Daily Archives: March 23, 2021

Dustin Miller, Guest columnist Published 5:00 a.m. CT March 22, 2021

During her weekly COVID-19 news conference on March 10, 2021, Gov. Kim Reynolds says the state on track to give 1 million vaccination doses. Des Moines Register

U.S. News and World Report ranked Iowa as the No. 1 state for opportunity recently, continuing the consistent positive trend from the past several years. Unfortunately, this type of positive news can be drowned out by noise on other, splashier headlines, arguing thatIowa is opposed to growth.

The fact is, the bills that have seen the most intense, breathless coverage this year do not appear likely to advance through both legislative chambers, including the bill restricting use of bathrooms and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and bills aimed toward eliminating tenure at universities. More important work, to lean into the opportunities that exist in Iowa, have been overwhelmingly bipartisan, and their prospects seem much more likely, with far less fanfare.

Child care has become an extremely important workforce development issue to integrate moms and dads into the workforce by ensuring safe and affordable options for their children. Gov. Kim Reynolds has outlined an additional $3 million in spending in her budget for Child Care Challenge Fund, andmultiple other bills would provide a variety of tools to address this complex problem. The Housesent eight bills to theSenate for consideration that would address the child care needs by creating incentives for employers and developers, providing grants, and addressing the cliff effect.

ANOTHER VIEW: Anti-LGBTQ legislation damages Iowa's reputation

Housing needs exist across the state in both rural and urban communities. The Governors Economic Recovery Advisory Board outlined broad needs for housing, and the Legislature is working, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan manner, to provide up to an additional 25,000 units through a diverse housing omnibus bill.

With work from home and virtual classes for some students, the COVID-19 pandemic further brought into focus the vast needs for broadband in both commercial, residential and industrial settings. The governors bold push for $450 million over three years will put Iowa ahead of neighboring states and provide a necessary competitive advantage for manufacturing and economic development potentials. Both Republican and Democratic legislators have supported the governors proposal and continue to work together to find an agreeable solution.

Combined, these three efforts have accumulated over 800 votes in support through subcommittees, committees and on the floor of a chamber with less than 50 votes against in total. There is still much work to be done, but there is no doubt these incredibly important baseline efforts will pass.

In addition to these efforts being bipartisan, these proposed investments have all been done in a fiscally responsible manner at the same time thatother states in the Midwest struggle to meet basic budgetary requirements. Iowa was ranked the best state in the country to respond to COVID-19 from the nonpartisan Council of State Governments after ending the fiscal year with a $305 million surplus. Despite the pandemic, businesses have continued to see growth opportunities and remain open for business. Iowa leaders continued efforts to remain fiscally responsible provided the opportunity to make large investments and assist both Iowans and businesses during the pandemic.

Iowa continues to address economic needs for both Iowans and businesses in Iowa to ensure the recovery and continued growth. It is important to accentuate the positive steps forward the state is taking rather than the less favorable bills that have failed to gain traction. Iowa continues to remain affordable and a leader in economic opportunity.

Dustin Miller(Photo: Special to the Register)

Dustin Miller is an attorney with Nyemaster Goode Law Firm and the executive director of the Iowa Chamber Alliance. As legislative counsel, Dustin primarily represents Iowa-based associations as a lobbyist at the Iowa Legislature and with the agencies of the state of Iowa. His work involves a wide range of public policy issues, such as water quality, environmental issues, economic development, taxation, public finance, and utilities.

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Opinion: Headlines don't capture the bulk of the Legislature's work to benefit Iowans - Des Moines Register

March 23, 2021 Op-Ed By Brent OLeary

In our second year of pandemic life, having lost over half a million Americans lives, we face a cycle of surge and mutation alongside a significant burden of illness and deaths for years to come.

There has never been a more compelling time for health reform. We need to pass the New York Health Act now.

The New York Health Act will provide comprehensive health care coverage for every person who lives or works full time in New York State.

It is all too apparent how staggering injustices baked into our pre-pandemic norms cost us tremendously. While life expectancy dropped last year, that figure is twice as high for Latinos and three times higher among Black Americans. Our broader economy does not escape the generational damage done by deep-rooted disparities.

We need a functional healthcare infrastructure and to achieve that, decades of disinvestments aimed at our vulnerable communities must stop.

Our healthcare system fails at its most basic functions, despite being expensive and accelerating in cost.

Consider how patient care is based on insurance status instead of care standards. Basic benefits like paid sick days or parental leave are at discretion of employers.

Life choices like the freedom to work independently or start a business is limited because of fear of losing coverage or access to preferred providers. These arrangements are discordant with health goals or the needs of a rapidly changing workforce.

Despite increasing health insurance coverage, fewer people can afford care because of skyrocketing premiums, deductibles, and co-pays.

