Top 5 Reasons Why Latinos Must be on Your Advertising Agenda (and Targeted in Your Political Campaign)

Opening on Monday October 3rd, including intriguing topics like "Will Latinos Elect our Next President" and "The Transformed General Market," the world's premier annual gathering of marketing and communications leaders kicks-off with some Latin flare in New York City.

With a mission to galvanize the industry, Advertising Week seeks to move key industry goals forward like talent, diversity, among others, to serve as a catalyst that takes advertising and media to the next level.

In a year of fresh Census numbers, financial recession and an uncertain and highly competitive political climate, it is evident that the size and power of Latinos are slowly but surely getting the mainstream spotlight it deserves.  But, why hasn't the needle moved more? Why is Hispanic marketing still perceived as "the special program" or the pilot to pursue in the case of leftover budgets? Why is there such a big disparity between the size and growth that the market represents versus the advertising and resources allocated toward it?

While presentations, conferences, gatherings and articles are a great sign of progress, a real evidence of progress will be measured when discussions are followed with investment and action that are representative of the total market opportunity. 

According to Kantar Media, 2010 ended reporting $131.1 billion in total advertising of which only $6.8 were allocated to reaching Hispanics. While these numbers represent a year over year increase of 8.4% in spend towards reaching Latinos, it still only a timid 5% of total. That is, 5% of investments to reach the 16% of the population that drove 53% of the population growth. This is equivalent to a $12.4 billion gap.

In a world of information overload, data overexposure and an over preached "50 million strong with $1 trillion in buying power" message, maybe it is time to - yet one more time - recap and list the reasons why businesses seeking incremental growth cannot afford to continue to test or ignore the Latino powerhouse.

So, just in time to kick-off Advertising Week, and hopefully before you decide to make the Latino presentations your time to catch up with phone-calls and emails, here are the top 5 market and news indicators that show there is a big wagon to jump on before it is too late.

#1 The numbers are too big and obvious to ignore.  

The Latino- case for action has become a case harder to argue against than one to embrace. So let's restate what you've heard before yet one more time: According to the U.S. Census, Latinos grew by 43% from 38 Million in 2000 to 50 Million in 2010, while the Non-Hispanic population only grew by 4.9%. But more than population numbers, there is significant financial growth represented by this group. In the last 10 years, Hispanic buying power has grown by 347% reaching $1 Trillion in 2010. This ranks the U.S. Hispanic market as the world's ninth biggest economy - larger than the Gross National Product (GNP) of Brazil, Spain or Mexico. Is it denial or simply a case of analysis paralysis? Look no further and let the números do the talking.

#2 America's top 10 cities are 35% Hispanic, today! 

In a recent conversation with a top sales executive I heard what I've heard over and over again "but Latinos are still only 16% of the population..." Ironically, when I asked which key DMA's were his top drivers of national sales volume, he was quick to respond that CA, TX, NY represented 60% of his total U.S. business. It is unfortunate how a broad assumption could be blinding to the fact that his company could potentially be leaving 1/3 of incremental sales on the table. The markets mentioned above are 33% Hispanic and growing anywhere between 3 to 5 times faster locally. Hispanic consumers are the most geographically concentrated of any large consumer segment, with eight states capturing almost 80% of all Hispanics. The 2010 Census data reports that America's top 5 largest and most populous states combined, which represent almost 30% of total U.S. population, are currently 29% Hispanic. Also, the top ten most populous U.S. cities are 35% Hispanic, with New York (29%), Los Angeles (48%) and Chicago (29%) topping the charts. While for many 16% of the population doesn't sound impressive enough, it is evident that at the local level the opportunity cost could cause you to miss your national sales targets.

#3 Not your stereotypical undocumented immigrant: 62%+ of all Latinos are U.S. born. 

With news and politics focusing on illegal immigration and media portraying old Latino stereotypes, good decision making may be getting a little clouded by personal bias. The U.S. Hispanic market is a vibrant and young bi-cultural and bilingual market. Ninety one percent (yes, 91%) of Hispanic children were born in the U.S. and according to Pew Hispanic Center, 22% of all children under 18 in the U.S. are Hispanic. Similar to the 16% population dilemma mentioned above, this make many marketers assume that English language and a one-size fits all works with this emerging "Americanized" Latino. However, multiple research studies and the recent Máximo Report conducted by the New Generation Latino Consortium confirm that while the new Latinos are bilingual and English-speakers, their hearts, minds, values and drivers remain rooted in the culture of their abuelitos (grandparents). For many, their pride is manifesting through a unique sense of retro-acculturation that transcends language. Also, with Hispanic college enrollment up by 24%, Hispanic owned businesses growing three times faster and with an emerging group of affluent Latinos reaching over 5 million households; the approach and places to successfully reach them are far beyond from stereotypical. Hispanic marketing does not equal Spanish marketing. But also don't assume that doing nothing is enough because they speak English ... ultimately it boils down to relevancy, just as you would when segmenting and reaching women, teens, elders, Gen X's, etc. Just go back to the insight.

#4 Prime time telenovelas beat the combined ratings of ABC, CBS, NBC. 

The power of relevancy is coming to live with the original programming developed for U.S. Hispanics by TV outlets like Telemundo, Univision, Mun2, MTV3, NUVOTV, among others. While English-language broadcasters have seen audiences shrink as viewers spend more time watching cable television, ratings for programs for Latinos are holding steady and in some cases growing. For example, Telemundo's May 30 finale of "La Reina del Sur" ("Queen of the South") was the highest rated program in the network's 19-year ratings history, averaging nearly 4.2 million total viewers (persons 2+) and over 2.8 million adults 18-49, according to Nielsen Media Research. In Los Angeles, the finale of "La Reina del Sur" was #1 across all stations in the market among adults 18-49 in its time period, regardless of language, beating the combined delivery of ABC, CBS and NBC. Also, when the Latin Billboards aired on Telemundo this past Spring, the show was the #1 worldwide Twitter top trending topic at 9:30pm EDT, and Telemundo's Twitter following grew by +89% compared to prior day. Additionally, the network's Facebook fan base increased by +54% compared to prior day. Still not convinced? For the week ending September 25th, Univision out-delivered one or more of the English-language broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX) on five out of seven nights last week among Adults 18-34. Thus far in 2011, Univision is the #2 broadcast network in this demographic, averaging more Adults 18-34 viewers than ABC (+2%), CBS (+17%), and NBC (+11%). And the examples of outperformance go on and on, week after week; all while you may be struggling to juggle a fragmented media, cable and DVR "general-market" media mix.

#5 Big broadcasters and companies like Fox, NBC and Google are "Latinizing."

With opportunity comes change and innovation, and that is what many companies have done in the last 12 months. CNN re-branded and re-programmed its CNN en Español property, Fox News launched Fox News Latino, John Leguizamo launched UrbanoTV, but beyond content platforms major organizational changes have also taken place. Last April, News Corp.'s Fox Networks Group on Monday announced the creation of Fox Hispanic Media, a new media unit with which the firm intends to broaden its ability to reach the fast-growing Latino public. Within the same week, NBC announced the launch of "Hispanics at NBC" in a company-wide initiative to boost ad dollars targeting Hispanics. And to top it all, Google also created a "specialist team" in 2011 to focus on the U.S. Latino market, leveraging that about 86% of Latinos have high-speed Internet connections at home, and 78% use the Internet as their primary source of information, above TV and friends and family. Great leaders whose vision is being matched by top-down sponsorship and bold changes.

So, will you take a leap in 2012? Will you move from sidelines to the playing field? This is your time.

Big kudos, ¡felicitaciones! to Advertising Week and all the participating entities who are bringing this important topic to the table ... only time will tell whether it moves the needle or not. 

From the Huffington Post @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lili-gil/why-latinos-must-be-on-your-agenda_b_991646.html

Eric and Irene

By PAUL KRUGMAN 

Op-Ed Columnist

Published: September 1, 2011

“Have you left no sense of decency?” That’s the question Joseph Welch famously asked Joseph McCarthy, as the red-baiting demagogue tried to ruin yet another innocent citizen. And these days, it’s the question I find myself wanting to ask Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who has done more than anyone else to make policy blackmail — using innocent Americans as hostages — standard operating procedure for the G.O.P.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Cantor was the hard man in the confrontation over the debt ceiling; he was willing to endanger America’s financial credibility, putting our whole economy at risk, in order to extract budget concessions from President Obama. Now he’s doing it again, this time over disaster relief, making headlines by insisting that any federal aid to the victims of Hurricane Irene be offset by cuts in other spending. In effect, he is threatening to take Irene’s victims hostage. 

 

Mr. Cantor’s critics have been quick to accuse him of hypocrisy, and with good reason. After all, he and his Republican colleagues showed no comparable interest in paying for the Bush administration’s huge unfunded initiatives. In particular, they did nothing to offset the cost of the Iraq war, which now stands at $800 billion and counting. 

And it turns out that in 2004, when his home state of Virginia was struck by Tropical Storm Gaston, Mr. Cantor voted against a bill that would have required the same pay-as-you-go rule that he now advocates.
But, as I see it, hypocrisy is a secondary issue here. The primary issue should be the extraordinary nihilism now on display by Mr. Cantor and his colleagues — their willingness to flout all the usual conventions of fair play and, well, decency in order to get what they want.

Not long ago, a political party seeking to change U.S. policy would try to achieve that goal by building popular support for its ideas, then implementing those ideas through legislation. That, after all, is how our political system was designed to work.

But today’s G.O.P. has decided to bypass all that and go for a quicker route. Never mind getting enough votes to pass legislation; it gets what it wants by threatening to hurt America if its demands aren’t met. That’s what happened with the debt-ceiling fight, and now it’s what’s happening over disaster aid. In effect, Mr. Cantor and his allies are threatening to take hurricane victims hostage, using their suffering as a bargaining chip.

