"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
- Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), The Godfather, Part III (1990)

... the Hawaii State Legislature's 2013 Regular Session, and Yours Truly has been talked into returning to work at the State Capitol as the House Majority's legislative policy director for the new Speaker, after 8 years away. D'oh! (Palm slaps against forehead.)

I don't know why I agreed to come back, but at least I was asked nicely. Well, actually, there was an extended and very nasty leadership fight among the 44-member Democratic majority in the House after the election, with the caucus split right down the middle, 22-22 -- and you need 26 members in order to organize the 51-member House. The division ultimately proved intractible, and lasted all the way until Friday afternoon.

The new Speaker is 80 years old, and a longtime member who was first elected to the House in 1978. Everyone likes him, and he became an acceptable third-party compromise after the division precluded anybody from ever agreeing on either of the two who were originally fighting over the job. My former boss recommended that he call me, which he did on Saturday morning and asked if I would help put together a leadership staff quickly for him, because he said most all the Democratic members respected my judgment.

And because that sort of cheap flattery will get you everywhere with me, and because I'll have no client business pending before the legislature this year which might prove a conflict of interest, I agreed to return. My first day back in the saddle was Monday. I'm in my old office, and it's almost like I never left -- which is kind of eery, now that I think of it.

The good thing is that I at least said that I'd only work through the session itself, which ends the second week of May. By then, the new Speaker will hopefully be firmly in control, and I'll have someone trained to take my place so I can return to work in the private sector. As it stands, I've had to let clients know that I was taking this on, and that my partner has agreed to cover my sorry a$$ for the next four months.

Now we'll see if I can still remember how to play the game, and navigate the Speaker through the acrimonious aftermath of the intense leadership struggle. Wish me luck. I may need it -- and hopefully, I won't come to rue this decision.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An influential group of business CEOs is pushing a plan to gradually increase the full retirement age to 70 for both Social Security and Medicare and to partially privatize the health insurance program for older Americans.

The Business Roundtable's plan would protect those 55 and older from cuts but younger workers would face significant changes. The plan unveiled Wednesday would result in smaller annual benefit increases for all Social Security recipients. Initial benefits for wealthy retirees would also be smaller.

Medicare recipients would be able to enroll in the traditional program or in private plans that could adjust premiums based on age and health status.

"America can preserve the health and retirement safety net and rein in long-term spending growth by modernizing Medicare and Social Security in a way that addresses America's new fiscal and demographic realities," said Gary Loveman, chairman, president and chief executive of casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corp.
...

The Business Roundtable is an association of CEOs of some of the largest U.S. companies. Member companies account for nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock market, according to the group. link

From the article:

Each spring since 2010, some of Washington's A-list politicians assemble in the capital to submit to questions from some of the media's A-list journalists on the future of the federal fiscal policy.

These interviews, though, aren't conducted on the steps of Congress, in the Washington bureaus of the nation's newspapers, or in the television studios of major networks, but rather at private "Fiscal Summits" convened by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire former commerce secretary and co-founder of the Blackstone private equity group.

[snip]

A review of the proceedings of the Fiscal Summits of the last three years makes agonizingly clear that most of the journalists who conducted interviews or moderated panel discussions both reflected and amplified the Peterson worldview -- entirely unselfconsciously, it would seem.

So, for example, Lesley Stahl, the CBS "60 Minutes" reporter, was fully a part of the Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson deficit-cutting team during her interview with both men: "You are going to have to raise taxes and cut things, big things, put restrictions on Social Security. Everybody knows that."

Virtually none of the reporters thought to ask about or suggest an alternative path, such as preserving Social Security benefits and bolstering the system's reserve by raising the cap of wages subject to Social Security taxes (currently annual wages above approximately $110,000 are not subject to any Social Security tax).

this thing is falling apart faster than bread used as fish bait. possibly faster.

Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help.