Stanford project may impact taxes

Read the Examiner article here.

 

Ross School nets $2.85 million in stimulus windfall

Read the Marin IJ article here.

 

Ron Paul’s “audit the fed bill” compromised in Senate

Ron Paul’s “audit the fed bill” compromised in Senate
Posted By Steve Adcock On May 7, 2010 (10:55 am) In Voices and Choices

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14) expressed disappointment that his landmark legislation to audit the Federal Reserve Bank- which passed by a wide margin in the House Financial Services committee and has over 319 House co-sponsors- was threatened by a compromise in the Senate today.

More specifically, Paul’s language (passed by the House) to audit the Federal Reserve has been stripped from the Sanders Amendment to the Senate financial reform bill. Instead, the Sanders Amendment now contains softer compromise language that exempts monetary policy decisions, discount window operations, and agreements with foreign central banks from Government Accounting Office (“GAO”) audit.

This is of particular concern when several countries such as Greece, Portugal, and Spain are seeking IMF help in the midst of their financial crises, because American taxpayers provide fully 17% of all IMF funding.

“Taxpayers are weary of bailing out privileged banks and corporations in the US, and we certainly cannot afford to bail out entire countries. The possibility of this happening behind a veil of Federal Reserve secrecy is not acceptable,” stated Congressman Paul. “This compromise language represents a huge missed opportunity by Congress to finally make the Fed accountable for trillions of taxpayer dollars it administers. Full transparency, via a full GAO audit, is the only acceptable option. However, I am grateful to Senator Vitter for offering the original full audit language in an alternative amendment to the bill.”

The above was taken from an official Ron Paul press release.

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Article taken from SmallGovTimes.com – http://www.smallgovtimes.com
URL to article: http://www.smallgovtimes.com/2010/05/pauls-audit-the-fed-bill-compromised-in-senate/

 

Pension losses hook Marin taxpayers

Nels Johnson Marin IJ

Posted: 04/24/2010 09:25:35 PM PDT

 

Marin County pension chief Tom Ford, in front of the pension headquarters, said his preliminary calculations put the county’s unfunded liability at about $340 million, San Rafael s at $140 million and the Novato Fire District s liability at about $31 million. (IJ photo/Robert Tong)

Taxpayers across Marin must fill a gaping fiscal hole because the county’s pension fund lost $268 million last year as stock market losses torpedoed its investment portfolio.Pension stock market losses will force the county to pay about $8.4 million more to the pension fund next year than it did last year – a payment that accounts for almost half of the $20 million budget deficit that has forced county supervisors to curb spending on other programs, jettison vacant staff positions and cut services. The county’s $35.2 million tab next year does not include $6.1 million it also owes on a $112 million pension bond.

In San Rafael, pension payments will rise about $2 million, and the Novato Fire District will kick in an additional $900,000.

Even so, the agencies face mounting unfunded liabilities – the cost of guaranteed

benefits left unpaid. Pension chief Tom Ford said his preliminary calculations put the county’s unfunded liability at about $340 million, San Rafael’s at $140 million, and the Novato Fire District’s liability at about $31 million. The county tab does not include the $378 million unfunded cost of lifetime health care promised to employees hired before 2009.

Next year’s pension tab would have been even higher, but county officials persuaded actuaries to spread payments needed to cover investment losses over 30 years, rather than only 18. County Administrator Matthew Hymel noted the 30-year payment procedure is used at the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS.

The calculations also assume the pension portfolio will grow 7.75 percent a year, down from the 8 percent assumption used previously. Given last year’s loss, the pension portfolio has grown an average of only 2 percent annually over the past five years, but performance fluctuates widely, “and will meet this target over the long run,” Hymel said. The fund invested in stocks, for example, has grown about 17 percent this year.

As it is, last year’s losses force the county, San Rafael and other agencies to pump more money into the pension program in an era of declining property tax revenues, prompting officials to cut public services and raise new revenue to make ends meet.

Calculations involving rising costs and liabilities for all agencies in the Marin program were not immediately available, although the county pension board, recognizing portfolio losses, has boosted contribution rates as a percent of payroll for most. The county rate is 22 percent, up from 16 percent, while San Rafael’s is 46 percent, up from 41 percent. Novato fire checked in at almost 44 percent, up from 39 percent. That means that in San Rafael, for example, it costs taxpayers nearly half again of each employee’s paycheck just to pay for pension benefits promised by the City Council.

Rates dipped for the Marin-Sonoma Mosquito Abatement and Tamalpais Community Service districts. “As they reduce payroll, it reduces pension costs,” Ford noted, adding that in smaller districts, a change in payroll of just a few positions can make rates swing.

Marin’s pension system includes the county, the Marin courts, San Rafael, the Novato and Southern Marin fire districts, the Tamalpais and Marin City community services districts, and the mosquito district. The program covers 3,561 public employees, 1,979 retirees, and 300 survivor beneficiaries. Most Marin cities and agencies are members of the state pension program run by CalPERS.

More details on liabilities and costs faced by agencies that are members of the Marin system will emerge next month when an annual actuarial report is released.

Benefits are guaranteed by county supervisors and other governing boards no matter what they end up costing, and the only way to cut costs is to reduce benefits for new hires, or limit salaries of current employees, because pay is a key factor in determining pensions.

Grim statistics about the portfolio losses that propel higher contributions are outlined in an annual report for last fiscal year. The report indicated the pension fund paid out more than it took in as well, with employers, or taxpayers, contributing $54.6 million and employees contributing $17.4 million, for an overall contribution of $72 million. At the same time, beneficiaries collected $77 million.

The $5 million fiscal imbalance between contributions and payouts does not include $2.7 million in pension staff administrative costs and other expenses, such as $763,000 in legal fees, up $200,000 from the year before.

“No comment,” Ford replied when asked about the legal tab, which included a $13,000 litigation settlement. “The former administration referred lots of things to legal counsel,” added Ford, former Sonoma County treasurer who joined the Marin staff several months ago pending a search for a new pension executive.

Ford added he has cut legal spending in half by contracting with the office of County Counsel Patrick Faulkner for $265,000 and strictly limiting work by Ashley K. Dunning, a $400-an-hour attorney consulted extensively by Charnel Benner, former pension chief who was ousted last November.

The system’s $268 million investment loss came despite $8 million in investment expenses, much of it payments to fund advisers who pitched a variety of financial products. Under a new program, pay for advisers will be tied to the performance of investments they recommend, and fewer advisers will be used, Ford said.

At the end of the fiscal year, the pension fund posted a net decrease in assets of $285 million.

Overall, the fund totaled about $1.1 billion, with an investment portfolio that included 40 percent in domestic stocks, 20 percent in international stocks, 25 percent in fixed income, and roughly 15 percent in real estate.

Contact Nels Johnson via e-mail at ij.civiccenter@gmail.com

 

Just say snow – saving taxpayers millions

Just say snow – saving taxpayers millions
Posted By Doug Bandow On February 15, 2010 (7:43 pm) In Featured, Voices and Choices

For the first time in memory, the federal government has closed for three straight days. “Snowmaggedon” has shut down Washington, D.C. and its suburbs. With the third storm within a week hitting the region, causing white-out conditions, even Uncle Sam can’t function.

In theory the government closure is costing all of us. Some 230,000 D.C. area employees stayed home, costing an estimated $300 million “in lost productivity per day,” according to federal officials. But is the shutdown really hurting the public?

Using the term “productivity” in the same sentence as “federal government” is a dubious exercise. No doubt, in the sense of performing a task efficiently, the Feds can be productive. Just watch how quickly and completely the IRS attempts to clean out the average taxpayer. That explains the joke about Washington’s preferred tax form of just two lines: “How much do you earn? Send it in.”

But government efficiency doesn’t mean productivity in a larger sense. That is, does government activity yield a better life for Americans? On net, the answer is no. The only problem with Snowmaggedon is that it has not affected the 85 percent of federal employees who work outside of the D.C. area.

About two million people, excluding the postal service and armed forces, work for the federal government. Most are engaged in counterproductive activity.

Start with the 652,000 work for the Defense Department. Overall, their mission is vital, one of the few necessary tasks of government. But much of what they actually do has nothing to do with protecting America.

Many U.S. troops — and the civilian employees who back up the armed forces — are tasked with defending America’s prosperous and populous allies throughout Asia and Europe. Why? The European Union has ten times the GDP of Russia; South Korea has 40 times the GDP of the North. Military personnel also engage in nation-building and other forms of what Michael Mandelbaum called foreign policy as social work. Idling employees supporting these tasks would reduce subsidies for the international welfare queens now leeching off of U.S. taxpayers and military personnel.

The Department of Veterans Affairs employs 280,000 people. Give this department its due: it may not be the most efficient bureaucracy available, but Uncle Sam has an obligation to care for America’s veterans. The number of employees could be pared by integrating the treatment of veterans into the private health system, but the special needs of vets will always require special services.

Homeland Security comes next with 171,000 personnel. It’s an important function, but does anyone believe the department, a bizarre mix of everything from customs to immigration to disaster relief, actually is keeping us safe? Are we better off because of the geniuses who decided that terrorists would surrender by forbidding people from going to the bathroom and using blankets? Who benefits when personnel dole out “emergency” aid hither and yon even to the improvident and foolish? It’s hard to know how many of this department’s employees actually do useful work.

Another 108,000 people work for the Justice Department. The agency is theoretically essential. But the bureaucracy of justice — laws, police, prosecutors, courts — should rest primarily at the state and local level. One of most significant and most dangerous expansions of national power in recent years has been the increasing federalization of the criminal law. Now you can go to federal prison if you dump fill dirt on dry land that has been defined as a “wetland.”

