Free Republic

BY THE NUMBERS: SOCIAL SECURITYAmericans Understand Social Security Crisis And Support Personal Retirement Accounts____________________________________________________________________________________________________________“The Survey Suggests That Democratic Leaders May Be Out Of Step With Their Rank And File On The Severity Of The Problems Facing Social Security.”  “Those leaders are attempting to thwart Bush’s plans by saying there is no immediate crisis.  But two-thirds of all Democrats said they worry that there is not enough money to keep Social Security funded until they retire.”  (Richard Morin and Dan Balz, “Political Divisions Persist After Election,” The Washington Post, 1/18/05)“A Clear Majority Of Americans … Support The President’s Proposal To Allow...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California's workers' compensation costs are going down, but you wouldn't know it by looking at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposals. They include big increases in the state's own workers' comp costs. The Republican governor's budget predicts the state's cost of dealing with job-related injuries and illnesses among its employees will jump 30 percent over two fiscal years - despite much-touted changes Schwarznegger pushed through the Legislature last April. Jim Zelinski, a spokesman for the State Compensation Insurance Fund, a quasi-governmental agency that administers the state's workers' compensation program, said savings from the 2004 legislation and cost-cutting bills...

RABAT, Morocco (AP) - Officials from more than 20 Islamic countries said Saturday that political, economic and social reforms must go hand in hand with steps toward settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The commitment to reforms came during a four-hour meeting that included those Muslim nations, industrialized democracies, the Arab League and other groups. The United States, a driving force behind the conference, sees the changes as a way to make these societies less of a breeding ground for political extremism. At a news conference after the discussions, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was not disappointed that the Muslim...

Key reforms that San Jose City Manager Del Borgsdorf instituted in recent months would not prevent a repeat of the city's bungled $8 million City Hall deal involving Cisco Systems, according to a city audit released Thursday. The audit found that Borgsdorf's biggest reforms to date -- relocating the city's purchasing division and assigning more responsibility to his office for projects -- are more cosmetic than substantive, and fail to address underlying communication failures in his administration that led to the scandal. But even in the face of that criticism, Borgsdorf's future appears secure. After questioning his leadership abilities at...

The Successor to Greenspan Has a Very Tough Act to Follow WHEN Alan Greenspan finally retires from the Federal Reserve, will he leave behind any of his DNA? Now in his 18th remarkable year as Fed chairman, the owlish and idiosyncratic Mr. Greenspan is required by law to step down in January 2006. Nominating a successor could be President Bush's biggest economic decision next year, given Mr. Greenspan's mythic reputation as the guardian of price stability and economic growth. A big uncertainty is how any successor will extend Mr. Greenspan's approach to monetary policy, which has been as much an...

It has been 60 years since Republicans were this strong in Washington. While ideological conservatives do not make up a majority of the House or the Senate, they are a strong majority of the reasonably solid Republican majorities that do exist. President Bush should be able to get much of his program through, and Republicans will then be held accountable for it in 2006 and 2008. Previous legislative disappointments could be attributed to Democratic obstruction. There will still be Democratic opposition, of course, but the excuse will be less plausible. But the suggestion is being made that for Bush to...

The changing price of canine flesh is symbolic of the communist state's experiment EVEN the most committed carnivore might quail a little when confronted with his first sight of a butchered dog. It lies on a bloodstained cloth on the counter of Pyongyang’s Tongil market — neatly sliced down the middle, gutted of its kidneys, heart and liver, very dead but unmistakably and disturbingly canine. Soon it will be chopped up, sold by the kilogram and boiled into the fragrant and tasty dog soup which is a traditional delicacy here in communist North Korea, and in the capitalist South. Only...

Despite miserable job-approval ratings, California lawmakers this year derailed or defeated nearly every bill aimed at overhauling how they campaign for office or conduct business in the Capitol. The casualties included bills to reduce the influence of special interests by publicly funding campaigns, and to make legislative races more competitive by redrawing district boundaries. Of 16 legislative or political reforms tracked by The Bee before the session ended Aug. 31, only three reached the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not yet decided whether to sign them. Even the Republican governor, hugely popular with voters, found tough sledding in...

SACRAMENTO -- As he tries to reorganize the state's troubled prison system, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ignoring the key part of a plan recommended in July by a special panel he appointed, administration officials, lawmakers, experts and advocates said Wednesday. The panel chaired by former Gov. George Deukmejian proposed eliminating the California Department of Corrections, California Youth Authority, and California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, merging them into a new Department of Correctional Services run by a 10-member commission appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. "This system is in chaos," Joseph Gunn, executive director of the Corrections...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) fended off another challenge to his authority Wednesday when Palestinian lawmakers backed away from sweeping reform demands, instead approving a watered down set of recommendations. A wave of chaos plaguing the Palestinian territories, meanwhile, took another victim when gunmen in Gaza seriously wounded a senior intelligence official. The two developments are an outgrowth of years of Arafat's one-man control, which international donors and Palestinian reformers have criticized as corrupt and inefficient, pitting rival security forces against each other. Israel's intention to withdraw from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites)...

byline - STATE'S GENERAL FUND TO GAIN LITTLE UNDER GOVERNOR'S PLAN SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is touting his government reform package as a first step toward creating a more cost-conscious state bureaucracy that could save as much as $32 billion over five years. While that may sound like a lot of money, closer examination of the newly released recommendations shows that only about $11 billion of those five-year savings would come from the state's troubled general operating fund, which is now $79 billion a year and growing. That amounts to a small percent of the general fund -- hardly...

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary July 31, 2004 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This week we received encouraging reports that show our economy is gaining strength. Consumer confidence hit a two-year high in July. Existing home sales hit an all-time new record in June. The home ownership rate has hit a new all-time high. And since last summer, our economy has grown at a rate as fast as any in nearly 20 years.  Radio Address 2004200320022001  Radio Interviews 2004 These gains in our economy have come at a time when Americans are benefiting...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat should empower his prime minister and interior minister to carry out essential reforms in the Palestinian Authority, especially in the security sector. Arafat has stood firm against demands that he give the Palestinian Cabinet authority over the security forces, seen as a test of his willingness to share power and move toward democratic reform of his autocratic rule. In the past week, he has faced a growing internal crisis, including kidnappings, riots, resignations, and a legislative vote demanding that he form a new government with...

WASHINGTON, July 12 /PRNewswire/ -- With more than 190,000 signatures, it seems likely that the Protect Arizona Now initiative, Proposition 200, will appear on the November ballot in Arizona. Since the petitions were turned into the Arizona Secretary of State on July 1, opponents of the ballot measure have launched a campaign of disinformation, aimed at distorting the language and objectives of Proposition 200, and impugning the motives of the people behind the initiative. Large-scale illegal immigration is an important issue in Arizona and much of the rest of the nation, and it is crucial that the facts about Proposition...

It's tough enough that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger inherited a massive fiscal crisis that has consumed much of his time in Sacramento. Now comes a festering prison crisis that could ultimately prompt federal intervention unless he cleans up the mess. Schwarzenegger got off to a good start last week when he appointed a commission, headed by former Gov. George Deukmejian, to investigate California's prison system and recommend changes. While most of the panel's work will be done by Joseph Gunn, former director of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, the commission gains instant credibility in light of Deukmejian's tough-on-crime credentials....

Arab foreign ministers adjourned a four-day meeting Thursday without producing a unified position outlining how to reform their societies, officials said of what essentially was to be an Arab response to the Bush administration's strategy for opening up the Middle East. The ministers "agreed to have further discussions on these ideas and plans," Moroccan Foreign Minister Mohammed Benaissa said at a press conference after the meetings. He said the ministers would discuss the matter again when they hold a final gathering in Tunisia just before an Arab leadership summit March 29-30. "The whole matter will be discussed in Tunis," Arab...

Exit polls in the German city-state of Hamburg suggest Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's party has suffered a severe defeat in elections there. The polls suggest Mr Schroeder's Social Democratic Party will win just 32% of the vote, against more than 46% for the Christian Democrats. That would be the SPD's worst result in Hamburg since World War II. The result is being taken as a gauge of the public mood after Mr Schroeder's recent programme of welfare cuts. Hamburg was a Social Democrat stronghold until 2001 when the party was ousted by a coalition led by the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU)....

‘Everything on table’ GOP plans cuts, reforms, to tackle budgetary woes By Alexander Bolton and Sam Dealey House Republicans hope to enact a host of measures aimed at curbing what both centrist and conservative lawmakers decry as runaway federal spending. Emerging from a rare members-only “mandatory” two-and-a-half-hour conference called yesterday to deal with mounting budget concerns, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) told reporters: “Nothing is sacred in this business. Everything is on the table.” Although Hastert didn’t say so, several initiatives under consideration would curb the power of the Republican leadership as well as House appropriators and authorizers. These initiatives...

Democrats' fundraising ruse undercuts election reforms Tue Feb 10, 7:27 AM ET For decades, Democrats championing campaign finance reforms blamed Republicans for blocking efforts to curb the influence wealthy donors have on politics. And Republicans readily conceded they opposed limits that might curtail their advantage in raising money from deep-pocketed allies. Now, two years after passage of the biggest reform of campaign financing in a generation, the parties have reversed roles: Democrats are spearheading efforts to bypass a ban on huge donations. Republicans are crying foul - though they're preparing to use the same fundraising ploy if the Federal Election...

Jobless have benefits cut as Schröder wins reforms By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 20/12/2003) Chancellor Gerhard Schröder yesterday pushed through the German parliament a package of reforms which he hopes will pave the way for the revival of the "sick man of Europe". Tax cuts, labour-market reform and wide-ranging reductions in subsidies which formed the key elements of Mr Schröder's array of reforms, known as Agenda 2010, secured the support of the vast majority of the Bundestag's 603 representatives. The plans, on which Mr Schröder had staked his future, amounted to the biggest overhaul of the welfare state since...