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  • Former Christie allies to argue for bridge case reversals

    The traffic scandal that dragged down former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential aspirations will write another chapter on Tuesday as two former associates facing prison for their roles seek

    PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The traffic scandal that dragged down former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential aspirations will write another chapter on Tuesday as two former associates facing prison for their roles seek to convince a federal appeals court their convictions should be overturned.

    Attorneys for Bill Baroni and Bridget Kelly are expected to argue in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prosecutors misapplied federal law to unfairly criminalize the duo’s actions in the fall of 2013, when they realigned traffic lanes at the busy George Washington Bridge and caused massive traffic jams in the town of Fort Lee, New Jersey.

    Baroni was a top executive with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bridge’s operator, and Kelly was Christie’s deputy chief of staff. He received a 24-month sentence last year; Kelly was sentenced to 18 months.

    Baroni’s Port Authority colleague, David Wildstein, pleaded guilty and testified he conjured up the plot – and Baroni and Kelly gleefully went along – to punish Fort Lee’s mayor, a Democrat who didn’t endorse the Republican Christie’s re-election.

    Christie wasn’t charged and denied knowing about the plot until months later, but the negative publicity from the scandal torpedoed his presidential aspirations in the 2016 GOP primary. His account of when he knew about the scheme was contradicted during the fall 2016 trial by Kelly, Baroni, Wildstein and others.

    Wildstein, a former political operative and high school acquaintance of Christie‘s, received probation and now publishes a news website focusing on New Jersey politics from his home in Florida.

    Christie, now a political analyst for ABC, said last year he was “incensed” by their conduct and characterized as “ridiculous” the idea that he would have endorsed it.

    In court filings, Baroni and Kelly have argued their convictions for misapplying the property of an organization receiving federal funds – the Port Authority, in this case – should be tossed because the law targets “diverting public property to private, personal, non-governmental uses,” something they say didn’t occur.

    They also allege the trial judge erred when she instructed jurors that they could find the pair guilty even if they didn’t believe the government proved that the plot had a political motive.

  • Power-sucking Bitcoin ‘mines’ spark backlash

    Bitcoin “miners” who use rows of computers whirring at the same time to produce virtual currencies began taking root along New York’s northern border a couple of years ago to tap into some of the nati

    Bitcoin “miners” who use rows of computers whirring at the same time to produce virtual currencies began taking root along New York’s northern border a couple of years ago to tap into some of the nation’s cheapest hydroelectric power, offering an air of Silicon Valley sophistication to this often-snowy region.

    But as the once-high-flying bitcoin market has waned, so too has the enthusiasm for bitcoin miners. Mining operations with stacks of servers suck up so much electricity that they are in some cases causing power rates to spike for ordinary customers. And some officials question whether it’s all worth it for the relatively few jobs created.

    “We don’t want someone coming in, taking our resources, not creating the jobs they professed to create and then disappear,” said Tim Currier, mayor of Massena, a village just south of the Canadian border, where bitcoin operator Coinmint recently announced plans to use the old aluminum plant site for a mining operation that would require 400 megawatts – roughly enough to power 300,000 homes at once.

    In Plattsburgh, where two cryptocurrency operations have been blamed for spiking electricity rates, the prospect of more cryptocurrency miners plugging in spooked officials enough in March to enact an 18-month moratorium on new operations. The small border village of Rouses Point also is holding off on approving new server farms and Lake Placid is considering a moratorium.

    For local officials, the power struggle has been a crash course in the esoteric bitcoin mining business in which miners earn bitcoins by making complex calculations that verify transactions on the digital currency’s public ledger.

    Since it often uses hundreds of computers that throw off tremendous heat and burn a lot of power, it has tended to gravitate towards cooler places with cheap electricity, such as geothermal-rich Iceland or along the Columbia River region of Washington state.

    The stretch of New York near the Canadian border similarly fits the bill. Cheap hydropower from a dam spanning the St. Lawrence River is doled out by a state authority to local businesses that promise to create jobs. Additionally, some municipalities such as Massena and Plattsburgh receive cheap electricity from a separate hydropower project near Niagara Falls.