Of course, Mr. Cantor would have you believe that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. But that’s no more than a cover story.

Should disaster aid, as a matter of sound public finance, be offset by immediate cuts in other spending? 

No. The time-honored principle, backed by economists right and left, is that temporary bursts of spending — which usually arise when there’s a war to fight, but can also arise from other causes, including financial crises and natural disasters — are a good reason to run temporary budget deficits. Rather than imposing sharp cuts in other spending or sharply raising taxes, governments can and should spread the burden over time, borrowing now and repaying gradually via a combination of lower spending and higher taxes.

But can the U.S. government borrow to pay for disaster aid? Isn’t the government broke? Yes, it can, and, no, it isn’t. America has a long-run deficit problem, which should be met with long-run budget measures. But it’s having no problem at all borrowing to pay for current expenses. Moreover, it’s able to borrow funds at extremely low interest rates. Notably, right now the interest rate on the benchmark 10-year U.S. government bond is only slightly more than half what it was in 2004 when Mr. Cantor felt that it wasn’t necessary to pay for disaster relief.

So the claim that fiscal responsibility requires immediate spending cuts to offset the cost of disaster relief is just wrong, in both theory and practice. As I said, it’s just a cover story for the real game being played here.

Now, Mr. Cantor may end up backing down on this one, if only because several of the hard-hit states have Republican governors, who want and need aid soon, without strings attached. But that won’t put an end to the larger issue: What will happen to America now that people like Mr. Cantor are calling the shots for one of its two major political parties?

And, yes, I mean one of our parties. There are plenty of bad things to be said about the Democrats, who have their fair share of cynics and careerists. There may even be Democrats in Congress who would be as willing as Mr. Cantor to advance their goals through sabotage and blackmail (although I can’t think of any). But, if they exist, they aren’t in important leadership positions. Mr. Cantor is. And that should worry anyone who cares about our nation’s future.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on September 2, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Eric And Irene.

Cantor: No Disaster Relief Funding For Hurricane Irene Without Budget Cuts

Cantor: No Disaster Relief Funding For Hurricane Irene Without Budget Cuts: Despite the devastation caused by Hurricane Irene this weekend, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) today stood by his call that no more money be allocated for disaster relief unless it is offset by spending cuts elsewhere. The Washington Post reported this morning that FEMA will need more money than it currently has to deal [...]/p

The Lesser Depression

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: July 21, 2011 

These are interesting times — and I mean that in the worst way. Right now we’re looking at not one but two looming crises, either of which could produce a global disaster. In the United States, right-wing fanatics in Congress may block a necessary rise in the debt ceiling, potentially wreaking havoc in world financial markets. Meanwhile, if the plan just agreed to by European heads of state fails to calm markets, we could see falling dominoes all across southern Europe — which would also wreak havoc in world financial markets.

We can only hope that the politicians huddled in Washington and Brussels succeed in averting these threats. But here’s the thing: Even if we manage to avoid immediate catastrophe, the deals being struck on both sides of the Atlantic are almost guaranteed to make the broader economic slump worse.

In fact, policy makers seem determined to perpetuate what I’ve taken to calling the Lesser Depression, the prolonged era of high unemployment that began with the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and continues to this day, more than two years after the recession supposedly ended.

Let’s talk for a moment about why our economies are (still) so depressed.

The great housing bubble of the last decade, which was both an American and a European phenomenon, was accompanied by a huge rise in household debt. When the bubble burst, home construction plunged, and so did consumer spending as debt-burdened families cut back.

Everything might still have been O.K. if other major economic players had stepped up their spending, filling the gap left by the housing plunge and the consumer pullback. But nobody did. In particular, cash-rich corporations see no reason to invest that cash in the face of weak consumer demand.

Nor did governments do much to help. Some governments — those of weaker nations in Europe, and state and local governments here — were actually forced to slash spending in the face of falling revenues. And the modest efforts of stronger governments — including, yes, the Obama stimulus plan — were, at best, barely enough to offset this forced austerity.

So we have depressed economies. What are policy makers proposing to do about it? Less than nothing.

The disappearance of unemployment from elite policy discourse and its replacement by deficit panic has been truly remarkable. It’s not a response to public opinion. In a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, 53 percent of the public named the economy and jobs as the most important problem we face, while only 7 percent named the deficit. Nor is it a response to market pressure. Interest rates on U.S. debt remain near historic lows.

Yet the conversations in Washington and Brussels are all about spending cuts (and maybe tax increases, I mean revisions). That’s obviously true about the various proposals being floated to resolve the debt-ceiling crisis here. But it’s equally true in Europe.

On Thursday, the “heads of state or government of the euro area and the E.U. institutions” — that mouthful tells you, all by itself, how messy European governance has become — issued their big statement. It wasn’t reassuring.

