The end of American genius? Say it isn't so -- July 17, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

To modern ears, the phrase “American genius” may drip with irony or smack of clever marketing. 

Apple stores have Genius Bars to help technological dunces. Towns in Missouri branded Highway 36 a “Way of American Genius.” Sliced Bread Saturday in Chillicothe, Mo., is Aug. 2, if you’re hungry for a morsel of genius.

Even the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation does not call the 20 to 30 people a year who get $625,000 grants over five years “geniuses” or the awards “genius grants.” Those were media labels that stuck. Officially, the winners are MacArthur fellows.

We weren’t always so skeptical about the prospect of cultivating American genius. Long before there was a National Gallery of Art or a Phillips Collection, there was the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the first art museum in Washington, D.C., and one of the first in the United States.  

When art collector William W. Corcoran opened his gallery in 1869, he stated the mission clearly: The Corcoran Gallery was to be “used solely for the purpose of encouraging American genius.”

Students congregated in the new museum, sketching and painting the works of art. Delighted, Corcoran donated money in 1878 to start an art school. The Corcoran School of Art opened in 1890, two years after his death. 

The art collection outgrew the first Corcoran Gallery, located at the corner of 17^th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue, in the building that now houses the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. The Corcoran trustees bought a lot nearby and built a new building at 17^th and New York Avenue, across from the White House. The opening in 1897 drew President Grover Cleveland and his cabinet.

After encouraging American genius for 145 years, the Corcoran has fallen on hard times. It’s facing what Philip Kennicott, art critic for The Washington Post, called “cultural euthanasia.” The museum has gone to court to get permission essentially to break its historic charter.

“It is impracticable or impossible for the operations of the Corcoran to continue in their current form,” the museum says in documents filed with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

As a private museum that charges admission, the Corcoran competes with the Smithsonian empire and National Gallery, all of which are free.

After suffering financial problems for more than a decade, the Corcoran has agreed to give its more than 17,000 art works to the National Gallery and its Beaux Arts-style building to George Washington University. GW will operate the Corcoran College of Art + Design and take care of needed electrical, heating and ventilation and plumbing repairs estimated to cost $70 million to $100 million.

A Save the Corcoran group alleges that “egregious mismanagement” led to the gallery’s downfall and is fighting the mergers. The gallery insists this course is the best way to honor Corcoran’s wishes, given the financial constraints. The Corcoran Gallery is scheduled to close Oct. 1.

The National Gallery will incorporate the art it wants into its collection and will send the art it doesn’t want to other museums, with preference to museums in the Washington area.

The plan is that after some renovations, the Corcoran will reopen as “Corcoran Contemporary, NGA,” with contemporary and modern art from the Corcoran and National Gallery collections. As part of the National Gallery, the new Corcoran will be open to the public for free.

A small “Legacy Gallery” of paintings -- as well as the Salon Doré, an 18^th century French period room; the French mantle, and the Canova Lions -- will be kept on site, reminders of Corcoran’s dream of encouraging American genius.

If you want a lasting memento of the glory that once was the Corcoran, its beautiful catalogue, “Corcoran Gallery of Art American Paintings to 1945,” has been marked down in the final days of the Corcoran Museum Shop.

The 336-page, hardcover volume with full-color prints, explanations and copious footnotes went for $60 when it was published in 2012. The other day, I bought a copy for $7.97. Sadly, genius never came so cheap.

©2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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How saving can be more fun than eating broccoli -- Stateline story July 15, 2014

Stateline

 

To Encourage Saving, Some States Turn to Prizes

• July 15, 2014 
• By Marsha Mercer

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2014/07/15/to-encourage-saving-some-states-turn-to-prizes

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© Doorways to Dreams Fund

A boy holds an oversized check at an event celebrating his grandmother’s $100,000 savings prize. Some states are allowing credit unions to offer cash prizes as an incentive to encourage people to save more. (Doorways to Dreams Fund)

Nearly a dozen states believe they’ve found a way to encourage people to save more money—and have fun doing it.  And the idea costs not a dime in state funds.

