Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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Unfortunately, discussion over our skyrocketing national debt is only a footnote in the testy presidential campaign this year. Hopefully, the upcoming debates will change that. The new President and Congress face a day of reckoning next March when the limit on the amount of money we can borrow reaches the $20.1 trillion. Either both parties reach an agreement on funding our government or the President orders a shut down. That’s why voters should know where the candidates stand on handling our massive federal debt before t...
California has become a manufacturing “job killer” bastion because of its shackling regulations, high taxes, and excessive permitting requirements. Its quagmire of government-mandate programs is accelerating an industrial exodus. In 2009, the Milken Institute reported California lost 79,000 manufacturing jobs in just six years (2003-2007) prior to the “Great Recession.” In contract, seven other competing states gained 62,000 workers. The report blames the state’s onerous regulations and high taxes for pushing business elsewhe...
China has a new industrial strategy that is capturing attention worldwide. It is striving to become an innovation economy using advanced automation, connected robots and artificial intelligence. China intends to shake the image of just being a nation for low-cost manufacturing. Instead, it wants to be known for producing cutting edge, reliable and high quality products – even making robots. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the Chinese are creating an “industrial internet” which gathers infor...
The flurry of climate regulations coming out of federal agencies is an example of what to avoid. Whether those new rules are based on laws enacted by Congress is questionable. Case in point: American Highway Users Alliance, a diverse group of organizations representing transportation, vehicle manufacturers, and energy trade associations, questioned the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) legal authority to impose greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction requirements on state transportation departments and metropolitan planning o...
Guess who was among the first to welcome our Olympic athletes back home from Rio? None other than the IRS. For U.S. athletes, winning an Olympic medal comes with pride, glory and a hefty federal tax bill. According to TIME, Michael Phelps owes over $55,000 in federal income taxes for his five gold and one silver medals earned at the recently concluded summer games. That’s a whopping amount even for someone whose net worth is $55 million. The U.S. is one of few countries that does not provide government funding for their O...
Recently, Bloomberg reported that investors in massive data centers are making water availability a critical measurement in their decisions, especially in drought-ridden California. Data centers, giant buildings packed with servers that power our virtual world, generate tremendous amounts of intolerable heat. Traditionally, the centers have large cooling systems that require millions of gallons of freshwater. That’s a big problem because water is increasingly in short supply. For the last five years, California has s...
The Great Depression was very hard on most Americans. People lost their savings, jobs and homes. Often families were separated because there simply were too many mouths to feed even when moms, dads and kids pooled their meager earnings from odd jobs. Businesses and factories closed and our government struggled to respond. Soup kitchens fed people waiting in long unemployment lines. It is against this setting that fascist Germany hosted the summer Olympics in 1936. It was an extravaganza that was unimaginable for Olympians...
America must have a thoughtful and comprehensive national energy policy, which focuses on supplies that are environmentally friendly, abundant and affordable. Our strategy needs to include all energy sources. It must have balance and we need to have the patience, persistence and wisdom to implement it. It should encourage innovation. Energy is our nation’s lifeline. As our technology improves and our population grows, our dependence on electricity and transportation fuels increase. An “All-of-the-Above Energy Policy” would in...
Between now and November, you will hear lots about “How to Make America Great Again!” Much of our country’s greatness is because of our “Entrepreneurial Spirit.” It is our unique trait, which makes us the envy of the world. America has been blessed with industrious leaders, who are optimistic, forward looking and passionate. They are tireless men and women who take calculated risks and pull themselves together after failure. They have the drive to get things done no matter what the circumstances. Henry J. Kaiser, who dropp...
Over the last 35 years our family has vacationed at the same place on the beach. While the buildings have been refurbished, the complex remains largely unchanged. However, our entertainment has changed a lot. We still swim, jump the waves and build sandcastles, but our board games, puzzles and playing cards have been replaced with kids’ electronic tablets, smart phones and movies down loaded from the Internet. We still take lots of pictures, but rather than taking them to film processing centers, we use cell phone cameras t...
Since the construction of Grand Coulee and Bonneville dams, Washington has enjoyed an abundance of low cost, reliable hydropower. It has been one-key competitive advantage for energy intensive industries and now it is vital to our state burgeoning “clean tech industries.” Hydropower, along with nuclear, solar and wind, produce no greenhouse gases; however, solar and wind only generate electricity intermittently. Their production must be augmented by reliable sources, which include those using natural gas. Washington’s Depar...
In the presidential campaign leading up to the November elections, hopefully we will hear about ways to “Make America Great Again!” One of the most effective strategies is to entice U.S. companies with foreign factories to relocate back home. Another is to encourage those who remained in America to reinvest here. Discussions about bolstering domestic production of goods and services did not start this year. They are largely rooted in our nation’s anemic job creation over the last decade. A “Reshoring Institute” launched...
Washington leaders need to keep an eye on South Carolina. It is a state that is becoming a strong magnet to attract business. A couple of years ago, the front page news was the competition between Seattle and Charleston to lure Boeing’s 787 assembly production. Now, it has grown to include international trade and the associated economic development and jobs. Washington and South Carolina are among our nation’s leaders in international trade. Our state’s ports process roughly $150 billion in imported and exported produ...