    In Plattsburgh, electricity is so cheap most residents use it instead of oil or wood to heat their homes. The couple of commercial cryptocurrency mines here can get an industrial rate of about 3 cents per kilowatt hour – less than half the national average.

    But Plattsburgh Mayor Colin Read said its largest operator, Coinmint, which has two plants employing 20 or fewer people, can consume about 10 percent of Plattsburgh’s 104 megawatt cheap electricity quota. When the city exceeded its allocation like it did this winter, customers ended up paying $10 to $30 more a month for the extra electricity. For a major employer like Mold-Rite Plastics plant, it cost them at least $15,000 in February.

    State regulators have since given municipal utilities the ability to charge higher rates to cryptocurrency miners. At least one bitcoin miner in Plattsburgh says he’s working with the city on solutions to the power worries.

    Ryan Brienza, founder and CEO of the hosting company Zafra, said those could include mining on behalf of the city for an hour a day or harnessing the heat from mining computers to warm up large spaces.

    While the direct number of jobs associated with mines can be small, Brienza said they can bring revenue, investments and talent to the city while employing local contractors.

    “It can start snowballing,” Brienza said.

    Coinmint’s plans for a new plant in Massena, for example, come with a promise of 150 jobs. That’s welcome in an area that in the past decade has suffered though the loss of aluminum-making jobs and the closure of a General Motors powertrain plant.

    “J-O-Bs. Yup. What we need up here,” said Steve O’Shaughnessy, Massena town supervisor.

    Coinmint had asked for a cheap power allocation from the New York Power Authority for Massena for part of its energy needs, but that request was deferred.

    The power authority has separately enacted its own moratorium on allocating hydropower to cryptocurrency operations – mirroring municipalities that have effectively pushed the “pause” button on a rush of miners coming in.

    Coinmint representatives said this month they hope to begin the Massena operation in the second part of this year. The company stressed that mines can be a good fit for this job-hungry area.

    “They’re also going to get substantially more efficient over time,” said Coinmint spokesman Kyle Carlton. “So to the extent that Plattsburgh or Massena or anybody else can get in on that and establish themselves on the ground floor, I think that’s going to help those cities to be successful.”

  • Aimed at China, Trump’s tariffs are hitting closer to home

    President Donald Trump’s escalating dispute with China over trade and technology is threatening jobs and profits in working-class communities where his “America First” agenda hit home.

    WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s escalating dispute with China over trade and technology is threatening jobs and profits in working-class communities where his “America First” agenda hit home.

    The Commerce Department has received more than 2,400 applications from companies seeking waivers from the administration’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which may result in duty payments of millions of dollars for larger businesses. The department has begun posting the requests online for public comment; several of the applications released so far suggest deep misgivings with Trump’s protectionist strategy, especially in areas where he won strong support during the 2016 election.

    The tariffs are aimed primarily at China for flooding the global market with cheap steel and aluminum. But they’ve also led to confusion and uncertainty, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of records. In Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin, for example, businesses operating in the furniture, energy and food sectors have outlined the financial difficulties they’d face if they’re not excused from the steel tariff.

    In Okmulgee, Oklahoma, dozens of jobs hang in the balance as office furniture giant Steelcase waits to hear back from the Commerce Department.

    A Steelcase subsidiary, PolyVision, operates a plant in Okmulgee that uses a special type of steel from Japan to manufacture a durable glass-like surface for whiteboards and architectural purposes. PolyVision “cannot and will not be able to procure” from U.S. companies the cold-rolled steel it requires “in a sufficient and reasonably available amount or of a satisfactory quality,” Steelcase said.

    Trump won most of the votes cast for president in Okmulgee County. Without a waiver, Steelcase warned, the “economic viability of PolyVision (and) the small town of Okmulgee” would be jeopardized.

    The waiver request also indicates that a $15 million plant expansion may be at risk. Steelcase and PolyVision are on the verge of making the investment, which would create new construction and manufacturing jobs, according to the request.

    Roger Ballenger, Okmulgee’s city manager, said he and other local officials are “very concerned about the situation with PolyVision.”

    The tariffs – 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum – are designed to protect and rebuild the U.S. companies that manufacture the metals. The U.S. temporarily exempted several major trading partners, including the European Union, Mexico and Canada.