Four states—Michigan, Nebraska, North Carolina and Washington—now allow credit unions to offer cash prizes as an incentive to encourage people to save more. Five other states—Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Maryland and Rhode Island—have enacted laws clearing the way for prize-linked savings, and in New York a bill is awaiting Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature. Similar measures were introduced in Arkansas last year and in Oregon this year.

People know they should save more money, but nearly half of all U.S. households are “liquid asset poor,” meaning they have less than a three-month cushion of savings, or $5,887 for a family of four, according to the 2014 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard, published by the Corporation for Enterprise Development, a nonprofit organization that works to expand economic opportunity

By opening a 12-month share certificate with as little as $25—far less than the minimum for most bank certificates of deposit—participants in prize-linked savings programs earn an entry into that month’s drawing and become eligible for a yearly grand prize. For each $25 added to the account (up to 10 deposits per month), a participant earns another entry. Savers are allowed to withdraw money before the end of the 12 months, but to do so they typically have to pay a $25 fee.

Since 2009, thousands of people have won prizes ranging from $15 monthly payouts to a $100,000 grand prize in Michigan in 2012. Michigan credit unions have since changed the rules, and now award six $10,000 grand prizes a year instead of single annual prize. Credit unions in other states also top out at $10,000.

“Most of the things we do in the legislature are so abstract, and it’s hard to see the benefits,” said Nebraska state Sen. Amanda McGill, a Democrat. “But this really gets people happy and engaged, and they are saving.”

In 2011, McGill introduced the bill allowing credit unions in Nebraska to offer “Save to Win” raffle promotions. The program has been called the “no-lose lottery,” because even savers who don’t win prizes keep their principal—and earn interest.  

Between January 2012 and January 2014, Nebraskans opened 1,462 accounts and saved a total of $2.3 million. Last year, participating credit unions paid out $43,000 in cash prizes including one $25,000 grand prize.

“I’ve heard zero complaints,” McGill said.

Indiana Rep. Gail Riecken, a Democrat, said her eyes opened to the need for prize-linked savings when she talked to a friend who has so little money saved he’s forced to turn to high-interest commercial loans when he has an emergency expense, such as a car repair.

“We in the legislature want to discourage high-interest loans and pay-day lenders, but (he) didn’t have other options. He needed that loan. Now, he’ll be able to save a little here and there,” she said. Her bill to allow Indiana credit unions to offer prizes for savings was enacted this spring.

Credit unions pick up the cost of running the program and the prizes; no state funds are involved.

“It’s not a government program. It’s not a safety-net program. The only role for the states is to allow the credit unions to do it,” said Qiana Flores of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The concept of rewarding savers with prizes has been around for hundreds of years, but it has taken off slowly in the U.S. One reason, proponents say, is that it sounds like gambling, even though participants are not in danger of losing any of their own money.

Striking It Rich

Saving traditionally has had all “the appeal of eating your vegetables or going to the dentist,” said Timothy Flacke, executive director of the Doorways to Dreams Fund (D2D), a Massachusetts nonprofit that developed the Save to Win program. “There’s no sense of fun.”

But people love the idea of striking it rich. Americans spent $63 billion on lottery tickets last year. A 2006 survey by the Consumer Federation of America found that 21 percent of all Americans and 38 percent of those with income below $25,000 thought that winning the lottery was the most practical way to accumulate several hundred thousand dollars.

“Prize-linked savings bring an aspect of chance and excitement that may attract people more than a comparable interest rate,” said Clinton Key of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which has researched the issue. (Pew funds Stateline). “People are more motivated by the small chance of a big prize.”

Credit unions in Michigan offered the first Save to Win raffles in 2009. Since then, savers around the country have opened 50,000 unique accounts and saved $94 million, D2D’s Flacke said.

Save to Win is the brand name of D2D’s product, which is marketed to credit union associations by CU Solutions Group, the for-profit side of the Michigan Credit Union League.

