Fresh Produce Discussion Blog

Created by The Packer's National Editor Tom Karst

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

FRESH & EASY OPENS IN PALM SPRINGS

New Store Brings Fresh, Wholesome Food at Affordable Prices and Quality, Local Jobs

PALM SPRINGS, CA – The City of Palm Springs and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market partnered today to open a Fresh & Easy in Palm Springs at 102 S. Sunrise Way.

“We are excited to open in Palm Springs, where civic and neighborhood support for Fresh & Easy has been tremendous,” said Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason. “We are happy to bring fresh, wholesome food at affordable prices and more good paying jobs to the area.”

As part of Fresh & Easy’s commitment to be a good neighbor, a $1,000 check was also presented to the The Desert AIDS Project, which provides medical care and comprehensive support services to people living with HIV/AIDS in the desert community.

“The City of Palm Springs is excited to welcome Fresh & Easy to the neighborhood and we thank them for their investment in our community,” said Mayor Steve Pougnet. “In addition, we want to thank them for their support of the Desert AIDS Project – an important nonprofit agency in Palm Springs that works hard to support those in need.”

There will also be a Fresh & Easy store opening in La Quinta at the corner of Calle Tampico and Desert Club on April 14.

More about Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

Fresh & Easy currently operates 146 stores in California, Arizona and Nevada, including 89 stores in Southern California. In addition to fresh, high-quality prepared meals and produce, Fresh & Easy offers everyone’s favorite national brand products and household items, all at unbelievably low prices.

Fresh & Easy has nearly 3,500 employees and has created nearly 300 jobs already this year. The company has created a positive, team-based culture, where everyone is treated with respect. All Fresh & Easy employees are given the opportunity to work at least 20 hours per week, which entitles them to comprehensive and affordable healthcare, including vision, prescription, dental and medical coverage with the company paying at least 75%. Entry-level positions start at $10 an hour in California, with similarly competitive salaries in other states, and offer a quarterly bonus of up to 10% as well as 401(k) with company match.

Fresh & Easy has also made it a priority to lessen its impact on the environment – on average, Fresh & Easy stores use 30% less energy than a typical supermarket and utilize technologies like automatically dimming lights, energy efficient refrigeration units and LED lighting. Fresh & Easy recycles or reuses all its shipping and display materials and uses environmentally-friendly trailers to transport food. The company is a pilot member of the LEED Volume Certification Program and has invested in a 500,000 sq ft solar roof installation on its distribution center in Riverside, California.

More information regarding Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market can be found at www.freshandeasy.com.

Driver Operates Commercial Vehicle More Than Four Million Miles Without Accident

Greatwide Logistics Services Recognizes Company Driver

Driver Operates Commercial Vehicle More Than Four Million Miles Without Accident

DALLAS — March 10, 2010 — Greatwide Logistics Services, a national provider of third-party logistics services, today announced the significant accomplishments of Rick Gassman, a company driver with a career spanning more than 51 years without a single moving violation or accident. Gassman’s driving record is an example of Greatwide’s relentless focus on safety, and comes on the heels of a recent announcement of the company’s 26 percent improvement in collisions per million miles over the last four years.

Gassman is based out of Greatwide’s Dubuque, Iowa, operations center, which services Nordstrom, Inc., one of the nation’s leading fashion specialty retailers. Greatwide recognizes him due to his outstanding performance record, ability to operate in a safe manner and contributions to the company and community. In 2008, Gassman was recognized as Greatwide’s Company Driver of the Year. Additionally, he recently placed second in the country in the prestigious Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) Company Equipment Driver of the Year competition.

“We are very proud to have Rick as part of the Greatwide team and appreciate the support he and all the other Greatwide drivers provide for our business,” says Loren VandenBerghe, director of transportation at Nordstrom. “Congratulations to Rick and the entire Dubuque team.”
Gassman holds an impressive safety record; in his 51-year professional driving history, he has driven more than four and a half million miles without a collision. That’s the equivalent of driving cross-country more than 1,300 times, or driving around the earth 160 times — all without a single collision.

“On behalf of everyone at Greatwide, we are honored to have a professional driver such as Mr. Gassman in our organization,” said John Simone, president and chief operating officer of Greatwide Logistics Services. “Because of drivers like him, we have been able to provide Nordstrom an exceptional level of service with a best-in-class collision rate of 2.18 collisions per million miles. Without a commitment to safety and customer service throughout our organization, we would not be able to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations.”

