Arizona becomes policy battlefront

Tea partyers turn to state for leadership on conservative issues.

By Ambreen Ali

PHOENIX — It’s Arizona, not Washington, D.C., that has become ground zero for tea party activism.

The state that set off a national immigration debate last year and is now debating pension and education reform has become the movement’s shining example of how conservative legislatures can take action where the federal government will not.

“Arizona is definitely one state that is exercising its 10th Amendment rights more than others,” Tea Party Patriots spokesman Randy Lewis told Congress.org.

The Patriots, a national coalition of more than 1,000 local groups, kicked off its first American Policy Summit here Friday, the latest indication that the tea parties are moving their fight to the state level.

State legislatures are already playing key roles on three policy issues on the tea-party agenda: education, health care and immigration.

As activists gathered in Arizona, a standoff between teachers unions and Wisconsin’s Republican governor threatens to spread nationally. Virginia awaits a Supreme Court decision on the legality of the health care mandate. And Utah is considering a bill that mimics Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law.

Those fights are challenging the Obama administration in a way that the divided Congress will not, tea party activists at the summit said.

“There’s a real attitude among states that the federal government is not doing their job, so we will,” said Andresen Blom, executive director of the American Principles Project, the Washington-based group that led a boycott of the Conservative Political Action Conference last month over the inclusion of a gay group.

Blom said the Arizona gathering is just the latest example of that frustration.

The weekend conference kicked off with a session on state budget crises. Bob Williams, president of the conservative advocacy group State Budget Solutions, blamed the Obama administration’s efforts to “make states dependent on the national government” and said he is optimistic about what conservatives can accomplish without Congress’ help.

“We have a lot of new governors that I’m impressed with,” Williams said.

The Patriots are no strangers to Arizona. Leaders of the group have made an effort to host events across the country, but Arizona’s defiance of the federal government has made it a favorite locale in the movement.

Tea party groups supported rallies here last year as others tried to boycott the state for passing S.B. 1070, its immigration enforcement law. The Patriots also organized a gathering near the Arizona-Mexico border in August.

Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County sheriff who rose to national recognition last year for backing Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, was scheduled to kick off a debate on that issue during the opening ceremony Friday evening.

“Arizona has been on the front lines as far as the battles on border security,” said Debbie Dooley, one of six Patriots national coordinators. “Tea party activists realize that, if we are really going to change America, it’s going to be from the bottom up.”

That’s not to say they have ignored national politics altogether. Summit attendees are participating in a presidential straw poll, and several Republicans considering 2012 runs — including former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) and businessman Herman Cain — are scheduled to speak.

Blom said the state focus could be one way to prod the federal government to take action.

“All this state action is either going to force a response or action from the national government,” he said.

Warning Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan

By THOM SHANKER

Published: February 25, 2011

WEST POINT, N.Y. — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets on Friday that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the chances of carrying out a change of government in that fashion again were slim.

“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,” Mr. Gates told an assembly of Armycadets here.

That reality, he said, meant that the Army would have to reshape its budget, since potential conflicts in places like Asia or the Persian Gulf were more likely to be fought with air and sea power, rather than with conventional ground forces.

“As the prospects for another head-on clash of large mechanized land armies seem less likely, the Army will be increasingly challenged to justify the number, size, and cost of its heavy formations,” Mr. Gates warned.

“The odds of repeating another Afghanistan or Iraq — invading, pacifying, and administering a large third-world country — may be low,” Mr. Gates said, but the Army and the rest of the government must focus on capabilities that can “prevent festering problems from growing into full-blown crises which require costly — and controversial — large-scale American military intervention.”

Mr. Gates was brought into the Bush cabinet in late 2006 to repair the war effort in Iraq that was begun under his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and then was kept in office byPresident Obama. He did not directly criticize the Bush administration’s decisions to go to war. Even so, his never-again formulation was unusually pointed, especially at a time of upheaval across the Arab world and beyond. Mr. Gates has said that he would leave office this year, and the speech at West Point could be heard as his farewell to the Army.

A decade of constant conflict has trained a junior officer corps with exceptional leadership skills, he told the cadets, but the Army may find it difficult in the future to find inspiring work to retain its rising commanders as it fights for the money to keep large, heavy combat units in the field.

