Will There Be a Government Shutdown?

(Image from this amazing edsbs thread, credit runthedive)

I'll be traveling today, so there probably won't be a post discussing whether or not the Republicans shut down the government over abortion Planned Parenthood funding. (thanks Kari - it is a really important distinction, see this graph)

What we do know is that if the government shuts down, DC trash pickup would be canceled,  so please join this campaign to dump your trash at/on John Boehner's house. It's the least we can do.

Workplace Deaths Are A Tragedy, But Hardly Uncommon

There was an massive explosion in a West Virginia mine that killed 25 miners last Monday.

As more details emerge about the conditions of the mine and the mining company's safety record, it doesn't paint a pretty picture: (Think Progress)

Since 1995, Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine has been cited for 3,007 safety violations. Massey is contesting 353 violations, and 127 are delinquent. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting over a third (34.7%) of the 516 safety citations the Upper Big Branch-South Mine received in 2009, its greatest count in the last 15 years. [MSHA]

In March 2010, 53 new safety citations were issued for Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine, including violations of its mine ventilation plan. [MSHA]

Massey is now contesting $1,128,833 in fines for safety violations at the deadly Upper Big Branch-South Mine, with a further $246,320 in delinquent fines:

Over $2.2 million in fines have been assessed against Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine since 1995, with $791,327 paid. Massey is contesting $1,128,833 in fines. Massey’s delinquent fines total $246,320. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting $251,613 in fines for citations for Upper Big Branch-South Mine’s ventilation plan. [MSHA]

As if that wasn't bad enough, the CEO of Massey Energy sounds almost cartoonishly evil in his willingness to ignore safety regulations:

The country’s highest-paid coal executive, Blankenship is a villain ripped straight from the comic books: a jowly, mustache-sporting, union-busting coal baron who uses his fortune to bend politics to his will. He recently financed a $3.5 million campaign to oust a state Supreme Court justice who frequently ruled against his company, and he hung out on the French Riviera with another judge who was weighing an appeal by Massey. “Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia once observed. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”

Over the two years through 2001 Massey was cited by West Virginia officials for violating regulations 501 times. Its three biggest rivals, mining twice as much coal in the state as Massey, were cited a collective 175 times. [CEO Don] Blankenship says Massey is unfairly targeted by regulators.

“We don’t pay much attention to the violation count,” he says.

As upsetting as this is, it is nothing new for the coal industry, or as was pointed out by Laura Clawson, many other workers throughout the county. As stunning as this figure may be, an average of 16 workers die on the job each day in the United States:



The reason for such an appalling numbers of workplace deaths is not a mystery. The fines and punishments that follow on the job deaths are so minuscule that corporation would often rather pay the fine than worry about implementing safety regulations that could have saved lives.

There will always be Don Blankenships out there willing to risk the lives of others in order to turn a bigger profit. Unless we make rules that force those bad actors out of the equation, it's only an incentive for them to keep up their dangerous practices and continue to risk the lives of their employees in the process.

Quick Thought about the Surtax

The primary Republican argument against the surtax is that people making over $200,000 drive the economy by owning small businesses. Taxing these people cuts into their ability to expand (or even tread water), and thus keeps the economy from growing.

No doubt that's true. In part. Full reliance on that generalization would ignore two important aspects of the situation: the first is the number of rich Americans who do not own small businesses, or own small businesses for tax reasons; the second is that government spending is responsible for major parts of the American economy. Indeed, at least some part of that spending is better (ie, representing purer pursuits with more long-term and potentially widely useful goals) than what Americans tend to spend their money on.

The debate can be summarized as "Surtax on the rich" vs. "Big government taxing small business owners." But the real question isn't which is better or worse in the abstract. It's which is more efficient? And wouldn't that be empirically assessable? There should exist determinable numbers that could give us a strong sense of where we stand, and I haven't seen them referenced anywhere.

Two key questions for which I want detailed answers:

1. How many small business owners make over $200,000, and at least approximately how much do they contribute to the economy? Factcheck.org estimates that only 2% of small business owners make over $171,551 (the cutoff for the second highest tax bracket). But that isn't enough: what percentage of that 2% are simply more successful than average, and what percentage are just extremely wealthy Americans trying to write off big purchases as business expenses?

2. How efficient are our tax dollars? The government is enormously complex, but all but a tiny percentage of its money is transparently published.

Once we know that, the process is simple: