Top IRS Official For Obamacare Implementation Placed On Administrative Leave

WASHINGTON — The IRS has put a top official in charge of implementing Obamacare on administrative leave after it was discovered he had accepted $1,162 in free food and other items during a 2010 conference.

In a statement, the IRS confirmed that two employees have been placed on administrative leave — which is paid — and have begun the process of removing them.

“[Acting IRS Director] Danny Werfel learned of the situation last night and immediately asked his leadership team to take action. He has also been in contact with key congressional committees about the situation,” the service said in the statement.

“When I came to IRS, part of my job was to hold people accountable,” Werfel said. “There was clearly inappropriate behavior involved in this situation, and immediate action is needed.”

The IRS informed congressional staff investigating the agency that Fred Schindler had been put on leave for accepting the gifts. A second unnamed staffer in the division was also put on leave for accepting the gifts, the aides said.

According to congressional sources, the food was provided by an event planner organizing the conference during an “after hours” party. One source says the incident was referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution but it was not acted upon.

An IRS spokesman declined to comment on whether the issue was sent to DOJ.

Schindler is the deputy for Sarah Hall Ingram, who is heading up implementation of the Affordable Care Act for the IRS. Ingram has come under scrutiny recently because she oversaw the division of the IRS which targeted conservative organizations seeking nonprofit status.

According to congressional sources, the suspensions appear to be the first examples of employees being punished as part of a separate scandal over the service’s spending on conferences. One congressional source said it also appears the free meals and gifts were accepted at the same 2010 conference during which participants filmed a Star Trek spoof video.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa is scheduled to hold a hearing on conference spending by the IRS Thursday.

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Mike Bloomberg Gives Debunked Excuse For Opposing Paid Sick Leave Legislation

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I) has promised to veto his city council’s final version of paid sick leave legislation, and is using flawed reasoning to defend his decision to do so.

Bloomberg claims that the legislation, which would provide five days of paid leave for employees of companies bigger than 15 people, would “hurt small businesses and stifle job creation… Supporters claim it will only take effect if the economy is healthy, but there is never a good time to make New York City less competitive. The bill is short-sighted economic policy that will take our city in the wrong direction, and I will veto it.”

It’s a good thing that the council has enough votes to override Bloomberg’s veto, because his reason for opposing the law doesn’t add up. Several studies have demonstrated that paid sick leave has no effect on job creation. In fact, a survey by Public Citizen found that when San Francisco enacted paid sick day legislation (a bill that required far more businesses to comply), it saw a jump in business expansion and employment growth (PDF):

But after implementation of the paid sick-leave law, San Francisco experienced an increase in employment. A study by the Drum Major Institute found that employment in San Francisco increased 3.5 percent between the start of 2006 and the start of 2010. In San Francisco’s five closest neighboring counties, employment fell 3.4 percent during the same period. The same study found that despite predictions to the contrary, the number businesses in San Francisco grew by 1.64 percent between 2006 and 2008 while falling by 0.61 percent in neighboring counties. San Francisco also experienced growth within both large and small businesses, and within the retail and food service industry during this period. (These industries expected to be affected most by the ordinance.)

The impact on businesses themselves was minor. A majority reported that understanding and implementing the ordinance was either “not difficult” or “not too difficult.” Additionally, while only 14 percent of businesses reported a negative impact on profits, more than 70 percent reported that the law had either no impact or a positive impact on their profitability. Productivity, and thus profitability, suffers when workers are forced to come to work when they are sick. One study on the impact of illness on productivity estimates that businesses lose twice as much money to workers who show up at work while sick than when workers stay home due to an illness.

Another study of Connecticut, done by the Center for American Progress, found much the same thing, noting that “full use of this leave would cost an employer only 0.4 percent of their sales revenue on average. Without paid sick days, employees come to work unhealthy, costing employers $160 billion per year due to lower productivity levels.”

