† Only The Little People Pay Taxes (updates fourth item on page): Based on a national survey of 1,000 randomly selected, registered voters Institute and polls of 400 respondents each in FL, IL, IN, MI, MT, NC, NY, OH, PA and WI conducted for the Manhattan, former (Bill) Clinton pollster Douglas Schoen concludes that “voters strongly favor measures to pare the compensation of current and future public employees” and “strongly oppose higher taxes”:

Specifically, over three-quarters (78%) say their state faced a budget crisis this year, and 68% say that the crisis was resolved with spending cuts. Overwhelmingly they blame politicians for creating and exacerbating the problems: 48% say "elected state officials made careless and self-serving decisions," while only 6% say "state governments did not tax enough."

The top priorities for resolving current fiscal issues are to cut government spending (47%) and to ask for greater sacrifice from current public employees, by having them contribute more towards their benefits (31%). By almost two-to-one, they think that current public employees should have to contribute more toward their pension benefits because of budget problems.

A majority (51%) say they would not be willing to cut "social service programs provided by your state" to maintain the compensation of public employees; and 60% say that "education and health care" should not be cut so that "the salaries and benefits of public employees could be paid at current levels."

Further, by 48% to 40%, voters say that public employees' salaries should be "frozen," and they should be required to contribute more towards their benefits when states face the type of crises they are now facing. Close to two-thirds (64%) say they would not be willing to have their taxes raised as a means of keeping salaries and benefits of current employees at current levels.

Schoen notes that 69 percent do not thing that public employees who are already retired should not have to contribute more towards their health-care benefits or take a reduced pension because of state and local government budget problems. Perhaps the questions should be revisited in a subsequent survey in light of this Chicago Tribune article, which details how a law passed in 1991 “with no public debate among state legislators and, more importantly, no cost analysis” resulted in 23 retired union officials from Chicago collecting $56 million during their lifetimes “from two ailing city pension funds”:

Because the law bases the city pensions on the labor leaders' union salaries, they are reaping retirement benefits that far outstrip the modest salaries they made as city employees. On average, their pensions are nearly three times higher than what the typical retired city worker receives.

No one from either the state Legislature or city government will take credit for the law, which passed in 1991, and the process of drafting pension legislation in Springfield is so shrouded in secrecy that there's no way of knowing exactly whom to hold responsible. …

Making changes won't be easy, however. That's because the state constitution says pension benefits cannot be diminished once they are earned.

Pension experts from around the country say they've never heard of such a perk for union leaders. They warn that it not only creates opportunities to scam the system but also robs the city of its ability to control pension costs. The city doesn't set union salaries, the most important ingredient in determining the size of the leaders' pensions.

What's more, none of the labor officials retired in the traditional sense. Even as they collected their inflated city pensions, they held on to their high-paying union jobs. A decade ago, those public pension funds were flush, but they're now in such deep financial trouble that they threaten to burden taxpayers and dues-paying union workers alike.

Only half of the $56 million will be covered by the contributions of the 23 retired labor leaders, and they “retired” from city jobs that they had stopped doing years earlier, because the city allows lengthy leaves of absence to those who work for a union.  

† SOTU = Stuff Our Taxes Underwrite (updates eighth item on page): When The Stiletto first wrote this post, she called bullsh*t on President Barack Hussein Obama's claim in the State of the Union speech that government "historically" provided funding for cutting edge scientists and inventors. Timothy Carney, Senior Political Columnist of The Washington Examiner also makes this point:

Solyndra's rise and fall are an important microcosm of Obamanomics. It's an instance of the influence peddling, incompetence and waste that are inevitable whenever government becomes deeply entangled in industry. …

The most telling moment of last week's House subcommittee hearing on Solyndra was a back-and-forth between Democrat Ed Markey and Republican Phil Gingrey.

Markey pointed out that solar companies aren't the only energy companies getting federal loan guarantees. Power giant Southern Co. won a $3.4 billion loan guarantee from the Obama Energy Department last summer.

Gingrey, of Georgia, didn't like Markey "comparing Solyndra, this bankrupt company, totally unproven technology, to the Southern Company." Gingrey pointed out that "Southern Company owns Mississippi Power, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, among others, and employs literally thousands of people."

The implication was clear: Federal subsidies to big, established companies are fine. It's the handouts to these upstarts that are objectionable.

So Gingrey is embracing the heart of Obamanomics – the proposition that government ought to be an active partner in shaping the economy and helping business – while objecting to the administration's behavior in one case.

If Republicans were willing to broaden their attack beyond criticizing this one loan deal, they could indict the whole practice of government-business collusion. The GOP could show how Solyndra is the inevitable consequence of Obama's type of big-government policies.

† Philly Abortionist Charged With Murder Of Seven Newborns (updates fourth item on page): After authorities discovered an abortion mill in Philadelphia that (allegedly) operated with total disregard for its patients’ safety and well-being – or for the law – the VA state Board of Health drafted new regulations for abortion facilities that critics say could shut down most of the state's abortion providers, The Washington Times reports:

The new rules would require existing facilities that provide five or more first-trimester abortions per month to meet the same standards as surgery centers built after 2010, including rules on specific architectural standards, staffing levels and medical supplies. …

[O]utbursts among the crowd of about 100 erupted more than once during the public comment period and the board's lengthy debate …

The board heard from 32 speakers, with opponents – who have contended that the rules were a backdoor attempt to deny women access to abortions – outnumbering supporters by a ratio of about 2-to-1. …

Among other things, the rules would allow Department of Health employees to inspect facilities and be provided with patient medical records. They would not apply to surgery centers that provide other procedures, such as oral surgery or colonoscopies. Abortion clinics are regulated as outpatient facilities, as are oral and cosmetic surgery centers. Second-trimester abortions must be performed in hospitals. …

The next step after the vote is executive branch review, where the regulations will pass through the offices of the state attorney general, the Department of Planning and Budget, Health and Human Services, and the governor's office.

