Obama sets sights on rural America to talk jobs

(AP) ? Trading Washington's hot house for states critical to his re-election prospects, President Barack Obama is headed to the Midwest after a summer of discontent over a protracted debt showdown with Republicans and the downgrade in the nation's credit rating.

Obama's bus tour, his first as president, begins Monday and will take him to prairie communities in Minnesota and through Iowa and Illinois, with stops in the farmland and rural towns that launched his first White House bid.

The former Illinois senator is expected to tell audiences that he agrees with their frustrations about a dysfunctional federal government.

"What we've seen in Washington the last few months has been the worst kind of partisanship, the worst kind of gridlock ? and that gridlock has undermined public confidence and impeded our efforts to take the steps we need for our economy," Obama said Thursday in Michigan. "It's made things worse instead of better."

Obama won a clean sweep in 2008 of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan, a region that has supported Democratic presidential candidates since 2000, except for President George W. Bush's narrow victory in Iowa in 2004.

But Obama's standing in these states, like elsewhere, has grown precarious as the economy has slumped.

Republican governors are now in charge in three of those five states and Obama's approval rating, as measured by Gallup, is hovering around 50 percent in most of the region.

"We got a president who got a decrease in the credit rating of our nation, and that's because our president simply doesn't understand how to lead and how to grow an economy," Republican hopeful Mitt Romney said in Thursday's Iowa debate.

Romney and his GOP rivals blamed Obama for the growth of the federal deficit and the credit downgrade by Standard and Poor's, the first in the nation's history.

The GOP race intensified with Texas Gov. Rick Perry's entry Saturday. When Obama arrives at a town hall meeting in Decorah, Iowa, on Monday afternoon, Perry intends to meet with voters in eastern Iowa, about 100 miles away.

Nationally, Obama's approval rating is comparable to President Ronald Reagan's ratings in August 1983. But recent Gallup polls found that Obama's approval rating was hovering between 44 percent and 49 percent in 10 states closely watched by his political advisers. Those states include Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida.

Obama's standing with independents, who helped him win in traditionally Republican states such as Indiana and North Carolina, has fallen, too.

"The country is in an unbelievably angry mood," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg.

Most presidents like to get away from the nations' capital, and this excursion couldn't come at a better time.

As a candidate, Obama said he would tame Washington's gridlock. Yet it was political paralysis that scuttled his quest for a "grand bargain" with congressional Republicans on increasing the country's borrowing limit and forced him to agree to smaller spending cuts without higher taxes on the rich, as he demanded.

Days later, Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating and stocks on Wall Street plummeted, undermining confidence in an economic turnaround. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that economic growth had been "considerably slower" than expected this year and outlined a glum forecast.

Obama will have a tough sales job on the road. Unemployment is high, foreclosures are rampant and Wall Street is jittery.

While considered official White House travel, the bus tour will put Obama in campaign-like settings with small-business owners and workers in rural areas.

If 2008 was about hope and change, 2012 may be about hard-knuckle politics. Behind the scenes, Obama advisers are planning to draw sharp contrasts with some of the leading Republicans.

Yet Obama also finds himself under pressure from the left to generate jobs and raise taxes on the wealthy.

Most Democrats, said MoveOn.org's Justin Ruben, "have not been offering a clear prescription for actually getting the economy moving."

Obama told workers in Michigan that he plans to roll out more economic plans "that will help businesses hire and put people back to work." That's an approach Democrats hope will set the tone for next year's election in the Midwest and beyond.

___

Ken Thomas can be reached at http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-08-13-US-Obama-On-the-Road/id-f663c6ca42ec4c048aba56d77e4b4c9c

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Things You Have To Look For To Find The Best Internet Home Business

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By: C Mark Babcock

Do you want to begin an online business, but are struggling to find the best internet home business for you to start? Before you can choose the best business for you, there are some things that you need to look for that is going to help you easily decide on the correct one that fits you the best.?

There are numerous things to look for, but the following are the most essential if you want to start a business that you can be successful with.

One: A business you will love making successful - You have to choose a business that you will love working on and building to be successful. This is going to let you look forward to every day and working on earning money with your own business, which is not something that many people can say they are able to do these days.

The more you love the business you start, the simpler it will be for you to achieve your goal of earning good money with it.

