News & Analysis

Highlighting the outrage at insurance industry abuses pushing Congress towards a final decision on federal health care reform, state legislators continue to advance their own insurance reforms, even as they lay the groundwork for implementing the policies that will emerge in a federal bill. 

This past week, the Dallas Morning News revealed that a key figure who contributed to the privatization of Texas' food stamp eligibility program is now receiving taxpayer dollars to help fix the problems that the private system created.  regg Phillips, who was Deputy Commissioner at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and led the push for privatization a few years ago, now heads AutoGov Inc., a company that has received $207,500 from the state government in the past four months to assist in eliminating the errors in the provision and eligibility determination of the state's food stamp program.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week unveiled the long-awaited plan with a vast array of information and recommendations to address these problems, as well as approaches to maximize the economic and social gains from broadband adoption.

Washington state Governor Christine Gregoire signed a bill to combat wage theft this week, adding Washington to a growing number of states and counties, including Miami-Dade County, cracking down on employers who underpay workers (many of them undocumented immigrants) and violate minimum wage and overtime rules. 

The Senate struggled to approve a $15 billion jobs bill and has yet to enact additional fiscal relief for the states, but lawmakers continue to approve trillions of dollars for wars and defense appropriations.  In fact, ignoring the almost $1 trillion spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, military spending has grown 41 percent since 1998.  If progressive leaders intend to reduce long-term deficits and ensure a robust economic recovery, cutting inefficient and costly areas of the defense budget should be a top priority.

On March 1st, a new law in New York goes into effect, strengthening the freedom of employees to form labor unions at hotels or convention centers run or funded by state authorities, a dramatic victory for hotel workers in the state.  The law has specific language requiring that hotels or convention centers where state public authorities have a substantial proprietary interest include a "labor peace agreement" with hotel unions in the state in exchange for the unions agreeing not to strike for five years.  The law follows a similar executive order by the Governor approved last year.

PSN has noted in previous Dispatches, these credits are costly, favor out-of-state workers, offer minimal to no returns, do not create permanent jobs, and place an excessive burden on taxpayers in a time of economic uncertainty.  The Massachusetts Department of Revenue recently determined that in twelve states that administer a film tax credit, the return is extremely meager-- finding that states were only getting back "$.0.07 to $.0.28 per dollar of tax credit granted."

Deploying broadband and related communication technologies, including smart meters in the home and smart grids to upgrade our power grid, have the potential of revolutionizing energy management and economic development, according to a new report by the Progressive States Network released in association with our partners, Communications Workers of America, the Sierra Club and the Blue Green Alliance. Last Thursday, leaders from those organizations convened at a panel on Capitol Hill, hosted by U.S. Representative Edward Markey, Chairman of the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and joined by Nick Sinai, Director of Energy and Environment for the FCC's Broadband Strategy Plan, to discuss the findings of the report entitled Networking the Green Economy

The same large banks whose unregulated actions were primary contributors to the economic downturn have also been manipulating state and local governments to profit from budget deficits for years.  Essentially, banks are alluring states with the promise of a means to cut borrowing costs and increase returns through the use of an interest rate swap.  The mechanism is a derivative that allows cash-strapped municipalities and states to exchange interest payments on a variable bond deal for an allocation of funds from a bank.  So, the bank would establish a fixed rate on the bond and swap for the variable "interest rate of the bond that was set by larger macroeconomic forces, such as the Federal Reserve."  Unfortunately, the results have been disastrous.

While the shenanigans of former U.S. Representative-turned-pharmaceutical lobbyist Billy Tauzin and other legislators-turned-lobbyists make national headlines, the abuse of power in the states often receive scant attention.  A recent decision by the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio reminds us that the revolving door among legislators-turned-lobbyists is as much a problem in the states as we hear about at the federal level.