For one thing, it’s hard to believe that the Rube Goldberg financial engineering the statement proposes can really resolve the Greek crisis, let alone the wider European crisis.

But, even if it does, then what? The statement calls for sharp deficit reductions “in all countries except those under a programme” to take place “by 2013 at the latest.” Since those countries “under a programme” are being forced into drastic fiscal austerity, this amounts to a plan to have all of Europe slash spending at the same time.

And there is nothing in the European data suggesting that the private sector will be ready to take up the slack in less than two years.

For those who know their 1930s history, this is all too familiar. If either of the current debt negotiations fails, we could be about to replay 1931, the global banking collapse that made the Great Depression great. But, if the negotiations succeed, we will be set to replay the great mistake of 1937: the premature turn to fiscal contraction that derailed economic recovery and ensured that the Depression would last until World War II finally provided the boost the economy needed.

Did I mention that the European Central Bank — although not, thankfully, the Federal Reserve — seems determined to make things even worse by raising interest rates?

There’s an old quotation, attributed to various people, that always comes to mind when I look at public policy: “You do not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.” Now that lack of wisdom is on full display, as policy elites on both sides of the Atlantic bungle the response to economic trauma, ignoring all the lessons of history. And the Lesser Depression goes on.

(Look for my mega-post on the economy, debt, taxes, etc. next week)

Delayed payments in 1979 offer glimpse of default consequences

The Washington Post

Brady Dennis 

Sunday, July 10

The Sunday airwaves brimmed once again with talk of what would – or would not – happen if lawmakers fail to meet the Aug. 2 deadline to raise the nation’s legal limit on borrowing. Unmentioned by either side was an obscure bit of budgetary history in which the country did default on some of its bills, and wound up paying the consequences.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that inaction “would be catastrophic for the economy” and added that “no responsible leader would say the United States of America, for the first time in its history, should not pay its bills, meet its obligations.”

Bob Schieffer spoke with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the necessary steps to be made for the White House and congress to reach an agreement over a budget plan and ultimately raising the debt ceiling.

Across the dial on “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) accused Geithner of “playing Chicken Little” and called his dire warnings irresponsible. “There certainly will be disruption, but this is not a deadline we should rush and make a bad deal,” DeMint said, echoing the views of some fellow conservatives who have downplayed the potential fallout.

In fact, there was one short-lived incident in the spring of 1979 that offers a glimpse of some of the problems and costs that might arise if the stalemate on Capitol Hill continues. Then, as now, Congress had been playing a game of chicken with the debt limit, raising it to $830 billion – compared with today’s $14.3 trillion – only after Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal warned that the country was hours away from the first default in its history.

That last-minute approval, combined with a flood of investor demand for Treasury bills and a series of technical glitches in processing the backlog of paperwork, resulted in thousands of late payments to holders of Treasury bills that were maturing that April and May.

“You hear lot of people say, ‘The government never defaulted.’ The truth is, yeah, they did . . . It might have been small, it might have been inadvertent, but it happened,” said Terry Zivney, a finance professor at Ball State University who co-authored a paper on the episode entitled “The Day the United States Defaulted on Treasury Bills.”

All things considered, the incident amounted to a minor blip. The Treasury had missed payments on about $120 million worth of bills, a tiny amount even then, given the global investment in U.S. debt. Investors, some of whom joined a class-action suit against the government to recover damages, eventually were paid in full with back interest. T-bills, as they are known, continued to be considered a safe investment. Treasury officials both then and now argued that the event was not even a default, but merely a delay caused by the internal logjam.

“It was quickly forgotten,” said Jim Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University.

And yet, the study by Zivney and his partner, Dick Marcus, found that even that brief failure to meet some obligations had expensive consequences. The pair concluded “that the series of defaults resulted in a permanent increase in interest rates” of more than half a percent, which over time translated into billions of dollars in increased interest payments on the nation’s debt, a cost shouldered by taxpayers.

“The impact is smaller at first because only new debt is affected,” they wrote. “But over time, as the older debt matures and becomes refinanced at higher rates, the entire cost of the default is realized.”

Zivney said that the 1979 incident, which pales in comparison to the size and scope of payments the Treasury could have to forego if it can no longer borrow money come Aug. 2, offers a useful case study in the real-world consequences that result when the U.S. government doesn’t seem like the sure bet it has always been.

“It creates doubt, and I think that’s the real lesson,” he said. “The market has a much longer memory than individuals.”

Angel, the Georgetown professor, said that the surest way to stave off any such doubts is for Congress to find a way to set aside political fights long enough to ensure that the country continues to pay its bills. Otherwise, he said, investors will punish the United States – and ultimately taxpayers – if and when checks stop showing up.

“It’s not as if God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai and said, ‘The U.S. will always be a AAA credit.’ Our reputation is something that we have earned,” Angel said, adding that history is filled “with countries that were once great and blew it. The simple lesson is, you’ve got to pay your bills on time. If you don’t pay your bills on time, bad things happen.”

What Obama Wants

Published: July 7, 2011

By PAUL KRUGMAN

On Thursday, President Obama met with Republicans to discuss a debt deal. We don’t know exactly what was proposed, but news reports before the meeting suggested that Mr. Obama is offering huge spending cuts, possibly including cuts to Social Security and an end to Medicare’s status as a program available in full to all Americans, regardless of income.

Obviously, the details matter a lot, but progressives, and Democrats in general, are understandably very worried. Should they be? In a word, yes.

Now, this might just be theater: Mr. Obama may be pulling an anti-Corleone, making Republicans an offer they can’t accept. The reports say that the Obama plan also involves significant new revenues, a notion that remains anathema to the Republican base. So the goal may be to paint the G.O.P. into a corner, making Republicans look like intransigent extremists — which they are.

But let’s be frank. It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth.

One striking example of this rightward shift came in last weekend’s presidential address, in which Mr. Obama had this to say about the economics of the budget: “Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.”

That’s three of the right’s favorite economic fallacies in just two sentences. No, the government shouldn’t budget the way families do; on the contrary, trying to balance the budget in times of economic distress is a recipe for deepening the slump. Spending cuts right now wouldn’t “put the economy on sounder footing.” They would reduce growth and raise unemployment. And last but not least, businesses aren’t holding back because they lack confidence in government policies; they’re holding back because they don’t have enough customers — a problem that would be made worse, not better, by short-term spending cuts.

In his brief remarks after Thursday’s meeting, by the way, Mr. Obama seemed to reiterate the Herbert Hooveresque view that deficit reduction is what we need to “grow the economy.”

People have asked me why the president’s economic advisers aren’t telling him not to believe in the confidence fairy — that is, not to believe the assertion, popular on the right but overwhelmingly refuted by the evidence, that slashing spending in the face of a depressed economy will magically create jobs. My answer is, what economic advisers? Almost all the high-profile economists who joined the Obama administration early on have either left or are leaving.

Nor have they been replaced. As The Wall Street Journal recently noted, there are a “stunning” number of vacancies in important economic posts. So who’s defining the administration’s economic views?

Some of what we’re hearing is presumably coming from the political team, whose members seem to believe that a move toward Republican positions, reminiscent of former President Bill Clinton’s “triangulation” in the 1990s, is the key to Mr. Obama’s re-election. And Mr. Clinton did, indeed, rebound from a big defeat in the 1994 midterms to win big two years later. But some of us think that the rebound had less to do with his rhetorical move to the center than with the five million jobs the economy added over those two years — an achievement not likely to be repeated this time, especially not in the face of harsh spending cuts.

Anyway, I don’t believe that it’s all political calculation. Watching Mr. Obama and listening to his recent statements, it’s hard not to get the impression that he is now turning for advice to people who really believe that the deficit, not unemployment, is the top issue facing America right now, and who also believe that the great bulk of deficit reduction should come from spending cuts. It’s worth noting that even Republicans weren’t suggesting cuts to Social Security; this is something Mr. Obama and those he listens to apparently want for its own sake.

Which raises the big question: If a debt deal does emerge, and it overwhelmingly reflects conservative priorities and ideology, should Democrats in Congress vote for it?

Mr. Obama’s people will no doubt argue that their fellow party members should trust him, that whatever deal emerges was the best he could get. But it’s hard to see why a president who has gone out of his way to echo Republican rhetoric and endorse false conservative views deserves that kind of trust.

California budget talks hit an impasse over three-month tax extension - Duh!

With no disrespect to Anthony York and Shane Goldmacher of the L.A. Times, the fact that tax extensions are the last remaining stumbling block to passing California's state budget before July 1 is simply a slight twist on an issue that has been front and center in Sacramento since Jerry Brown took office.

The recalcitrant Republicans in the legislature refused repeated requests and myriad concessions from the Brown administration on such issues as pension reform, budget cuts and regulatory reform only to repeatedly refuse to place a measure asking voters to cast ballots up or down on a range of tax extensions.  

The GOP has held firm to the concept that voting to allow voters to decide whether to tax themselves was a violation of Grover Norquist's pledge not to raise taxes was one and the same and therefore non-negotiable. However, now that polling shows that more than 50% of voters want to see the tax measures on the ballot, while only 46% say they would cast a ballot to extend the taxes, Republicans are relenting somewhat. 

Now, that's leadership.  They fought putting the measures on the ballot, but now that it looks like voters will reject them, they are finally ready to talk.  Unfortunately, talk is the only thing they seem to be able to do.  Further, they happen to have come to this conclusion just a week before the state constitution requires a balanced budget be adopted.