Thankfully, June 8 marked a milestone for Congress. Members came together and overwhelmingly approved a sweeping bill that regulates tens of thousands of toxic chemicals in everyday products, from household cleaners to clothing and furniture. The legislation capped more than three years of arduous work by Republicans and Democrats and business and environmental leaders who systematically plowed through volumes of complex, confusing and sometime contradicting state and federal environmental laws and regulations dealing with...
Washington’s next economic development plan may be written by Oregon voters next November. The plan’s centerpiece is a new gross receipts tax, which would transform Oregon from one of the nation’s lowest business tax burden states to one of the nation’s highest. IP28 (Initiative Petition) would create a 2.5 percent tax on total sales for companies operating in Oregon. The threshold is $25 million or more each year. If enacted, it would set a $30,000 annual minimum tax for these corporations and then tack on another 2.5 per...
Recently, the Wall Street Journal pegged the economic value of fossil fuel related projects, which were rejected or withdrawn since 2012 at $33 billion. But the costs of lost opportunities are much higher nationally if the list includes wind, coal and other energy developments canceled prior to 2011. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that if the 351 projects identified in its “Project No Project” inventory were approved our nation would have a $1.1 trillion short-term boost to the economy and created 1.9 million jobs for...
Today, more millennials are moving back home even though the economy is improving and wages are inching upward. Recently, Pew Research Center revealed that a third of young adults today are more likely to live with their parents than they were before the Great Recession. Unemployment among young adults has been dropping since 2010, as has the number of millennials living independently. In 2007, prior to the recession, about 42.7 million individuals in that age group lived on their own. In the years in between, the population...
The good news this Memorial Day weekend is more than 38 million Americans are expected to travel making the unofficial kickoff to summer this year the second busiest on record. AAA reports nearly 34 million people across the nation will be driving, which is up by 2.1 percent over last year. Air travel is expected to increase as well with 2.6 million Americans taking to the skies. AAA finds stable or lower costs for airfares, rental cars and hotels. Compared with 2015, gas prices average up to 50 cents a gallon lower. So...
Now that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are certain to be the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates, it is time for them to deal with our national debt. Our nation is on an unsustainable borrowing trajectory. We now owe over $19 trillion to lenders of which nearly half are off shore (including China). At the rate which we are selling treasury notes, the deficit will balloon to $21.1 trillion by 2020. That means when the presidential election rolls around in four years, each taxpayer’s share of the debt r...
One of the highest rated television programs during Super Bowl Week last February was “Undercover Boss”. According to the Nielsen ratings, it drew 6.8 million viewers. By contrast, the Greatest Super Bowl Halftime Shows had 5.72 million. Viewers’ watched CEOs leave their comfortable corporate offices, disguise themselves as workers, and risk the humiliation of doing something wrong. It is all about an awakening to what really happens on the company’s front lines. Too often people see “big bosses” as aloof and guiding the...
Boeing’s new cost-reduction plan has deep ramifications for Washington because the bulk of the 4,500 job cuts are likely to land here. CEO Dennis Muilenburg asked investors to view the savings initiative as “playing offense in a competitive marketplace” even though Boeing has a $431 billion backlog of 5,800 aircraft orders. Translated, Muilenburg means the aerospace giant needs to find ways to lower the price tag of its airplanes. Boeing leaders worry because Airbus’ A320 scooped up 63 percent of the orders last year in head...
Road and bridge tolls keep many elected officials awake at night. They often inflame voters because they are costs motorists see while driving; whereas, a gas tax is hidden in the price of a gallon of fuel. Too often people filling up their cars ignore the stickers on the pumps, which break down the state and federal taxes they are paying. In Washington, the combined gas tax is now 62.9 cents a gallon while signs are posted from Tacoma to Bremerton tells you crossing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge costs between $5 and $7...
For the last 20 years, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen (D) has served Washington well. Now, he is retiring and leaving the state senate as he found it, a dignified place to debate and enact public policy. Owen, a former convenience store owner in Shelton, will not seek re-election. It will be the first time in 40 years that his name will not be on the November ballot. He was elected to the state house in 1976 and then to the senate in 1983. Owen is currently the longest serving lieutenant governor in the country; however, that is not the...
Get ready! More colossal container ships are coming. We got a glimpse of the future this leap year when the Benjamin Franklin sailed into Elliott Bay. Four years from now, hopefully, many mega-container ships will dock in Puget Sound waters. The Benjamin Franklin is the largest vessel ever to call at a U.S. port. It is longer than two-Space Needles stacked on top of one another; wider than CenturyLink Field; and, rises 20 stories high. In fact, when fully loaded it barely fits under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and w...
Converting animal poop to power makes sense, but today it is too expensive. The good news is it reduces greenhouse gas emissions and curtails odors from farms. Biomass is an important part of our nation’s effort to generate electricity from renewable sources. However, in Washington, where electric rates are low, it is difficult to make an economic argument using biomass to solely produce power. Our state’s forest products companies have burned wood wastes for decades as part of the manufacturing process. It is called co-...