Legendary Boxer Muhammad Ali At Death’s Door
Legendary Boxer Muhammad Ali At Death’s Door Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/02/legendary-boxer-muhammad-ali-at-deaths-door/
Washington Election Results drudge report Presidential Election 2012 Incumbent politico Tammy Baldwin house of representatives
Since the 2013 Legislative Session began in Olympia and I assumed the role of chair of the Finance Committee, it?s been a bit overwhelming to meet with literally hundreds of representatives from business, labor, cities, counties, non profits and others seeking support for their respective positions on tax policy. My central goal, as I have shared with business lobbyists and citizen activists alike, is to radically improve the analytical rigor with which the Legislature considers tax exemptions, credits, preferential rates and basic tax structure changes.
In nearly every case I have literally asked the proponents to come back with a business plan?rather than a verbal pitch, memo or bill draft?to make the case for their request. Some of the meetings have gone well and some have been incredibly uncomfortable, as veterans of Olympia seem perplexed as to what a business case actually looks like. To date, my request for business plans has been met with blank stares by most but not all.
I suspect it would be helpful to outline in specific detail exactly what I mean. It is my goal that any tax preference, credit or preferential rate legislation that moves through the Finance Committee must now literally not just figuratively have five key elements to the policy: Transparency, intent, metrics, expiration date and accountability.
TRANSPARENCY
One of the reasons the High Tech R&D Tax Credit has received so much attention is that we have accurate data about which companies receive how much in reduced taxes from the credit. In 2012 I sponsored legislation to reform the tax credit given to high tech companies in order to direct most of the resources into higher education and I publicly released the list of beneficiaries. While it had been available before no one had widely distributed the list. You can read about my proposal in the Seattle Times here, here and on my blog here.
I believe if a company or organization wants the financial benefits of a tax policy they should?in a vast majority of cases? be willing to openly share the vital data so that it is easily accessible to the public for review, study and assessment. It seems obvious but folks might be surprised at the complaints about filling out the paperwork. Without reports and surveys the Department of Revenue, legislators and the public are unable to measure results. It?s a deal breaker.
INTENT
The top criticism of the Joint Legislative and Audit Review Committee (JLARC)?the group we task with measuring efficacy of tax exemptions?of the Legislature?s approach to our 640 tax exemptions is that we fail to adequately articulate the specific goals and objectives of a policy. Thus, nearly a third of exemptions can?t be easily assessed for effectiveness by performance auditors because the Legislature merely created the policy without a clear goal in mind (other, it would seem, than a desire to pass the bill). Instead of ?create jobs? I suggest something a bit more measurable. The intent language must be aggressively clear, direct, understandable and simple. A made-up example: ?The purpose of this tax credit is to provide additional resources to small, early-stage technology companies to help off-set the upfront personnel requirements of investing in research and development for the first 1-4 years before a company is profitable.?
METRICS
Here is where the rubber meets the road. Of the state?s 640 tax exemptions, credits and preferential rates the honest grade I would assign to the metrics and measurement of results is D- without grade inflation. It?s frustrating and, frankly, infuriating that we hold ourselves to such a low bar of quality assessments. There are sincere and genuine attempts but too often the lack of quality metrics is too difficult even to attempt?or the proponents push hard to avoid being held accountable. And so we don?t even try or too easily give up. We know that in four, five or 10 years, for example, when the tax exemption expires that JLARC will conduct a review. How do we want JLARC to measure the efficacy? What metrics would make a review successful? What data would help ensure a quality performance audit? These seem like simple and obvious questions but, to date, the legislative process has efficiently avoided committing to specific metrics of success or failure.
EXPIRATION DATE
In 2011 I introduced sweeping legislation to require an expiration date for the 251 tax exemptions that currently do not have one. I did not propose to change the date of any exemptions that have one already in statute (such as Boeing), only to require that all exemptions (with a few exceptions for food and prescription drugs) must be reviewed and reauthorized by the Legislature every 10 years. I am convinced this is a compelling public policy proposal and I believe it has merit, and my goal was to begin a serious dialogue about the core issue. Without an expiration date, a tax exemption exists in perpetuity and is literally untouched in terms of assessing whether it provides any value to taxpayers. Even if it clearly does not work. The Seattle Times editorial board has been, perhaps surprisingly, a supporter of this proposal and it generated considerable attention. The reaction from the business community was, however, fierce and borderline politically vicious. I stand by the core idea as a responsible approach to fiscal policy, and welcome a dialogue about how to embrace the idea in a thoughtful fashion.