Temporary regulations will go into effect on Jan. 1 and remain in place for 12 months while permanent rules are drafted, though Mr. McDonnell has the authority to extend them up to an additional six months.

The Washington Post accuses supporters of the legislation of insincerity:

[T]the standards are not really about safety. They are unjustifiably stringent and could force abortion facilities to shut their doors. …

No justification has been given for such fast-track treatment. Abortions are among the safest of medical procedures. Virginia’s Department of Health does not keep track of complications associated with the 25,000 or so abortions performed in the commonwealth each year. But the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit think tank that focuses on reproductive health and supports legal abortion, reports that less than one-half of 1 percent of all abortions performed in the country result in complications and require follow-up medical treatment.

And in a second editorial on the subject, the WaPo calls the regulations “absurdly onerous and utterly unnecessary” and complains that “Republicans such as Mr. McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II love to pummel what they see as the regulatory zeal of liberals. But in this instance they have outdone liberals in supporting the imposition of punitive and meddling rules under the pretext of protecting women’s health but without providing an iota of evidence that women were endangered to begin with.”

Instead of getting their “facts” from the Guttmacher Institute – hardly an unbiased organization – why don’t the WaPo’s editorial writers search Google for articles on women who died during botched abortions, or babies who survived the procedure only to be killed outside the womb.

Meanwhile, The Associated Press reports that U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks’ ruled that a new TX law requiring doctors to show a woman an ultrasound image of the fetus or embryo, to describe its organs and size to her and to allow her to hear its heartbeat at least 24 hours before performing an abortion is unconstitutional:

Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who is running for president, signed the law in May, saying it would save countless lives by discouraging women from getting abortions. About 81,000 abortions are performed every year in Texas. Perry and other conservatives called the ruling tragic and said it would result in the loss of hundreds of innocent lives.

The law made exceptions for women who were willing to sign statements saying they were pregnant as a result of rape or incest or that their fetus had an irreversible abnormality. …

The law's supporters claim some women have regretted having abortions and the law ensures they understand what's involved before they do.

Sparks wrote that forcing doctors to discuss the results with a patient who may not want to listen "compels physicians to advance an ideological agenda with which they may not agree, regardless of any medical necessity and irrespective of whether the pregnant women wish to listen."

Sparks also struck down several penalties. Doctors could have faced losing their medical license and possible criminal misdemeanor prosecution if they did not comply.

TX Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed an appeal to the judge’s ruling.

† TSA (Thieving Security Agent): There have been numerous instances of Transportation Security Administration personnel stealing from airline passengers, but the level of criminality amongst security agents has now, disturbingly, been kicked up several notches. Nashville International Airport TSA agent Clifton Lyles has been arrested on charges of statutory rape, and WLOX-TV (Channel 13m Biloxi, MS) reports that Ruben Orlando Benitez, the TSA’s assistant federal security director in MS, was arrested in the stabbing death of co-worker Stacey Wright. The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson MS) adds that authorities believe Wright and Benitez were romantically involved.

† WA Housewives Join Eco-Nazi Resistance (updates penultimate item on page): The New York Times chides consumers – in a news article, not an editorial – for “cling[ing] to mom’s age-old advice that hot water washes best” and “stubbornly refusing to turn down the temperature”:

About three-quarters of the energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions from washing a load of laundry come from heating the water – a practice that, scientists say, is often wasteful and unnecessary. …

But in trying to create Tide Coldwater, [Procter & Gamble’s] scientists were confronted with a problem: hot water does help get clothes cleaner. In fact, thermal energy is one of three secrets to cleaning clothes, along with mechanical energy and chemicals.

“When you reduce one, you have to do better in the others,” said James Danzinger, a senior scientist who works on detergents for Procter & Gamble.

So the company set its scientists loose to find new chemicals to compensate, and what they came up with was a detergent, Tide Coldwater, with different enzymes and surfactants that work better in cold water. …

Do cold-water detergents work? Consumer Reports ranked Tide Coldwater among its top detergents last year, though some of its competitors did not rate as high. …

At a Target store in suburban New Jersey, Lara Snyder said she wanted to be part of the cold-water revolution and had bought Tide Coldwater. But so far, she said, she’s not ready to switch over entirely.

“I find that sometimes I wash it in cold,” Ms. Snyder said, “and have to wash it again in warm water.”

In the U.S. regular Tide outsells Tide Coldwater by about 7:1 ($1 billion a year in sales v. $150 million), and according to Procter’s research, 7 percent of white laundry loads are washed in cold water, as are 22 percent of light colors and 57 percent of dark colors.

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times (updates seventh item on this page): People who have been unemployed the longest need work the most so that they can get back on their feet, pay down the credit card bills they have racked up at the supermarket and start spending on non-perishable goods again. Inexplicably, some conservatives think that a regulation in President Barack Hussein Obama's otherwise worthless American Jobs Act that makes it illegal for employers to discriminate against unemployed jobseekers by explicitly excluding them from the application process is a bad thing. They explain their reasoning to The Hill: