UAW Approves GM Pact, Slovakia Now Controls Europe’s Fate, Republicans Want to Cut Benefits for Wealthy People to Pay for Tax Cuts for Rich People,. .

And Other News that is In the News

After GM and the UAW reached tentative agreement on a labor contract, the contract was submitted to a vote.  It appears that about 65% of those voting approved the agreement.  The NYT reports this

At several large plants, fewer than 40 percent of eligible workers made the effort to vote, based on results posted online, evidence of considerable apathy toward the agreement. 

That sounds about right.  The contract was a good, basic agreement that should not have excited the union members nor discouraged them.  In this case the cited apathy is a good sign.

Finland has approved the new new new (as opposed to the new new) European bailout plan.  Why does anyone care what Finland does?  Well approval for action takes a unanimous vote by the European countries involved, so one country can veto the entire operation. 

Finland was considered a potential problem since that country wants guarantees and collateral before it will approve funding. 

Before anyone gets too excited, there is this.

The 103-to-66 vote, with 30 legislators absent, still leaves 7 of the 17 members of the euro zone yet to ratify a bailout fund that, despite expanded resources and power, is considered much too small to fend off further market attacks on Greece and other wounded countries.

And this

Finland can now be checked off the list, the next holdout may prove to be Slovakia, where there was talk a vote on the bailout fund might be delayed until late October, past the unofficial deadline of midmonth. Many Slovakians resent having to help bail out Greece, which, despite its problems, is wealthier.

So now the western world waits on Slovakia for the next crisis point.

Memo to Europe:  All of us are getting a little tired of this saga, can you come up with a new crisis to entertain us?

Washington Post Columnist Marc Thiessen reports on the fact that Republicans are not the pro-rich people you think they are.  In fact, according to Mr. Thiessen they want the rich to get less benefits, and want to do so in part by means testing Medicare and Social Security so benefits for wealthy people are less or removed altogether.

Now you are probably thinking this is a great way to reduce the deficit.  Well, not so fast according to Rep. Paul Ryan (R, Wi)

The GOP’s difference with Obama, Ryan says, is that the president “sees closing tax expenditures as just raising revenues,” while Republicans want to “use that revenue to reduce tax rates so we can get faster economic growth and job creation.”

Yes, Republicans want to reduce benefits for wealthy people and big business so they can cut taxes on wealthy people and big business.  After you stop laughing, try to remember that Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are considered “serious people” in Washington.

California recently passed a new fiscal year budget that was balanced by spending cuts alone, as Republicans refused to allow the issue of tax increases to go before a public referendum (democracy is just not their thing).  Now the budget may not be all that balanced, particularly after California pays huge legal fees to fight lawsuits against its budget.

School officials, including those at the L.A. Unified School District, said they would file suit Wednesday alleging that Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislators illegally manipulated California's voter-approved education funding formula to shortchange them by $2 billion. And a coalition of disability-rights activists said they planned to sue Wednesday as well to block nearly $100 million in cuts to services for the developmentally disabled. . .

The state is already in court battling redevelopment agencies over an attempt to take $1.7 billion from them. And California officials are pleading with the Obama administration for permission to reduce Medi-Cal spending by $1.7 billion. . . .

If state income falls short of lawmakers' budget forecast, automatic cuts inserted as a fiscal safeguard will go into effect, slashing spending on schools, universities, libraries and programs for the needy. Some school districts could shorten the academic year by up to seven days.

Meanwhile Republicans continue to tout American Exceptionalism, you know, how much better the U. S. is than everyone else.  Hard to see how California is going to lead the way in Exceptionalism.

A Republican Congressman, Don Young of Alaska, wants to repeal every regulation that the government has issued since 1991.

"My bill is very simple, I just null and void any regulations passed in the last 20 years," Young told the Anchorage Downtown Rotary Club.

The proposal may have been been too extreme for his audience

At least some members of the Rotary crowd appeared taken aback by the breadth of what Young appeared to be saying, given all of the passenger jet safety, pesticide, food safety, banking and other regulations that have come into place since 1991.

Rep. Young does not consider himself a radical,

he started his speech by talking about the need for Congress to become more moderate and less politically partisan

but apparently he was absent from class the day they taught what “moderate and less politically partisan” really means.  Mr. Young  apparently thinks it means that everyone should think, (if "think" is the operative word here), like he thinks.  The Dismal Political Economist doesn't think so.