Category — Press
What if the tea party was black?
July 19th, 2010 — Politics, Press
This rap nicely sums up the whole NAACP/Tea Party controversy.
July 19, 2010 No Comments
Talk Back: Union presses Ritter on pay-raise bill
May 21st, 2010 — Economy, Labor, Press, Talk Back
This story is getting a lot of press attention partially because the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Denver Post management don't like it. It's frustrating because neither group has taken the time to learn about problems with the current state compensation system and how this bill addresses them.
It's hard to understand why either group even cares about this bill; they apparently believe the bill will give some benefit to state employees (beyond general good management) and that goes against their general bias against employees.
Talk Back responds to media coverage with my comments in blue.
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By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post
Posted: 05/20/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
The largest union representing state employees has launched a campaign urging Gov. Bill Ritter to sign legislation revamping the pay-raise system for state workers. >The effort by Colorado WINS comes amid worry over whether Ritter, who has expressed concerns about House Bill 1409, will veto the bill. Ritter's office has said only that it is giving the bill careful consideration.
"We need to do our due diligence to let the governor know this (bill) is a priority," said Bob Gibson, executive director of Colorado WINS.
The union's website urges WINS members to call the governor's office and express support for the bill, which would move the state from a pay system that is now based primarily on performance to one that would, in theory, grant gradual pay increases as long as workers get satisfactory evaluations.
The current system is not "based primarily on performance." It was originally called "Pay for Performance," but it never lived up to that name, The Ritter Administration changed the name to "Achievement Pay" is partial recognition that it lacks a performance component.
It doesn't even matter if the system includes a performance component or not. The Governor's Deputy Personnel Director testified in committee that the state does a "very bad" job of evaluating employee performance. Very little employee compensation has been based on performance and the minute amount that has been is awarded almost randomly.
"In the final hours of the 2010 Colorado Legislative session, Colorado WINS members helped to pass House Bill 1409 to eliminate the broken 'pay for performance' system," the website says. "But we're not done yet — we need to call Governor Ritter and urge him to sign HB 1409 into law."
Ritter officials have expressed concerns about whether the bill diminishes the governor's power to recommend raises. Under current law, the governor — in his budget recommendations — can call for performance-based pay hikes for employees, but they still must be approved by lawmakers, who write the budget. Ritter then can veto line items in the budget, if he chooses.
The state's current Achievement Pay system included two components: salary survey and performance pay. The Governor can recommend whatever he wants, but the legislature decides whether salary survey, achievement pay, or both get funded and how much money goes into them. The Governor could line-item-veto either of them, but that would kill all of the salary survey or all of the performance pay, not the amount that goes to individual departments or employees. In practice, of course, we haven't been putting any money into either of them. We've cut state employee salaries for this year and next year.
The bill would qualify state employees who are meeting performance standards for 12 annual incremental pay increases, but any pay hikes still would have to be approved by lawmakers. No pay increases would take effect for at least three years, and that's assuming the state had money to fund them.
State employees have had no raises the past two years and had furloughs in the current fiscal year ending in June. They face 2.5 percent pay cuts in the next fiscal year, on top of higher contributions they must make to their pensions.
Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, sponsored the pay-hike bill and said its prospects are shaky.
"The indication I've had is that he (Ritter) is probably going to veto it," said Pommer, who said the governor's office initially agreed to support the bill but got cold feet when the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce came out against it.
"This is the weird thing," Pommer said. "We had an agreement."
But Evan Dreyer, Ritter's spokesman, denied the office broke any deal.
"Not true," Dreyer said. "What's true is that with every piece of legislation, the governor has an open-door policy — where lawmakers, interested parties and constituent groups have the governor's ear and the ear of his staff.
"Not true," says I. Evan Dreyer is wrong. We had an agreement. The Governor's office told us what we would have to put into the bill to get the Governor's approval, we put it in the bill and the Governor's office said he would sign it. Two days later, the Governor's office told us the Governor's position had changed.
The Governor may have an open door-policy, but he's rarely familiar enough with a topic to actually negotiate it. His staff does that. It would be impractical to negotiate with the Governor himself on every issue.
Negotiating with the Governor's staff can be difficult. They, and we, have to assume that they have the authority to negotiate for the Governor. We know that their views can diverge from the Governor's, and that the Governor can change his mind; we're always mindful of that, and the staff is pretty good letting us know when they have to check with the Governor on a point.
I'm using the term "Governor" here in a generic sense. "Governor" doesn't necessarily mean the person; it's usually the consensus among the person and all of his aides. "We need to run this by the Governor," can mean reviewing it with the Governor's legal counsel or chief-of-staff.
To get back to the point, we negotiate all the time and we all know that things change, this was different.