    China, which was left on the target list, retaliated by imposing tariffs on $3 billion in U.S. products, including apples, pork and ginseng.

    Trump responded by adding more protectionist measures as punishment for Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property. And Beijing punched back by proposing tariffs on $50 billion in U.S. products including small aircraft and soybeans – a direct threat to rural areas that were key to Trump’s victory.

    John Hritz, CEO of JSW Steel USA in Baytown, Texas, said his company is in lockstep with Trump’s approach. “We’re in favor of growing the steel industry in this country,” Hritz said. JSW Steel, owned by Indian conglomerate JSW Group, is embarking on a $500 million overhaul of the plant that it says will create hundreds of jobs.

    The growth would be welcomed in Baytown, where unemployment is 9.8 percent, more than double the national rate. Baytown is located partly in Harris County, which Democrat Hillary Clinton won, and partly in Chambers County, which Trump handily won.

    The future is much murkier for another Baytown steel business, Borusan Mannesmann Pipe. Without a waiver, Borusan may face tariffs of $25 million to $30 million annually if it imports steel tubing and casing from its parent company in Turkey, according to information the company provided to the AP.

    Borusan said the Baytown production line would no longer be competitive and “jobs would be threatened” if it cannot import 135,000 metric tons of steel annually over the next two years. The pipes Borusan produces are used primarily as casing for oil and natural gas wells.

    But if Commerce says yes, Borusan will be able to unlock a $25 million investment in the Baytown facility as it seeks to become a “100 percent domestic supplier,” according to the waiver request. An additional $50 million expansion in pipe fabrication capacity would follow, the company said, leading to as many as 170 new jobs.

    Seneca Foods Corporation, the nation’s largest vegetable canner, said in its waiver application that it’s unclear, at best, if U.S. suppliers have the ability or willingness to expand their production in the long term to meet the company’s annual demand for tinplated steel.

    But “clearly they cannot meet demand in the short term,” Seneca told Commerce officials. That means Seneca has to buy a portion of what it needs from overseas.

    A person with knowledge of Seneca’s situation said the company would face a $2.25 million duty if the Commerce Department doesn’t approve its waiver request for 11,000 metric tons of tinplate it already agreed to purchase from China. The material is to be delivered this year and next, according to the waiver request. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

    Seneca said it employs more than 400 people at can-making facilities in Wisconsin and Idaho and near its headquarters in New York’s Wayne County, where Trump bested Clinton. The company doesn’t warn layoffs are imminent if the waiver isn’t approved. Instead, the tariffs would likely come out of Seneca’s bottom line, the person said.

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    Contact Richard Lardner on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rplardner

  • Opioid treatment gap in Medicare: methadone clinics

    One in three older Americans with Medicare drug coverage is prescribed opioid painkillers, but for those who develop a dangerous addiction there is one treatment Medicare won’t cover: methadone.

    One in three older Americans with Medicare drug coverage is prescribed opioid painkillers, but for those who develop a dangerous addiction there is one treatment Medicare won’t cover: methadone.

    Methadone is the oldest, and experts say, the most effective of the three approved medications used to treat opioid addiction. It eases cravings without an intense high, allowing patients to work with counselors to rebuild their lives.

    Federal money is flowing to states to open new methadone clinics through the 21st Century Cures Act, but despite the nation’s deepening opioid crisis, the Medicare drug program for the elderly covers methadone only when prescribed for pain.

    Joseph Purvis, a former heroin and prescription painkiller user, said he went into a depressive tailspin because he initially feared he might have to stop methadone treatment when he went on Medicare at 65.

    “I was terrified that I might have to leave the program. There’s no way I wanted to go back to addiction on the streets,” said Purvis, 66, of Gaithersburg, Maryland.

    Methadone doesn’t meet the requirement of Medicare’s Part D drug program because it can’t be dispensed in a retail pharmacy.

    Instead, in the highly regulated methadone system, patients first are assessed by a doctor, then show up daily at federally certified methadone clinics to take their doses of the pink liquid. Or, like Purvis in Maryland, they prove through repeated urine screens that they have earned the right to weekly take-home doses.