About Greatwide Logistics Services
Greatwide Logistics Services is a privately held third-party logistics provider serving the United States and Canada. Greatwide offers an integrated service platform to customers including dedicated, irregular route truckload, full-service truckload brokerage, warehouse-based logistics and managed transportation services. Greatwide is the largest provider of dedicated refrigerated transportation in the United States. The company ranks 11th among Transport Topics’ Top 50 Logistics Providers, is a Food Logistics Top 70 3PL Provider and an Inbound Logistics Top 100 Motor Carrier. For more information, visit www.greatwide.com

China Signals Major Shift into GM Crops USDA FAS



China Signals Major Shift into GM Crops
USDA FAS

China wants to push forward with the large-scale planting of genetically modified (GM) crops. Pest-resistant Bt cotton is already grown on an industrial scale in China, while Bt rice and phytase maize (which eliminates the need to feed extra phosphate to poultry and pigs) is expected to follow suit within 3-5 years. The development of new GM crops is one of the 16 major projects listed in China's plan for scientific and technological development until 2020. The government's plans include the development of pest- and disease-resistant GM rice, rapeseed, maize and soy, with research focusing on yield, quality, nutritional value and drought tolerance. BASF Gets Brazilian

A field to level USDA FAS

A field to level USDA FAS


For many continental farmers, the most threatening occurrence last year was not drought, frost or depressed prices but a draft proposal for the future of the European Union budget. Insider sources report that the European Commission is considering cutting back on EU agriculture subsidies in order to fund other priorities. What is driving Cap reform is the process now under way of setting the EU's 2014-20 budget. The exercise is raising questions about whether Europeans want to continue to subsidize farmers when they could be spending on electric cars, "smart" energy grids and other forward-looking projects. The Cap accounts for nearly half the EU budget - some €55 billion in 2009. As well as its sheer size, it is also renowned for its complexity and the internal contradictions that have sprung up over the years. The reforms did not change the amount of money paid to farmers, only the way in which it washanded out. This time, pressure is building both to reduce the total size of the pie and to redistribute its pieces, which will prove far more contentious. Several things have changed since 2003 that will make it more challenging for anyone to tinker with the Cap, let alone push through wholesale reform. For one, the EU has added 12 member states, mostly in central and Eastern Europe. On accession, farmers there settled for a comparatively small share of agriculture subsidies; now they are demanding equality. Second, the European Parliament - once a mere observer of agriculture policy - will now have a full say, thanks to expanded powers conferred on it by the new Lisbon treaty. At minimum, that will add to the bureaucratic complexity of forging any agreement. Some observers are already fretting that a handful of regional and highly politicized MEPs could sabotage reform, as legislators do in the US Congress. Finally, there is the economy. Back in 2003 it was buoyant and open markets and free trade were in vogue. Today policy-makers are operating as Europe struggles to emerge from the worst recession since the 1930s. European farmers have been particularly hard hit. Thanks to depressed milk and pork prices, their 2009 income is estimated to have fallen by 12 per cent, according to Copa-Cogeca, a group that represents European farmers. Across the Continent, governments are turning away from the free market to rescue carmakers, banks, and other national champions. The CAP itself was born in a very different economic and political environment. With fears of supply shortages following the Second World War, stable and generous prices were guaranteed to farmers to prevent an exodus to the cities, as happened after the First World War. It worked so well that by the 1980s Europe was storing lakes of surplus wine, and mountains of butter and wheat bought from farmers. Generous EU rebates helped exporters dump high-priced products on international markets, which did not sit well with developing nations. By the late 1980s, 80 per cent of the CAP budget was devoted to market interventions, storage, and export subsidies. The slow process of leading farmers towards the free market began in 1992. The EU curtailed its price supports and instead began to pay farmers a direct subsidy. In the late 1990s, with the CAP under fire from the World Trade Organization, Mr. Fischler picked up the baton. His Agenda 2000 program broke the link between subsidies and production, giving farmers more freedom to decide what - and how much - to produce for the market. To win political support, the former Austrian agriculture minister left the overall Cap budget intact. But he shifted some of the money from the "first pillar" of spending - direct subsidies - into a new "second pillar" that rewarded farmers for public goods, such as maintaining the rural landscape, improving standards, animal welfare and other objectives prized by policymakers. Pressure to clean up the Cap has only grown as greater transparency has allowed citizens to scrutinize the messier parts of the system. New disclosure laws have revealed, for example, that it is large landowners such as Britain's Duke of Westminster and Nestlé, the Swiss food giant - and not artisanal cheese-makers - that have reaped millions of Euros in payments. The man at the centre of the unfolding debate will be Dacian Ciolos, the incoming commissioner from Romanian. He promises to defend the CAP budget against cuts; however, much will depend on José Manuel Barroso, too. The European Commission president has repeatedly called for Europe to become a leader in emerging fields of "green" energy, such as wind and solar, in order to meet its climate goals and create jobs. But, a Commission proposal last year to increase research budgets by €50bn in the next decade to meet such goals lacked any plans to pay for it. A further source of contention is how much money will be shifted from the first pillar of direct subsidy payments to the second of public goods. Conservationists and environmental groups, for example, have latched on to the threat of climate change to argue for a larger second pillar which, they claim, is the only way to encourage smaller scale, more sustainable methods of farming. Against that, Europe's cattle and grain barons are raising the specter of food security. In a world of limited farm land and growing population, they argue, the EU must feed itself without risking dependency on unreliable trading partners.

