twodinks.com

So the Republicans have decided a great way to solve the budget crisis is to completely defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a federal program that provides funding to NPR and PBS. I signed a petition asking them to stop messing with a popular use of public funds (unless you’re a wingnut, apparently). Here’s his office’s canned reply:

Thank you for contacting me to express your views on federal funding for public broadcasting.  It is good to hear from you.

You raised some interesting and insightful points regarding federal funds for services like National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and I appreciate you sharing them with me.  You may be interested to know that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides a small percentage of funding for NPR and PBS, has received $4 billion in taxpayer funding since 2001, including $430 million in FY 2011.  It is important to keep in mind that reductions to CPB do not necessarily bring an end to quality public programming, because over 80 percent of U.S. public broadcasting funding comes from non-federal sources.  Popular public programs can continue without federal taxpayer dollars through the support of and contributions from commercial and charitable funding.

I believe the current federal debt is among the most serious problems facing this and future generations.  This historic failure to control spending directly affects our economy and the ability to create jobs.  It pushes up interest rates and crowds out private investment.  To address this challenge, we must make the difficult decisions to prioritize how taxpayer dollars are spent.

Thank you again for taking the time to write.  I will keep your views in mind as Congress continues to explore ways to address our budget deficits and reduce our debt. I encourage you to visit my website at www.portman.senate.gov. Please keep in touch.

Naturally, I agree that the federal debt is a huge problem. But the way he presented his math pissed me off. He tries to make it look “bad” by opening with the $4 billion figure. Sounds like a lot of money, wow! Oh, wait. That’s over the past DECADE. His contention that the shortfall can be covered by support from…well, here’s my reply to him:

According to a canned message I received from your office, “the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides a small percentage of funding for NPR and PBS, has received $4 billion in taxpayer funding since 2001, including $430 million in FY 2011.” Considering non-security discretionary was slated to be around $496 billon, I can’t agree with the claim that you and your party are being responsible by aggressively cutting a program that equals less than 1% of that part of the budget. I also don’t see how 10-20% of a local station’s budget can be considered a small percentage of funding.

Claiming that their budget shortfalls “can continue without federal taxpayer dollars through the support of and contributions from commercial and charitable funding” as was claimed in your email is quite false. I know that’s the Republican reason for cutting most programs that benefit people instead of corporations or the super-rich. The problem with that contention is that there is only so much charitable money to be spread around. As more programs, services, and safety nets are cut, do you truly believe that those already overburdened private funds are going to be able to make up the difference?

It’s never a good idea to spend more than you take in. Bush’s tax cuts were a bad idea a decade ago, as were his unfunded mandates. Your party was completely in step with these decisions, and even fought to keep those cuts in place against all logic and reason. What your party is proposing now would be like me turning down a raise at work, complaining that I can’t make ends meet, and deciding that my best move would be to cut my toothpaste budget while continuing to make payments on my 7-series.

I’d like to propose that you cut that minuscule $430 million from the already bloated and skyrocketing military budget? Since their budget approaches $1 TRILLION dollars, CPB funding amounts to nothing more than a rounding error to them. And if we do that, we’ll still be spending more than the next 15 countries *combined*. That’s so irresponsible it’s ludicrous. If your party does not agree to sizable yet sensible cuts to the defense budget, or at least a road map to such, you’re not at all serious about balancing the budget unless it means only cutting the programs your side doesn’t like. It would be nice if, for once, someone stood up and admitted this.

Ah, intellectual dishonesty. It’s alive and well and bipartisan in the nation’s capitol.

First, read this:

Steffy: BP pays less for CEO failure than U.S. firms

By LOREN STEFFY Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle

Aug. 3, 2010, 10:06PM

As a British corporation, BP pays less for failure.
BP’s board offered ousted CEO Tony Hayward a parachute on his way out, but it’s not all that golden compared with the premium that U.S. companies put on executive failure.

It’s a safe bet that if BP has been an American company, Hayward’s wallet would be much fatter as he departs. Great Britain, though, cracked down on golden parachutes in the 1990s.

Hayward’s severance is basically a year’s salary, which is $1.6 million, and his pension benefits, which total about $17.5 million.

That, by most measures, is a lot of money. If BP were based in Houston, the combination would put him at No. 6 on the Chronicle’s list of highest-paid public company executives, published Sunday.

But even counting his pension payments, which are benefits earned over a 28-year career as opposed to a reward for his brief tenure as CEO, Hayward’s severance is modest among other failed executives.

It’s less than a tenth of what Robert Nardelli got for leaving Home Depot, a company that is far smaller, easier to manage and less prone to catastrophic disaster. If a guy runs a chain of hardware stores into the ground and gets $210 million, then under the Nardelli Principle what should be the reward for an executive who spills oil all over the Gulf of Mexico?

Then there’s the Wall Street crowd, led by Merrill Lynch’s Stan O’Neal, who laid waste to the firm and walked away with $161.5 million, and Ken Lewis, who bought Merrill after O’Neal was done with it, misled shareholders about its losses, and still got $125 million for leaving. Charles Prince oversaw huge write-downs at Citigroup related to subprime mortgages and was given $42 million in defeat.

‘The right gesture’?