“We’ve always promoted this as it’s not intended to make a huge profit for credit unions – but to teach people to save,” said Jessica Demorest, project manager for the Save to Win program at CU Solutions.  “It can be a difficult sell at some point. We say, `This is not going to make your credit union a ton of money.’”

Federal law prohibits banks from offering prize-linked savings promotions. But U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, and U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, have proposed the American Savings Promotion Act in Congress that would update the banking law to allow banks to offer prizes to savers.

Federal taxpayers can also put their refunds directly into savings bonds. In California, Maryland and Hawaii, state taxpayers may split their refunds between accounts, making it easier to allocate some to spending and some to savings.

That’s an easy one for states, said Flacke. “It’s zero cost, essentially, just a plumbing change.”

Sold Alongside Lottery Tickets?

Another idea to encourage people to save by offering them prizes is to sell lottery-style “savings tickets” at the same locations that sell traditional lottery tickets. The payouts for savings tickets would be less than in the traditional lottery, but savers who didn’t win a prize would keep their principal. The plan isn’t designed to raise revenue for the state, as traditional lotteries do, but rather to encourage more people to save.

“The challenge is getting people to understand it,” said Oregon state Rep. John Davis, a Republican, who has proposed a bill that would allow savings tickets to be sold alongside lottery tickets in his state.  “It’s hard for people to wrap their heads around the concept that prize-linked game like a lottery can help people save.”

Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have lotteries, but none yet offers no-lose savings tickets as a lottery alternative. To implement it, some barriers would have to be overcome. For example, a person buying a savings ticket would have to register the ticket and link it to his or her individual account, requiring paperwork either in person, online or via mail or text messaging. Some retailers are worried about the time it would take.

“Savings tickets are a more complicated model to explain,” said Joanna Smith-Ramani of D2D.  “The lottery is a very sophisticated network. Can we give it another job?”

Other Incentives

States or nonprofits do have to pony up for Assets for Independence, the major federal program that helps low- and moderate-income people save. The $19 million program matches savings up to $2,000 per person in Individual Development Accounts for specific purposes and duration: a home, education or to start or expand a business. Participants must qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or meet income and asset limits. Participants receive financial education as part of the program.  

Since the program began in 1999, about 84,000 people have opened accounts and 36,000 have used the accounts for purchases, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Forty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have created IDA programs, but only 16 states are currently funding them, according to Jennifer Medina, state and local policy manager at the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

Another strategy states use to spur low-income people save is to raise or eliminate the asset limits for benefit programs. Three dozen states have eliminated the limits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. Eight have scrapped the limit for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

“We believe having an asset limit discourages people from being able to save,” Medina said. “The message behind lifting the asset limits is that we’re not going to penalize you if you save.”

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One wild thing you need to do this summer: Get your boots wet -- July 10, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

We knew before starting down the hiking trail that we’d have to cross three streams. No big deal, the young ranger cheerfully told us at the visitors’ center, just hop from rock to rock.

   

The trail was lovely, dappled, cool and not too steep. But the first two stream crossings felt, well, tricky.

It had rained a lot, and the streams splashed almost to the top of the rocks. With encouragement and a helping hand from my companion, I minced across, slowly and deliberately. You’d have thought I’d crossed the Grand Canyon on a wire the way I panted with relief both times when I made it.

At the third and largest crossing near scenic waterfalls, though, the stream cascaded over some of the crossing rocks and covered them. All was quiet except for the rushing water, which sounded to me like an alarm. Cross there? Are you crazy? What if…? We admired the view, turned around and started back, retracing our steps.

Soon, four seasoned hikers blitzed up the trail behind us.  They’d crossed the cascading stream from the other side, using hiking poles – and gumption. As the first hiker passed us, I commented on the high water.

“I just get my boots wet,” he said and grinned.

Cue the light bulb. Just get your boots wet.  I hadn’t been thinking of the state of my footwear, but what are hiking boots for, if not for getting from here to there?

We kept walking and this time I crossed the streams quickly, without help.  I didn’t hop, but I did step with sure feet. On the trail as in life, I need to remind myself that doing is far easier than imagining the worst and then doing. “Just do it,” indeed. That day, I got my boots wet and muddy, and it was exhilarating.