Minister "Horrified" by Artificial Meat USDA FAS

Minister "Horrified" by Artificial Meat USDA FAS

Italian Agriculture Minister Zaia expressed his horror at recent experiments by Dutch scientists to grow meat in laboratories. Researchers from Eindhoven meat could resolve ethical issues surrounding the treatment of animals and even cut down on the greenhouse gases produced by raising them. Zaia however is not convinced. ''This supposedly 'hi-tech meat' boils down to an aberrant mixture of chemicals totally alien to an animal's natural life cycle,'' he said. University announced they have grown something resembling a pork chop from cells immersed in a soup of fetal matter. Proponents say an artificial alternative to real „„I‟ve got nothing against science, but farmers are right to be alarmed by these useless and potentially dangerous experiments.'' One possible application would be interplanetary space flights.

Food to Replace "Junk Food" in school Vending Machines USDA FAS

Food to Replace "Junk Food" in school Vending Machines USDA FAS

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini has announced that fresh fruit and vegetables are to replace snacks in school vending machines. Italian school kids are among the plumpest in Europe and the Ministry aims to form good eating habits while also supporting local farmers. Despite its fame as the cradle of the widely recommended Mediterranean diet, Italy is facing a rising child obesity problem. Italy‟s Barilla Food Group has just launched a special health & food initiative called GIOCAMPUS which is similar to First Lady Michele Obama‟s “Let‟s Move” campaign targeted at obese youth.

Local Business Report: "Jersey Fresh" foods legislation progresses - Daily Journal

Local Business Report: "Jersey Fresh" foods legislation progresses - Daily Journal


TRENTON -- Legislation to promote foods prepared with "Jersey Fresh" ingredients was advanced by an Assembly panel this week.

he bill, A-2305, would designate baked goods and other food products prepared with "Jersey Fresh" produce as "Made With Jersey Fresh." It's sponsored by Assemblymen Nelson Al-bano and Matthew Milam, both D-1.

"Farmers are New Jersey's heritage and lifeblood, but they also need our support, especially in these difficult economic times," said Albano, chairman of the Assembly Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee that released the bill Monday. "This simple step would encourage and support not only the manufacture of home-grown products but would give consumers an opportunity to buy goods that use locally grown fruits and vegetables."

The bill also would encourage the purchase of "Made With Jersey Fresh" products by the state Division of Purchase and Property and at service areas along the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey Turnpike and Atlantic City Expressway operated by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and South Jersey Transportation Authority.

"New Jersey grows more than 100 different varieties of fruits, vegetables and herbs, and the state is ranked nationally in the top 10 as a producer of blueberries, cranberries, peaches, bell peppers, squash and tomatoes," Milam said.

"These are all fine ingredients, and promoting them with a 'Made With Jersey Fresh' label will further support family farmers and bakers."

The bill now goes to the Assembly speaker, who decides if and when to post it for a floor vote.

Frozen vegetables more nutritious than fresh, study says - NY Daily News


Frozen vegetables more nutritious than fresh, study says - NY Daily News

Should you head to the supermarket freezer case instead of the produce department the next time you want nutrient-rich vegetables? It seems that up to 45% of the health-enhancing nutrients in fresh veggies have shriveled up and disappeared by the time they’re eaten, according to research reported in the Daily Telegraph.

And produce that’s processed right after being picked retains more of the nutrients, according to the UK-based Institute of Food Research, which carried out the research on behalf of the frozen food manufacturer Birds Eye.

The researchers found that after 16 days, green beans had lost 45% of their nutrients, broccoli and cauliflower 25%, carrots 10% and peas up to 15%.