Two: Profitable business - It is essential to look at each business idea that you are interested in and check to find out how profitable it will be for you. You don't want to build a business that is going to require a lot of hard work and time for a very small amount of money.

The more money you can earn with the business you want to start, the easier it will be to grow your business income each month.

Three: Room to grow your business - You have to decide on a business that gives you room to grow your business. Build a business that lets you promote more than one product, affiliate program, business opportunity or anything else.

Make sure they are all related to your business, but promoting multiple items will make it simpler for you to make money at a quicker rate.

Four: Items needed to start making money right away - Not many people know how to begin a business where they have to do all of the hard work of setting up a website and other things in order to get it going. There are many business ideas these days that will provide you with a website, marketing materials and tools, training and other things so you can begin a business easily and start making money with it right away.

If you find all of these things with any business online, you will know that you have located the best internet home business for you to begin. Just make sure you take your time and the perfect business for you will not be as difficult to locate as it seems to be.

Author Resource:->??Professional Internet marketer C Mark Babcock helps average people make money on the internet and create extraordinary incomes from home. If you are looking for extra money ideas visit his website today so he can start helping you. http://www.cmbwealth.com/

Article From Next Level Articles

Source: http://www.nextlevelarticles.com/Art/359302/94/Things-You-Have-To-Look-For-To-Find-The-Best-Internet-Home-Business-For-You.html

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Bachmann wins GOP 2012 test vote (AP)

AMES, Iowa ? Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won a test vote of Iowans on Saturday, a show of popularity and organizational strength for the tea party favorite five months before the state's caucuses kick off the GOP presidential nominating season.

The result is the first indication of what Iowans think of the field of Republicans competing for the chance to challenge President Barack Obama next fall. But it's hardly predictive of who will win the winter Iowa contest, much less the party nod or the White House.

Rather, Saturday's outcome suggests that Bachmann has a certain level of support and, perhaps even more important, the strongest get-out-the-vote operation and widest volunteer base in a state whose caucuses require those elements.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul finished a close second while former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty placed a distant third.

"We have a lot more work to do," Pawlenty said, making clear he wasn't dropping out despite a disappointing finish. "We are just beginning and I'm looking forward to a great campaign."

The results of the nonbinding vote, held on the Iowa State University campus, came just hours after Texas Gov. Rick Perry entered the race.

"I full well believe I'm going to win," Perry told South Carolina voters on a conference call before delivering his first speech as a candidate.

"It's time to get America working again," he declared in Charleston, S.C. "America is not broken. Washington, D.C. is broken."

Despite Perry's best efforts to overshadow the day, the epicenter of the presidential contest was in this Midwestern town, where nearly 17,000 Iowans cast ballots during a daylong political festival, a late-summer ritual held every four years.

In speeches throughout the day, candidates scouted for support by assailing Obama and offering themselves as the answer to an America plagued by high unemployment, rising debt and stock market swings.

"We know what America needs. But unfortunately Barack Obama has no clue. He's like a manure spreader in a windstorm," Pawlenty said, adding: "Mr. President, get the government off our backs." That elicited chants of his nickname: "T-Paw! T-Paw! T-Paw!"

Pawlenty had a lot on the line. He's ranked low in polls and was looking to prove he was still a viable candidate. He argued that he was the candidate of results, given his record as Minnesota governor.

Bachmann stressed faith and her Iowa roots ? she was born in Waterloo ? as well as her opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage. She earned cheers when she declared: "We are going to make Barack Obama a one-term president."

Bachmann, riding high since entering the race earlier this summer, had hoped that a strong finish would give her even more momentum just as Perry looks to infringe on her base of tea party and evangelical support. She invoked God and faith as she stressed what she called her conservative values, saying: "In Iowa, we are social conservatives and we will never be ashamed of being social conservatives."

Paul, with a following among libertarian-leaning voters, wanted a surprise showing that might convince Republicans he was more mainstream than not in his second shot at the GOP nomination. He referenced his fellow Texan's entrance in the race and said he didn't anticipate many of his supporters jumping ship for what he called a "super-establishment candidate."

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, businessman Herman Cain and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia also were on the ballot. So were GOP front-runner Mitt Romney and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, though they weren't competing in the contest.

Perry and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who made a splash Friday when she visited the state fair, weren't listed. But their backers planned write-in campaigns that could outpace candidates who have spent months trying to line up supporters to participate.