Crossing a couple of minor streams in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park is hardly a milestone in mountaineering.  I tell you the story because we never know what we might learn when we push back from the computer, get outside and challenge ourselves. 

This is the perfect year to explore federal wilderness areas, and we explored some of Shenandoah’s officially designated wilderness. In 1964, Congress passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act, preserving primitive places “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

In the 50 years since, about 110 million acres have received federal wilderness status, the strongest level of protection. This sounds huge, but it’s less than 5 percent of the country.

Every year about 12 million people camp, hike, hunt, ride horses, fish and enjoy nature in other ways at wilderness areas.  Mining and drilling are prohibited, and visitors must leave their motorized and mechanical devices behind. Even the volunteers who help maintain the trails use hand tools.

Shenandoah’s wilderness is sometimes called “recycled” because none of the parkland qualified for wilderness status in 1964. The law requires that the land have “its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvement or human habitation.”

Generations of families had lived, built, farmed, mined and logged in the area before they were relocated to make way for the park, established in 1936. By 1976, though, about 79,000 forested acres in three areas --  40 percent of the park -- had recuperated from man’s intervention and were designated wilderness. It’s one of the largest wilderness areas in the eastern United States.

The president can protect some federal lands by executive action, but only Congress can pass wilderness designations. Until our rancorous age, almost every session of Congress added acreage to the National Wilderness Preservation System. 

Since 2009, though, only one new wilderness area has been designated.  Congress finally passed in March and President Barrack Obama signed the designation for Sleeping Bear Dunes Wilderness, more than 32,500 acres with 21 inland lakes in Michigan. Dozens of other bills naming wilderness areas are pending in Congress and might yet make it.

During the 50^th anniversary year, there are plenty of hikes and other events planned to celebrate wilderness.  

Go, and don’t be afraid to get your boots wet.

©2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Supreme fight ahead over pregnant workers' rights -- July 3, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

If you were outraged by the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, take a deep breath and get ready for the next battle over women’s rights.

A case that will affect millions of working women is on the Supreme Court docket for the term beginning Oct. 6. Young v. United Parcel Service will test the law prohibiting employment discrimination against pregnant women. And it’s anybody’s guess how this court will rule.

The essential issue in Young is whether an employer who provides accommodations to some workers with work limitations must also provide them to pregnant workers who are “similar in their ability or inability to work.”

The obvious answer: Yes, of course. It’s been against the law for employers to discriminate against pregnant workers since the era of the Bee Gees, Laverne & Shirley and big hair.

Congress passed and President Jimmy Carter signed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 in response to a boneheaded 1976 Supreme Court ruling that found discrimination on the basis of pregnancy was not sex discrimination but discrimination between pregnant and non-pregnant people.

The pregnancy act says employers must treat a pregnant woman who is temporarily unable to perform her job the same way it treats other temporarily disabled employees.

Despite the law, allegations of discrimination against pregnant workers persist more than 35 years later. Some members of Congress and President Barack Obama want stronger laws to ensure that pregnant workers don’t face discrimination.

And now the Supreme Court is getting involved.  

Peggy Young was a part-time “air” driver for United Parcel Service in Landover, Md., in 2006 when she took a leave of absence for in vitro fertilization treatments. She became pregnant and her midwife said Young should not lift packages heavier than 20 pounds for the first 20 weeks of pregnancy and 10 pounds subsequently. 

Young wanted to return to work. As an air driver, she met an early morning shuttle from the airport and delivered letters and packages by 8:30 a.m. These packages cost more to send and tend to be lighter than other UPS packages, according to court documents.

But her job description required that she be able to lift packages weighing 70 pounds. Young asked to return to her regular job or for light duty.

Her boss empathized but refused, saying Young was too much of a liability to work at her regular job and citing the company’s policy to provide light duty only to employees injured on the job, to those who meet the criteria of disabled under the federal disability law or to those who lose their federal driver certificate.