“The nutritional content of fresh vegetables begins to deteriorate from the minute they re picked,” nutritionist Sarah Schenker told the Daily Telegraph. “This means that by the time they end up on our plate, although we may think we’re reaping the vegetable’s full nutritional benefits, this is often not the case.”

Frozen vegetables can be a nutritious choice for people without a lot of time to cook, says Keri Gans, R.D., spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.

“They are frozen at their peak ripeness,” she says. “With fresh, you don’t know how long it has been since it was picked. Also, frozen vegetables will keep in the freezer without going bad. Since they are already cut up, it makes it easy for the cook.”

She said frozen vegetables can help consumers get the recommended daily allotment of vegetables – three to five servings. A serving, she says, is half-cup of cooked vegetable or one cup of raw vegetable.

Fresh vegetables lose nutrients as they sit in your fridge, says Adee Rasabi, senior dietitian in the Ambulatory Care Network Nutrition Wellness Center a New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center.

“It can be hard to tell from looking at it how fresh it is,” she saif. “If you won’t be eating a vegetable right away, cook and freeze. That way, it won’t lose nutrients.”

She adds one caveat: Don’t buy the frozen vegetables in butter or cream sauces, which add fat and calories and turn a healthy food into a fat-laden diet wrecker.

Nutrition experts caution against just giving up on fresh veggies across the board.

“While it is true that different nutrients react differently to the storing, cooking and blanching processes, there is no conclusion across the board that frozen is better than fresh,” says Karen Kupinski, R.D., director of Nutrition at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. “The best recommendation is still to consume local produce.”


Shaw’s workers spread out protest Boston.com


Shaw’s workers spread out protest Boston.com

Shaw’s Supermarket workers yesterday fanned out their protest to local grocery stores, a day after employees at a Methuen distribution center went on strike following the rejection of a final contract offer.

The Methuen warehouse, with about 310 workers from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 791, distributes most of the perishable foods, such as fruits, vegetables, dairy, and meat, to 194 Shaw’s and Star Market supermarkets across New England. Shaw’s would not disclose details of the company’s contingency plans but said it continues to serve customers.

“We are disappointed that the Methuen Distribution Center associates represented by Local 791 have voted down a fair and reasonable contract offer,’’ said Judy Chong, a Shaw’s spokeswoman. “Our last, best, and final offer protected good jobs, offered wage increases, provided access to affordable health care with minimal increases, and maintained the overall benefit levels and security of their pension.’’

Peter Derouen, a spokesman for Local 791, said more than 250 union members picketed yesterday at the distribution center and at supermarkets in New Hampshire and Greater Boston, including Boston, Somerville, Saugus, and Dedham. Workers overwhelmingly voted to reject the final contract offer, which would have increased health insurance premiums by more than 10 percent and resulted in a net loss of income, according to Derouen. The vote was 228 to 8.

“We don’t want to be on strike,’’ Derouen said. “But we’ll do this as long as it takes to get a fair agreement.’’

The company had negotiated with the union for about three months. Jimmy Porter, who has worked at the Methuen distribution center since 1992, said employees voted down the company’s proposal because it would have resulted in the loss of $28 per week, or about $1,456 annually, for people on family health insurance plans.

“My hope is that the company sees how serious the employees of the warehouse are and that they want to sit down and resolve this dispute,’’ said Porter, the union’s vice president and chief steward.

Chong said the union was told that the company’s last offer would come off the table if it was rejected and be replaced with an offer that “removed some provisions that were less favorable to the company.’’

Union officials said the alternative proposal includes provisions that would require workers to pay 100 percent of the health care cost increase this year and allow the chain to bring in third-party, nonunion workers into the warehouse.

“Shaw’s hopes that the union will reconsider and accept the alternative offer that is now on the table,’’ Chong said.

Supermarkets May Not Be So Super Investor Place

Supermarkets May Not Be So Super Investor Place

Kroger (KR) has announced its fourth-quarter and full-year 2009 results, and excluding gasoline sales, the company's sales at identical stores increased by 1.2%. EPS fell from $0.53 in the year-ago quarter to 39 cents in the 2009 fourth quarter. Analysts had been looking for 34 cents.

Full-year figures are less inspiring. The company reported EPS for the year of $1.71, excluding items that cost shareholders $1.10/share. That figure is somewhat better than the anticipated $1.66 EPS, but compared with 2008's full-year EPS of $1.91 excluding items, Kroger is not pointed in the right direction.

And the company made that clear in its announcement, when it offered 2010 EPS guidance of $1.60-$1.80, where the consensus has been 2010 EPS of $1.79. Previous guidance had been $1.60-$1.70, so while the change looks positive, it's being interpreted as a downturn.