The Governor's counter-offer is for the Republicans to join Democrats in temporarily extending current vehicle and sales tax rates to help balance the budget by June 15 and allow voters to have their say in a special September election.  It seems extending current tax rates beyond the original July 1 sunset date in order to allow voters to decide whether they will tax themselves in just three months is further than the Republicans will go. 

In fact, Republicans don't believe they even need to participate in efforts to balance the state's budget by the constitutionally mandated deadline!

In the Times article, Republican vice chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Bob Huff, said that it's up to Democrats, who hold strong majorities in both houses of the Legislature, to meet the constitutional deadline. Although Democrats hold majorities in both houses, it will require six Republican votes to met the 2/3rds threshold necessary to set a special election.

"There's a lot of different things [Democrats] can do" to close the deficit, [Huff] said. "It's not our responsibility to find those things."  In other words, Republicans want Governor Brown and the Democrats in Sacramento to fail to balance the budget so they can turn around and attack them for the failure -- all without lifting a finger. 

In addition, Brown and the Democrats have already met the republicans more than half way.  They have agreed to:

• Impose a new restraint on state spending to force California to use any future windfalls to pay down tens of billions of dollars in debt incurred by past budgets.
• Change the current retirement system for public employees by providing the option of a retirement package that would include a 401(k). 
• Adopt a plan to require that the state produce a report on the economic impact of any new regulations before they can be enacted.
• Set a cap for government expenditures until about $25 billion in state debts are paid off. 
• Assure that all loans from Wall Street and money owed to schools, cities and counties would be repaid before other spending could grow.
• Place curbs on pension sweeteners likes "spiking" — large pay increases shortly before retirement that dramatically boost pensions — and workers' ability to purchase credit for years they don't actually work, a practice known as "air time."   
• Put a ceiling on the size of pensions and the option of a hybrid 401(k)-style plan for new state employees.  

All of these concessions are changes the Republican's have been seeking for years.  Yet, they are willing to forgo them all in order to make the Governor look bad.  

Just think what could have been accomplished if the Republicans would simply participate in attempting to balance the state's budget.  

People say state government is a mess.  Now, we know why.  Twenty-eight Republicans who refuse to do their jobs.

First of many polls concerning the San Diego Mayor's race

The San Diego Mayor’s race official begins today, 

June 5, 2011 – exactly one year until Election Day.

Traditionally, candidates for Mayor attend numerous meetings, forums, and debates to enumerate their major issues and explain how they will implement their proposed programs and/or changes.  Very few voters attend these gatherings.  

Fortunately, it doesn’t matter that much because political consultants like me tell the candidates (based on polling) what people want to hear.  We then assist the candidates develop ways of seemingly answering questions without actually answering them so they can reinforce their messages.  Their messages include those things people want to hear, as identified by polling.  Therefore, candidates rarely actually answer questions, especially those from regular voters.

I’m going to try something different.  I’m going to ask some questions about all of the candidates.  Anyone who wants to answer those questions may do so. 

In addition, those responding to my questions can leave me questions they would like answered.  If I deem them worthy, I’ll post those questions as well.

Most voters don’t turn their attention to elections until thirty to sixty days before Election Day.  That means we have 10 months to bring up whatever we choose.  This way, we will not only inform ourselves, but (I suspect) some candidates might start paying attention to the issues we raise. 

So, while we have a little fun at the candidates’ expense, we are actually doing a public service by teasing out those questions candidates don’t want to answer at the about same time voters are looking for answers so they can choose for whom to vote.  Everyone wins!

NOTICE: If you are not a voter, go away!  If you don’t vote, you can’t bitch about elected officials because you did not participate in electing them.  Besides, you screw up the validity of the responses to my questions. 

First Question of the Official Campaign for Mayor:

Abandon Candidates Who Abandon Labor

May 21, 2011

Remarks by AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka, National Press Club, Washington, DC.

Good morning. Thank you all for joining me here, and thank you to the National Press Club for inviting me to speak.

Friends, how can we make sense of the spectacle that's been unfolding across the American political landscape?

Politicians in Wisconsin, Ohio, and a dozen other states are trying to take away workers' right to organize and bargain for a better life.

But, that's not all.  In state after state, politicians are attacking voting rights by imposing ID requirements, shortening early voting periods, blocking young people from voting because they're too "liberal" and even levying criminal penalties and fines for breaking arbitrary rules in the voter registration process.

So it will be harder for people to vote - especially the least privileged among us.  Just in Wisconsin, listen to the list of who doesn't have state-issued photo IDs that will be needed to cast a ballot under legislation that Gov. Scott Walker will sign next week: 23 percent of elderly Wisconsinites; 59 percent of Latina women; 55 percent of African American men overall; and 78 percent of African American men who are 18 to 24 years old.

Budget proposals unveiled in Washington and state capitals across our country this year revealed a despicable canvas of cruelty.  In Michigan, a state senator thinks foster children should be required by law to purchase second-hand clothes.  In Maine, the governor thinks more children should go to work.  In North Carolina, the legislature thinks we should balance the state budget on the backs of autistic children.  In Arizona, the state Senate president floats the idea of locking up protesting public employees in desert tent city jails.  In New York, a billionaire mayor proposes to fire 5,000 teachers rather than tax the bonuses of the Wall Street executives who brought down the American economy.