    In Congress, a Senate panel looking for ways to counter the opioid epidemic is considering allowing Medicare to cover methadone treatment. Legislation has been introduced in the House, and a White House commission on the opioid epidemic also recommended the change.

    The epidemic is “affecting all populations, including our seniors,” said Rep. George Holding, R-North Carolina, a sponsor of the House bill. “Medicare beneficiaries have among the highest and fastest growing rate of opioid use disorder, but they don’t currently have coverage for the most effective treatment.”

    An estimated 300,000 Medicare patients have been diagnosed with opioid addiction, and health officials estimate nearly 90,000 are at high risk for opioid misuse or overdose.

    Buprenorphine, a more expensive and slightly less regulated treatment drug, is covered by Medicare but few doctors who accept new Medicare patients have obtained federal waivers to prescribe it. A recent study of Medicare claims found prescriptions for buprenorphine for only 81,000 patients.

    More evidence that the crisis affects seniors: Opioid overdoses killed 1,354 Americans ages 65 and older in 2016, about 3 percent of the 42,000 opioid overdoses that year.

    Medicare’s policy means clinics often scramble to keep older patients in treatment if they’ve had commercial insurance that covered their care before turning 65, said counselor Angela Caldwell of Montgomery Recovery Services in Rockville, Maryland.

    A national organization for methadone clinics says the clinics now have 25,000 Medicare beneficiaries who are either paying out of pocket (about $80 per week) or getting care through state-run Medicaid or block grant programs.

    Mark Parrino, president of the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, thinks more people would seek methadone treatment if Medicare covered it.

    Many older patients rely on surprisingly high doses of opioids for pain relief, which can turn into addiction, said Dr. Anna Lembke, an addiction specialist at Stanford University School of Medicine.

    One of her addiction patients, a woman in her mid-70s, was referred to her because her daily dose of opioids had climbed over the years to many times more potent than that of a typical heroin user, Lembke said.

    “She’s had a gradual development of tolerance over many decades and now is on an astronomical dose,” Lembke said. “If you took any random person and gave them (that much) they would die.”

    Lembke said she normally wouldn’t consider methadone for this patient because of the stigma associated with the clinics. But Medicare coverage might make them more acceptable, Lembke said, and her patient “might actually do better with methadone.”

    In Maryland, Purvis remained on methadone treatment because his income is low enough that he qualifies for the state-federal Medicaid insurance coverage for the poor and disabled. Medicaid covers methadone treatment in Maryland and about 35 other states.

    Purvis, who used heroin for more than a decade in his youth, later took opioids prescribed by specialists for back pain. After his pain doctor’s office was shut down for overprescribing, he started methadone treatment.

    “Some people think of methadone as a crutch for addiction but it’s not,” Purvis said. “It’s a tool that allows people to live a somewhat normal life.”

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    AP writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report.

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    Follow AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson on Twitter: @CarlaKJohnson

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    The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

  • Facebook hate speech, censorship policies upset both sides

    Under more scrutiny than ever, Facebook finds itself caught in a no-man’s land between activists who say it needs to adopt much stricter definitions governing hate speech and critics on the right who

    Under more scrutiny than ever, Facebook finds itself caught in a no-man’s land between activists who say it needs to adopt much stricter definitions governing hate speech and critics on the right who feel the social media giant is censoring conservative voices.

    The company’s policy now largely depends on humans reviewing content flagged by others as offensive — a system Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress he hopes to change within 10 years by integrating artificial intelligence that can identify questionable content immediately.

    By some accounts, the current policy has been a failure, and Mr. Zuckerberg’s claim that the site doesn’t house hateful posts is simply wrong. They also contend that Facebook needs to become much more aggressive, perhaps tying its definition of hate speech to the one used by the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center.

    “We’re shocked by Zuckerberg’s claim that Facebook does not allow any hate groups on their platform. For years, civil rights groups have been urging Facebook to address the discrimination and bigotry on its platform, and, for years, the company has done little to meaningfully address our concerns,” said Madihha Ahussain, special counsel for anti-Muslim bigotry at Muslim Advocates.