The straw poll isn't a scientific poll at all; it amounts to a popularity contest and a test of organizational strength.

Poor showings usually force some candidates, mostly those who are not well-known and are struggling to raise money, to abandon their bids. That could happen this year, too.

The straw poll has a mixed record of predicting the outcome of the precinct caucuses.

In 2008, Romney won the straw poll, but the big news was the surprising second-place showing of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses, but dropped from the race soon after. Sen. John McCain, who eventually won the nomination, didn't compete in the straw poll and finished in 10th place.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110814/ap_on_el_ge/us_iowa_straw_poll

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Which is better,Home improvement loan or buying a new home with ...

Jeff; there are so many things to consider before you make your decision. If you need to sell your home before you buy a new one at a low price, is your home in great condition? Would someone buy it as is? What is your competition in your area? What are similar homes in your area selling for; can you match them in looks and condition. Any home sale involves a home inspection. Real estate advisors tell Sellers that they should spend a few hundred dollars & hire an inspector themselves before putting their home on the market & do any of the repairs advised by the inspector or the amount for those repairs will be deducted from the seller?s agreed price. You should know what?s what before you decide to sell in great condition or ?as is?.

Then, you have to find out what prcentage you qualify for in getting a new mortgage. The low rate applies to credit worth applicants only. What would your monthly payment be for the new home? Compare that to what your payments for the home you are in plus adding on the amount of your Home Equity Loan of Credit would be? Nothing?s free and nothing is ?right? for everyone. Each circumstance is unique.

I?m in the same boat; I have to sell my big, 2 family house with the 2nd floor extension to the attic ( 5 bedrooms and 2 baths on 2 floors) plus a rental unit of 5 rooms plus a full cellar that has to be cleaned out. This home costs me $10,000 in taxes plus my Home Equity Loan that I already have. I have no tenants ( my son is living here temporairly while his furniture is in storage).
Homes like mine with my large lot are in demand BUT I need to do over the enire Bathroom & Kitchen on 2nd floor and change things in Bathroom & Kitchen on 1st floor plus other upgrades which I estimate will cost me at least $50,000. But If I don?t make the upgrades, I will have to sell at a huge loss and at this time in my life, I can?t afford to do.

So, after the most important work is done & if I sell at a good price, I will have to pay off my Home Equity Loans first which will leave me with a good deal less. Plus there are a lot of costs at closings that are usually shared with the buyer. Then I have to find a home at a great price ( which won?t be that hard to do now) & add on moving costs and appliances (maybe) plus other costs related to moving & making a new home yours.

You have a lot to consider before you make a decision. I have been getting information & doing improvments for 6 yrs now.

IMPORTANT WARNING TO EVERYONE READING ANSWERS IN BUSINESS & FINANCE: SOMEONE IS USING MANY PROFILES TO ADVERTIZE A POTENTIAL FRAUDULENT SITE CALLED ?LIFE PLANZ.COM ? SAYING IT HAS HELPED THEM. IGNORE THESE ANSWERS OR ANY THAT GIVE YOU A LINK UNLESS IT?S A GOVERNMENT SITE. ?.GOV?. This site has been reported under many different profiles. Be careful of this scam.

Source: http://insurance.solve-up.com/credit/interest-rate/which-is-betterhome-improvement-loan-or-buying-a-new-home-with-todays-rates/

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Visiting Information Technology Forum Strategically | Tricksplanet.CoM

Few good online information technology forums are strategically visited by tech savvy professional? PC users who take a more selective apporach.? They have few important things in mind. They want to get access to only good and? reliable tech help tips, computer-related articles. They want only interactive discussions that are sharp and serve their PC interest. They do not want to be misled by wrong tech help tips, and wrong information in any part of their computer-related knowhow. Confusion and misinformation is the last thing that they want while learning computer technology.? As a result, they seek only the right source.

This right source also helps them seek only best professionals services. As the informtion technology forum which they visit gives only correct information, it makes? tech help experts credible and true to their job. Taking advisory services from such skilled tech help experts is something which they count on. They get the best computer solution for their computer problem in this selectvie way.

]]>

Focused PC users also benefit in other ways. They do not have to undergo with the same information technology news multiple number of times.? They save a lot of wastage of time and energy on unnecessary stuffs. This time can be better utilized focusing on just a good information technology forum. As a result, there is better utilization of time and effort.