ACCOUNTABILITY
An easy word to say but difficult to translate into reality if the Legislature is uninterested in making it happen. Accountability of a tax exemption can take a wide range of forms. Often a business interest, city or non profit makes a pitch for legislation based upon the promise of positive indirect financial returns to the public. But I have come to learn that the ?risk? of the deal is always?exclusively?held by taxpayers and not the other side. ?Accountability? means finding creative ways to reduce the risk profile of the tax exemption for the taxpayer and sharing the burden of the opportunity. For example, a bill might include an accountability provision by which an entity (public or private) needs to ?match? the value of the tax exemption by placing resources in escrow and if the goals are not met, the cost to state taxpayers is reimbursed. Another example of accountability is to ?share the upside? of the deal rather than asking taxpayers to assume the financial risk of reducing state resources while private interests and other parties such as cities and counties capture an incremental upside of the investment of resources.
In my view these five elements are key to a successful business plan. I am not opposed to tax exemptions and have supported many of them that can prove they work without reservation.
No business person would allow major, multi million decisions to be made without a strong business plan. We should expect no less. It?s our money.
We are, unfortunately, a consumption-driven sales tax and B&O tax state. It?s understandable that many interests want to be carved out of paying the full freight of sales and B&O rates (and property tax once in a while as well). But just because there is a negative economic externality on an industry because of our tax structure doesn?t mean it makes financial sense for taxpayers to offer relief.
It means we need thoughtful, responsible, balanced tax reform.
Your partner in service
Reuven.
Be the first to like this.
Source: http://reuvencarlyle36.com/2013/02/02/how-to-pass-a-tax-exemption-through-the-finance-committee/
the last waltz earth day activities mel gibson splunk dark shadows iau msft
Guess who was on the list? Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), with a program called Typescript, a new language for creating Javascript applications. Yahoo was also on the list with something called Mojito, which Wired once called its "Apple app store killer."
Companies release software as open source because they want other eyes on it, other hands on it. They are no longer just releasing software they no longer care about. They are trying to build programming communities around the software. They're trying to create alliances around it. They're trying to grow it.
Complete Story
Related Stories:
Source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/foolish-investing-in-a-new-open-source-order.html
divine mercy chaplet albert pujols the shining mariano rivera mariano rivera jobs report tiger woods masters 2012
PHOENIX (AP) ? A lawyer wounded by a gunman in a Phoenix office shooting this week has died, the second of three people hit by gunfire in the attack, the publicist for his law firm said Friday.
Mark Hummels, 43, had been on life support at a Phoenix hospital after Wednesday morning's shooting that killed a company's chief executive and left a woman with non-life threatening injuries.
Colleagues of Hummels described him as a smart, competent and decent man who was a rising star in his profession and dedicated to his wife, 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son.
The gunman ? Arthur Douglas Harmon, 70 ? was found dead early Thursday in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Harmon opened fire at the end of a mediation session at a north-central Phoenix office building over a lawsuit he filed last April.
Steve Singer, 48, a father of two and CEO of Scottsdale-based Fusion Contact Centers LLC, died hours after the shooting.
Harmon targeted Singer and Hummels and "it was not a random shooting," police said. A 32-year-old woman not involved in the mediation was caught in the gunfire near the building entrance and suffered a gunshot wound to her left hand.
Fusion had hired Harmon to refurbish office cubicles at two call centers in California.
Hummels worked with the Phoenix law firm Osborn Maledon and focused on business disputes, real estate litigation and malpractice defense. He died Thursday night, publicist Athia Hardt told The Associated Press early Friday.
He was a reporter for the Albuquerque Journal and Santa Fe New Mexican before he left to go to law school in 2001. He graduated first in his class at the University of Arizona's law school.
Hummels was admitted to the Arizona bar in 2005.
"This is a day of just unspeakable sorrow," said 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Andrew Hurwitz, who hired Hummels straight out of law school to serve as a law clerk from 2004 to 2005 while Hurwitz was serving on the Arizona Supreme Court.
According to court documents, Harmon was scheduled to go to a law office in the building where the shooting took place for a settlement conference.
Harmon represented himself in the lawsuit, and Hummels represented Fusion.
Fusion said Harmon was paid nearly $30,000 under the $47,000 contract. But the company asked him to repay much of the money when it discovered the cubicles could not be refurbished, according to the documents.
Harmon argued Fusion hung him out to dry by telling him to remove and store 206 "worthless" work stations after the mix-up was discovered. Harmon said Fusion then told him that the company decided to use a competitor.
Harmon's lawsuit had sought payment for the remainder of the contract, $20,000 in damages and reimbursement for storage fees and legal costs.