    “Today, to our knowledge, at least 23 of them are still organizing on Facebook,” she said. “That list only accounts for Southern Poverty Law Center’s compilation of anti-Muslim groups and doesn’t include the thousands of others organized to hate against other communities.”

    But conservatives say adopting the Southern Poverty Law Center’s definition of a hate group would lead to even bigger problems and more bias. The organization, for example, classifies the Family Research Council as a hate group because of its stand on same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues.

    Using that definition would deepen the fear and anger among conservatives toward the Silicon Valley behemoth. Facebook already has faced intense criticism from the political right for suspected censoring of posts from the popular pro-Trump duo Diamond and Silk, among a host of other content that Republicans say is filtered on solely political grounds.

    Diamond and Silk, whose posts in the past have been considered “unsafe” by Facebook, will appear Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee.

    Facebook’s handling of the duo has become a rallying point for conservative critics, and it was the latest in a string of controversial steps. The company two years ago came under fire for appearing to suppress conservative news sources in its trending topics feed, and its actions since then have done little to calm those who say Facebook’s liberal bias is out of control.

    “I think this is going to be a controversial topic perpetually, for several reasons. First and foremost, they can’t get out of their own bubble, and until they do they won’t even realize they have a problem,” said Christie-Lee McNally, founder of the conservative group Free Our Internet and a former Trump campaign official who believes Facebook’s human review system is inherently flawed because of the company’s progressive leanings.

    On Capitol Hill, the issue of whether Facebook suppresses conservative content has raised the ire of Republican lawmakers, some of whom argue that Facebook has become so big and powerful that its handling of speech — such as what to censor and what to allow — creates ripples across the American cultural and political landscape.

    “If they’re behaving like Big Brother and censoring political speech, I think that raises very serious legal questions that I expect to see a whole lot more scrutiny devoted to,” Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, said last week.

    Facebook says it defines hate speech as “content that attacks people based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or disease.”

    It specifies that it does allow satire, comedy, music and other types of performance art that some people may find offensive.

    Issues arise, of course, because what some consider to be offensive, racially tinged attacks are seen by others as political statements. Rhetoric surrounding illegal immigration, for example, often falls into that category.

    “At the end of the day, it will be tough to keep 2 billion people happy all of the time,” said Emma Llanso, director of the Freedom of Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

    Ms. Llanso said she believes that Facebook and other massive social media firms that have become ubiquitous parts of pop culture may end up adopting more stringent standards on speech, while other companies could cast themselves as more open and, in some cases, willfully controversial.

    “I’d rather see a situation with multiple different competing platforms that each have their own tailor-made content policies,” she said. “I feel like that creates less of a risk that an entire group of speakers or topic won’t find anywhere on the internet that will host their speech.”

    Mr. Zuckerberg told lawmakers that the human element of flagging offensive content will be removed within the next decade, though that doesn’t mean Facebook’s automated system won’t also ruffle feathers.

    “Hate speech — I’m optimistic that over a five, 10-year period we will have AI tools that get into some of the nuances, the linguistic nuances, of different types of content to be more accurate in flagging things for our systems,” he said this month. “But today we’re just not there on that, so a lot of this is still reactive. People flag it to us, we have people look at it, we have policies to try and make it as not subjective as possible, but until we get it more automated there’s a higher error rate than I’m happy with.”

  • Jennifer Miller’s gun rights lawsuit sets off wide debate

    An Illinois woman who runs a child care service out of her home is suing the state, saying its restrictions on day care facilities make it illegal for her to keep a gun in her house for self-defense.

    An Illinois woman who runs a child care service out of her home is suing the state, saying its restrictions on day care facilities make it illegal for her to keep a gun in her house for self-defense.

    Jennifer Miller’s lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for central Illinois after the state emerged as a battleground in the post-Parkland gun debate, with citizens and various localities trying to stake claims on either side of the issue.

    Mrs. Miller and her husband, Darin, both hold concealed-weapons permits. But Illinois’ rules prohibit handguns from being kept in day care homes, with exceptions only for law enforcement or others who have to carry guns for their jobs.

    Any firearms in other day care facilities have to be unloaded, kept under lock and stored separately from ammunition.

