The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Randy Kuhl voted against the Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2008, in a party-line vote this afternoon.  Like all tax legislation, this bill is complex.  The Democratic line on the bill is that it rolls back the Alternative Minimum Tax for a year, and finances it by increasing taxes on private equity fund managers and other rich folks.  Representative Kuhl's view is that it is "an egregious tax hike on entrepreneurs and risk-takers who invest and create family-wage jobs."

The independent site Washington Watch, which is run by a member of the Cato Institute, a conservative/libertarian think tank, calculates that the bill will save the average US family $91.50 from their tax bill.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis [pdf] says that: 

[...]the bill would treat certain income of partners from performing investment management services (called “carried interest”) as ordinary income for tax purposes, rather than as capital gains, which JCT estimates would increase revenues by $25.6 billion over the 2008-2017 period.

Translation: private equity fund management fees that are being taxed at 15% will soon be taxed at 38%. 

The question is whether private equity funds are "entrepreneurs and risk-takers."  The point of capital gains taxation is to reward those who risk their money in a longer-term investment. Private equity managers have structured their compensation so that it looks like a capital gain in order to get a lower tax rate. I don't think that's the kind of entrepreneurial cleverness the tax code is meant to promote.

I quit posting on voting technology because it looked like New York had wisely decided to stick with its proven, blessedly analog voting machines for the near future.  The US Department of Justice wants none of that, however, and is going to court to force New York to use digital voting machines next year.  New York has two weeks to file its response to the DOJ's motion in federal court.

The chaos of fast-tracking an electronic voting system during a Presidential election year is staggering to contemplate.

The New York Times has a story about the House's efforts to condemn or stop Governor Spitzer's drivers license changes.  Kuhl is co-sponsoring the legislation with Tom Latham (R-IA-4) to condemn the practice of issuing licenses to illegal immigrants.  Peter King, a Republican from Long Island, is submitting a bill to outlaw the practice.

Kuhl's vote to override the water bill veto made the Elmira Star-Gazette.  And his St Bonaventure earmarks are appreciated by St Bonaventure.

Randy Kuhl voted for the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Act, a free-trade agreement.  This agreement is interesting because it passed on a split vote in a political climate that is becoming more hostile to open trade.  One of the reasons the bill passed was the inclusion of a provision for more regulation of Peru's timber industry.  According to the Economist magazine (subscription req'd):

Greens say that under the new system, just like the old, much of the timber exported from Peru (officially $200m last year) is cut illegally, with the connivance of the authorities. They have won the support of the Democrats in the American Congress, who insisted on inserting a “timber annexe” in the free-trade agreement with Peru. This gives Peru 18 months to hire more forestry inspectors, set up a stronger forestry regulator and stiffen penalties for illegal logging. It will also allow American officials to halt suspicious shipments at the border, and to visit Peru to see where they come from.

In addition to the notion that free trade "exports jobs", it also is criticized for enabling unsustainable exploitation of natural resources.  If Peru actually enforces the treaty (a big "if" considering their track record), at least the latter criticism might be addressed.

Kuhl voted against the Homeowners Defense Act, which appropriated money to shore up state insurance programs that protect against natural catastrophes.

Randy Kuhl was the only Western New York Republican to vote for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.  The bill outlaws discrimination based on sexual orientation.

This vote was a decent act, and probably a political risk.  Kuhl deserves respect for supporting the bill in committee and on the floor of the House.

Exile at Rochesterturning, who endures the D&C blogs, found a nugget there:  Randy Kuhl has written a letter to his colleagues urging them to condemn states that issue drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants.  His colleague, Tom Latham (R-IA-4), plans to introduce a bill to that effect next week.

Rep. Kuhl's Elmira College earmark in the House Labor and HHS bill got more play in the Elmira-Star Gazette today. That earmark, which the S-G says was $200K, but an independent watchdog says was $100K, was part of a bill that passed in July without Randy Kuhl's vote.  The conference report of the same bill, which is 853 pages of unsearchable text, passed yesterday with Kuhl's vote.  Since Eric Massa has been making much of Kuhl's habit of voting against bills that contain his earmarks, Kuhl can now claim that he did actually vote for the bill in its final form.

Today's Massa Press Conference focused on elections, torture, impeachment and some bill or other about children's health care. Read on for more details.

The call kicked off with my question on his overall take on yesterday's elections. Massa was discouraged by the election process:

Negativism and money continue to be the deciding factors in elections at the local, county, state and national level. [...] Witness the mailers that went out with a picture of terrorists on a drivers' license. The only way to fight this is with honesty and integrity. It has reinforced my resolve.

Though he didn't like the process, he said he thought the Democratic party "lost no ground" in the district. He also said that "these elections got people organized, involved and excited in a way that no other midterm has done."