The result is delays in seeing a doctor until illness has progressed and require more intervention, by which point treatment is cost prohibitive. Profit tracks alongside illness severity, so that even the wealthy are just one accident or diagnosis away from significant asset loss.

This system is breaking our clinicians and healthcare workforce. Physicians increasingly cant practice independently and find themselves expendable in a revenue-driven environment whose goals are at odds with health and wellness. Administrative tasks tied to insurance arrangements mean clinicians spend less and less time with patients.

The very subsidies that were designed to support our poorest zip codes are instead diverted to private hospitals serving the fewest but wealthiest patients. During a pandemic many healthcare workers were furloughed while community clinics and primary care practices were forced to close.

All of these are underscored by record profits at the height of the coronavirus emergency by insurance and hospital corporations, all consolidating to outcompete each other over the price of care. When profits are driven by disease and suffering, patients are no longer healthcare consumers. Patients in this system are products whose health status are commoditized.

The practice of profiteering off our suffering must stop. We must reclaim our resources.

Poll after poll show that New Yorkers support the ideas in the New York Health Act. Meaningful health reform is possible with this key legislation. It passed in our State Assembly four times. We must do it again and get it passed in the State Senate.

The New York Health Care Act by providing health care to all New Yorkers takes on the inequities and injustices in our healthcare system that were exploited by this coronavirus. It re-allocates resources to serve all New Yorkers, not just the wealthy.

It ensures access to primary care services, medically necessary testing, prescribed treatments and vaccines. Benefits such as parental or sick leave will no longer be tied to employment status or wealth and it removes the massive administrative overhead and bureaucracy, re-aligning the relationship of nurses and physicians back to patients.

It represents a shift in emphasis from illness-based care to preventive primary care, and focuses on helping New Yorkers achieve our most optimal health and well-being.

Balancing the New York State budget should not fall on the backs of the working class. To put this imperative into context, tremendous pressure on our healthcare system will only grow in the new Covid normal.

Worse, the social and economic corollaries from widening gaps in equity, access and affordability are being eclipsed by emergent crises. Exponential change cant be addressed by conventional means. Equitable healthcare legislation is a bold and necessary action to safeguard our future.

For practicality, healthcare reform belongs to broader strategic conversations. Decades of brutal austerity measures devastated not just our public health infrastructure, it also destroyed other safety nets that we each paid into for just such events like a pandemic or extreme weather, when only a robust government response can protect us all.

New Yorkers deserve equitable opportunities toward health. We are at an inflection point. Serious threats will continue to push our healthcare system to the brink of collapse. I echo our Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi in asserting that this pandemic is both tragedy and testament to what can change when the will is there. I join this broad and rapidly growing coalition and movement, to demand fiscal equity and enact meaningful reform in healthcare.

Our strength in District 26 lies in our diversity, and we are only as strong as our most vulnerable. We owe ourselves and our youngest New Yorkers a shot at equitable opportunities towards health and wealth. The time to act is now. Join us in getting the New York Health Care Act passed.

Brent OLeary is a candidate running for City Council in the 26th District

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Op-Ed: We Need to Pass the New York Health Act Now - Sunnyside Post

BrownTogether gifts and grants have raised more than $20 million since the start of the last academic year to support priorities outlined in the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, the University announced in a Feb. 26 news release.

The University has committed more than $157 million to DIAP priorities over the past five years with a combination of donor contributions and operational funds, according to the release. Phase II of DIAP is expected to launch this year.

We have all experienced a year unlike any other, and I believe donors understand that what is happening in the nation and world impacts our campus, Shontay Delalue, vice president for institutional equity and diversity, wrote in an email to The Herald. These funds allow us to further our work in research, teaching and supporting the (diverse) constituents that live, study and work at Brown.

The BrownTogether gifts and grants will complement other University diversity and inclusion initiatives, including the Task Force on Anti-Black Racism and the Brown Corporation Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.

The $20 million raised will support centers and scholarships focused on priorities outlined in DIAP at Brown, which seeks to improve diversity and inclusion in areas that include people, academics and community.

Of this amount, a new five million dollar endowment established by Perri A. Peltz 82 will provide financial support for the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.

This generous gift is transformational, CSREA Director Tricia Rose wrote in an email to The Herald. Endowed gifts of this size provide a strong foundation for the Centers longevity and stability.

These funds will allow for new curricula, programs and research to be established at the center. The CSREA will host a Humanities Lab that will support studies of race in connection to Brown courses and The Mass Incarceration Lab @ CSREA that will collect the stories of individuals who have been incarcerated, Rose wrote. Another lab will examine the role of mutual aid organizations in Rhode Island.