    The Millers say the rules mean they have to make a choice: give up their guns or have Mrs. Miller give up her day care.

    The state last month gave them a warning, the lawsuit says.

    Mrs. Miller has been a day care home licensee since last year and a day care home provider since 2016. Her husband is a special equipment operator for a paper producer in central Illinois — a job that would not require him to keep a gun in the house.

    Gun rights groups have taken up their cause.

    “We’re in court to make sure that the state cannot discriminate against day care operators who merely wish to exercise the rights we’ve restored in Illinois,” said Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb, whose group brought the lawsuit with the Illinois State Rifle Association and Illinois Carry.

    The lawsuit names Lisa Madigan, the state’s attorney general, and Beverly Walker, director of the state’s Department of Children and Family Services, as defendants.

    Ms. Madigan’s office declined to comment on the merits of the case.

    A spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Family Services said the agency couldn’t comment on pending litigation.

    It’s not clear how many people are affected by the day care rules, but pro-gun advocates say local cases such as this can turn into precedent-setting expansions of gun rights.

    Mr. Gottlieb pointed out that his group’s challenge to Chicago’s ban on handguns ultimately led to a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming that states must respect an individual’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

    A separate legal challenge from the group also forced Illinois to allow the concealed carry of weapons in 2013, after courts found the state’s restrictions on the practice unconstitutional.

    Indeed, Illinois appears to be a hotbed of legal challenges over gun rights.

    The Second Amendment Foundation, the National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates are suing to block the village of Deerfield, in suburban Chicago, from enforcing a ban on semi-automatic firearms.

    Meanwhile, Effingham County, located about 75 miles southeast of Springfield, recently moved in the other direction by pushing to become a “sanctuary” for gun owners if state lawmakers approve stricter gun controls.

    A resolution the county board passed last week reads in part: “If the Government of the State of Illinois shall infringe upon the inalienable rights granted by the Second Amendment, Effingham County shall become a ‘sanctuary county’ for all firearms unconstitutionally prohibited by the government of the State of Illinois.”

    Effingham County State’s Attorney Bryan Kibler acknowledged that the resolution was largely symbolic but said the county wanted to take a stand against a number of gun control bills that the state legislature is considering.

    “It’s symbolic … but it really proves that people in southern Illinois are getting tired of being pushed around,” Mr. Kibler said recently on Fox News.

  • Underfunded pensions force governments to make hard decisions

    Politicians have been quick to grant generous pension benefits but failed to set aside enough money to pay for them. And little or nothing — aside from rare self-imposed funding rules — requires gov

    ANALYSIS/OPINION:

    Generous pensions have always been a prime perk of government jobs. Now those pensions are causing government layoffs, reduced services and tax increases.

    Take Harvey, Illinois. The city has laid off half of its fire department and 13 police officers so it can meet its obligations to its retired police officers and firefighters — the result of decades of overpromising benefits and underfunding pension plans.

    The laid-off first responders are just the first casualties of Harvey’s pension crisis. Residents and other government employees will feel the pain as Harvey cuts services, reduces salaries or increases the workloads of its remaining employees. Harvey’s residents already face a property tax increase. Last year, a court ordered the city to impose a property tax levy specifically for its firefighters pension fund.

    Unfortunately, Harvey’s pension woes aren’t unique. Disaster looms for state and local pension plans across the U.S.

    A report from the American Legislative Exchange Council estimates that state and local pension funds have promised $6 trillion more in benefits than they have set aside to pay. That is $18,676 for every man, woman and child in America, or nearly $50,000 per household.

    How did this happen?

    Basically, politicians have been quick to grant generous pension benefits but failed to set aside enough money to pay for them. And little or nothing — aside from rare self-imposed funding rules — requires governments to properly fund their promises.

    But ultimately, even pension bills fall due. And now that pension plans are running low on money, many state and local governments are grappling with soaring pension costs. Over the past three decades, Illinois’ pension liabilities increased 755 percent while its population edged up only 13 percent.

    That has caused taxpayers to take a hit and government services — like Illinois’ education system — to suffer. Recently, 89 cents of every new dollar of education spending has gone not to the classrooms but toward teachers’ retirement costs. By 2025, the state will spend more on retired teachers than it does on those who are actively teaching, as well as all other classroom costs.

