Intechra collects more e-waste in Mississippi

JACKSON — On April 12, Intechra collected nearly 45,000 pounds of used electronics during free recycling events at five of its facilities across the country. That was an increase of 12.5% compared to its Earth Day collections in 2007.

The electronics recycling company will process the used computers, laptops, monitors, printers, cell phones, TVs and stereos at facilities in Columbus, Ohio, Dallas, Hartford, Conn., and Merrimack, N.H. Intechra also accepted donations at its Jackson headquarters.

Also on April 12, Intechra partnered with Dell at its Nashville, Tenn., campus. Roughly 200,000 pounds of computer and electronics were collected from the Nashville community to be recycled by Intechra.

"These events were a great opportunity to serve our communities by providing them secure, responsible recycling for old computers and electronics," says Intechra CEO Chip Slack. "More than 120 tons of e-waste could have ended up in landfills if people hadn't had a place to recycle them."

From The Mississippi Business Journal April 28, 2008

Something to chew on

Writing in Newsweek, Michael Hirsh lays into the "Southernization of our national politics."

The coarsened sensibility that this now-dominant Southernism and frontierism has brought to our national dialogue is unmistakable. We must endure "lapel-pin politics" that elevates the shallowest sort of faux jingoism over who's got a better plan for Iraq and Afghanistan. We have re-imported creationism into our political dialogue (in the form of "intelligent design"). ... We routinely demonize organizations like the United Nations that we desperately need and which are critical to missions like nation-building in Afghanistan. On foreign policy, the realism and internationalism of the Eastern elitist tradition once kept the Southern-frontier warrior culture and Wilsonian messianism in check. Now the latter two, in toxic combination, have taken over our national dialogue, and the Easterners are running for the hills.

Lots to chew on from Mr. Hirsh. The article is online here.

A Piece of the Puzzle

Yesterday's edition of The New & Observer analyzed the impact that the loss of 400 textile jobs in Burlington will have on affected workers and the larger community. In January, GoldToe/ Moretz, one of the world's largest makers of socks, announced that it would lay off workers in Alamance County and shift equipment and production to Mexico.

As the N&O reported:

Joe Lutz, vice president for human resources at Gold Toe/Moretz, says that because of NAFTA the socks knitted in Mexico and shipped back to the United States are tariff-free, saving the company money and giving customers cheaper prices

The story then discusses the impact that NAFTA has had on workers across North Carolina. And while the trade agreement may have made socks a little cheaper, it has eliminated thousands of jobs across the state. In fact, an Economic Policy Institute study found that NAFTA destroyed 34,000 more jobs than it created in North Carolina over a ten-year period. The impacts on affected workers and communities have been severe. As one small Burlington businessman, who obviously wasn't thinking about the price of socks, told the N&O, "When that mill closes up, it's gonna hurt."

Yet NAFTA is just one piece of the economic puzzle that has buffeted workers, particularly lower-wage workers, across the state. The current agenda of trade liberalization harms not just those who lose jobs to trade, but also those who see their wages stagnate due to downward pressures on pay. Income stagnation and and widening inequality are as bound up in trade policy as direct job losses.

Now that North Carolina has become a focal point in the presidential nominating contest, it would be nice to hear the candidates talk about more than vague promises to bring back jobs; rather, they should confront the fundamental flaws in the country's approach to trade — an approach that has lowered the standard of living for working people like those about to lose jobs in Burlington.

(Cross-posted from The Progressive Pulse, a North Carolina blog.)

Big Tax Breaks for Businesses in Housing Bill

By STEPHEN LABATON and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: April 16, 2008 The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Senate proclaimed a fierce bipartisan resolve two weeks ago to help American homeowners in danger of foreclosure. But while a bill that senators approved last week would take modest steps toward that goal, it would also provide billions of dollars in tax breaks — for automakers, airlines, alternative energy producers and other struggling industries, as well as home builders.

The tax provisions of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which consumer groups and labor leaders say amount to government handouts to big business, show how the credit crisis, while rattling the housing and financial markets, has created beneficiaries in the power corridors of Washington.

It also shows how legislation with a populist imperative offers a chance for lobbyists to press their clients’ interests.

This has proved especially true on the housing legislation, which many lawmakers and lobbyists view as one of the last opportunities before Congress grinds to a halt amid election-year politics.

Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business

John Patterson and 'Nobody'

Former Alabama Gov. John Patterson is busy this month promoting his biography, Nobody But the People by Warren Trest.

John Fleming, the Anniston Star's editor at large, writes about the former governor who was replaced by George Wallace:

MONTGOMERY — In the kindly, craggy face of John Patterson can be seen the New South governor our Alabama never had.
Pull back the layers of a not-so-musty history of pre-civil rights, Deep South-politics and root around a little. There, you'll see it: The reformer, the rural highway builder, the opener of credit to the poor, the man of the people, the populist, the leader of the vanguard of the New South — except he wasn't.
Therein lies the tragic reality of Alabama's youngest governor. Though he was most of the above, he also was the segregationist governor.
He was initiated by fire into Alabama politics when he was appointed to the office of attorney general after his crime-busting dad was assassinated in Phenix City in 1954.
He cleaned up Phenix City and went on to the governor's mansion in 1958 to clean up much of the rest of the state. Then he went about trying to fix other ills of Alabama by using an ideology more at home with today's liberal left.
Yet, he is not our early-day William Winter or our Jimmy Carter, all because of something called gradualism. Or, put more commonly, the slow-walking of integration. It was a mistake for him, and for Alabama.
Because John Patterson was not a hero prepared to ignore real politik, Alabama lived through the anguish of the confrontational policies of George Wallace.

