Overhead in overdrive in the stupid college savings boondoggle

Yet another reason to not vote for Ed FitzGerald for Governor of Ohio.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald's college savings account program will cost taxpayers $522,000 in annual overhead, about one-quarter of the program's $2 million budget, county records show.

That percentage is significantly more than the vast majority of large charities spend to administer their programs, according to Charity Navigator, a non-profit watchdog that tracks budgets of $1 million or more.

"I think that it does seem high," Charity Navigator spokeswoman Sandra Miniutti told Northeast Ohio Media Group on Friday.

Of the 7,000 philanthropic agencies Charity Navigator tracks, less than 4 percent spend a quarter or more of their budgets on administrative costs, Miniutti said. Most spend 15 percent or less, she said.

This whole savings account thing is a perfect example of Democrat boondoggling. Tax the parents, funnel money to kids, buy votes, raise the cost of education. Then repeat as often as possible and if anyone attacks the plan, tell them they must hate the children.

The program's likely overhead is drawing criticism from County Councilman Dave Greenspan, a Republican who has frequently questioned initiatives by FitzGerald since the Democratic county executive announced he is running for governor.

"Would you as a taxpayer give to a charity that had at least a [25 percent] administrative burden on the giving?" Greenspan said. "The answer is no. I believe it's no. I wouldn't do it."

But the FitzGerald administration objected Friday to comparing the savings account program's administrative expenses to those of charities.

"This program cannot be easily compared to this broad set of non-profit organizations. It has to be judged on its own merits," said Matt Carroll, chief of staff to FitzGerald.

The "merits" are easy to identify. This government program will give money to kids who will flunk out much more often than private charities will. Also accounts will be opened for everybody, and not everybody goes to college.

A similar program in San Francisco only had a 12 percent participation rate within its first three years. FitzGerald hopes to improve on those results by marketing his version of the program.

The county council's budget and finance committee will debate the request Monday.

The FitzGerald administration had hoped to launch the savings account this month. But concerns from county council over the program's details have delayed it.

The whole culture of savings argument is just dopey. You can't really encourage saving by giving people money they didn't earn. I hope this thing dies an appropriate death and the money is somehow returned to the taxpayer. Why do I live here again?

I would leave

Everybody with sense is leaving New York. This article explains it. Favorite paragraph:

Then there's the cost of living in New York City. A 2009 report by the Center for an Urban Future found that "a New Yorker would have to make $123,322 a year to have the same standard of living as someone making $50,000 in Houston. In Manhattan, a $60,000 salary is equivalent to someone making $26,092 in Atlanta." Even Queens, the report found, is the fifth most expensive urban area in the country.

I remember a DBA from New York back about 10 years ago who wanted $250.00/hour. Real fat guy. Too bad for him the internet got fast. Someone in Mumbai probably has his job now. Or maybe even Houston or Atlanta.

Here's a good comment from an honest New Yorker.

I was born in Brooklyn more than 50 years ago, and have lived on Long Island nearly all my life. I LOVE New York and had really hoped so spend my whole life here, die here, and be buried in Brooklyn a short distance from my place of birth. But taxes have driven me out. I just returned this week from a trip to New Mexico looking for a place to live there. If the damn politicians do not lower taxes, the only people who will be remaining in New York are those that cannot afford to move elsewhere. It's the damn politicians fault for the sky-high taxes, and poor economy. God help New York because the damn politicians certainly won't.

It would have been nice if the Repub candidate for Governor up there hadn't been kind of a nut. Imagine what a Chris Christie could for the Empire State.

The Botherhood of Brothers Union

Raw deal? You decide.

Illinois will tax your ass as the door hits it

Of course Wisconsin and Indiana are jubilant about the new Illinois tax hikes. Excerpt:

New Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker immediately rolled out a press release inviting Illinois businesses to decamp to the Badger State, contrasting his agenda to reduce taxes and welcome business with the Illinois increase. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels added: "We already had an edge on Illinois in terms of the cost of doing business, and this is going to make it significantly wider."

But people tend to stick with what they do best, not what works best, and raising taxes is what Democrats do.

Here's another great piece in WSJ discussing how this is going on all over the country, i.e., Repub-run states taking advantage of dysfunction Dem neighboring states. Excerpt:

Nevada's Brian Sandoval has vowed to kill the tax hikes passed by Democrats in 2009. This sounds good to California businesses, whose own new Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, has announced plans for a five-year extension of his state's 2009 "temporary" tax increases. In Iowa, South Carolina, Florida, you name it, new Republican governors have made top priorities of cutting or eliminating state corporate income taxes. The midterms handed many of these reformers enough allies in their state legislatures to pull some, or all, of this off.

Indiana GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels, who has spent six years taking competitive advantage of dysfunctional neighbors, jokes that living next to Illinois is like "living next to the Simpsons." He attests to the benefits, noting that Illinois-based Caterpillar recently chose to direct a major investment to build locomotives to Muncie, Ind. And while he recognizes he's now got some competition, he sees the combined force of reformers in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio creating a "divide that could operate long-term in the Midwest's favor."

I chuckle about all of this, but it's not really funny. There are people who are stuck in these states, at least for the moment, and are going to bear the brunt of the downward spiral.

"Walmart is a big... purchaser..."

Somehow the proverbial cat got hold of the proverbial silver tongue.

Sad.

Obamacare's Gifts to Lawyers

Rowan Scarborough goes over details of the gifts both by the absence of certain things and the presence of others. First, under absence:

The biggest gift of all is what is not in the bill.

There is no tort reform, no limits to malpractice law suits that drive up medical and insurance costs and force insecure physicians to order excessive tests.

There are no caps on what state juries can award in medical malpractice cases for economic lost, or for the hard-to-calculate pain and suffering. This means lawyers hold on to their free rein in suing doctors and medical plans.

To Democrats, no tort reform makes good politics. The Washington Examiner reports trial lawyers have donated three-quarters of a billion dollars to political campaigns the past two decades -- the vast, vast amount of which went to Democrats and their party. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, has gotten $54,000 in campaign funds this year alone from trial lawyers and their employees.

Conservatives and Republicans have been calling for tort reform for years, so this is just one more example of the lack of bi-partisanship in this atrocity. BTW, Barack and Michelle Obama are both lawyers. Here are some of the "gifts" which will provide the trial lawyers with new opportunities to bring cases:

According to a Republican analysis, here are the legislative gifts to trial lawyers:

• Section 151. Imposes new mandates on insurance companies and the employers who buy their plans, providing lawyers new grounds to sue in federal court.

• Section 153. Establishes a new whistleblower law so the employees of insurance companies can file suit if they believe they were retaliated against. In theory, a person fired for incompetence could retaliate against the company by claiming whistleblower status.

"If some one gets demoted they can claim they were about to bring a complaint," said a Republican congressional staffer. "It gives them another ground to sue a company."

• Section 132. Sets up an appeal process for a patient denied a claim or benefit by an insurance company. The third-party independent arbiter would hear the appeal and issue a ruling.

H/T Red State.