The department also is filled with social engineers, dedicated to using the law to reorder American society along more collectivist and multi-cultural lines. An entire division promotes the federal government’s racial spoils system and its extension to the rest of society. Then there are all of the department attorneys who spend taxpayer money defending the worst depredations of government, often in contravention of the Constitution.

Some 88,000 people work at the Treasury Department. A few folks are necessary to mind the Treasury, but most of the agency’s employees are busy supporting the outrageously lavish $3.7 trillion budget approved by Congress this year. Cut back the spending and the $2.2 trillion in taxes to be collected, and the department would shrink substantially. Reduce the Treasury bureaucracy’s other threats to liberty — foreign economic sanctions, domestic financial spying — and the workforce would shrink still further.

The Agriculture Department comes in at 82,000 employees. There may be one or two people there who perform a useful and constitutional function, but it’s hard to believe there are many more. This agency’s job is to pay off special interests and manipulate food markets. This Department should be permanently snowed in.

Next is the Interior Department with 67,000 employees. There’s no reason for Uncle Sam to own hundreds of millions of acres of land. Sell off the grazing range and timberland (technically the latter resides with the Agriculture Department, but the same principle applies). Open up nonessential park areas to energy exploration and development. Keep at most a few sensitive parklands of enormous symbolic significance — such as Yellowstone and Yosemite — in federal hands or, better yet, turn them over to environmental groups. The number of people needed in their current roles at the department is very few.

Health and Human Services is a spending behemoth, but employs “only” 64,000 people. Social services, like justice, should primarily be dispensed at the state and local level. Anyway, whatever the legitimate role of the federal government, HHS should not survive in current form. The agency incorporates a multitude of ineffective, duplicative, and overlapping programs. In general, Congress never shuts down a bad program; legislators simply add new ones. Shift back functions and revenue sources to the states, as Ronald Reagan proposed, and there’d be no need for this department.

Some 55,000 people work for the Transportation Department. There are some interstate transportation issues, but the federal government shouldn’t be funding roads and bridges in communities across America. Indeed, the agency has become one of the worst sources of political pork at the national level. If local folks want a new left hand turn lane or park bike trail, let them pay for it. Most of this department’s employees are anything but essential.

The Commerce Department employs 39,000. Another 16,000 people work at the Labor Department. Both of these agencies are special interest bureaucracies, dedicated to subsidizing businesses and labor unions. Neither should exist. There are a few legitimate functions buried within the two bureaucracies — keeping economic statistics and conducting a census for the purpose of congressional apportionment, for instance. But most of these 55,000 employees should be working at useful jobs in the private sector.

Equally useless is the Energy Department and its 15,000 workers. The department is largely a forum for dispensing subsidies to favored energy interests. It also regulates the energy industry, usually to the detriment to consumers. Politicians love to dispense favors and micromanage the economy. The Energy Department is a vehicle for doing both.

The State Department also employs 15,000 people. The agency is legitimate, but many of its functions are not. There’s no cause for foreign aid: the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on “foreign aid” programs which have turned out to be mostly “foreign hindrance” to the recipients. State should eliminate financial transfers other than limited, emergency disaster relief. Moreover, the department should cut back oversize embassies around the world. Washington should not be attempting to sell U.S. products or micro-manage other societies. There’s no reason for full-service embassies in many nations; small consulates would do just fine.

The Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Education have 9,000 and 4,000 employees, respectively. Neither of these agencies has a legitimate federal role. Housing and education should be state and local responsibilities to the extent that government is involved at all. There certainly is no reason for the federal government to create vast systems of wealth transfer from federal taxpayers to builders, local governments, developers, universities, federal bureaucrats, home buyers, students, renters, and everyone else involved in the housing and education industries. Indeed, the financial crisis, which started from an overheated housing market, demonstrates that federal involvement can be not just wasteful, but disastrously counterproductive.

A potpourri of independent agencies employs 180,000 people. The largest single bureaucracy is the Social Security Administration, which shouldn’t exist. People should be allowed to keep their own money to invest for their own retirement. Impoverished seniors should be helped because of their need, not their age. Most of the other agencies could be similarly eliminated or streamlined.

Finally, shrink government, and cut back the 33,000 people who work for the judicial branch and 30,000 who work for Congress. These two overgrown bureaucracies demonstrate how government has grown far too large. Indeed, their expansion has helped fuel government’s overall growth. More legislators, judges, aides, and clerks all want to do more. Which means an ever bigger government.

If you believe the official estimates, the three day federal shut-down cost Americans nearly a billion dollars. But don’t worry. Although Snowmaggedon has been awful for those of us who live in the region, it likely has saved the American people billions of dollars by slowing down the waste of tax dollars and limiting the harm of regulations.

Now if we could only shut down Washington permanently.