publicity stunt. Here’s the letter from the press release:

August 22, 2013

Governor Rick Perry

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 12428

Austin, Texas 78711-2428

Dear Governor Perry,

I read with dismay about your decision to visit Missouri and run television advertisements to try and steal jobs that our businesses have worked so hard to create over the years. I hope that you reconsider.

Instead of launching a wholesale public relations effort meant to depress Missouri’s business climate in hopes of luring jobs to Texas, I suggest you spend your time asking Texas business owners if there’s anything you can do to help their companies move forward. If a company moves to Texas as a result of your sales pitch, there’s a good chance it will leave for a better deal in some other state in the future. But if a company starts in Texas, it’s more likely to stay there.

There are some great examples of that in Missouri. Consider Express Scripts, which was founded in Missouri in 1986. Not only have they thrived in the state in which they began, they’re still growing here. This summer, the company announced it is adding 1,500 jobs here by 2018. There’s also Monsanto, which started here in 1901and now has more than 21,000 employees worldwide. In April, the company announced it would add 675 jobs right here in Missouri. On the other side of the state we have Cerner, which was founded in Kansas City in 1979. Earlier this month, the company announced it would acquire 236 acres to build a campus big enough to expand by 12,000 new employees by 2020.

Those are just a few cases, but as you can see, there is a path to gain jobs by actually growing jobs. Simply poaching jobs from one state and bringing them to another doesn’t grow our nation’s economy, so I hope you reconsider your efforts and instead look at ways to cultivate new industries and companies in Texas, rather than just trying to steal other states’ successes.

But if you choose to come to Missouri next week anyway, there is a way you can make the trip worthwhile. I read in POLITICO that you are seeking $100 million in Medicaid funding for the disabled and elderly. Our state legislature in Missouri has refused to accept additional Medicaid funding from the federal government, so it would be great if you could explain to them why they should follow your lead on this issue.

Sincerely,

Jason Kander

Missouri Secretary of State

Heh.

Apparently Texas Governor Rick Perry (r) is not running for reelection. The world is atwitter:

Dave Helling ‏@dhellingkc

Rick Perry now has three options: President, the Senate, or…. I forget the third option. [….] 2:05 PM – 8 Jul 13

Ouch. That left a mark.

Previously:

Engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed man (November 18, 2011)

[….]

From House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) via Twitter:

@NancyPelosi Nancy Pelosi

Re: Gov. Perry–Monday I’ll be in Portland. Later visiting labs in CA. That’s 2. I can’t remember the 3rd thing. 17 Nov

Oops.

We’ll find out soon enough.

Via Think Progress.

Texas Governor Rick Perry (r) on the stump in Iowa:

….”Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source,” Mr. Perry said in Clarinda, earning a loud round of enthusiastic applause….

Enthusiastic applause? I don’t think anyone with half a brain believes that Canada is interested in gaining fifty new provinces. Think of the added stress on their national health care system.

Flop sweat. On Wednesday:

EXCLUSIVE: Perry challenges Pelosi to debate

Rick Perry sent a letter, obtained exclusively by GOP12, today to Nancy Pelosi, challenging her to a public debate next week.

Perry, in the letter:

“I am in Washington Monday and would love to engage you in a public debate about my Overhaul Washington plan versus the congressional status quo….

Uh, isn’t Rick Perry (r) running in the republican presidential primaries for the opportunity to challenge President Obama (D) in 2012?

From House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) via Twitter:

@NancyPelosi Nancy Pelosi

Re: Gov. Perry–Monday I’ll be in Portland. Later visiting labs in CA. That’s 2. I can’t remember the 3rd thing. 17 Nov

Oops.

Todays big Roy Blunt news:

Sen. Roy Blunt, a key Republican political insider, will head Mitt Romney’s effort to secure congressional support for the former Massachusetts governor’s presidential bid, the latest move by the GOP establishment to close ranks for 2012.

According to both Romney and Blunt, this political marriage is based on their mutual concern for “job creation.”  Or is it their mutual concern for “job creators,” as in big corporate campaign contributors?

Then there’s this observation:

A longstanding conservative as well as an establishment figure, Blunt could help polish Romney’s image among both conservatives and Washington insiders.

I think that this means that the Romney camp recognizes that Blunt has managed the essential balancing act between serving GOP corporatist goals and numbly spouting Tea Party bromides. So far, Romney’s efforts to straddle that line looks looks like nothing other than the crassest sort of flip-floppery. My own personal theory about this distinction is that Blunt’s demeanor is so wooden and his delivery so rote that it is taken as unstudied by the literally unstudied Tea Partiers, whereas the glib and relatively animated Romney only excites distrust from the less-polished denizens of Tea Party Land.