“Men and women in the prime of their professional lives, who may have been responsible for the lives of scores or hundreds of troops, or millions of dollars in assistance, or engaging or reconciling warring tribes, may find themselves in a cube all day re-formatting PowerPoint slides, preparing quarterly training briefs, or assigned an ever-expanding array of clerical duties,” Mr. Gates said. “The consequences of this terrify me.”

He said Iraq and Afghanistan had become known as “the captains’ wars” because “officers of lower and lower rank were put in the position of making decisions of higher and higher degrees of consequence and complexity.”

To find inspiring work for its young officers after combat deployments, the Army must encourage unusual career detours, Mr. Gates said, endorsing graduate study, teaching, or duty in a policy research institute or Congressional office.

Mr. Gates said his main worry was that the Army might not overcome the institutional bias that favored traditional career paths. He urged the service to “break up the institutional concrete, its bureaucratic rigidity in its assignments and promotion processes, in order to retain, challenge, and inspire its best, brightest, and most battle-tested young officers to lead the service in the future.”

There will be one specific benefit to the fighting force as the pressures of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan decrease, Mr. Gates said: “The opportunity to conduct the kind of full-spectrum training — including mechanized combined arms exercises — that was neglected to meet the demands of the current wars.”

Obama signs temporary extension of Patriot Act

The Associated Press
Friday, February 25, 2011; 5:21 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has signed a three-month extension of key surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act.

The law extends two areas of the 2001 act. One provision allows law enforcement officials to set roving wiretaps to monitor multiple communication devices. The other allows them to ask a special court for access to business and library records that could be relevant to a terrorist threat.
A third provision gives the FBI court-approved rights for surveillance of non-American "lone wolf" suspects - those not known to be tied to specific terrorist groups.
Obama signed the three-month extension of the provisions Friday. They were to expire Monday.
Lawmakers will soon start debating a multiple-year extension of the provisions, which have drawn fire from defenders of privacy rights.

Seventeen Small Business Tax Cuts and Counting

Posted by Kori Schulman on February 25, 2011 at 08:16 PM EST

Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy. President Obama's focus on strengthening small business has included reaching out to entrepreneurs and small business owners, asking them what's working and what needs to work better. Through Advise the Advisor, and this week's Winning the Future Small Business Forum in Ohio, the President has heard from thousands of Americans.

One of the questions we've seen is about what the Obama Administration has done to cut taxes for small businesses. On Twitter, lindismith asked @whitehouse, "What are the 17 new tax cuts for small businesses Obama signed into law?" Well, we took that question to some of the President's top economic advisers, and here's what they had to say.

Since coming into office in January of 2009, President Obama has signed legislation that created or extended 17 small business tax cuts and credits. Several of those cuts were in three key pieces of legislation: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Affordable Care Act, and the HIRE Act. All told, these three laws contain eight different small business tax cuts, including the exclusion of up to 75% capital gains on key small business investments, a tax credit for the cost of health insurance for small business employees, and new tax credits for hiring Americans who had been out of work for at least two months.

The Small Business Jobs Act, signed by President Obama in September of 2010, had another eight tax cuts and credits in it. These included raising the small business expensing limit to $500,000, the highest ever; simplifying the rules for claiming a deduction for business cell phone use; creating a new deduction for health care costs for the self-employed; allowing greater deductions for start-up expenses for entrepreneurs, and eliminating taxes on all capital gains from key small business investments.

In December of 2010, President Obama also signed a tax bill that went one step further and allowed all businesses -- large and small -- to expense 100 percent of their new investments until the end of 2011. It also extended the elimination of capital gains taxes for small business investments through the end of 2012 -- and the President's budget has proposed to make that tax cut permanent.

Providing small businesses with tax cuts to help them grow and hire new works is just one of the ways  President Obama has committed his Administration to working with small business to win the future. From mom-and-pop hardware stores to start-ups on the cutting edge of technology and innovation, investing in American small business means investing in American communities and the American people.