UPS says its policies are “pregnancy neutral” and are specified in its collective bargaining agreement negotiated with the Teamsters. Young was a member of the union. Young went on unpaid leave and lost her health insurance. She returned to work after the baby was born.

Contending she was treated differently from others temporarily unable to perform their jobs, she complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which authorized her to sue UPS. She did with the support of the ACLU and women’s groups.

UPS contends it treated Young “exactly the same way it treats all employees – regardless of pregnancy – who are unable to perform essential functions of the job as a result of an off-the-job injury or condition.”

The district court ruled for UPS, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision. Young took her case to the Supreme Court.  

The justices asked the U.S. solicitor general for his advice on whether to hear the appeal. The government’s lawyer, Donald B. Verrilli Jr., said no.   

While the lower courts’ rulings were wrong and the questions raised are “important and recurring,” Verrilli said, a disability law passed in 2008 law will help resolve the legal issues. Besides, the EEOC is working on guidance for employers. The justices decided to take the case anyway. They never say why.  

America’s working women will be waiting and watching. This time, surely, a majority of justices will stand up for women’s rights.

© 2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Bringing home the bacon and the votes -- June 26, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

It’s a simple strategy for a congressional hopeful: Tie the weight of what’s wrong with Washington around an incumbent’s neck and watch him or her sink.  

Sometimes the mere threat of being cursed as a Washington insider prompts veteran members of Congress to fold their tents. Other times, the strategy confirms the conventional wisdom that voters want to send the Old Guard, and even the Middle-Aged Guard, packing.  

Witness Rep. Eric Cantor’s demise in Virginia’s 7^th congressional district Republican primary. Winner Dave Brat is a college professor and local tea party favorite unencumbered by legislative experience or a voting record.  

Cantor, first elected in 2000, could have played up his experience and given people a reason to vote for him again. But that would have meant acknowledging that Washington does some things right, an anathema to Republicans these days.

People prize experience in other fields:  surgeons who know their way around the body, hairdressers who can wield scissors, pitchers who throw strikes. Why not legislators who can get laws passed and, yes, bring home the bacon? It’s only pork when it goes elsewhere.

We want the federally funded roads and bridges that make our commutes and our kids’ school bus rides safer. Could I see a show of hands of those willing to sacrifice the current economic boost of their nearby military base for the delayed pleasure of debt reduction? I thought so.

It has dawned on some incumbents that they make a fatal mistake when they fail to defend – and even tout -- their Washington experience. It’s smart to make a virtue of necessity.

And the strategy may be especially appealing in the South, which has long believed in electing candidates young and keeping them in Washington. The practice has paid dividends in many, many federal facilities with high-paying jobs.    

On Tuesday, Sen. Thad Cochran, 76, won the Republican primary runoff for Senate in Mississippi by focusing on what he and Washington had done and could yet do for Mississippi.

Cochran went to Congress in 1973, the same year his opponent, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, was born. McDaniel argued the courtly Cochran had stayed in Washington too long.

After Cochran narrowly won the primary and faced a runoff just three weeks later, he started talking about the billions of federal dollars he has brought his state for highways, bridges, education, research facilities and to rebuild after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.  McDaniel, a tea party favorite, would cut the very programs Mississippi relies on, Cochran warned.   

Cochran made his pitch not just to Republicans but also to independents and Democrats, particularly black voters, in the open runoff, increasing turnout by 66,000 votes over the primary. Cochran won with 51 percent of the vote to McDaniel’s 49 percent.

In Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu, a vulnerable Democrat first elected in 1996, isn’t shy about telling voters about the bacon she’s brought home. She’s proud of getting an additional $3 billion in federal funds for her state after Hurricane Katrina and of her role as chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which she casts as an asset for the state’s 300,000 oil and gas workers.

“The voters over 18 years have established great clout in Washington,” Landrieu says in a campaign ad. “It doesn’t belong to me; it belongs to them.” The people of Louisiana “sit at the head of the table with the gavel,” she says, adding, “The state has clout that it should really think carefully about before giving up.”