There are myriad benefits to paid sick leave outside of workforce productivity; it helps families, is good for morale, and helps people recover from illness. Business efficiency can’t be the only end goal. But if Bloomberg is inspired by business interests alone, then he should still feel compelled to support the law. Three million Americans workers missed a day at their job because of illness in the month of February alone. It’s likely many did so without pay; 40 percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-income workers have no paid sick leave, and are likely to pick coming to work sick over missing a day of wages. That means they’re spreading illness to customers, getting more people sick, and being less efficient overall.

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5 Social Conservatives Threatening To Leave The GOP Over Marriage Equality

Shortly before the US Supreme Court heard arguments to strike down restrictions on same-sex marriage, the Republican National Committee outraged hardline conservatives with a report calling for greater flexibility on gay rights and immigration reform in order to lure young people into the Republican Party. GOP strategist Karl Rove piled on the insult by speculating the Republican Party’s next presidential candidate could support marriage equality (though later walked it back). Evangelical leaders erupted in protest, threatening to abandon the GOP if the party were to change its increasingly unpopular stance.

The tide is changing rapidly against this so-called evangelical base of the GOP. Last week, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) became the first sitting Republican senator to declare his support for marriage equality. While a majority of all Republicans still oppose same-sex marriage, a new poll found that 49 percent of Republicans under 50 years old actually support extending the right to marry to same-sex couples.

Below are a few of the social conservatives the GOP would have to do without if they abandoned their opposition to same-sex marriage:

“They might [decide to support same-sex marriage], and if they do, they’re going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk. And it’s not because there’s an anti-homosexual mood, and nobody’s homophobic that I know of, but many of us, and I consider myself included, base our standards not on the latest Washington Post poll, but on an objective standard, not a subjective standard. If we have subjective standards, that means that we’re willing to move our standards based on the prevailing whims of culture.” [3/20/2013]

“The vast majority of the GOP base believes that marriage is a non-negotiable plank of the national platform. Anything less, writes Byron York, ‘could come back to haunt the RNC in the not-too-distant future.’ [...] If the RNC abandons marriage, evangelicals will either sit the elections out completely – or move to create a third party. Either option puts Republicans on the path to a permanent minority. [3/19/2013]

“Shame on the politicians and the judges that are trying to undermine the institution of marriage. I’m a Republican…let me say to my party: if you bail out on this issue, I will leave the party and I will take as many people as I possibly can.” [3/26/2013]

Watch it:

“If worst case scenario the last week of June we come down with a bad decision, the church and people of faith and values need to rise up. We just simply cannot allow this to become the law of the land, it will fundamentally change who we are, it will fundamentally weaken the family and religious freedom will be in the crosshairs. [3/26/2013]

“If the party makes that [gay marriage] something official that they support, they’re not going to pull the homosexual activist voters away from the Democrat Party, but they are going to cause their base to stay home and throw their hands up in utter frustration…Whether they like it or not, the Republican Party’s base is sufficiently large that they cannot do without them and their problem is they don’t like them. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.” [3/18/2013]

The growing right-wing schism was on full display at CPAC earlier this month, when organizers disinvited the gay conservative group GOProud to appease anti-gay board members. The decision to exclude GOProud sparked protests among prominent conservative commentators worried about the GOP’s flailing outreach efforts to more socially liberal minorities like women and young people.

Still, evangelicals and social conservatives have little cause to worry. Though public opinion on gay rights is evolving rapidly, the Republican Party does not plan to change their stance on marriage equality anytime soon. The RNC’s report, while encouraging outreach to Latinos, blacks, women, and young people, notably excluded the gay community from the list. Rather than disavow exclusionary and discriminatory policies enshrined in their platform, the current GOP strategy is to sugarcoat their anti-gay rhetoric in hopes that young voters will overlook their true intentions.

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How Fed Policy Could Leave The Country At The Mercy Of Another Recession

The Federal Reserve released its statement from the latest Federal Open Market Committee meeting this past week. Its projections see economic growth reaching 3.8 percent at best over the next three years, hovering between two and three percent per year after that, and finally driving unemployment down to between five and six percent after 2015.