And not just meanness.  Destructiveness.  A willful desire to block the road to the future.  How else can you explain governors of states with mass unemployment refusing to allow high-speed rail lines to be built in their states?  How else can you explain these same governors' plans to defund higher education, close schools, and fire teachers, when we know that without an educated America, we have no future?

Here in Washington, the Republicans in Congress have defunded housing counselors and fuel aid for the poor, and they are blocking worker training and transportation infrastructure.

But, the final outrage of these budgets is hidden in the fine print.  In state after state and here in Washington, these so-called fiscal hawks are actually doing almost nothing to cut the deficit.  The federal budget embraced by House Republicans, for example, cuts $4.3 trillion in spending, but gives out $4.2 trillion in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit wealthy individuals and corporations.  Florida is gutting aid for jobless workers and using the money saved to cut already-low business taxes.  At the end of the day, our governments will be in no better fiscal shape than when we started - they are just being used as a pass-through to enrich the already rich - at a time when inequality stands at historic levels.

Think about the message these budgets send: Sacrifice is for the weak.  The powerful and well connected get tax cuts.

All these incredible events should be understood as part of a single challenge.  It is not just a political challenge - it's a moral challenge.  Because these events signal a new and dangerous phase of a concerted effort to change the very nature of America - to turn this into an "I've got mine" nation and replace the land of liberty and justice for all with the land of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.

You see, I believe the United States is not a place as much as it is an idea.  For working people, the United States of America has offered, from its foundation, a promise that everyone can be full participants in national life.  A promise that we the people make the rules so that hard work is rewarded with economic security and a fair share in the wealth we all help create.  That promise has always been a work in progress.  This year we commemorate the 150th anniversary of our bloodiest war – a war that resulted in the extension of the American promise to the African Americans who did so much of the work of creating the United States.

We were the first country in the history of the world to embrace the idea that you don't have to own land to vote - that citizenship comes from where you live, not what you own or who your parents were.  We were the first country to make land available to those who would work the land - in the Homestead Act.  And, in the modern era, when giant corporations dominated our economy, we pioneered the idea that we had a right to a voice on the job - a right made real when we came together to form unions and bargain collectively.  

And while Boeing and the Chamber of Commerce may not like it, the law of the land protects working people who exercise that right against any retaliation by their employers.

In the 1960s, public employees won those same rights.  Working people remember that these rights were not easily won.  The pivotal 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike began with two men crushed to death in a garbage truck, and ended with Martin Luther King giving his life for the cause of public workers' right to organize together.

From the beginning of this country, through our efforts and our ideas, working people have made the American Dream real.  And, what is that dream?  It is the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules you will enjoy economic security and build a better future for your children.  It is not that a few of us will be rich, but that all of us will be treated fairly, that we will look after each other, and that we will all have a share in the wealth we create together.

This spring working people are engaged in a great struggle to defend their dream.  In Green Bay and Indianapolis, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and in Columbus, Ohio.  And, not just in the Midwest.  In New York and Los Angeles, in Florida and Texas - in every corner of our nation.

This struggle began after last November's elections brought to power politicians in state capitals across the heartland who had a hidden agenda.  An agenda worked out at posh resorts with the Koch Brothers, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and other shadowy groups.  Politicians like John Kasich and Scott Walker campaigned promising to do something about jobs, only to reveal when they took office that their jobs agenda was to make them disappear.  But, their real passion was for eliminating the rights of working people and destroying their unions - who are standing in the way of their agenda.

In response, working people took to the streets.  On April 4th, under the banner, "We are One," we came together all across America, and then we did so again on May 1st when we stood together with our immigrant brothers and sisters saying again that we truly are one.

In signs all across the rotunda in the Wisconsin state house, we proclaimed we were there to defend the principle that in America, we look after each other.  One of the people who was there is here with us today, and I'd like to introduce him.  Alex Hanna is a Graduate Assistant at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a co-president of the Teaching Assistants Associates of the American Federation of Teachers.  Alex stood up for teachers and other public workers in Madison over the last couple of months, even as he built solidarity with workers in the Middle East.  His family comes from Egypt and he strengthened links between movements for change around the world.

Thank you, Alex, for your inspiration.

Alex embodies the fact that we are not a nation of isolated individuals; we are a land of communities, of families.  Our republic, our democracy, is an expression of our solidarity, our common values, and our common life as a nation.

In America, firefighters rush into burning buildings every day, risking their lives to save people they have never met.  Social workers care for other people's abused children, and home health workers provide care and companionship to those who need it.  Every day you and I pay our Social Security taxes and Medicare, and that same money is sent out again to provide comfort and security to other people's parents and grandparents.