Landrieu told The Washington Post: “People may be mad at Washington, but I think they look at me and they say, ‘You know, she’s an exception, she’s actually been able to produce major pieces of legislation…she doesn’t vote with the Democratic Party all the time.’”

In Virginia, freshman Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, who faces Republican Ed Gillespie in November, is also trying to turn his Washington experience into a plus.

Former Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia told a forum in Charlottesville June 20 that Virginia needs Mark Warner’s seniority – especially after the loss of Cantor.

“Seniority helps this state,” said John Warner, who served in the Senate for three decades. “That should be the factor that people should consider in the voting box.”  

(c) 2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Fat chance: still selling hope -- June 19, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In the Roaring Twenties, an enterprising young English immigrant living in Chicago began selling hope in a jar. 

“I, M.J. McGowan, after five years of tireless research, have made the discovery you have been waiting for,” he announced in ads in True Romance and other magazines. 

“At last I can tell you how to reduce quickly, comfortably – without the bother of tiresome exercise, without the boredom of stupid diet, without resorting to enervating salt baths, without rubber suits,” he said. 

Simply pat on the new Reducine cream, his ads claimed, and “excess fat is literally dissolved away, leaving the figure slim and properly rounded, giving lithe grace to the body every man and woman desires…quickly, surely, and permanently.”

The Federal Trade Commission wasn’t buying.  

McGowan had published “false and misleading statements as to the quality and effectiveness of said compound,” the FTC charged, and got a cease-and-desist order.  It was the first time the agency had gone after a purveyor of false hope in the fight against fat.

In the 87 years since then, the FTC has filed hundreds of cases challenging false and unproven weight-loss claims, Mary Knoelbel Engle told a Senate panel on Tuesday. She’s the associate director of the Division of Advertising Practices in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

And yet Americans’ hunger for a magic potion is stronger than ever.  We spent an estimated $2.4 billion on weight-loss products and services last year, and the growing industry is expected to reach $2.7 billion by 2018. Nevertheless, nearly 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese.

“The endless flood of unfounded claims being made in the weight-loss industry vividly illustrates the challenges we, and consumers, are up against,” Engle told the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection.

Next to her at the witness table – and in the hot seat -- was Dr. Mehmet Oz. 

Dubbed “America’s doctor” by Oprah Winfrey, Oz is a cardiothoracic surgeon with a loyal daytime TV viewership and a huge reach. The Doctor Oz Show is seen in 118 countries.  Senators grilled Oz about why he touts nontraditional, “miracle” weight-loss remedies.    

For example, in April 2012, Oz said, “You may think magic is make-believe, but this little bean has scientists saying they found the magic weight-loss cure for every body type. It's green coffee extract."

Sales of the dietary supplement skyrocketed, and the FTC started investigating. Last month, the agency filed suit in Florida, alleging that the company promoted Pure Green Coffee with Oz show footage and claimed clinical proof that people could lose weight rapidly without changing their eating or exercise habits. The FTC says more than 536,000 bottles of the product have been sold since May 2012.

“I get that you do a lot of good on your show,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who heads the subcommittee, told Oz.  “But I don’t get why you need to say this stuff because you know it’s not true.”

Oz contends he’s trying to motivate and energize people.  

“My show is about hope,” he said. Talking about the latest products gives viewers hope, and they may try something that jumpstarts their weight loss, he said.

Oz doesn’t get income from the products, and he warns that the products aren’t for long-term use. He has sued some companies that use his name, face and words in their ads.

He conceded, though, that “I do think I’ve made it more difficult for the FTC” because “in an intent to engage viewers, I use flowery language. I use language that was very passionate, but ended up not being helpful but incendiary. It provided fodder for unscrupulous advertisers.”

Oz said he’s being more careful with his language, but as a “cheerleader for the audience” he plans to keep talking about the latest products.  

“When they don’t think they have hope, when they don’t think they can make it happen, I want to look – and I do look -- everywhere, including at alternative healing traditions, for any evidence that might be supportive to them,” he said.

