Olympia Business Watch

Brunell: Lawmakers aim at petroleum industry would hit drivers with hidden gas tax

Some state lawmakers want to tax the petroleum industry to clean up storm water pollution, but their plan would hit motorists with a hidden 4 cent-per-gallon gas tax, AWB President Don Brunell writes in his weekly column.

The plan to impose a $1.50 per barrel fee on oil refineries is problematic on many levels, Brunell writes. A study that will determine exactly what role petroleum plays in the problem won't be done until June, long after lawmakers adjourn from the 2010 legislative session.

And despite attempts at calling it a fee, the charge looks more like a tax. If it's a tax, it can't be used for storm water cleanup because the state constitution requires that gas taxes be used only to build and maintain roads, he writes.

"There are some major problems with this concept," Brunell writes.

Read the full column here.

Here's to a Better and Safer New Year

2009 closes out on a real "downer!" 

• In the last two months, six western Washington law enforcement officers have been shot and killed leaving behind grieving families, friends and communities;
• eight more of our soldiers died at the hands of suicide bombers in Afghanistan yesterday;
• a lone terrorist with ties to radical groups plotting against the United States and its allies tried to bring down a passenger jet headed into Detroit on Christmas;
• state and local government budgets are upside down;
• Congress and the President continue to borrow and spend eclipsing our wildest expectations when President Obama took the oath of office last January; and,
• far too many people are unemployed and losing their houses.

It is enough to make the most optimistic, pessimistic.  But with the beginning of each new year, it is a time for hope and the promise of better days ahead.

So here are my hopes for 2010.

First, I hope for peace and civility on our streets, in our neighborhoods and homes, in our nation and across the world. 

Second, I hope that our world is safer and that all of our men and women in uniform whether they patrol our streets or track down terrorists in far off places return home to their families safe, sound and without scars from battle.

Third, I hope our elected leaders will focus on fixing our economy and putting people back to work. It is the top national, state and local priority and President Obama, Congress, Gov. Gregoire, lawmakers in Olympia and our local elected officials need to make job creation and stimulating our economy their top priority.  It is "JOB 1!" And, it is the private, taxpaying sector which will lead us back to prosperity.

Fourth, hopefully Congress will get a grip on reality and stop this stampede to pass poorly drafted legislation which authorize costly new spending programs. Those programs will balloon our federal debt by trillions which is money we have to borrow from our future generations and countries like China and Japan---our fierce competitors.

Finally, may 2010 start and end on a happier note than 2009 and may optimism, common sense and fiscal responsibility guide us through the new year. The road ahead is rocky and there are some hazardous, axle-breaking potholes in it.  But if we take our time, methodically repair and rebuild it, and look for innovative ways to forge forward without breaking the bank (or an axle), 2010 will end on a better note.

Happy New Year everyone.

Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)

Brunell: Still time to exchange health care "gift"

It's not too late to exchange the health care "gift" that Senate Democrats gave the nation, AWB President Don Brunell writes in his weekly column.

The bill approved on Christmas Eve is a lump of coal that will greatly expand Medicaid and create a massive unfunded mandate for cash-strapped states, Brunell writes.

It only received the needed 60 votes from Democrats after a Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid began handing out billions of dollars like a "tawdry episode of The Price is Right," he writes.

The good news is that lawmakers still need to reconcile the Senate bill with the one approved earlier by the House of Representative, Brunell writes.

That means it's not too late to slow down or even stop the process.

There are better ways to expand access to health care and reduce costs.

Read the full column here.

Christmas: A Time to Count Our Blessings, Remember Those Who Keep Us Safe, and Help Those in Need

Merry Christmas everyone.  We are truly blessed to live in a country where people care about one another and are free to worship as they please, speak their minds without fear of government recriminations, and have the opportunity to succeed.  Just travel to other nations around the world and see how blessed we really are.

This Christmas is a little brighter for more Americans with the economy beginning to improve and the number of people with jobs is inching up.  Yet for those without work, losing their homes and faced with mounting debt, it is hard to be optimistic.  We all hope and pray that by next Christmas, the unemployed will have jobs, families will make their mortgage payments, and they won't go to bed at night wondering if there will be enough money to put food on the table and pay the power bill.

Despite all of our hardship, there are those who put their lives on the line every day, including Christmas, so that we have safe neighborhoods and we are protected from terrorists who want to hurt us and our families. They are away from loved ones at a fire station, in a police squad car, at military post in Iraq, and Afghanistan, or on a Peace Corp assignment in Peru.  They need our thanks, prayers and support because it can be lonely this time of year away from husbands, wives, moms, dads, children, siblings and close friends.

One way people are remembering is through Wreaths Across America.  Every December since 1992, volunteers have laid wreaths donated by the Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine, at the headstones of over 5,000 of America's honored dead.  

In 2009, volunteers placed over 16,000 wreaths on graves at Arlington (as well as at the USS Maine Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknowns, and the Kennedys' grave sites) and at other memorial sites across the United States, including Arkansas's Fayetteville National Cemetery in Arkansas, Battery Park in New York City, and the memorial site for United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.Through contributions by the Wal-Mart Foundation and other veterans' organizations, Wreaths Across America transported the 16,000 wreaths to cemeteries across the country this holiday season.

Whether we remember by laying wreaths, taking an ornament from the giving tree at work or church and buy a gift for a needy family, putting together a food basket for a struggling neighbor, or simply inviting a lonely friend, relative or neighbor over for dinner, Christmas reminds of our blessings and that the best gift of all is giving of our time, treasure and self.  Reaching out is rewarding and fulfilling.

Merry Christmas to you and your families and may you all have a wonderful, fulfilling and prosperous 2010. Say thanks to those who serve and give a little extra to help others.  Thank you and may the Christmas spirit overwhelm you. 

Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)

You Need to Read the Bill---ACORN Qualifies for Funding in Senate Health Care Bill

The more light shed upon the Health Care bill that the President and Democrats in Congress are rushing to pass, the more reason to call for Congress to slow down, focus on real health reform and quit making deals to get votes to rush the bill through. Americans need to know what they are getting BEFORE they launch us into a new TRILLION dollar spending program. 

How much is a TRILLION you ask?  Let’s say your working life is 40 years (from age 25 to age 65) and you work 40 hours a day, 52 weeks a year (you’re a workaholic and don’t take any vacations). If you earned $1  trillion during your working life, then you got paid $ 200,000 per minute.  We'd all like those wages, but not that work schedule.

That why it is particularly disturbing to read that the controversial ACORN organization is eligible for grants and funds under the Senate version of health care reform thanks to Illinois Senator Roland Burris (D).  Here is what the Weekly Standard found on pages 241 of the bill.

Burris is claiming credit for a provision in Harry Reid's "manager's amendment," unveiled Saturday morning, that could funnel money to ACORN through the health care bill. Earlier, Burris, who took President Obama's place in the U.S. Senate, pledged that he would filibuster a health care bill without a public option. Now with the ACORN language he supports the bill.

"According to a Senate legislative aide, the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now could qualify for grants under this provision. ACORN would also qualify for funding on page 150 of the underlying Reid bill, which says that "community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups" may receive grants to "conduct public education activities to raise awareness of the availability of qualified health plans."

Earlier this year, Congress passed and the president signed into law a ban on federal funding for ACORN, but a judge ruled that that law was unconstitutional. If a higher court reverses that ruling, ACORN may be prohibited from receiving funds through the Office of Minority Health earmark. But according to the Senate legislative aide, ACORN would still "absolutely" qualify for federal funding through the provision in the underlying Reid bill because the anti-ACORN appropriations amendment would not apply to funds provided through the health care exchanges.

Americans need time to study the whole bill and every detail. Congress should recess, go home and study what they are about to vote upon and listen to the people who are going to pay the tab---the taxpayers. They are likely to find that what they intend is not what the voters back home want.

We all want health care reforms which work to increase access to health care, increase access to affordable insurance, increase the quality of health care and improve patient safety.  What is before the Senate qualifies in the category as "none of the above."

Don C. Brunell, President, (DonB@awb.org)

Time to stop, take a deep breath and start over

With voter confidence dropping like a rock in a pond, it is time Congress stopped this runaway train called health-care reform. It is time to take a break, take a deep breath and look at the right-of-way ahead to make sure they are not running the taxpayers, and our nation, over a cliff. 

A  couple of trillion for health reform, a trillion or so for climate change and trillions added to our national debt is REAL MONEY. They need to stop this juggernaut before we saddle our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren with so much debt they can't pay their bills, feed their families or save for retirement.

Our nation is just showing signs of the long awaited recovery, but families and businesses can't take higher taxes or more costs.  It really is time for President Obama and Congress to banish the self-imposed deadline of passing a trillion dollar health reform bill through the Senate by Christmas and have it signed into law so the President can trumpet it at his state of the union address early next year.

