San Jose Mercury News

Taxing Some Services Could Help if It's Fair and Simple

Ron Tang — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:39:00 -0400

California State Board of Equalization Chair Judy Chu believes it is time to address our deficit and modernize our sales tax by applying it to services. Her call to modernize our sales tax would be a good start in addressing an underlying cause of our budget problems.

Taxing services is not an outlandish idea. Most states already tax more types of services than does California.

Taxing services is also not a bad idea. Lifestyle changes have led us to spend less on goods subject to California sales tax and more on non-taxable services. For example, two-earner households have greater needs for laundry… more

Shannon Brownlee in San Jose Mercury News | UCSC Grad Winning Kudos for 'Overtreated'

Communications — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:33:00 -0400

New America in the News:

San Jose Mercury News | UCSC Grad Winning Kudos for 'Overtreated', A Health Care System Critique

Spending more on health care can be bad for our health, according to Shannon Brownlee, an award-winning medical journalist and UC Santa Cruz graduate who has earned widespread kudos for her book about the nation's sprawling health care system.

In "Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer," Brownlee challenges common medical practices. She depicts an uneven delivery of medical services throughout the country that routinely makes unjustified costly promises without the science to back them up.

"There is remarkably little evidence to back up what physicians do," Brownlee said recently from her home in Maryland.

Named No. 1 Economics Book of 2007 by The New York Times, "Overtreated" has drawn the praise for its solution-oriented critique of U.S. health care delivery. It's also drawn fire. . .

Michael Calabrese in San Jose Mercury News | Auction Takes 'First Step' to Open-Access Wireless

Communications — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:01:00 -0400

New America in the News:

San Jose Mercury News | Auction Takes 'First Step' to Open-Access Wireless

. . . Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation, said Verizon's ability to subsidize certain handsets gives it enormous market power in determining which devices and applications will ultimately become popular with consumers.

But Calabrese said the auction did help achieve the goals of increased openness and innovation. "We need to extend these consumer protections, but this was an important first step," he said. . .

Don't Link School Spending To Oil Companies' Profits

Ron Tang — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:33:00 -0400

Last week, a bill was proposed by a majority of Assemly Democrats to impose extra taxes on oil companies to help prevent pink slips for teachers. A March 12 vote, mostly along party lines, failed to garner the required two-thirds majority for passage of a tax increase.

But Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez has said he does not plan to give up on the idea.

Despite the importance of not laying off teachers, failure to pass was a good result. The bill, ABX3 9, is not the solution for keeping teachers employed or solving California's budget problems.

Budget problems cannot be solved with taxes… more

Eric Schmidt in San Jose Mercury News | Google CEO Will Take New America Foundation's Helm

Communications — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:35:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Google CEO Will Take New America Foundation's Helm (San Jose Mercury News)

Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt has been named to be the next chairman of the New America Foundation, which researches issues such as health care and education.

Schmidt will become chairman June 1, the foundation said Thursday in a statement. He succeeds James Fallows, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly magazine and former speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter.

Schmidt will help the organization as the endowment and staff grow, Steve Coll, the foundation's CEO, said in an interview. Other board members include Quadrangle Group principal Steven Rattner and Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International. more

Revamp Tax Laws to Support California Spending

Articles — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:50:00 -0400

An individual knows that if he is content with his spending, but struggles to pay for it, he needs to rethink his income stream. Perhaps his salary hasn’t kept up with inflation or he needs to retool and get a better job. An individual also knows that if he wants or needs to spend more -- get a finer car or raise another child -- he needs a raise, an extra job, or a better paying one.

California needs to do the same. If legislators and the governor are content with the spending side of the budget and want or need… more

San Jose Mercury News Quotes Peter Harbage on Blue Cross

Communications — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:46:00 -0400

New America in the News:

SACRAMENTO - When Blue Cross sells health insurance to someone who isn't covered at work, the company typically makes a 27 percent profit. By the time salaries and other administrative costs are accounted for, only half the money the company collects in premiums from that person goes for medical care.