McCaskill was adamant. “When you call a product a miracle, and it’s something you can buy, and it’s something that gives people false hope, I just don’t understand why you need to go there,” she said.

Now, more than ever, buyer, beware of hope in a jar.

©2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Who's broke? Not former presidents, thanks to taxpayers -- June 12, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

After he left the White House in 1953, former President Harry Truman complained that it cost $30,000 a year out of his own pocket to reply to all his mail and requests for speeches.

In those days, former presidents received a fond farewell but no federal pension, and speech-making wasn’t the gold mine it is today.

Congress had authorized pensions for retired federal workers and members of Congress (surprise!) but it had not approved federal aid for ex-presidents.

In 1912, industrialist Andrew Carnegie offered to pay former presidents $25,000 a year from the Carnegie Foundation of New York. Fortunately, that idea didn’t sit well with Congress or citizens. Imagine where we’d be if our presidents knew they’d be beholden to one outside group in their later years.   

William Howard Taft, the only former president eligible, declined Carnegie’s offer. In his post-presidency, Taft was a law professor at Yale and became chief justice.

Truman’s financial woes finally led to the Former Presidents Act of 1958, which aimed to “maintain the dignity” of the presidency by providing pensions and benefits so former presidents wouldn’t have to take unsuitable employment, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Today, besides an annual pension of $201,700, each former president gets funds for travel, office space, support staff and mailing privileges, Secret Service protection and other benefits.

“No current former president has claimed publically to have significant financial concerns,” Wendy Ginsberg wrote in “Former Presidents: Pensions, Office Allowances, and Other Federal Benefits,” issued this past April. Ginsberg, American national government analyst at CRS, wrote the 2014 and 2008 reports on presidential pensions.

Then along came Hillary Clinton. The likely 2016 presidential contender insisted the other day that she and her husband were “not only dead broke, but in debt” when they left the White House in January 2001.  

“We had no money when we got there and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education. You know it was not easy,” she told Diane Sawyer of ABC News.

The Clintons have reportedly made vast sums talking since they left the White House: $5 million for Hillary Clinton’s speeches and more than $100 million for former President Bill Clinton’s.  

“He's worked very hard, first of all, we had to pay off all our debts which was, you know, we had to make double the money because of obviously taxes…and get us houses and take care of family members,” Clinton said.

Her critics rightly pounced on her comments as tone deaf.  But she is merely the latest presidential hopeful who inhabits a far different world than most voters. Most Americans struggle to pay their rent or mortgage – not to buy two multimillion-dollar mansions.

Clinton tried to “clarify” that she knows “how hard life is for so many people today.” That’s comforting.  

She frequently says things “need to be put into context,” so let’s put “broke” into context.

Her financial disclosure forms, filed in 2000, show assets between $781,000 and almost $1.8 million, according to the Associated Press, which also reported between $2.3 million and $10.6 million in legal bills.

Still, the Clintons’ finances were hardly bleak. In December 2000, the month before they left 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Hillary Clinton signed a near-record book deal for $8 million with Simon & Schuster. The memoir, “Living History,” became a bestseller.

By 2004, the Clintons had paid off their debts, AP reported, and by 2009, the Clintons’ wealth was between $10 million and $50 million.

Even if Bill Clinton hadn’t made a fortune in speeches, he still would have had a cushy retirement after eight years in the top job. Between fiscal 2001 and this year, Clinton has received $15.9 million in pensions and benefits, the CRS reported.

His predecessor, former President George Herbert Walker Bush, has received about $14 million in pension and benefits since fiscal 2000, and former President George W. Bush has received about $7.1 million in pension benefits since he left office in 2009, CRS reported.

Even Richard Nixon received full pension benefits, despite resigning in disgrace during his second term. The Former Presidents Act didn’t envision such a scenario but the Justice Department ruled that Nixon was eligible for full benefits.

Hillary Clinton didn’t mention the presidential pension in her poor-Hillary recitation. To be sure, presidents earn their pensions. Nobody wants a former president to be “dead broke,” and fortunately they aren’t.  For that, former presidents and their spouses can thank taxpayers. 

© 2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.