None of that is especially new or encouraging. But on Wednesday, Ryan Avent at The Economist pointed out another number in the report that hints at a more subtle, but possibly more pernicious problem. It’s the federal funds rate, which is the interest rate the Fed charges other banks when it lends them money — thereby guiding interest rates throughout the economy — and which has basically been at zero since the Great Recession:

If recovery proceeds as the Fed anticipates, its interest-rate target will remain at near zero until at least 2015. Perhaps more worrying, the FOMC’s best guess at the appropriate, long-run value of the fed funds rate is about 4 percent. That is strikingly low. In each of the past three recessions the Fed has responded by cutting the fed funds rate more than 4 percentage points. A fed funds rate at that level virtually guarantees that the next downturn will result in a relapse into [zero lower bound] territory.

The Fed has a dual mandate to control inflation and maximize employment, and the federal funds rate is the mechanism by which it does both. It can boost the economy by cutting the rate, or rein in inflation by raising the rate. So there’s an inherent balancing act, and the Fed needs room to go in both directions. That’s why, over the past 40 years, the rate only briefly dipped below the four percent mark, and spent most of the boom-time 90s at over five percent:

There’s an imbalance in the Fed’s policy toolkit, in that it can raise the rate as high as it wants to fight inflation, but it can’t cut it past zero to boost the economy and job growth. That’s the problem of the “zero lower bound” Avent refers to. If the rate doesn’t get above four percent, but the Fed needs to cut at least that much to boost the economy, then there’s just not going to be much room to maneuver when the next recession rolls around.

Some economists such as Paul Krugman argue that when monetary policy hits the zero lower bound, fiscal policy (i.e. stimulus spending) becomes the primary tool to help the economy. But others, like Scott Sumner, argue that quantitative easing and other forms of unconventional monetary policy can still work just as well if not better than fiscal policy when the federal funds rate is at zero.

Unfortunately, Republicans are vociferously opposed to both policies. They’ve relentlessly pressured the Fed and Chairman Ben Bernanke to end quantitative easing or even hike the federal funds rate, incessantly warning of runaway inflation that never materializes. There’s also been no real opposing pressure from Democrats or progressives to prioritize job growth. The Fed’s latest form of quantitative easing has been a big step in the right direction, but several members of the governing committee or so skittish they’ve proposed ending it as early as this year.

On top of that, the way the Fed is designed and governed saddles it with additional biases towards cutting inflation over pushing up employment. As an institution, it’s more attuned to the concerns of the financial industry, business owners and the wealthy. Those groups are generally indifferent to sluggish economic growth — they’re the last to lose their homes or livelihoods if the economy implodes or unemployment spikes — but they all have a vested interest in low and stable inflation.

So not surprisingly, for the last twenty years or more, low and stable inflation is exactly what the country got. Even after the Great Recession, the Fed consistently hit its two percent inflation target, even as its counterbalancing mandate to boost employment was essentially ignored:

Arguably, the fundamental problem is the Fed did too good a job at reining in inflation.

Inflation is the natural response of an economy to robust growth, as rising wages put upward pressure on other prices. A Fed devoted to controlling inflation above all else will inevitably also weigh down jobs and wages for working Americans. “Morning in America,” the economic boom of the Reagan years, was accompanied by four percent inflation on average — twice the level we’re seeing now.

The last few decades of low inflation also came alongside stagnating median wages, and a new form of “jobless” recovery that brings back economic growth, but not the job growth of previous post-war recoveries. The result has been a self-reinforcing downward spiral, as stalled wages bring more inequality and less inflation, eliminating the need for a higher federal funds rate and ultimately leaving the Fed with ever less ammunition to boost employment with each successive recession.

Certainly, the Fed’s preference for exceedingly low inflation is not the whole cause behind slow wage growth and rampant inequality. But it’s most likely a big part.

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How ALEC Is Fueling Efforts To Block Paid Sick Leave And Other Pro-Worker Policies

Our guest blogger is Rachel Curley, an intern at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has been described as a “collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators”, is waging a campaign against workers, especially those in minimum wage jobs with few to no benefits.

