| County divided over cancer funding
Johnson County voters mirrored the rest of Texas in Tuesday's voting, approving all 16 proposed constitutional amendments. And like the rest of the state, voter turnout was also low."But it was a little better than expected," said Cheri Hawkins, Johnson County elections administrator.Out of 77,078 registered voters in Johnson County, each proposition received less than 4,000 votes.The amendments authorize the state to borrow almost $10 billion in bonds to pay for projects on highway improvement, cancer research, state park improvements, student loans and water development assistance in economically distressed areas, among other projects. Proposition 15, a measure allowing the state to borrow up to $3 billion for cancer research, proved the closest in Johnson County, passing by 21 votes.Several officials, including State Rep.
Wasik: Crash of '87 taught us to stay calm and savvy
What were you doing and feeling during the 1987 stock-market crash, which was 20 years ago last week? Having married just two weeks prior, I was about a year into a great new job. When I saw the biggest one-day percentage loss in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Oct. 19 and near-meltdown that followed, I froze. I didn't call my mutual-fund companies or broker. I stayed in stocks, where almost all of my meager wealth was invested. It turns out my passivity was the best course. I didn't need that money for a while and knew the economy was basically solid. Yet I'm not confusing mettle with foresight. I had no idea what was going to happen after the Dow took a 508-point freefall and about $1 trillion evaporated in a single day. Various malefactors have been blamed from a ballooning trade deficit to program trading.
The Watershed Years
Much of American wealth is an illusion which is being secretly gnawed away and much of it may be completely wiped out soon. The American experiment is, without a doubt, the most incredible social and economic phenomenon of all time. Everywhere in America, I see evidence of great wealth: millions of beautiful homes, millions of boats, airplanes and expensive cars, roads jammed with motor homes, expensive restaurants with people standing in line for hours for the privilege of spending a lot of money, and the casinos of Las Vegas and Atlantic City are jammed with wall-to-wall gamblers. Nothing in man’s history has ever come close to it, and the forces are already irresistibly in motion to assault much of it. Have you ever played the "Neighbor Game?" Your spouse says to you, "Dear, I wonder how much money Jones next door makes?’ You consider the new boat, the Mercedes in the driveway, and the European vacation, and you say, "Well, he probably makes $250,000 a year." But you didn’t estimate Jones’ earnings, you only estimated what Jones spends, and the odds are that the Joneses are spending much more than they make, and they can only do so as long as someone will loan them the difference.
More Budget Pages
In January, a Democratic congressional majority was sworn in that was elected in part by promising fiscal responsibility. The Democrats specifically pledged to limit spending increases and employ pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting to keep the budget deficit in check. As their first year moves toward a close, it has become clear that the members of this majority have failed to live up to their promises. In just 10 months, Congress has passed legislation that would increase federal spending by a combined $454 billion over 10 years and raise taxes and fees by $98 billion over 10 years and has passed a budget resolution that would bring the tax increase to a projected $2.7 trillion.[1] Despite the Democrats' PAYGO pledge of no new deficit spending, legislation enacted thus far has increased spending much faster than taxes, resulting in an additional $356 billion in deficit spending.
U.S. House OKs national fund to insure against major disasters
Attempts by Florida legislators to contain the cost of homeowner insurance took a long step forward Thursday when the House passed a bill to create a national fund to cover mega-disasters.
The 258-155 vote gave momentum to the long-running cause of pooling resources and spreading risk across the country to keep insurance affordable. Action now shifts to the Senate, where Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Bill Nelson of Florida have introduced a companion bill.
"It sends a very strong bipartisan message to the Senate that we want them to pick up our bill and do what they need to do to pass it," Rep. Ron Klein said minutes after the House vote.
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