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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (458949)	2/23/2009 9:04:37 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1576949

AFP WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States plans to offer more than $900 million to help rebuild Gaza after Israel's invasion and to strengthen the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, U.S. officials said on Monday. The money, which needs U.S. congressional approval, will be distributed through U.N. and other bodies and not via the militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, said one official. "This money is for Gaza and to help strengthen the Palestinian Authority. It is not going to go to Hamas," said the official, who asked not to be named as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned to announce the funding at a donors' conference in Egypt next week. Neither the United States nor Israel have direct contact with the Islamist Hamas movement which runs Gaza and remains formally committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. The official said the pledge was a mix of money already earmarked for the Palestinians and some new funding. "The package is still shaping up," he said, when asked for specifics over how the money would be spent and a breakdown of old and new funding. In December, the former Bush administration said it would give $85 million to the U.N. agency that provides aid to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The March 2 donors' conference in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh resort aims to raise humanitarian and rebuilding funds for Gaza after Israel's invasion last December to suppress rocket fire against its cities. Preliminary estimates put damage from the offensive, in which 1,300 Palestinians died, at nearly $2 billion. Clinton's bid to get "substantial" funds could face an uphill battle in Congress because Hamas continues to rule Gaza and the U.S. focus is on its own souring economy. BOOST FOR ABBAS Part of the goal of the new funding is to boost the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, which controls the occupied West Bank. The United States wants Abbas's PA to play a central role in the reconstruction effort in Gaza, hoping this will increase its influence in the Hamas stronghold. Washington is also putting pressure on other donors to bolster Abbas. "We call on donor countries to focus their pledges to meet the Palestinian Authority's priorities, including budget support, and on projects that can be funded through the Palestinian Authority and other existing, trusted mechanisms," said a State Department official. The quartet of Middle East mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Egyptian conference where they will work on strategy on Gaza, U.S. officials said. After attending the conference in Egypt, Clinton is expected to go to Israel and the West Bank -- a public demonstration of Obama's promise to make Arab-Israeli peacemaking a foreign policy priority. Clinton's special envoy to the region, George Mitchell, will be there this week trying to revive stalled Palestinian statehood talks complicated both by Hamas and political uncertainty in Israel after last week's election. (Editing by Vicki Allen and Alan Elsner) thks to bearcatbob

To: Alighieri who wrote (458949)	2/23/2009 11:00:11 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1576949

>> but he hasn't read the provision either It isn't a matter of "haven't read it". As any attorney can tell you, a person who doesn't have intense knowledge of the affected statute cannot possibly read a bill such as the stimulus bill and make sense out of it. You can't. I can't. CJ can't. But attorneys who deal with it every day, maybe. Jindal's attorneys have made this claim, and no credible person has refuted it. Now, I can tell you from many years of experience as a CPA that FUTA and SUTA work closely together. The taxation of employers is also closely related, in that the FUTA tax rate is reduced by the gross SUTA rate without regard for the employer's experience rate (in the case of multiple states, the individual state's wages are applied). The individual states set their gross contribution rate, but the federal (FUTA) law determines how much of a credit is allowed against FUTA taxes for the employer's gross SUTA rate. By federal law, if funds are allocated out of the FUTA tax "pool", the federal government may escalate the FUTA rate -- to as much as 6.2% -- (by reducing the SUTA credit) which effectively binds STATE employers to a tax increase for future years. It is certainly possible that the so-called stimulus bill specifically prohibits such an arrangement, but I didn't see anything that seemed to head that direction in the legislation, and it does seem that all the non-liberal governors are of the same mind on the matter. Stressing, again, that amateurs like you, me and CJ, reading statute would be roughly equivalent to one of us doing heart surgery -- none of us is apt to get it right. But I would think an exception such as this would be reasonably easy to find in the bill. There is very little chance Jindal is just making this up. In the first place, he is taking tremendous political risk, and secondly, it is consistent with the way SUTA and FUTA both work. The state and federal law work closely together in every respect. While state offices generally decide which individuals are to receive benefits, they do so in strict compliance with federal law.