More states give tax credits to working poor

From stateline.org April 16, 2008

This tax season, even more low- and moderate-income taxpayers can look forward to a check from their states along with their federal refunds, thanks to new state laws that aim to put cash in the hands of the working poor.

Washington state, New Mexico, North Carolina and Louisiana this year joined 20 other states in offering so-called Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) programs — an initiative patterned after a successful federal tax credit program for the poor launched in the mid-1970s that gives federal taxes back to low-income taxpayers. In addition, several states with existing programs increased the amount of the benefits.

Read the full story here http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=301177

Former Alabama guv's appeal

Yes, Don Siegelman is appealing his 2006 conviction on federal corruption charges.

More than that, however, the former Alabama governor is finding receptive audiences for his claim that his pursuit by federal prosecutors was part of an effort by Republicans to tarnish a Democrat who had proven himself capable of winning elections in a GOP-friendly state.

Last week, the CBS News program "60 Minutes" carried an update from a story it had done earlier this year when Siegelman was locked up in a Louisiana prison.

On Sunday, The Washington Post followed up with a 1,400-word story on Siegelman and his case.

Here's an exceprt:

An appeals court panel in Atlanta will decide whether Siegelman, the governor from 1999 to 2003, should win a new trial because of what he contends are faulty jury instructions underpinning his 2006 conviction on bribery, conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction charges.
Yet Siegelman has not petitioned the court to hear his allegations of political tampering, choosing instead to make them on television programs and in newspapers and magazines. He asserts that Rove, two Republican U.S. attorneys, the son of his successor as governor, career prosecutors and former leaders of the Justice Department's public integrity unit conspired to manufacture a case and thwart Siegelman's ambitions to return to the governor's mansion.

More on this case will surely follow.

Up, Up and Away

(Cross-posted from The Progressive Pulse, a North Carolina blog)

The incomes of North Carolina’s richest five percent of families grew much faster than those of all other families over the past 20 years. Top families now earn, on average, 12 times more than poor ones and 4.3 times more than middle-income ones.

Between 1987-89 and 2004-06, the post-federal tax, inflation-adjusted incomes of North Carolina’s richest five percent of families rose by 57 percent. This represents an annual increase of $4,249. In contrast, the poorest fifth of families saw their incomes rise by 9.9 percent, which translates into an annual gain of $87. And the middle fifth of families posted a 9.6 percent gain, which equals an annual raise of $234.

These findings come from the new report Pulling Apart, published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute, nonpartisan research organizations in Washington, D.C. The study uses modified census data to measure state-level income trends at three points in time: the late 1980s, the late 1990s and the mid-2000s Each period represents a peak in an economic cycle.

The report notes that family incomes in North Carolina grew at similar rates between the late 1990s and mid-2000s. This development, however, did little to offset the long-term rise in inequality. Consider the following:

* In the mid-2000s, the richest 5% of families had an average income ($197,331) that was 12 times greater than the average income of the poorest 20% of families ($16,436). This is up from a ratio of 8.4 in the late 1980s.

* In the mid-2000s, the richest 5% of families had an average income ($197,331) that was 4.3 times greater than the average incomes of the middle 20% of families ($45,432). This is up from a ratio of 3.0 in the late 1980s.

New study touts tax reform ideas for Mississippi

A new special report by the Tax Foundation touts several tax reform ideas for Mississippi that also were part of the Center for a Better South's policy work on tax reform in 2006. In Doing Better, the Center suggested modernizing income tax brackets, reducing sales tax exemptions and several other ideas. According to the new study on the Magnolia State, the Tax Foundation suggests:

In the area of business taxation, Mississippi should (1) repeal at least one of its corporate franchise, inventory, and intangibles taxes, thus reducing compliance and tax burdens while giving the state a comparative advantage over its neighbors; (2) resist calls to raise corporate tax rates or add new brackets, which would be at odds with the global trend of attracting business by lowering corporate tax rates; (3) flatten brackets because multiple rates on corporate income achieve no logical or progressive goal; (4) adjust brackets annually for inflation and conform to the federal tax base, to reduce compliance costs; (5) eliminate or reduce special incentives; and (6) resist calls to adopt economic nexus.

In the area of sales taxes, Mississippi should consider (1) eliminating the sales tax on machinery and other business-to-business transactions, to reduce tax pyramiding and economic distortions; (2) broadening the sales tax base while lowering the sales tax rate, to improve neutrality and reduce administrative complexity; and (3) avoiding gross receipts taxes, which are economically harmful and distorting.