"The legislative process is a dynamic process," he said. "Bills change as they move through committee from one chamber to the other and back to committees."
May 21, 2010 No Comments
We must sell bad magazines
May 7th, 2010 — Press
We must sell bad magazines.
We must sell bad magazines.
We must sell bad magazines.
After years of shrinking content and growing sensationalism Newsweek is being sold for scrap. The best guess is that some rich guy will buy it as a personal soapbox. Maybe. The magazine already tried selling itself as a rich industry's soapbox and that doesn't seem to be working.
If this seems mean-spirited, take a close look at the cover. I met a young teacher yesterday who's struggling to teach every student in her class as the districts cuts classroom help, reduces resources like books and computers and offers her few opportunities for professional development. She started to cry when another teacher mentioned this Newsweek cover.
Teaching some students is hard work. It takes time and resources. For decades, governments (and, by extension, the public) have chosen to ignore what needs to be done and focus instead on the education equivalent of get-rich-quick schemes. They haven't worked.
Making teachers the scapegoats for our failed policies may be politically expedient, but it's not going to improve education any more than our other, easy, so-called solutions have.
May 7, 2010 No Comments
Can you handle the truth? With a straight face?
April 26th, 2010 — Economy, Press
OK, most of the comments that appear below online news articles are just the vapid rantings of a few disgruntled people with a lot of time on their hands. But every once in a while, there's a real gem. Like this one. It was posted someone called COMFORTABLYSMUG after a New York Magazine article on Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs. It's based on Jack Nicholson's monologue in "A Few Good Men."
“You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth. Son, we live in a country with an investment gap. And that gap needs to be filled by men with money. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Middle Class Consumer?
Goldman Sachs has a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.
You weep for Lehman and you curse derivatives. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know: that Lehman’s death, while tragic, probably saved the financial system. And that Goldman’s existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves pension funds.
You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want us to fill that investment gap. You need us to fill that gap.
“We use words like credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligation, and securitization… We use these words as the backbone of a life spent investing in something. You use ‘em as a punchline. We have neither the time nor the inclination to explain ourselves to a commoner who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very credit we provide, and then questions the manner in which we provide it!
We’d rather you just said thank you and paid your taxes on time.
Otherwise, we suggest you get an account and start trading. Either way, we don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!”
Here's the original monologue by Aaron Sorkin:
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives…You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!
April 26, 2010 No Comments
Democratic Convention – Wednesday
August 27th, 2008 — Energy, Environment, Politics, Press, Spin
NBC is refusing to run this ad.
If you don’t want to click on the link, you can just read the ad. It’s pretty simple. A guy says:
“Get this one. Iran is changing its cars to run on natural gas and we’re not doing a thing here. They’re doing this to use less oil and sell it for $120 a barrel. We can switch our cars to natural gas and stop sending our dollars to foreign countries."
The guy talking? T. Boone Pickens. Pickens? The oil-well-drilling, oil company-owning, corporate raiding guy from Texas? The same.
Pickens says the executives at NBC won’t run the ad because they say it might not be true. (And, of course, NBC wouldn’t run an ad that isn’t perfectly true).
So why is Pickens, who has made billions in oil and gas, encouraging us to move toward renewables? Who cares, really. Whatever he’s up to, he brings an interesting perspective to the discussion.
Pickens is in Denver for the convention and he was in The Big Tent on a panel with Sierra Club president Carl Pope and Center for American Progress president John Podesta.
Pickens follows the oil industry and described a recent government offshore lease auction that came up dry. The companies crying for access to the coasts bid on barely 10% of the tracts. He said the high bid for one tract was $62 million – about a quarter of what the government expected. And that bid was by a Norwegian company. The only American bid was a measly $8 million by Anadarko.
“There are not going to be big bids on these tracts,” Pickens said, “because there are not big reserves.”
So why is Big Oil & Gas clamoring for more coastal drilling? It doesn’t make sense?
And there’s another thing that doesn’t make much sense. The current moratorium on offshore leasing is year-to-year. Every year Congress has to renew it, or it goes away. That’s right, if Congress doesn’t actively renew the moratorium it expires. If Congress does nothing, it opens up the costs to oil and gas production.
Yet there’s all this yelling about Congress doing nothing on offshore drilling before leaving Washington. If the industry and conservatives want to drill, then they want Congress to do nothing so that the moratorium will end.
How do you reconcile the demand for action on the moratorium with the result of no action and the demand for access to offshore leases with the lack of interested in bidding on them?
Carl Pope of the Sierra Club says it’s all part of a “huge head fake.”
“This is not what the oil and gas companies want, to produce more oil from the coasts,” he said. “It’s about distracting people from renewable energy.”
August 27, 2008 No Comments