This focused approach also saves them from wrong or mailicious information. Today, there are many malicious online agents who have everything other than your interest in mind.? They may give you wrong computer solution and convince you to choose a wrong set of products and services.

Acting on the advise of a forum, you load a free software program available online.You thought that you were provided free. You have nothing to doubt at.? At the end of the day, you lose all your data.? By the night time, you receive an e-mail message as well as SMS on your phone that a particular computer service provider deals on data recovery exactly matching what has happened to your personal computer few hours back.? Today, there are? such stories where personal computer users have been cheated by various tricks. You perhaps would not like to be one of them.? One thing that ?careful focused PC learner do now is to avoid visiting large number of sites in an unplanned way.? They, instead choose to focus only on the selective reliable ones.

Such selective choice will also help you to benefit from shared learning. By zeroing-in only few good information technology forums, you will be in a better position to form a team of interested PC users visiting regularly for shared learning. This shared learning may benefit your performance in other ways.? For instance, it may be a missing link between your computer knowhow and other PC users who are unable to cover some of their gaps in their computer knowhow .? By sharing each other?s idea, it will connect the missing dots and remove the gap.

Shared learning leads to better use of human resources. By focusing only on few information technology forums, you get more out of computer technology and shared learning.

My vision is to build for you an interactive platform through my online computer forums where you get all your PC-related know-how in one place. Visit my free online computer forum and see how you can benefit from your own one comprehensive tech help resource for all your PC-related referencing.


Article from articlesbase.com

Source: http://tricksplanet.com/visiting-information-technology-forum-strategically/

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Gillmor Gang 8.13.11 (TCTV)

Gillmore Gang test patternThe Gillmor Gang ? John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor ? waxed and waned about the latest in social media buildout. Most notable was Twitter's new Activities and @mention views, which rolled up not only your @mentions but follow and favoriting signals in a realtime notification stream. Activity view did the same thing for those you follow, with an aggregate stream of their attention. Yes, it's the Attention and Gestures meme finally coming home to roost, and with it a fascinating series of political pebbles being skipped across the realtime stream. @borthwick remains juried out on the PlusPlex, while @scobleizer and @kevinmarks debate not if, but when, + will resolve its lack of search, filtering, and realnamification.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/AXpngKdX-gw/

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Autofellatio, How to Write Faster, and the Tiniest Countries: The week's most interesting Slate stories.

"The Makeni Children: In 1998, Americans Adopted 29 Children From a Town in Sierra Leone. Their Birth Families Say They Were Stolen," by E.J. Graff. In this riveting three-part series, Graff takes us into the home of Tony and Judith Mosley as they learn that their five adopted children may have been snatched from their birth families. In wrenching detail, Judith recounts how she returned one daughter to her birth family in Cambodia and struggled to track down the biological parents of her son.

"Snipefest! Bachmann slams Pawlenty, Santorum ribs Ron Paul, Gingrich slaps Fox News?and Romney smiles," by John Dickerson. The GOP had its first Iowa showdown Thursday night, and the candidates wasted no time exchanging blows. Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty got heated over their own Minnesota records, Rick Santorum set his sights on Ron Paul's Iran stance, and Gingrich went after the "gotcha" media and their "Mickey Mouse games." All night, Romney, the comfortable frontrunner, looked on, mostly untouched as the flock fought among themselves.

"Overdone: Why are restaurant websites so horrifically bad?" by Farhad Manjoo. Restaurant websites tend to be awful, says Manjoo. There are, it seems, too many cooks on the Web. Or too many attempting?and usually failing?to translate kitchen creativity into user-friendly digital design. Manjoo observes that the clarity of a restaurant website is often inversely proportional to how expensive it is. "Masa," the four-star Manhattan sushi spot, for instance, offers up a lot of New Age graphics and minimalist sidebars. But you won't find anything indicating that you'll be paying around $400 for a tasting menu.

"Burning Down the House: 'Social exclusion' is a real problem, but it doesn't excuse the looting and lawlessness on the streets of London," by Michael Weiss. London is burning, but the band of street marauders causing the trouble seem to be more interested in stealing DVD players than delivering social justice. Weiss, writing from the scene, marvels at how neighborhoods that once held quiet brunch spots have morphed into hotbeds of chaos.