The company countersued Harmon, protesting the sale of his home to his son for $26,000 and asking a judge to prevent Harmon from getting rid of other assets. Harmon said the company's claims that the home was fraudulently transferred to his son were unfounded.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/law-firm-phoenix-lawyer-dies-shooting-wounds-151919021.html
anthony shadid gary carter this means war bobby brown suzanne somers colbert colbert report
Using text chat to provide customer service is a pretty standard tool on the web, but when it comes to mobile apps, these chats are still very rare, despite the fact that a lot of online commerce has already moved to mobile. The Y Combinator-backed Hipmob, which offers these chat features and integration with standard IM clients and CRM tools as a service, hopes to become the "premier support service for mobile," as the company's co-founder Ayo Omojola told me earlier this week.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Nq9fVCiLi7U/
toy story 4 toy story 4 steam kristin chenoweth Robert Blake BLK Water ESPYs
Folks, the rather dour line drawing that you can see in the image above is the very first glimpse of Google's wearable computing project as it swings through the FCC's underground facility. The Google Glass Explorer Edition hardware, promised to arrive this year, is carrying a Broadcom 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g WiFi radio that's been paired with a Bluetooth 4.0 + LE module. We've seen a reference to an "integral vibrating element that provides audio to the user via contact with the user's head," which we presume relates to the bone conduction patent we saw earlier this month. The filing also reveals that the testing laboratory involved used the conduction technology to view video with audio. As the commission is now making the paperwork public, it can only mean that it's judged the unit, with the product code "XEB," to be safe for human consumption -- which means customers 782 and 788 might be expecting something special in the mail very shortly.
Filed under: Wearables, Google
Source: FCC
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/31/google-glass-fcc/
solicitor general neighborhood watch dennis rodman dodgers sale tami roman jetblue captain los angeles dodgers
States changing the method that they use to allocate their electoral votes is as old as the country. It is not, as Rachel Maddow suggested last December, like ?crossing a Rubicon that has never been crossed before.?
Pa.?s Capitol. Source: Ad Meskens
While Article II, Section 1 and the 12th Amendment describe the Electoral College?s structure and procedures, the Constitution leaves the selection method of the electors to the states (?Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature may direct?). As a result, it is perfectly legal for state politicians, such as Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, to propose and enact changes in a state?s selection method.
In fact, in the early Republic, selection methods varied widely. Some states delegated the presidential decision to state legislatures who selected the electors. In others, electors were chosen by the voters in either their congressional district or on a statewide basis.
Related Story: Constitution Check: Is winner-take-all Electoral College voting in trouble?
Prior to the 1800 election, six of the 16 states changed their method of selection to ensure the majority party?s preferred presidential candidate won the maximum electoral votes. Thomas Jefferson even wrote to Virginia governor James Monroe, asking him to pursue a legislative change: ?All agree that an election by districts would be best, if it could be general: but while ten States choose either by their legislatures or by a general ticket, it is folly and worse than folly for the other six not to do it.?
Since the 1830s, most states have used a popular vote method and a winner-take-all electoral vote allocation. Currently, Maine and Nebraska are the only states that allocate their electoral votes by congressional district, meaning that the statewide winner receives the state?s two at-large electoral votes and each congressional district winner receives an additional vote. In 2008, Barack Obama won the second congressional district in Nebraska, which resulted in the first modern-day electoral vote split: four votes for John McCain and one for Obama.
While Democrats are now accusing Republicans in Pennsylvania and other states (e.g., Virginia, Wisconsin, and Michigan) of ?rigging? the system and ?cheating,? it wasn?t all that long ago that the Democrats were considering similar electoral vote reforms.
In 2004, Democrats placed an initiative on the general election ballot in Colorado to change to a proportional allocation method. And during the congressional session that followed Al Gore?s 537-vote loss in 2000 in Florida, which led to all of that state?s 25 electoral votes being awarded to George W. Bush, three Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives (James Clyburn, Eliot Engel, and Bob Clement) introduced legislation to make the electoral votes in every state be awarded by the district method. Further, nearly half the states at the behest of Democrats considered altering their vote allocation method.
Simply put, parties are political and presidential elections are serious matters. No party likes losing a presidential election they believe they should have won. And every party will look for ways to tilt the game toward their favor in the next round.
Still, the present reform proposals are likely to go the way of the hundreds of others that have been considered since the 1960 election: nowhere. The one thing that will persist, however, is the unpopularity of the selection method among members of the losing party.
Lara M. Brown is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Her research interests include national elections, presidential aspirants, congressional incumbents, and political scandals.
Recent Constitution Daily Stories
10 interesting facts about young Franklin D. Roosevelt
Boy Scout policy change on gays might be limited
Baseball team flunks history with Taft mascot pick
Why Justice Scalia doesn?t want to kill the Constitution
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/states-changing-electoral-vote-methods-nothing-110209606--politics.html
penguins the band colton dixon houston weather dwyane wade the night they drove old dixie down levon