This is not just a matter of morality – but it also makes economic sense.  And, never more so than today.  It will simply not be enough to beat back the Scott Walkers, the John Kasichs, and the Koch Brothers.  America's economic fate depends on us coming together to educate our children, to invest in our infrastructure, to face the threat of climate change and to reverse the yawning economic inequality that threatens our future.

Let me be specific.  Unemployment stands at 9%.  Underemployment is at 16%.  Housing prices are falling, and foreclosures remain at historic highs.  Economic growth is hovering at around 2% annually - not enough to put a dent in unemployment, especially as tax cuts expire, as the Recovery Act winds down -- and state and local governments gear up for more deep cuts.

Yet, instead of having a national conversation about putting America back to work to build our future, the debate here in Washington is about how fast we can destroy the fabric of our country, about breaking the promises we made to our parents and grandparents.  Understand, the Ryan budget destroys jobs - it destroys almost all the jobs created during this recovery.  It guts Medicare.  It attacks Social Security, the one piece of our retirement security system that actually works. And now we see Speaker Boehner and his colleagues engaged in a new round of blackmail - with a ransom note that reads: "Cut Medicare, dismantle the government, destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs to fund more tax cuts for the rich, or we will cause the United States to default on its debts."

Why is our national conversation in such a destructive place?  Not because we are impoverished.  We have never been richer.  The American economy has never produced as much wealth as it does today.  But, we feel poor because the wealth in our society has flowed to a handful among us, and they and the politicians who pander to the worst instincts of the wealthy would rather break promises to our parents and grandparents and deny our children a future than pay their fair share of taxes.

America's real deficit is a moral deficit - where political choices come down to forcing foster children to wear hand-me-downs while cutting taxes for profitable corporations.

Powerful political forces are seeking to silence working people - to drive us out of the national conversation.  I can think of no greater proof of the moral decay in our public life than that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker would dare give a Martin Luther King Day speech hailing Dr. King at the same time that he drafted a bill to take away collective bargaining rights from sanitation workers in Wisconsin.

The ultimate goal of those who blame workers for Wall Street's economic crisis is to unravel the fabric of our common life in pursuit of greed and power.

In this environment, working people and our unions must do more than just protect our own right to a voice in the life of our nation.  We must raise our voice to win a better future for all working families here in America and around the globe.

Here's what we are going to do.  First, we are going to use that voice to end the Scott Walker agenda as a viable political strategy by winning recall elections in Wisconsin and citizen vetoes of destructive legislation in other states and retaking state houses.

Then we will spend the summer holding elected leaders in Congress as well as the states accountable on one measure: Are they improving or degrading life for working families?

And, moving forward, we are looking hard at how we work in the nation's political arena.  We have listened hard, and what workers want is an independent labor movement that builds the power of working people - in the workplace and in political life.

Working people want a labor movement strong enough to help return balance to our economy, fairness to our tax system, security to our families and moral and economic standing to our nation.  Our role is not to build the power of a political party or a candidate.  It is to improve the lives of working families and strengthen our country.

It doesn't matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside - the outcome is the same either way.  If leaders aren't blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families' interests, working people will not support them.  This is where our focus will be - now, in 2012 and beyond.

We will uphold the dignity of work and restore respect for working people.  In this season's political battles, teachers, nurses, and firefighters have been vilified.  Decent jobs with economic security have been cast as more than America's workers deserve.  Low-wage, part-time, temporary, no-benefit work is being sold as the "new normal" for our economy.

We know that only a dynamic, effective movement of working people working together can reclaim the value of work.  Our unions must reach out to every working person in America - to those whose jobs have been outsourced and down-sized, to carwash workers in Los Angeles, to domestic workers who have few legal rights, to freelancers and young people who have "gigs" rather than jobs.  And, together with the AFL-CIO's construction and manufacturing workers, pilots and painters, plumbers and public employees, bakers and others, we will be heard.

The stakes are so high, for working families, for America.  Will we be a country ruled by greed, by people who would cut or take pensions away from first responders, people who would take away the fundamental human rights of our workers, who would choose tax breaks for the richest among us over a future for all of us?  Alternatively, will we be a country where we choose the future, where we look out for each other, where all of us have a voice?

We'll only win investments in our future if we again embrace the idea that we are one national community.  That our very identity is bound up with the promise that all of us have a voice - in the workplace, at the ballot box - and that we are responsible in a deep sense for each other.  The fabric of our government, our democratic republic, is about making that responsibility for each other real.

This is the message working people have always brought to our national conversation.  It is the message Alex Hanna and hundreds of thousands of others took to the streets of the Midwest this spring and that we will take to the polling places of the heartland in recall elections and in citizen veto campaigns in the coming months.  And, it is the message we will continue to shout this year, and next, and the next, until we are heard.

The moral character of America is worth fighting for, and that is exactly what working people are going to do in the days and months to come.  Thank you.