"Big Man, Little Countries: a tour of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Liechtenstein," by Josh Levin. What is it like to live in a country so small you can run into the prime minister at the grocery store? Levin vows to find out. He tours Europe's smallest nations, discovering that sometimes, the little guys have all the fun.

"The Top Right in Government: Slate selects five American policy wonks who are both wildly inventive and incredibly practical." In the latest installment to its Top Right series, Slate picks the leaders who are shaping the country with public policy. Included on the list: David Bossie, who led a crusade to reshape American campaign finance, Janette Sadik-Khan, who is pushing for a greener New York, and Gen. James Mattis, the head of U.S. Central Command.

"So Close, and Yet So Far Away: The Contorted History of Autofellatio," by Jesse Bering. For decades, Bering writes, autofellatio?putting one's genitals in one's mouth for sexual pleasure?carried a potent social stigma. Psychologists often conflated it with homosexuality. But recent studies indicate that the practice is common among adolescent males. Sex researchers are attempting to dispel the world's reflexive taboo surrounding the act.

"August: Let's get rid of it," by David Plotz. In a piece from 2001, Slate's editor argues why we could do without this summer month. Almost nothing good ever happens during its long 31 days, Plotz writes. Who needs the month, after all, that gave us the start of World War I and celebrations like National Religious Software Week?

"Pisco: Don't hate it because it's fashionable," by Troy Patterson. Feeling the need to update your alcoholic beverage of choice to reflect the season? Try Pisco, the mellow South American brandy with a slight kick. The liquor makes for delicious cocktails, like "pisco sour," blended with citrus and egg yolk and "pisco punch," a drink mixed with a dash of pineapple syrup. But conservative drinkers need not fear, Patterson writes. You can always take the less-adventurous road and mix Pisco with plain old Coca-Cola.

"Slowpoke: How to be a faster writer," by Michael Agger. Why can some writers churn out a book review during a cab ride across town, while others take hours to scribble a few sentences? Agger vows to find out, for the sake of amateur authors and modern Hemmingways alike. Among the tips we learn from his research: Writers compose faster for money and when they know their subject well. Maintaining realistic deadlines doesn't hurt, either.

"Overrated: Authors, critics, and editors on 'great books' that aren't all that great," by Juliet Lapidos. Summer is the time to finish the books you were supposed to love but never could. Is it your fault? They're classics, aren't they? In this survey, seasoned readers reveal their own "meh" picks?books that fall short of their established reputations. Along the way, they take on luminaries like Thomas Pynchon, J.D. Salinger, and James Joyce, providing solace to bleary-eyed college freshmen everywhere.

Peter Fulham is Slate intern.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=142ccaa9c16fe1399cacc39184a920ab

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Can I pass the real estate salesperson license exam ... - Going Green

I'm on a waiting list for green card number to become available. it can take a while and I don't want to lose my time.
So can I enroll for correspondence courses to become a real estate agent/salesperson? can I then pass the license exam and will it be valid once I'll have my green card?
I know I may not drive, not work, not go to school, but can I at least do that?

If you are staying in US out of status until your immigrant visa becomes available, your green card application will be denied due to long length of out of status. you must maintain other types of valid visa status while you are waiting for green card.

Sure you can.

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Can I pass the real estate salesperson license exam while being on a green card waiting list?

Employing Highly Skilled Foreign Nationals: Leading Lawyers on Counseling Clients, Obtaining H-1B Visas, and Developing a Successful Immigration Strategy (Inside the Minds)Employing Highly Skilled Foreign Nationals: Leading Lawyers on Counseling Clients, Obtaining H-1B Visas, and Developing a Successful Immigration Strategy (Inside the Minds)
Employing Highly Skilled Foreign Nationals is an authoritative, insider's perspective on navigating the complex process of hiring international workers. featuring partners and chairs from some of the nation's leading law firms, these experts provide a thorough analysis of the employment process, with strategies that will successfully take you from recruiting and hiring employees to handling the sensitive issue of termination and everything in between. These top lawyers share tips for negotiating offers, interacting with government agencies, advising clients on compliance issues, and acquiring and renewing visas, including the H-1B visa. Additionally, these leaders offer practical guidance for developing creative solutions to common problems, adapting policies to account for the current economic situation, understanding counsel's role in the immigration process, and recognizing emerging trends in this area of law. The different niches represented and the breadth of perspectives presented enable readers to get inside some of the great legal minds of today, as these experienced lawyers offer up their thoughts around the keys to success within this ever-evolving field.