It also helps that Blunt never really bothers to explain or justify his past actions; he just grunts and stays on the GOP point du jour. Maybe he can teach Romney to shut up about Romneycare, the forerunner of “Obamacare,” and help him jettison his efforts to justify his abysmal job creation record in Massachusetts. Blunt’s rule is don’t explain, just attack, no matter how crude your weapon, and, so far, it has the  advantage that, as a way to divert attention from his past record, it’s worked.

Blunt and Romney also have one other singular commonality:  They resemble ventriloquist’s dummies popular in the middle of the last century, respectively Howdy Doody and Charlie McCarthy.* This fits well with still yet another narrative attendant upon the announcement of Blunt’s role in the Romney campaign, which is that Romney’s rival, Rick Perry, scares the party establishment silly:

There has been talk in Republican circles that Perry might be too dangerous to run in 2012 because he demonstrates little appeal to independents. Some in the GOP point to 1972, when liberal Sen. George McGovern won the Democratic nomination for president and lost to Richard Nixon in a landslide with long-lasting political consequences.

I can easily imagine that predictable corporate puppets are preferable to the GOP movers-and-shakers – though not necessarily to the GOP base – than the perpetually foot-in-mouth loose-cannon, Rick Perry.

*Sentence edited for clarity.  

Republicans like Rick Perry are skeptical of everything the government does-except when it executes people.

Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC last night made an interesting observation about Rick Perry’s record of executions in Texas.  Based on Perry’s record of allowing prisoners to be executed despite questionable court proceedings and evidence, O’Donnell concluded that, if Perry had been in Pontius Pilate’s place of authority, he would have allowed the execution of Jesus Christ.

By now you probably know how mean and contempuous of Jesus’ teachings the radical right wing Republicans are.  When Brian Williams was asking a question of Perry about the 234 executions Perry okay’d, the audience applauded in support of Perry.  These people have gone way beyond the general consensus of the majority of Americans that “Love thy Neighbor” should at least be in the back of our minds as we interact with each other.

I’ll carry O’Donnell’s observation one step further and say that, not only are these sociopathic Republicans eager to inflict harm on anyone they don’t like and, thereby ignore the teachings of Jesus, they are killing the essential message of the New Testament.

I am often perplexed when supposedly “God-fearing Christians” quote something from the Old Testament instead of the New Testament.  Isn’t it a fact that there were no “Christians” until the New Testament era?  If people claim to base their religion on the Old Testament, aren’t they more in line with Jewish history and teaching than Christian?  (And, no I’m not implying that Jews are mean-spirited people so don’t bother jumping to unwarranted conclusions.)

Perry talks about “wrestling with God.”  Which God?  The God of the Old Testament or the God of the New Testament?  Admittedly, my Catholic college studies of the Bible were over 40 years ago, but I think I remember a basic difference between the Old God and the New God.  In fact, isn’t that why it’s called the “New” Testament?  Didn’t Jesus preach a new morality, a new way of relating to our neighbors, a new way of approaching the highest moral plane achievable by humans?  If I recall correctly, there is something in the NT about “Love thy neighbor.”

I don’t remember Jesus saying “Shoot thy neighbor.”  Or  “Execute thy neighbor.”  But that’s what Perry is bragging about.  He said that people who don’t fit his definition of a red-blooded American better stay out of Texas or they’ll get “rough treatment.”  Imagine Jesus saying that about the Good Samaritan or the folks he accepted as “neighbors” despite their outsider status?

Thankfully, the kind and gentle Christians who take Jesus’ teachings seriously are finally starting to speak up politically. An Example Below.

In July, I attended a workshop on the Missouri state budget co-sponsored by Metropolitan Congregations United and Missouri Budget Project.

Participants were asked how the state budget reflects their spiritual values – or not.  The 20 or so participants all based their values on the New Testament teachings of Jesus and agreed that there is a big gap between the values taught by the New Testament and the way the state allocates funds.  Issues such as health care, especially mental health and services for children, were the prominent concerns of the group.  We learned a lot about how the limited funds the state has are spent and some of the ways we could achieve additional revenue.  SMP readers already know much of what we learned that day.  But what we left with was a sinking feeling that many lawmakers who claim to be “good Christians” aren’t walking the walk.  I hope constituents will press them on this whole values thing when they get a chance. BTW, Senator John Lamping had originally agreed to meet with this workshop group at a future date, but he canceled a few days before saying he had “other commitments.”  I wonder what’s more important than saving the lives of the poor, the lame, the sick and the downtrodden?  What would Jesus do?