In the area of personal income taxes, Mississippi should consider (1) flattening brackets, adjusting brackets annually for inflation, and conforming to the federal tax base, all to reduce compliance costs; and (2) resisting calls to raise personal income taxes or add additional brackets, which would punish entrepreneurs vital to economic growth and give up one of the state's best competitive advantages.

Resolution could hike cigarette, liquor tax rates; Proposal aims to make up shortfall in Medicaid funding in Mississippi

Tax increases on liquor and cigarettes were added Friday to a growing list of possible ways to take care of the Division of Medicaid's multimillion deficit.

Narrowly approved by the Mississippi House, Senate Concurrent Resolution 655 - which would allow a new bill to be drafted past the deadline - was amended to include statute sections that could implement the proposed tax increases.

But how the changes will go over across the hall remains to be seen, as many key senators have maintained raising the tobacco tax should wait until another year.

The measure, which required a two-thirds vote because bill deadlines have passed, was approved with 81 representatives in favor and 38 against.

It could be up for more debate before heading back to senators for concurrence.

Read the full article by Leah Rupp in April 5, 2008 edition of The Clarion -Ledger http://clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080405/NEWS010504/804050356/1205/NEWS010504

Paying for Transportation

A new report written by Steve Jackson of the NC Budget and Tax Center presents an elegant summary of how North Carolina finances its transportation infrastructure and outlines several reforms that would deliver valuable economic and environmental benefits.

From the report At the Crossroads:

It is time to stop business-as usual when it comes to transportation funding. The three major foci of transportation policy – revenues, expenditure priorities and the Department of Transportation – are all in need of serious overhaul.

[snip]

Minor changes at the margins of these three elements will not solve the structural problems .... This crisis demands a comprehensive new approach that transitions to a new revenue system based around vehicle-miles taxation, locates road building and maintenance schedules within a larger plan that promotes greater public-transit use and anti-sprawl land-use planning, and a nimble, efficient and accountable DOT.

40 years after Dr. King

Today, on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, newspapers across the South are looking at the tremendous civil rights progress that has been made. But as Adam Parker at The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., points out, problems still fester. He talked with Andy Brack and John Simpkins, both board members of the Center for a Better South:

"Videos that have recently surfaced of white South Carolina troopers' allegedly harsh treatment of black drivers also caused an outcry. NAACP officials and other observers, such as political activist Andy Brack, have asked: When white drivers are pulled over, do troopers aim guns at them and handcuff them to their cars?

The great achievement of King and the civil rights movement was the end of legal segregation. The integration of blacks into white society was the political outcome based on a political agenda, said Brack, publisher of the S.C. Statehouse Report and president of the nonprofit think tank Center for a Better South. King was fighting laws that were designed to keep blacks without rights.

Integration called for full participation in civic life by all Americans, and government has done a pretty good job removing the legal and political barriers that stood in the way, he said. But while the political process can help resolve political conflicts, it can do little about cultural differences.

It's important to remember that there is such a thing as a distinct black culture, especially in the South, Brack said, and it is at its most visible in church on Sunday morning. "That's the way it is."

John Simpkins, professor of constitutional law at Charleston's School of Law, said America's cultural differences are not strictly black and white.

"It's not just an issue of race, but of values inherent to cultural viewpoints," he said.

Black culture tends to be more collective, and this tendency often can conflict with the predominant American value of individualism, Simpkins said.

"The legal system is based on the individual," he said. We value property rights, say every vote counts, encourage consumerism and the singular pursuit of the American Dream.

Meanwhile, most blacks maintain a set of values that accommodates the group, he said. The property one person owns is shared, exemplified by the problems related to heirs property, Simpkins noted. For blacks, communal ownership is legitimate, he said.

"It's the exposure that culture has had to a legal system favoring the individual that has resulted in problems," Simpkins said. "African-American communities are in decline because there is no longer a collective to which a variety of people contribute."

Business of Green: A Special Section Millions of Jobs of a Different Color

From The New York Times.com March 26, 2008

Politicians talk about the promise of “green collar” jobs. But no one is certain how many such jobs there are, and some don’t agree on what makes a job green.

A Turn to Alternative Chemicals
With a push from state government and industries, chemical companies are producing more environmentally benign products.

Pay for the Power not the Panels
Some of the most compelling advances in the solar power boom are taking place in financial engineering rather than photovoltaic technology.
Times Topics: Energy and Power Solar Energy

Saving the Planet? Not with my Money
Many shareholders remain unconvinced that going green is great for the planet as well as for business.

Click here for the full series of articles from The New York Times.com http://www.nytimes.com/business/businessspecial2/?th&emc=th

SC students protest coal plant proposal

Students at the College of Charleston today protested licensing and construction of a proposed new coal-burning power plant by Santee Cooper, a state-backed utility.

Protesters noted that coal was the dirtiest way to make electricity because it would shorten people's lives due to soot, increase asthma attacks, contaminate the Great Pee Dee River with more mercury and emit tons of greenhouse gases. Protesters urged increasing energy efficiency in the state and more renewable alternatives, both of which are a key to last year's book by the Center for a Better South.

To read more about ways the South can get better power, check out: Getting Greener: Progressive Environmental Ideas for the American South.