Here's the list of 17 small business tax cuts that President Obama has signed into law --

From the Recovery Act, HIRE Acts, and Affordable Care Act:

1. A New Small Business Health Care Tax Credit

2. A New Tax Credit for Hiring Unemployed Workers

3. Bonus Depreciation Tax Incentives to Support New Investment

4. 75% Exclusion of Small Business Capital Gains

5. Expansion of Limits on Small Business Expensing

6. Five-Year Carryback of Net Operating Losses

7. Reduction of the Built-In Gains Holding Period for Small Businesses from 10 to 7 Years to Allow Small Business Greater Flexibility in Their Investments   

8. Temporary Small Business Estimated Tax Payment Relief to Allow Small Businesses to Keep Needed Cash on Hand

From the Small Business Jobs Act:

9. Zero Capital Gains Taxes on Key Investments in Small Businesses

10. The Highest Small Business Expensing Limit Ever– Up to $500,000

11. An Extension of 50% Bonus Depreciation

12. A New Deduction for  Health Care Expenses for the Self-Employed

13. Tax Relief and Simplification for Cell Phone Deductions

14. An Increase in The Deduction for Entrepreneurs’ Start-Up Expenses

15. A Five-Year Carryback Of General Business Credits

16. Limitations on Penalties for Errors in Tax Reporting That Disproportionately Affect Small Business

And from the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act:

17. 100 Percent Expensing

President Obama on Libya:

 "These Sanctions Therefore Target the Qaddafi Government, While Protecting the Assets that Belong to the People of Libya"

Posted by Jesse Lee on February 25, 2011 at 08:37 PM EST

The President has just signed an Executive Order regarding Libya Sanctions. In addition, he sent a letter to Congress on the matter and issued the following statement:

The Libyan government’s continued violation of human rights, brutalization of its people, and outrageous threats have rightly drawn the strong and broad condemnation of the international community. By any measure, Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government has violated international norms and common decency and must be held accountable.  These sanctions therefore target the Qaddafi government, while protecting the assets that belong to the people of Libya.

Going forward, the United States will continue to closely coordinate our actions with the international community, including our friends and allies, and the United Nations. We will stand steadfastly with the Libyan people in their demand for universal rights, and a government that is responsive to their aspirations. Their human dignity cannot be denied.

Press Secretary Jay Carney also discussed the sanctions and broader context earlier in the day.

Leader Cantor Statement on Short-Term CR

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement regarding the short-term Continuing Resolution:

“Today, House Republicans unveiled a second Continuing Resolution (CR) that includes common-sense spending cuts to responsibly keep the government running for the next two weeks and avoid a shutdown. This short-term measure will reduce spending by $4 billion through terminations and reductions that the President called for in his budget request and zeroing out earmarks that had previously been funded. I call upon Senate Democrat Leaders Reid and Schumer to put an end to political showmanship and work with us to pass this important measure that will keep the government running in a fiscally responsible way.
“Reports started to appear yesterday that Senate Democrats may be willing to cut some spending in a long-term measure. We welcome the news that they are beginning to embrace the need to cut spending – especially as we continue to borrow nearly 40 cents of each dollar that we spend – and it shows how much Republicans are changing the culture in Washington. But, I’d caution my Senate Democrat colleagues to make sure that their cuts are significant and serious spending reduction proposals, not just minor efforts to trim around the edges. The 7 month CR that the House approved last week contains substantive spending reductions and is a necessary step to get our fiscal house in order so that we can foster an environment where can businesses can grow and create jobs.
“We again thank Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers and his Committee for their tireless work on this latest Continuing Resolution. This is a vitally important measure to prevent a government shutdown and we sincerely hope that Senate Democrats will join us in supporting this reasonable measure that contains cuts and terminations that they have voiced support for. Simply put, less government spending equals more private sector jobs – and that is exactly what our country needs right now.”
 

Baseball Gave $25 Million Lifeline to Mets

As with banks do we need to bail out BB teams.  Let them fail or sell them.  Players make too much money and can walk out if they do not get their way.  That is not the all american game to me.  

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and DAVID WALDSTEIN

Published: February 25, 2011

Brad Barr for The New York Times

Fred Wilpon, left, watching the Mets at spring training on Friday, refused to talk about the team’s finances.

The direct intervention of Commissioner Bud Selig to help sustain the operations of the franchise — confirmed by the Mets on Friday — is perhaps the most striking evidence yet of the financial distress that for many months has plagued the team’s owners, Fred Wilponand Saul Katz.