Since declaring for the presidency a few weeks ago, Rick Perry, the GOP Texas Tornado – a blast of hot air with a lot of destructive potential –  has been amusing those of us with a taste for political absurdities with almost every utterance. By now, almost everyone in the civilized world has heard that Perry is convinced that not only is Social Security unconstitutional, but it is actually a big government “Ponzi scheme.”  As Jonathan Bernstein observes, such an assertion means only that “Perry either doesn’t understand Social Security, doesn’t understand Ponzi schemes or is simply not telling the truth.”  

Perry may not understand what a Ponzi scheme really is, but the underlying meme – that the Social Security reserve will be exhausted before today’s young workers reach retirement – is a staple of GOP rhetoric. It rears its ugly head right away in a scheme to “reform” Social Security that Missouri Senator Roy Blunt proposed on July 12:

Blunt doesn’t talk about Ponzi schemes explicitly – maybe because, unlike Perry, he actually knows what one is. He does, however, press the case that because the ratio of those paying into the system to those drawing benefits will continue to decrease for some years (he claims, falselly,that it is a permanent situation), it will not be able to support future retirees. Blunt’s argument is that half a loaf is better than none, and that we must cut the benefits of future retirees in order to ensure that they get anything at all.  

 

Problem is, the story about a soon-to-be bankrupt Social Security is pure fiction:

The Social Security trustees project now that payroll taxes will fall below benefit payments in 2010 and 2011, exceed benefit payments from 2012 to 2014, and then continuously exceed benefit payments through 2015 [14]. The interest and principal from the bonds in the trust funds will help to cover the cash shortfall after 2015 through 2037 [15]. The date of final trust fund exhaustion has not changed from the trustees projections made in 2009. The program can pay on average 78 percent of its promised benefits with its tax revenue from 2037 to 2085, if nothing changes

Let’s see – twenty four years down the road Social Security will have to pay out somewhat less to beneficiaries if nothing is done. So why is Blunt claiming that we have to cut future retirees’ benefits when that will happen automatically if we do nothing? And he’s not even telling the whole story about the damage he wants to do. He’s also proposing to calculate cost of living adjustments (colas) according to a chained CPI index that will cost current retirees at least $18,000 in benefits – although he explicitly claims that his proposal will not touch anyone 55 or older. Wonder why he wants to hide that particular fact? You think maybe he wants to be reelected? Or is he just blindly glomming onto the chained CPI index that happens to be popular among the GOP political set right now.

We can actually avoid the unappealing but far from dire benefit cuts predicted for 2035 very easily. Along with cutting benefits via chained CPI and raising the retirement age, Blunt proposes means testing. However, there would be little or no need to cut benefits if the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes were to be lifted in accord with any of several scenarios that have been put forward.  Instead of means testing, which weakens Social Security, make it stronger and let the wealthy pay their fair share – which, currently, is not the case:

The cap also means that higher-income individuals pay a smaller share of their income in Social Security taxes than middle-class employees. Including the employee and employer shares of Social Security and Medicare taxes, earners in the middle fifth of the income distribution pay an average effective payroll tax of about 11 percent. In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners pay just 1.5 percent on average.

At any rate, it doesn’t sound like today’s 20 and 30 year old workers really need to worry about whether or not Social Security will be there for them – as long as politicians like Roy Blunt keep their hands off the program. Nevertheless, a 2010 Gallup poll showed that 76% of Americans between 18 and 34 do not believe that they will receive Social Security benefits when they retire.

Their misapprehension is not really surprising. Listen to Blunt spin the story about how Social Security will be all gone if we don’t hand the program over to folks like him to fix, folks who, like Rick Perry, think it’s unconstitutional, or, more likely in Blunt’s case, an affront to the sensibilities of their Wall Street cronies, and it’s easy to understand why young Americans are so skeptical about the future of their benefits. Since George Bush opened the war on Social Security with his call to privatization in 2005, we have been bombarded with talk of the coming Social Security crisis. Even Democrats like Claire McCaskill are glad to join in the chorus. In such circumstances, who wouldn’t believe that Social Security will soon be moribund?

Unfortunately, this particular story is not only false, but intellectually corrupt. Speaking of Perry’s Ponzi scheme allegation, Bernstein concludes that:

In my view, saying that Social Security is a deliberate fraud – a Ponzi scheme – is about as irresponsible as truther or birther conspiracy thinking.

As far as I’m concerned, misleading rhetoric and outright falsehoods about the status of Social Security is just as irresponsible – even without the simple-minded insinuation that it’s a conscious fraud – and ultimately far more pernicious.

Addenda:  Here’s what Ezra Klein has to say about Social Security vs. Ponzi schemes. Note that the only thing they have in common is GOP politicians who persist in erroneously comparing them.