I want Brown students to be able to learn about the central role race plays in the world, Rose wrote. Imagine how powerful and transformational it would be if we all played a part in offering a deeper critical engagement with race in our classrooms.

In addition to the BrownTogether funds, a four million dollar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded in December 2019 has enabled a collaboration between the CSREA and academic centers at Yale, Stanford University and the University of Chicago, The Herald previously reported. The grant aims to expand the study of race in the humanities across the four campuses.

The $20 million will also support the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. At the recommendation of David Haas 78, the Wyncote Foundation and the Waterman II Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation established a five million dollar endowment to support the CSSJ, a lead gift in an effort to establish a $10 million endowment for the center. Another $1 million from Jerome Vascellaro 74 and Mary Vascellaro 74 will also support the CSSJ.

The CSSJ received a separate $4.9 million Mellon Foundation grant in February 2021, which funds a partnership with Williams College and the Mystic Seaport Museum, The Herald previously reported. The three institutions will explore the relationship between European colonization, Indigenous dispossession and racial slavery through maritime history.

The BrownTogether gifts and grants will also offer financial support for students from groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, according to the news release. Financial support for the Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion Impact Fund which supports student-driven initiatives such as the Minority Peer Counselors program have quintupled in the last year.

Furthermore, donations to the Inman Page Black Alumni Council Brown Annual Fund Scholarship quadrupled in fiscal year 2020, according to the news release. The scholarship, which was launched in 2018 to support the education of Black students on campus, is now able to benefit seven students.

Zakiyah Whitaker 23, a recipient of the scholarship, has found that it has given her more freedom to focus on her educational opportunities, she said.

I have a lot of financial needs, so I wouldnt be able to do half the things I do without it, Whitaker said. Its definitely helped me focus on my grades more.

The creation of scholarships like these that support diversity and inclusion allows students to find representation and community on campus, she said, adding that scholarships that promote a diverse study body help students from historically underrepresented groups feel more comfortable on campus.

As a result, campus can become a place where students will probably feel more comfortable rather than being that one-in-a-million minority person on campus, Whitaker said. I feel very supported.

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BrownTogether raises $20 million for diversity and inclusion initiatives - The Brown Daily Herald

Tuesday, 23 March 2021, 11:23 amPress Release: NZ Property Investors' Federation

By removing mortgage interest tax deductibility andincreasing the Bright Line test, Government is prioritisingfirst home buyers over renters. However the many people whocannot yet afford their first home and are therefore tenantsneed more rental properties. Private rental property ownersare not the problem. They are part of the solution to theproblem.

While the Bright Line test increase willdo nothing to stop property speculation, removing interestdeductibility will increase the cost of providing rentalproperties drastically, said Sharon Cullwick, theexecutive officer of the NZ Property Investors Federation(NZPIF)

Without the ability to claim the legitimateexpense of mortgage interest costs, the NZPIF estimates thatthe cost of providing a $600,000 rental property willincrease by around $6,000 a year.

Interestdeductibility for rental properties is not the loophole itis claimed to be. It does not allow rental propertyproviders to outbid home owners. The facts are that homeowners get the benefit of accommodation. Rental propertyowners get the benefit of rental income. Home owners do nothave an income from their homes and therefore have nothingto deduct interest costs from. Rental owners, like allbusiness owners, deduct their business expenses from theirbusiness income to work out how much tax theypay.

NZPIF will be very interested to see theGovernment calculations of what the new tax rules will be.IRD officials have indicated that the fiscal impacts havenot yet been established.

The provision of rentalproperty has already been affected through measures such asremoving depreciation claims, the previous Bright Line testof five years and ring fencing rental property tax losses.These were all introduced to stop house price growth. Thisresult has not been achieved so when will lack of supply beuniversally acknowledged as the real issue. Governmentcannot build the required number of houses New Zealandersneed and the demand side measures announced today are justgoing to reduce the supply of rental properties and increaserental prices.

The NZPIF is proud to support theprovision of good quality rental properties in New Zealand.Rental property providers are not speculators. NZPIFreaffirms that tenants need more rental properties andprivate rental property owners are not the problem. They arepart of the solution to theproblem.

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The Government has announced a housing package that will increase the supply of houses and remove incentives for speculators, to deliver a more sustainable housing market.This is a package of both urgent and long-term measures that will increase housing supply, relieve pressure on the market and make it easier for first-home buyers, Jacinda Ardern said... More>>

The Australian and New Zealand Governments today reiterate their grave concerns about the growing number of credible reports of severe human rights abuses against ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.In particular, there is clear evidence of severe human rights abuses that include restrictions on freedom of religion, mass surveillance, large-scale extra-judicial detentions, as well as forced labour and forced birth control, including sterilisation... More>>

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Unintended Consequences Of Today's Housing Announcements - Scoop.co.nz