Those figures may help explain why Blue Cross - the insurance provider for roughly one in four people in the state who have health coverage, and with political heft in the Capitol to match - so far is the only major insurer opposing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's universal health care plan...

"The idea that you have to sell health insurance to any comer is antithetical to their business model," said Peter Harbage, a health care expert at the non-partisan New America Foundation who has advised the governor. "It's not how they make money..."

For the complete article, please visit the San Jose Mercury News website.

San Jose Mercury News Cites Higher Ed Watch

Communications — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:08:00 -0400

New America in the News:

ALBANY, N.Y. - The federal Education Department official who oversees lenders owned about $100,000 worth of stock in a student-loan company now under investigation in an expanding nationwide probe of the $85 billion student-loan industry.

A September 2003 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows Matteo Fontana held at least 10,500 shares of Education Lending Group, the former parent company of Student Loan Xpress. The shares were valued about $9.50 each at the time, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office, which is leading the investigation.

Fontana currently oversees all lenders and guarantee agencies that participate in the Federal Family Education Loan Program, Higher Ed Watch reported.

Student Loan Xpress is now part of CIT Group, one of several lenders targeted in Cuomo's probe.

Fontana's stock ownership was first reported Thursday by Higher Ed Watch, part of the New America Foundation...

For the complete article, please visit the San Jose Mercury News website.

Anatol Lieven on Terrorism in the San Jose Mercury News

Communications — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:48:00 -0500

New America in the News:

WASHINGTON - President Bush has called Iraq a crucial battleground in a decades-long struggle against Islamic terrorism.

"It's important for our fellow citizens to understand that failure in Iraq would be a disaster for our future," he told soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., last week. "It's a different kind of war in which failure in one part of the world could lead to disaster here at home ... That is why we must, and we will, succeed in Iraq."

Historians and Middle East experts, however, say that America's last "long war," the four-decade Cold War against Soviet communism, offers some cautionary lessons as the nation debates its next moves in Iraq.

Previous presidents, they note, made many of the same arguments about Vietnam that Bush and his aides are making about Iraq: The war there was part of a larger struggle against a monolithic enemy, and Vietnam's neighbors would fall to communism like dominoes if the U.S. were defeated.

That turned out not to be true: The U.S. lost the battle in Vietnam but won the war against communism anyway...

Some administration critics think the concept of a "war on terrorism" is equally murky. They say the phrase puts too much emphasis on military action and overlooks the fact that Sunni and Shiite terrorists use the same tactics but are enemies, not allies.

"It shouldn't have been conceptualized as a war. Terrorism is not something you can make war against. Terrorism is a tactic, not a movement in itself," said Anatol Lieven, a strategist at the New America Foundation, a centrist think tank that leans toward Democrats. "Terrorism is not a free-flowing miasma of hatred. It flows from particular issues..."

For the complete article, please visit the San Jose Mercury News website.

San Jose Mercury News on Schwarzenegger Plan, New America Report

Communications — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:07:00 -0500

New America in the News:

SACRAMENTO - As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger puts the final touches on his proposal to revamp the state's ailing health care system, a new statewide poll suggests that only a bare majority of California voters are satisfied with the current system, and a large majority worry about what the future might bring...

Schwarzenegger has dubbed 2007 "the year of health care" and plans to unveil his closely guarded reform ideas Monday, sparking what he hopes will become a collaborative, bipartisan overhaul effort.Democratic legislators, led by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, have released outlines of their own health plans and are expected to provide more details this month.

Without revealing specifics, the GOP governor has emphasized a general need for "shared responsibility" -- among employers, individuals and government -- to expand access to the estimated 6.6 million Californians who lack insurance for all or part of the year.

Increasingly, Schwarzenegger says, people with insurance are bearing the costs of treating people who lack coverage and use the emergency room for care. A study by the New America Foundation estimated that a family of four in California pays an extra $1,186 a year in premiums to subsidize care for the uninsured, and Schwarzenegger recently dubbed those costs a ``hidden tax.''

An aide to Schwarzenegger said the new California Field Poll validates the governor's decision to make health care reform a top priority this year...

For the complete article, please visit The San Jose Mercury News website.