    Skyrocketing pension costs in Philadelphia already consume 16 percent of the city’s general fund. Some point to those costs as the precipitating factor behind what they say are high taxes, dirty sidewalks, pothole-filled streets and struggling schools.

    And there is no doubt that unfunded pensions contributed significantly to bankruptcies in Detroit and other municipalities.

    If taxpayers are to avoid paying thousands of dollars more in taxes while receiving fewer government services, and if government employees are to keep their jobs, then state and local lawmakers will need to reform their pension systems.

    The first and most essential reform needed is to shift all new workers to defined contribution retirement plans that require state and local governments to fund 100 percent of benefits in the year they are earned.

    Second is dealing with existing defined-benefit systems.

    While protecting benefits workers have already earned, state and local officials should enact common-sense pension reforms such as increasing the retirement age (which currently can be even younger than 50), requiring employees to pay a higher portion of their pension contributions, reducing future accrual rates and basing pensions on average earnings instead of employees’ highest three years.

    While these reforms will not reduce past unfunded promises, they will improve pension funding going forward, which will help minimize job losses, tax increases and service cuts.

    Of course, if the federal government gives serious consideration to bailing out state and local pension plans — as it is doing for private-sector, union-run pension plans — state and local politicians will have no incentive to enact meaningful pension reforms. The State and Local Pensions Accountability and Security Act would nip that sort of nonsense in the bud by barring the federal government from issuing any form of bailout for state and local pensions.

    ⦁ Rachel Greszler is a research fellow specializing in economic, budget and entitlement issues in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis.

  • Linda McMahon: Tax cuts providing optimism to small businesses

    Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon said Monday that the tax cuts are providing optimism throughout the country.

    Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon said Monday that the tax cuts are providing optimism throughout the country.

    “What is continuing is this optimism, is businesses that are growing throughout the country, starting, getting access to capital. And that’s what SBA does,” Mrs. McMahon said on Fox News.

    She said the agency is launching a virtual series for National Small Business Week that will provide guidance for those looking to get their businesses started and how to continue growing.

    National Small Business Week is set to start next week.

  • Harley-Davidson interns get a free motorcycle

    Harley-Davidson is offering free motorcycles for those who join its summer internship program.

    MILWAUKEE (AP) — Harley-Davidson is offering free motorcycles for those who join its summer internship program.

    Eight college students or recent graduates will have the enviable task of being paid to ride a Harley and share their adventures on social media. And the best part? They’ll keep their bikes at the end of the 12-week internship.

    The Milwaukee-based motorcycle maker says it will teach the interns how to ride, compensate them for their work and travels, and let them keep their motorcycles. Harley-Davidson says it’s looking for those that have the ability to create content on the fly, are creative and have the talent to take great photos and fun videos.

    Applicants must be 18 years or older and looking to pursue a career in social media.

  • Emmanuel Macron, French president, in U.S. to visit Donald Trump

    Behind the pomp and circumstance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Washington starting Monday — including President Trump’s first state dinner for a fellow world leader since taking offi

    Behind the pomp and circumstance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Washington starting Monday — including President Trump’s first state dinner for a fellow world leader since taking office — lies a calculated and hard-nosed campaign to position Paris as the White House’s best friend in Europe.

    Much is riding on the visit by Mr. Macron, the banker and political neophyte who captured the French presidency last year, topped by the fate of the Iran nuclear deal that Mr. Trump is poised to kill next month and that Mr. Macron desperately hopes to save.

    The three-day visit will be a high-profile test of Mr. Macron’s studied charm offensive with the unpredictable American president, weighing whether the young leader can parlay his personal rapport with Mr. Trump into White House moderation on issues such as the Iran deal and Washington’s new skepticism over such internationalist causes as climate change and free trade.

    With German Chancellor Angela Merkel coming to Washington at the end of the week, European leaders will get their last best chance to persuade Mr. Trump to change his mind, or at least hold his fire as EU capitals try to devise new penalties for Tehran that could keep Washington in the deal.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, on a visit to New York, increased the pressure on Mr. Macron Sunday by saying Washington’s withdrawal from the pact would only further diminish the U.S. standing among its allies and adversaries alike.

