Early Voting

One-stop/early voting opened yesterday at the Pamlico County Board of Elections office for the towns of Alliance, Bayboro and Oriental. Ten voters cast their ballots - eight from Oriental and two from Bayboro.

Hurricane Volunteers

Last night we met a very fine group of young Lutheran students from UNC who have come to Oriental to help in hurricane recovery. We're fortunate to have high quality volunteers like these. They wasted no time getting to work and accomplished a lot. They are staying at the Methodist recreation hall and will be going out to work at Goose Creek Island tomorrow.

Voting Starts Today

Voting in municipal elections starts today at one-stop for towns that have authorized absentee balloting. In Pamlico County, the towns are Alliance, Bayboro and Oriental. Pamlico County's one-stop location is the Board of Elections office at the court house annex in Bayboro.

Oriental's Mayors Race Forum

Last night's forum of Oriental's mayoral candidates proved quite interesting.

I won't comment on the performance of individual candidates. As a member of Pamlico County's Board of Elections, I am prohibited from publicly supporting or opposing the election of any particular candidate. I want to avoid even the appearance of support or opposition. Even with that limitation, I think there are useful observations to make.

Interest in the election seems higher than any of us expected. Eighty-eight interested citizens attended the forum. That represents about a third of the expected turnout for a municipal election in Oriental. That's a lot.

A number of the questions from the audience concerned preparation for and recovery from hurricanes. That was to be expected, as recovery from hurricane Irene dominates every resident's daily life and will continue to do so for months.

What was unexpected was a large number of questions on past issues that had been settled or seemed to have been settled. Among the themes:

1. What are the plans for Oriental's police force?;
2. The firing of town manager Randy Cahoon and the disposition of the report that cost the town $21,000;
3. Should the town have zoning? (All three candidates supported the need for zoning);
4. Do the candidates support outdoor amplified music?;
5. What about pool halls?;
6. Closed meetings;
7. Circumstances of the town's non-renewal of flood insurance (I was one of the deciders, and after Irene, I posted a comment on the decision).

All three candidates emphasized that we have a council-manager form of government, meaning that the board hires the town manager. The manager, in turn, is in charge of managing, hiring and firing staff, including police officers.

I think everyone who attended learned a lot about the candidates and about town government.

A Really Long Graph of 9-9-9

Economist Jared Bernstein today comments on candidate Cain's 9-9-9 plan and shares a graph that illustrates clearly the answer to "who benefits and who pays."

Here's the graph:

9-9-9 Abracadabra, Presto Change-o Poof!

Paul Krugman has posted the Tax Policy Center's analysis of Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan. TPC's analysis doesn't even address the "what becomes of Social Security and Medicare without the payroll tax" question. Here is Krugman's post with links to the sources:

October 18, 2011, 5:27 pm

TPC Does Herman Cain

The Tax Policy Center has the distributional analysis of 9-9-9. It’s awesome:

Howard Gleckman summarizes:

A middle income household making between about $64,000 and $110,000 would get hit with an average tax increase of about $4,300, lowering its after-tax income by more than 6 percent and increasing its average federal tax rate (including income, payroll, estate and its share of the corporate income tax) from 18.8 percent to 23.7 percent. By contrast, a taxpayer in the top 0.1% (who makes more than $2.7 million) would enjoy an average tax cut of nearly$1.4 million, increasing his after-tax income by nearly 27 percent. His average effective tax rate would be cut almost in half to 17.9 percent. In Cain’s world, a typical household making more than $2.7 million would pay a smaller share of its income in federal taxes than one making less than $18,000. This would give Warren Buffet severe heartburn.

Candidate Forum

Tonight at 7:30 the Old Theater in Oriental, there will be a candidate forum for the three mayoral candidates.

Out of Pamlico County's nine municipalities, the only contested race is Oriental's race for mayor.

The forum could be interesting, and offers a chance to ask questions just before the election.

Voting for Alliance, Bayboro and Oriental begins the day after tomorrow during one-stop voting at the Board of Elections office in Bayboro. One-Stop continues until 1:00 PM Saturday, November 5th. Election day is November 8th at the usual election location in each municipality.

Don't forget to vote.

Seven Lies

Economist Mark Thoma in his blog today quotes from Robert Reich's analysis of "The Seven Biggest Economic Lies." He then adds seven more of his own.

It's worth reading the blog post to follow the comments.

Mark Thoma:

Robert Reich:

The Seven Biggest Economic Lies, by Robert Reich: ...Here’s a short ... effort to rebut the seven biggest whoppers now being told by those who want to take America backwards...:

1. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else. Baloney. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both sliced taxes on the rich and what happened? Most Americans’ wages (measured by the real median wage) began flattening under Reagan and have dropped since George W. Bush. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke.

2. Higher taxes on the rich would hurt the economy and slow job growth. False. From the end of World War II until 1981,... the top taxes on the very rich were far higher than they’ve been since. Yet the economy grew faster during those years than it has since. ...

3. Shrinking government generates more jobs. Wrong again. It means fewer government workers – everyone from teachers, fire fighters, police officers, and social workers at the state and local levels to safety inspectors and military personnel at the federal. ...

4. Cutting the budget deficit now is more important than boosting the economy. Untrue. With so many Americans out of work, budget cuts now will shrink the economy. They’ll increase unemployment and reduce tax revenues. That will worsen the ratio of the debt to the total economy. The first priority must be getting jobs and growth back by boosting the economy. Only then, when jobs and growth are returning vigorously, should we turn to cutting the deficit.

5. Medicare and Medicaid are the major drivers of budget deficits. Wrong. Medicare and Medicaid spending is rising quickly, to be sure. But that’s because the nation’s health-care costs are rising so fast. ...

6. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Don’t believe it. Social Security is solvent for the next 26 years. It could be solvent for the next century if we raised the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That ceiling is now $106,800.

7. It’s unfair that lower-income Americans don’t pay income tax. Wrong. There’s nothing unfair about it. Lower-income Americans pay out a larger share of their paychecks in payroll taxes, sales taxes, user fees, and tolls than everyone else. ...

Seven more: tax cuts pay for themselves, regulation and uncertainty are holding back the economy, there are plenty of jobs but people don't want to work, Fannie, Freddie, and the CRA caused the crisis, CEOs deserve their high incomes, most unemployment is structural, and regulating the financial sector will harm economic growth. (And, for good measure, global warming doesn't exist and if does exits it wasn't caused by people. Even if it was caused by people, carbon taxes are still bad.)