Turning from the recent elections, I asked him about some national issues. First, I wondered if he agreed with Sen. Chuck Schumer's vote yesterday on the Mukasey nomination.

I do not agree with that vote, and if I had been asked in any capacity to vote I would not have voted for Mukasey as Attorney General. If you are a nominee for Attorney General, and you cannot answer a question about waterboarding, then you are either being dishonest or you are not qualified.

I also asked Massa how he would have voted on the Articles of Impeachment against Vice-President Cheney. Noting that the debate would have consumed several days of floor time, he said:

I would not have supported it. We have an awful lot of people's business to get done. I want to vote on getting the children's halth insurance program passed. [...] We need to pick our issues, and that is at the top of the list, right up there with ending the war in Iraq and creating jobs in the US. There are four free trade bills coming up. Randy Kuhl is going to vote yes on every one of them. He's going to send more jobs overseas at the same time that people who don't have jobs are paying $3.50 a gallon for gas.

Massa also said he was concerned about some other recent House votes:

Yesterday, Randy Kuhl voted to override a veto on the water projects bill, which cost $7 billion. He has no problem voting for pork embedded in a water projects bill, but he would never stand up to vote for children with the same federal money. That water bill is being funded by deficit spending [financed by] the Chinese government. The S-CHIP bill does not add to the deficit.

Massa also noted that the Defense Authorization bill spends $459 billion in one year, not including funding for the Iraq war. S-CHIP is less than about $40 billion for its entire projected life. "Yet, Randy Kuhl refuses to vote for it, and instead throws up smoke screens about why not."

I asked Massa whether he thought that a compromise on S-CHIP would occur, as Kuhl has indicated in recent media reports.

The compromise [he] wants is no taxes on cigarettes. [...] Why? Because he's taken tens of thousands of dollars from the tobacco industry. He wants to irresponsibly take money from China to finance the deficit, but will not responsibly pay for S-CHIP.

Massa noted that the "smokescreens about adults, the earned income cap" and immigration are all false. For immigration specifically, he says that the bill clearly spells out the verifications that need to be met.

I asked Massa if he would co-sponsor the bill to move the regulation of cigarettes to the Food and Drug Administration. He would, because "cigarettes are a form of ingestion of nicotine, which is a narcotic, and should be controlled." He noted that, as a cancer survivor, he felt pretty strongly about regulating cigarettes.

Massa concluded by pointing out that there are 363 days until the next election. "It's going to be an exciting year with a great deal of momentum. The team on the ground is chomping at the bit."

I was the only person on the call, other than Massa.

The House passed a veto override yesterday, reversing President Bush's veto of the Water Resources Development Act.  Randy Kuhl voted for the override. As the first reversal in Bush's presidency, this is clearly important, but it was also predictable, since the original vote was an overwhelming a veto-proof majority.  Nevertheless, roughly 25 Republicans who had supported the original bill switched their vote and voted against reversing the veto.

The House also voted to refer Articles of Impeachment against Vice-President Cheney to the Judiciary Committee.  It was pretty much a party-line vote, with the exception of Ron Paul and a couple of other anti-war Republicans voting for, and a couple of "Blue Dog" Democrats voting against.

As usual, these votes and others of interest can be tracked by following the Significant Votes link at the upper right of this page.

This morning's coverage indicates that there were modest Democratic gains in the Northern 29th.   Democrats picked up two Monroe County Legislature seats, but Republicans still control the Legislature.   According to the Democrat and Chronicle, voter turnout was the lowest since 1964.  I assume much of the reason for low turnout was lack of a race at the head of the ticket.  "Woulda, coulda, shoulda" is a meaningless game, but here are two facts:  the self-described "placeholder" Working Families Party candidate polled 25% of the vote, and 25,000 people chose not to vote at all for County Executive.  If the Democrats had fielded a candidate, it would have been a real contest.

In the South, reader Watching in Woodhull notes that Democrat Frank Coccho lost his bid for re-election as Mayor of Corning.

Update:  Reader Elmer sends the front page [pdf] of today's Corning Leader, which carries Coccho's loss as well as the news that his loss shifts control of the Corning city council to the Republicans.

Today is election day, and I would be remiss if I didn't invite all registered voters to head to the polls and pull the lever.  As you pull that lever, remember to send a silent prayer to whatever deity you worship, thanking him/her/them for letting you vote using 50-year-old reliable analog technology.

In other news, I did receive a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) call last night.  Judging from the caller-id, it was part of a Democracy for America (DFA) effort, not the Monroe County Democrats.  As I posted earlier, I also received two pieces of campaign literature from Democrats in my town, and I've also observed a fair number of yard signs as well as human sign wavers at busy intersections.  That's a decent GOTV effort for an off-year election.