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) recently released a report that tracks “the concrete legislative campaign that ALEC has conducted over the past two years to translate economic ideology into law.” Since 2011, 105 bills “aimed to repeal or weaken core wage standards at the local level” have been introduced in 31 state legislatures, and of those 105 bills, 67 were “directly sponsored or co-sponsored by ALEC-affiliated legislators,” according to NELP. Already, eleven of the 67 bills sponsored by ALEC members have been signed into law.

The report released by NELP highlights three types of bills introduced in state legislatures that reflect “model” legislation already written by ALEC. The report focuses on living wage and prevailing wage repeal and preemption bills, but it also points to other bills designed to repeal, suspend, and weaken state minimum wage laws, as well as ones that weaken overtime compensation policies.

The first one of these preemption bills surfaced in Wisconsin in 2011. The bill targeted a 2008 Milwaukee ballot measure passed with 69 percent of the vote that required city businesses to provide paid sick leave to workers. In response, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law directly nullifying the paid sick leave ordinance. Judge Thomas Cooper of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court upheld the state law, noting that the Wisconsin legislature had “put a bull’s eye on paid sick days” and that the state was completely within its right to void the Milwaukee ordinance.

One sponsor of the bill in Wisconsin was state Sen. Glenn Grothman, a confirmed ALEC member. He previously supported Gov. Scott Walker in repealing the state’s equal pay law by claiming that “money is more important to men” and that “to attribute everything to so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”

The strategy of ALEC-affiliated legislators, according to NELP, is to repeal current living wage policies or to preempt city and local governments from “establishing a living wage or prevailing wage policy in the first place.” Living wage and prevailing wage policies require employers who receive local government funds to pay their workers according to the cost of living in the area or industry standards for the region.

In Florida, confirmed ALEC member state Rep. Steve Precourt (R) has introduced legislation blocking paid sick leave policies currently under consideration in Orange and Miami-Dade counties. The policy being considered would require local businesses with 15 or more employees to provide leave. What ultimately happens to the local policy won’t matter if the preemptive legislation is passed first.

Other bills designed to preempt paid sick time and local minimum wage rates are working their way through the legislatures in Michigan and Mississippi. Both bills have confirmed ALEC-affiliated sponsors. The paid sick time law passed by the Seattle City Council is also being challenged in the Washington state legislature by Republican lawmakers. Three of the bill’s sponsors — Mike Padden, Barbera Bailey, and Don Benton — are confirmed ALEC members.

Pending a final vote this week by the Portland, Oregon and Philadelphia City Councils on a paid sick leave ordinances, Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. are currently the only cities in the country requiring businesses to provide paid sick leave for their employees (along with the state of Connecticut). The New York City Council will hold a public hearing on the earned sick time bill there on March 22.

ALEC and their allies recognize the momentum building behind these pro-worker bills and are intently pursuing a strategy of preempting local authority from adopting these policies. It’s imperative we draw attention and respond to these fundamentally anti-democratic attempts to revoke the rights of American workers.

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Maryland Lawmakers Propose Mandatory Paid Sick Leave For Workers

American workers rarely receive paid sick leave, but cities and states across the country are taking up proposals to mandate that employers pay employees who have to miss work because they are sick. A group of Democratic lawmakers has added Maryland to that list with a proposal that would mandate up to seven earned sick days.

Under the proposal, the leave would be accrued based on hours worked, the SoMdNews.com reports:

The proposal, led in the House by Del. John A. Olszewski Jr. (D-Baltimore), allows all full-time employees to earn an hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked, or up to seven sick days per year. Part-time workers would earn fewer days, depending on how often they work.

Nearly 40 percent of America’s private sector workers do not receive paid sick leave, and the number swells to 80 percent for both low-income workers and food workers, 60 percent of whom said they have reported to work even while sick. A 2011 study found that 40 percent of Maryland’s private sector workers don’t receive paid sick leave.