We’ve seen this pattern so many times, we’ve come to expect it. Indeed, some lawmakers have called for Hayward to forfeit his severance because of the magnitude of the disaster that occurred on his watch.

Les Csorba, who runs the Houston office of Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search firm, said Hayward should consider that on his own.

“If I were him, I might set up a foundation in my retirement in which those proceeds would support organizations that are involved in cleaning up the Gulf,” he said. “That might be the right gesture.”

Looking at the lives that have been upended on the Gulf Coast and in the oil industry as a result of the latest BP disaster, it’s natural to question why Hayward deserves anything.

Corporate boards, though, also have to think about hiring the next CEO.

“You have to send the right signal to the market that you’re still willing to be competitive,” Csorba said.

If Hayward, who largely inherited BP’s broken culture, leaves with nothing, who would be willing to step into the job? If leading a giant corporation becomes a zero-sum game — succeed and you bask in riches, fail and you get nothing, who would want the job?

The trick for corporate boards is striking a balance, creating proper incentives for success and not making the punishment for failure so stifling CEOs are afraid to take risks.

In addition to the salary and pension, Hayward has BP stock options, but they’re virtually worthless and probably will remain so. BP’s shares have recovered since Hayward’s departure, but they’re still 34 percent below where they traded in April.

Unlike so many U.S. boards, BP directors haven’t attempted to issue additional shares or reprice options to make Hayward whole.

Hayward was on track to receive millions more in bonus shares under a plan adopted before the Gulf disaster, but aren’t likely to be granted now.

BP has done so much wrong in handling its latest crisis, but its handling of Hayward’s departure should serve as an example for U.S. companies that still pay way too much for failure.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle’s business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Contact him at loren.steffy@chron.com. His blog is at http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy/.

Cry me a freaking river. Anyone else who screws up in their job gets fired, no severance, no pension, and quite often they’re frog-marched to the door with their personal shit in a box. You may even be blackballed in your own profession.

But if you’re a CEO who’s screwed up massively – disrupting the lives of thousands of employees – they kiss your ass, hand you ten of millions of dollars on your way out the door, and meet you next weekend for another sailboat race?

You’re kidding, right?. Suck it up, rich boys, and take responsibility for the problems your massive egos have caused.

Surprise! The right-wing echo chamber went off the rails again, this time over Obamas welcome-back speech to schoolchildren.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible contender for the GOP’s 2012 presidential nomination:

At a minimum it’s disruptive. Number two, it’s uninvited. And number three, if people would like to hear his message they can, on a voluntary basis, go to YouTube or some other source and get it. I don’t think he needs to force it upon the nation’s school children

Yes Tim, it’s forced upon them. Next we’ll be propping them up with toothpicks holding their eyelids open, making them watch endless hours of Whale Wars and Keith Olbermann. You tool.

Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer released a statement this week accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to “indoctrinate” children:

As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology,” Greer said.

The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans … is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.

Ya know, Jim, that’d be a valid argument if your side hadn’t gotten pummeled in the last two elections. Seems people really are tired of your Republican crap.

Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell, a Republican:

As far as I’m concerned this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality.

Yes, Mr. Russell, you unbelievable hack. It’s a good thing the right has never used mass media to flatter and praise a public leader. Say, in the runup to the illegal war in Iraq.

Also, it’s a good thing we never had a cult of personality around an old man with dementia. He might have had the gall to inject political commentary into his own speech to schoolchildren. Wait? What’s tha…oops!

In November 1988, President Ronald Reagan delivered more politically charged remarks that were made available to students nationwide. Among other things, Reagan called taxes “such a penalty on people that there’s no incentive for them to prosper … because they have to give so much to the government.”

But giving credit where it’s due, at least Newt Gingrich had the balls and Laura Bush had the…uh…ovaries to make their own judgments. But then, neither of them is running for anything, so they don’t really need to pander to those who listen to the right-wing lunatics. I’m willing to bet Rush Limbaugh pilloried Gingrich within an hour of Gingrich’s statements.

It seems that George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all spoke to school children at some point in their presidencies as well. There was a Democratic investigation into GHWB’s speech, but no media uproar, and there sure as hell should not be now. If you want more evidence that the media is not left-biased, there it is.

But turning back to vitriol, I’d say this little incident is far closer to the dreaded indoctrination than anything Obama said in his speech today. Where’s the right-wing outrage? Aren’t they the party that DEFENDS THE DERNED CONSTITUTION TO OUR DEATH DAGNABBIT Y’ALL and stuff?

Oh yeah. They only care about guns and their right to say whatever they like, as long as nobody calls them on it or expresses another point of view. Or worships another God. Or has a different view of marriage or personal privacy or warrantless wiretapping or torture or blowing the shit out of anyone who doesn’t agree with us. And THE GUMMINT SHOULD LOCK UP ALL THE DAMNED DIRTY LIBERALS or send them to Guantanamo or something. I don’t know, it’s impossible to keep up with the idiocy anymore.

Oh and psst: I have two things to say to all of you calling Obama a Socialist or a Nazi or a Communist: first, pick one already. You’re giving me a headache with all your lane-switching. Also, you should try having a least a passing idea what those words mean because right now, it’s painfully obvious you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.