The Seattle Times said it best in yesterday's lead editorial:

"The health-care dance in Washington, D.C., has gone on long enough. Congress needs to focus on the economy and set health care aside.This is a change of position for us. This page supported Barack Obama for president, enthusiastically. We have supported the health-care effort until now.

The economy is wounded. Employers are hurting. The time to think about loading employers with new burdens is when they are strong. Not now.

Right now, Congress needs to focus on the economy."

It's time that citizens insist that President Obama and senators and representatives stop, recess and go home for a Christmas and New Years for a reality check. 

Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)

Brunell: Airborne 787 lifts Christmas spirits

This week's maiden voyage of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner was a needed dose of good news for a state that's seen too much bad news, AWB President Don Brunell writes in his weekly column.

"Don't get me wrong: The 787's first flight doesn't erase all the terrible news," Brunell writes, noting police shootings, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the economic woes. "It was just nice to see something positive for a change."

Boeing has a lot riding on the new plane, Brunell notes, and the success of the Dec. 15 test flight was a welcome sight for the company and its shareholders.

It was good news for the state, too. Even though South Carolina will be the site of a second 787 assembly line, the Evergreen state remains home to Boeing's main commercial production facilities and nearly 73,000 jobs, Brunell writes.

"The trick will be to keep those jobs and future aircraft here," he says.

Congress, American public diverge on health-care reform

While Congress and the president seem resigned to pushing some sort of health-care reform through before the holiday recess, two polls suggest the American public is having second thoughts.

First, the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows just 32 percent of Americans think health-care reform is a good idea. Plus, for the first time in the survey, the majority of respondents said they'd be better off with the way things are right now than under the new Obama health-care plan.

The findings closely resemble those of the Washington Post/ABC News poll, in which a majority (51 percent) of Americans say they oppose "proposed changes to the health care system being developed by Congress and the Obama administration." The random sample telephone poll was conducted Dec. 10-13 and included both land-line and cell phone respondents; the margin of error was plus/minus 3.5 points. The NBC poll was conducted at roughly the same time, Dec. 11-14, and has a plus-minus margin of 3.1 percentage points.

The president's handling of health care also drew a record majority disapproval rating (53 percent) in the ABC poll. Forty-three percent said they "strongly disapprove" and only 27 percent said they "strongly approve." The negative figures, according to the survey, are equal to those captured in August, during the contentious summer town hall meetings.

Perhaps even more worrisome, though, is the number of Americans who said the current proposals would make their health-care situation worse, increase the deficit and weaken Medicare. According to the Post/ABC poll:

• 50 percent of Americans believe the quality of their care would be better under the current system; only 37 percent said it would improve under the Democrat proposals.
• Most (53 percent) said their costs would increase if the health-care reforms pass.
• Most (55 percent) said the country's costs would go up
• 66 percent said the reform would increase the federal deficit
• 45 percent (two-to-one) said it would weaken Medicare.

All of the poll data is available here.

Some of the country's top business leaders also share the public's concerns about the lack of cost controls in the reform proposals. CEOs from Safeway, United Parcel Service and Verizon have publicly challenged the legislation for the lack of cost control measures and a lack of emphasis on wellness -- something Safeway has made tremendous inroads in with its own employee wellness program.

"Cost control ought to be at the base of any health-care reform, and I'm not sure it's there," said Scott Daivd, CEO at United Parcel Service Inc., in an interview with Business Week. "We need to talk about wellness. There's not enough talk" about prevention, he said. 

Davis and other CEOs have said in recent interviews the federal health-care proposals under debate in Congress are likely to add expenses through taxes and fees on private employers, many of whom provide insurance to 132 million Americans.

Video: Boeing's 787 Dreamliner first flight

Brunell: Lowering Medicare age to 55 is like inviting more passengers on board the Titanic

Opening up the Medicare system to more people, as proposed last week as part of the Senate health-reform package, is not a good idea, AWB President Don Brunell writes in his weekly column.

Even with the current number of people receiving Medicare coverage, the system is projected to go bankrupt in seven years, Brunell writes.

"Without a huge infusion of cash from our government (us), Medicare goes down like a big rock in a pond," he says.

So what's the answer?

Adopting a series of affordable, market-based reforms including allowing people to buy health care coverage across state lines and giving families the same tax exemptions for health insurance premiums that are currently given to employers.

Read more here.