Inside the Minds provides readers with proven business intelligence from C-Level executives and lawyers (Chairman, CEO, CFO, CMO, Partner) from the world's most respected companies and firms nationwide. Each chapter is comparable to an essay/thought leadership piece and is a future-oriented look at where an industry, profession, or topic is heading and the most important issues for the future. Each author has been selected based upon their experience and C-level standing within the professional community.

Chapters Include:

1. Sanford A. Posner, Partner, Elarbee Thompson Sapp & Wilson LLP - "Strategies for Employing Foreign Nationals"
2. Charles C. Foster, Co-Chairman, Foster Quan LLP - "Developing a Comprehensive Strategy for Hiring and the H-1B Process"
3. Pierre Georges Bonnefil, Member, Epstein Becker & Green PC - "Developing a Solid Immigration Strategy in Light of Recent Developments and Trends"
4. John Gallini, Member, Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton PC - "Assisting Clients with Acquiring H-1B Visas"
5. Frank Novak, Partner, Harter Secrest & Emery LLP - "Strategies for the H-1B Visa Process"
6. Frank M. Young III, Partner, and Amy Myers, Of Counsel, Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker LLC - "Practical Guidance in Hiring Foreign Nationals for U.S. Business: An Overview of the Employment Immigration Process"
7. Dr. Sara Coen, Partner, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, and Maria Mejia-Opaciuch, Senior Counsel, Gibney, Anthony & Flaherty LLP - "Guiding Clients through the Employment Process When Hiring Foreign Nationals"
8. Terry Yale Feiertag, Partner, Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym Ltd. - "Fundamentals of Employing Highly Skilled Foreign Nationals in H-1B Status"
9. Lawrence Mark Lebowitz, Director, Cohen & Grigsby PC - "What an Employer Must Consider When Hiring a Foreign National Employee"
10. David W. Gearhart, Partner, Lewis, Rice & Fingersh LC - "This Is Not Normal Hiring: Best Practices for Employing Highly Skilled Foreign Nationals"

Source: http://gogreenliving.org/can-i-pass-the-real-estate-salesperson-license-exam-while-being-on-a-green-card-waiting-list/.php

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Gov't pays for empty flights to rural airports

On some days, the pilots with Great Lakes Airlines fire up a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900 at the Ely, Nev., airport and depart for Las Vegas without a single passenger on board. And the federal government pays them to do it.

Federal statistics reviewed by The Associated Press show that in 2010, just 227 passengers flew out of Ely while the airline got $1.8 million in subsidies. The travelers paid $70 to $90 for a one-way ticket. The cost to taxpayers for each ticket: $4,107.

Ely is one of 153 rural communities where airlines get subsidies through the $200 million Essential Air Service program, and one of 13 that critics say should be eliminated from it. Some call the spending a boondoggle, but others see it as a critical financial lifeline to ensure economic stability in rural areas.

Steve Smith, executive director of the Jackson, Tenn., airport authority, also has seen empty or near empty flights take off, since the airlines get paid per flight, not per passenger. The subsidy amounted to $244 for each of the 2,514 people who flew out of Smith's airport last year, though few if any passengers knew that.

"They fly the empty plane so they can still get the money," Smith said.

The fight over the subsidies was a key sticking point that led to the recent political standoff in Washington that temporarily shut down the Federal Aviation Administration, putting thousands out of work for nearly two weeks. There were other disputes as well, such as a GOP proposal that would make it more difficult for airline workers to unionize.

Republicans got the EAS cuts they were looking for in last week's agreement ? but with a major caveat. Subsidies to Ely, Jackson and 11 other communities are set to end, but Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has the authority to continue them if he decides it's necessary.

Rep. David McKinley, a Republican who came into office with tea party support, sided on the issue with Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a fellow West Virginian who has used his position as chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to support the current funding.

Flights out of Morgantown, W.Va., were among those targeted by other Republicans. A $1 million subsidy amounted to about $52 for each of Morgantown's more than 10,000 passengers last year.