The lack of such leave jeopardizes the health and safety of other workers — in 2009, it led to an addition 5 million cases of the H1N1 flu virus, according to estimates.

Business groups have targeted paid sick day legislation with faulty studies, but in other areas where paid sick leave is being considered, studies have shown the legislation would have little effect on labor costs. The Main Street Alliance of Oregon, a supporter of Portland’s paid sick leave proposal, estimates it would add no more than 1.9 percent to labor expenses for the city’s businesses.

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Statement by the President on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Family Medical Leave Act

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For Immediate Release February 05, 2013 Statement by the President on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Family Medical Leave Act

Twenty years ago today, the Family and Medical Leave Act became law, and we took a groundbreaking step forward for America’s workers and families. Before the FMLA, taking time off to care for yourself or a family member may have meant risking a job or derailing a career, especially for women, who often faced discrimination and stereotypes in the workplace. But this law helped level the playing field by extending protections to both women and men, so that more workers could meet their responsibilities to themselves and their families without jeopardizing their livelihood

Two decades later, we should take pride in the law’s success, and I am proud of the work my Administration has done to expand the FMLA’s protections to military families and airline workers.  But we also know there is still more work to do.  Not all employees are covered by the law, and oftentimes workers cannot afford to take unpaid leave.  So as we mark this anniversary, let us also recommit ourselves to the values that inspired the law and redouble our efforts on behalf of fairer workplaces and healthier, more secure families. 

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February 05, 2013 10:58 AM ESTAnnouncing We the People 2.0 and a White House Hackathon

We're working towards Petitions 2.0, releasing an API, and inviting a small group to join us on February 22, 2013 for the White House Open Data Day Hackathon.

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Philadelphia, Portland City Councils Consider Offering Workers Paid Sick Leave

America is in the middle of what is projected to become the worst flu epidemic in a decade, and across the country workers risk making it worse by going to their jobs while sick. They do so because American workers have little access to paid sick leave, but some cities are considering enshrining such leave into law.

City councils in Portland, Oregon and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania are both considering new paid sick leave laws. Under the Portland proposal, all businesses would have to grant workers at least 40 hours of sick leave each year; for businesses with more than six employees, that leave time would be paid. A report from the Main Street Alliance of Oregon, which supports paid sick leave, said business expenses would grow at most by 1.9 percent under the law.

In Philadelphia, where a paid sick leave law was passed in 2011 but was vetoed by the mayor, lawmakers are making another attempt. The bill is backed by local restaurant workers, thousands of whom go to work while sick each day. Nearly 80 percent of food workers do not have paid sick leave, and 60 percent say they have reported to work while sick. A majority of Americans support providing paid sick leave to food workers.

The lack of paid sick leave is its own epidemic in the United States, where 40 percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-income workers don’t receive a single paid sick day. Lack of paid sick leave led to an additional 5 million cases of the H1N1 flu virus in 2009.

And though business leaders in Portland and Philadelphia oppose the laws, perhaps they shouldn’t. Research suggests that paid sick leave reduces employee turnover and increases productivity, meaning providing it to employees has substantial benefits for the companies’ bottom lines too.

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Statement by the President on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's Announcement that She Will Leave the Administration Early Next Year

 

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Over the last four years, Lisa Jackson has shown an unwavering commitment to the health of our families and our children. Under her leadership, the EPA has taken sensible and important steps to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink, including implementing the first national standard for harmful mercury pollution, taking important action to combat climate change under the Clean Air Act, and playing a key role in establishing historic fuel economy standards that will save the average American family thousands of dollars at the pump, while also slashing carbon pollution. Lisa has been an important part of my team, and I want to thank her for her service in my Administration and her tireless efforts to benefit the American people. I wish her all the best wherever her future takes her.

December 27, 2012 12:54 PM EST

As 2012 comes to a close, we’re looking back at some of the year’s policy milestones, including legislation President Obama signed this summer that stopped student loan interest rates from doubling for more than 7 million students.

A look at the most popular blog posts of 2012 offers a good snapshot of a busy year at the White House.

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