    Iran is ready to restart its nuclear program if the Trump administration leaves the 2015 nuclear agreement and reinstates sanctions, Mr. Zarif said.

    “We have put a number of options for ourselves, and those options are ready, including options that would involve resuming at a much greater speed our nuclear activities,” he added.

    Mr. Macron has unexpectedly emerged as one of the more moderate and accepting voices within the European Union concerning some of Mr. Trump’s unorthodox foreign policy stances.

    The 40-year-old French president has repeatedly defended Mr. Trump’s credibility on the world stage from criticism on several fronts, including his immigration ban from several Muslim countries, claims that Washington is abandoning its role as defender of the postwar liberal order, and views that he is creating a vacuum that China and Russia are filling.

    Other Western European leaders have struggled to get a read on Mr. Trump or even establish a personal working rapport, but the young English-speaking Mr. Macron has proved more deft.

    “I am not going to judge what should be your president, or to consider that because of these controversies or because of these investigations your president is less credible,” Mr. Macron told The Associated Press, dismissing any attempt to be drawn into the fierce U.S. controversy over Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

    But Mr. Macron will be under intense scrutiny back home to prove that his personal bonhomie with Mr. Trump translates into policy successes, starting with the May 12 deadline under which Mr. Trump must decide whether to stay in the multilateral Iran nuclear deal.

    Policy payoffs

    Although the visit will undoubtedly include all the trappings of a high-level diplomatic visit between two longtime allies, political observers in the U.S. and Europe will be keeping a keen eye on how the leaders interact over several issues on which they have found themselves at odds.

    The two leaders are certain to discuss the impacts of Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, which France has championed but the Trump administration argues unnecessarily regulates American industries and international companies. Mr. Macron is also a champion of free trade, while Mr. Trump has questioned the North American Free Trade Agreement, killed an Asian trade deal and put in deep freeze a proposed free trade accord with the European Union.

    But no topic will likely loom as large between the two leaders as Washington’s reported desire to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that the Obama administration strongly supported.

    Mr. Trump and his national security team, led by newly installed National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, have repeatedly called for the dissolution of the nuclear deal despite the continuing support of other world powers, including Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.

    If Mr. Trump effectively withdraws from the deal, the U.S. will reimpose sanctions that Iran says negate the main purpose of the accord.

    Proponents of the pact, including Mr. Macron and Ms. Merkel, say there is no tangible proof that Tehran has failed to comply with the nonproliferation elements of the Iran deal, even if Iran continues to test other military systems and remains a destabilizing force for American allies across the Middle East.

    More pointedly, Mr. Macron is expected to argue that the U.S. and its Western allies will have no good option to restrain Iran’s nuclear programs if Mr. Trump takes Washington out of the deal.

    French officials warn there is “no plan B” if the Iran deal collapses. Mr. Macron himself asked on Fox News, “What do you have as an alternative?”

    Iran’s Mr. Zarif said Sunday that the Bolton appointment showed Mr. Trump would rather overthrow the government in Tehran that negotiate with it.

    The U.S. “never abandoned the idea of regime change in Iran,” he said, adding that some are just “more explicit about stating it.”

    France, Germany, the United Kingdom and other key European allies say the deal is the best chance the West has to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, potentially threatening the U.S. and Israel with an atomic attack. A furious negotiation is underway to see if the Europeans can formulate a new set of sanctions and penalties for Tehran outside of the nuclear deal to persuade Washington to stay in it.

    Mr. Macron, who treated Mr. Trump to an envy-inducing military parade and a dinner in the Eiffel Tower during his trip to Paris last year, has shown a talent for gestures that impress the billionaire former real estate developer.

    The French president plans to present Mr. Trump with an oak tree sapling from the site of one of the first World War I battles involving American troops, the Battle of Belleau Wood, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

    It’s a sign of appreciation for the sacrifices America has made for France — and a subtle nod to Mr. Macron’s environmental agenda.

    He wants it planted in the White House gardens.

    • This article is based in part on wire service reports.