McKinley describes himself "as a small government, free-market focused owner of a small business," but said airports that receive subsidies "serve as crucial engines of job creation for many small towns and rural areas."

The EAS was created to ensure service on less profitable routes to remote communities when airlines were deregulated in 1978.

A spokesman for the Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment about the program, which has grown in scope and cost. In 1999 the EAS served 89 communities ? 68 in the continental United States, one in Hawaii and 20 in Alaska. Today, it serves 45 in Alaska and 108 elsewhere, and over the last 10 years the budget quadrupled from $50 million to $200 million.

The subsidies go to about a dozen airlines, but in 2010 almost one-third of the entire budget ? $67.8 million ?went to Great Lakes, which is based in Cheyenne, Wyo. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

Ely is an extreme case. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said it is one of just three cities in the program that have subsidies higher than $1,000 per passenger. The others are Glendive, Mont., and Alamogordo, N.M.

Republicans targeted flights out of other cities such as Morgantown because they are relatively close to major airports.

Mike Coster, Ely's airport manager, said the location between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City is the most remote airport in the continental United States.

"We have no bus service here of any kind, no Greyhound or similar company," Coster said. "It's a small town."

Severin Borenstein, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who helped design the EAS program, said Congress originally intended for the program to end after 10 years. He said the subsidies are a "big problem" in place like Ely, which averages one or two passengers per flight.

"I can see the argument for making some of them permanent, but the standards should be higher," Borenstein said.

"The real story with this program nationwide is that nobody is watching it," said Smith, the Tennessee airport official. "If there is a problem with airports and airlines not carrying enough passengers and not doing what they said they would do, it's because once the contract is issued, it's like nobody ever asked a question about it again."

Contracts are awarded through a competitive bid process, and generally last two years.

The program has plenty of defenders who point out the cost is tiny compared with other transportation subsidies.

According to a 2009 report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, highways got 76 percent of subsidies, mass transit 16 percent, aviation 6 percent and rail and maritime 3 percent. Pew estimates that transportation subsidies in 2008 came to about $45 billion, or $367 for every household in America.

Faye Malarkey Black, a vice president for the Regional Airline Association, said she believes few federal programs accomplish as much for $200 million as EAS does.

"They call it essential for a reason," she said. She said her industry group supports "common sense adjustments" for eligibility, but added that rural communities already struggle to attract and keep doctors and other professionals.

"If you take away air service, who wants to live in those communities?" she said.

Chadd Williams, a computer science professor at Pacific University, was flying back to Oregon from Morgantown after visiting family. He said a ticket to Morgantown typically costs him $75 to $100 more than one to Pittsburgh, about 75 miles away, but this time it cost about the same.

"It's very convenient to have this place," Williams said. He said his family sometimes drives to Pittsburgh, to pick him up, but "that's a stress on them, and it's difficult to get up to Pittsburgh on time with all the road construction. So it would be terrible to have this go away."

Flower shop owner Jim Coombs has been to the Morgantown airport seven times so far this summer to shuttle high school foreign exchange students to their host families. He'll be there seven more times to send them home.

The nearest international airport is about an hour and a half's drive north in Pittsburgh, but traveling there means time wasted in traffic and in Interstate 79 construction zones, not to mention the cost of gas and pricey parking versus free. Coombs says the fact that the northern West Virginia city has its own airport is a selling point for people considering jobs there.

"I think the people in Washington are the types that just think if it's not in a big area, it's not worth anything. They don't know what it's like here. They don't know what goes on here," Coombs said.

In Alamogordo, officials said number-crunching doesn't explain the full value of access to air transportation.

Saddled between southern New Mexico's Sacramento Mountains and the desolate Tularosa Valley, residents don't have any options for air travel other than twice daily, federally subsidized round-trip flights, said airport manager Parker Bradley.

"It doesn't have to do with airports closing. It has to do with the availability or lack of availability of transportation. That can be a very important thing for a community," he said.

___

Begos reported from Pittsburgh and Sainz reported from Jackson, Tenn. AP reporters Joan Lowy in Washington, Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W. Va., Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y., Cristina Silva in Las Vegas, Matt Gouras in Helena, Mont., and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M., contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-08-11-Aviation%20Shutdown-Rural%20Subsidies/id-4448c5def75f4a01a44b328886d220d7

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