The trustee for victims of Mr. Madoff’s fraud has accused Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz of having turned a blind eye to warnings about the suspect nature of his multibillion-dollar investment operation while using the profits they reaped from their investments with him to enrich themselves and fuel their business empire. The trustee, Irving H. Picard, is seeking roughly $1 billion from the team’s owners and their various business partners.

The Mets have exhausted baseball’s standard bank line of credit, tens of millions of dollars that Mr. Selig and the sport’s owners make available to teams for a variety of reasons in the course of a year. The owners also have more than $400 million in debt on the team. Thus, the additional money provided by Mr. Selig — done in secret last November — might have been crucial in keeping the club functioning. Three weeks ago, after months spent denying that they were in any significant financial trouble, Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz announced that they were willing to sell 25 percent of the club, which is valued by Forbes magazine at $858 million. In recent days, the men indicated they were willing to sell even a larger share of the team, but they have insisted they do not want to give up majority ownership.

Mr. Selig’s decision to give what amounts to extraordinary assistance to one of the sport’s most highly valued teams — one owned by Mr. Wilpon, a man Mr. Selig has long regarded as a close personal friend — could anger other team owners, who might wonder why their money is being used to rescue a team with a $140 million payroll.

Mr. Wilpon, in Florida for spring training, said Friday that he would not talk about the Mets’ finances. Asked directly whether baseball had been assisting him, Mr. Wilpon walked away, saying he did not want to discuss the team’s finances with a reporter.

Later Friday, after being informed that The Times was preparing an article on baseball’s financial assistance, the Mets issued a statement:

“We said in October that we expected to have a short-term liquidity issue. To address this, we did receive a loan from Major League Baseball in November. Beyond that, we will not discuss the matter any further.”

One team executive in baseball said that the Mets had not yet repaid the loan, and that Mr. Selig had informed baseball’s executive committee of the loan only last month.

The lawsuit filed by Mr. Picard in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan in December portrays the Mets as something of a financial weak sister to Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz’s profitable real estate and television properties, with the team regularly needing cash infusions from the other businesses to compete in the National League East.

Mr. Selig, who has been commissioner for nearly two decades, has broad powers to help prop up ailing franchises or to effectively take financial control of them, if, for instance, he fears they could go bankrupt.

Last year, with the owner of the Texas Rangers having defaulted on more than a half-billion dollars in loans, Mr. Selig provided a total of some $40 million to the club.

“The fact that the loan is coming from baseball would be a jarring event because, as with the Texas Rangers, the league is effectively a lender of last resort,” said Marc Ganis, a sports industry consultant. “It would indicate the team cannot get loans from normal commercial sources, which could be taken as a sign of very significant problems.”

Mr. Selig, in making these kinds of extraordinary loans, typically would use baseball’s line of credit with several banks, including Bank of America. It is not known what interest rate the Mets were charged by baseball.

The decision by Mr. Selig to assist the Rangers last year angered the owners of some rival teams. The Rangers eventually used some of the money to obtain pitcher Cliff Lee, who then led the club to its first World Series appearance.

Baseball, in involving itself with struggling franchises, enjoys a powerful status. In the event of a bankruptcy, it gets its loans repaid first — ahead of banks, and perhaps even Mr. Picard, the Madoff trustee. The banks holding hundreds of millions in loans to Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz, then, might be distressed to learn of Mr. Selig’s intervention. It is possible, however, that Mr. Wilpon would have had to inform the banks of the existence of the loan in November.

According to one person briefed on baseball’s involvement with the troubles of the Mets, the club has faced cash shortfall issues for at least a year.

If the Mets are in such financial straits, it raises questions about their ability to sign talented players and avoid another season of mediocre performance and disappointing ticket sales. While they are committed to a payroll of roughly $140 million — about what it was a year ago — they spent very little this off-season, despite a poor showing on the field last year.

The efforts by Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Katz to sell a portion of the club have generated modest levels of interest. Fewer than 12 potential buyers have applied to Major League Baseball for the right to examine the finances of the Mets, a necessary first step before bidding for the team.

Ken Belson and Richard Sandomir contributed reporting