Kroger's statement on prospects for 2010 note that the company's results depend to some extent on "inflation or deflation in product and operating costs." In other words, if prices go up Kroger could lose, and if prices go down the company could also lose. Not a pretty position to be in.

Other supermarket stocks are in roughly the same position. Safeway (SWY) is also predicting that 2010 results could be lower than expected, even though identical-stores sales gained 1% this year. In 2008, Safeway identical-stores sales were down 2.5%.

Grocery stores face the same issues as other retailers. Cautious consumers looking for the lowest prices force stores to accept lower margins in the hope that traffic and market share will increase.

Competition from club and warehouse stores like Costco Wholesale (COST) and BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. (BJ) push on grocery margins from one direction. The other end of the squeeze play comes from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), which has grown to become the country's largest grocery store chain. Wal-Mart can afford to price grocery items aggressively in its Supercenter stores, at the same time that it moves more goods through its Sam's Club stores, where margins are better.

Neither Safeway nor Kroger has stores in developing nations like Brazil and China where where growth is much higher than in the U.S. International players like Wal-Mart have a big advantage here..

On health-care reform, Republicans target Democrats' division over reconciliation WP

On health-care reform, Republicans target Democrats' division over reconciliation WP


As Republicans work to prevent a health-care bill from reaching President Obama, they are scrambling to exploit divisions between Democrats in the House and the Senate.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned House Democrats that they would be taking a colossal risk if they approved the Senate's version of health-care legislation before the Senate had acted to remove some of the bill's most contentious provisions. Now that Democrats have lost their supermajority in the Senate, some variation of this delicate two-step process is the only way a health-care reform bill can become law.

"House Democrats will have to decide whether they want to trust the Senate to fix their political problems," McConnell said. He listed perks that Senate Democrats won for Nebraska, Louisiana, Florida and labor unions; House members insist that all must be removed through a separate "fixes" bill under special budget reconciliation rules.

"They will be voting, when they pass the Senate bill, to endorse the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, the Gator-aid, the closed-door deal, the special deal for the unions, which may or may not bother any Democrats, I don't know," McConnell said.

Moving the bill under reconciliation is appealing to Democrats because such legislation cannot be filibustered, although it would be vulnerable to parliamentary challenges. The sequence in which the Senate bill and the package of fixes would move is one of the key unresolved issues, much to the consternation of undecided House Democrats. They would prefer to pass the reconciliation bill first and force the Senate to accept their fixes before the House takes up the Senate bill.
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But reconciliation rules seem to indicate that the House will have to pass the Senate bill first. Depending on how the Senate parliamentarian rules, Obama may even have to sign the legislation into law before the Senate can consider the House fixes.

Democratic leaders huddled Tuesday night in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office for the first of what will probably be many strategy sessions, as Congress tries to complete the year-long health-care reform debate before the Easter recess begins March 26.

Participants said that once the Congressional Budget Office delivers a final cost estimate on the fixes bill, possibly this week, Democratic leaders would begin lining up House and Senate votes.

"We have more information to go forward, but we have more questions," Pelosi (D-Calif.) said after the meeting, adding, "We're going to pass a bill."

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) raised the House Democrats' worst-case scenario: hurrying to pass the Senate bill by the White House's deadline of March 18, only to watch the fixes stall in the Senate -- leaving House Democrats on the record as supporting the side deals.

"What the president is doing is asking House Democrats to hold hands, jump off a cliff and hope Harry Reid catches them," Alexander said, referring to the Senate majority leader.

Democratic leaders brushed off whether the House would meet the deadline, set by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Obama is scheduled to leave March 18 for a trip to Indonesia and Australia. "None of us has mentioned the 18th, other than Mr. Gibbs," House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday.

The president will travel to the St. Louis area Wednesday for his second health-care forum this week. Officials said Obama will voice support for bipartisan legislation designed to root out fraud and waste in the nation's health-care system.

Maui Land & Pineapple Reports Loss of $30.4 Million for 4th Quarter 2009

Maui Land & Pineapple Reports Loss of $30.4 Million for 4th Quarter 2009

KAHULUI, Hawaii--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. (NYSE: MLP) reported a net loss of $30.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2009 ($3.76 per share) compared to a net loss of $70.6 million ($8.86 per share) for the fourth quarter of 2008. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 were $9.2 million compared to $10.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2008. The fourth quarter of 2009 includes charges of $20.9 million related to the sale or other disposition of Agriculture segment assets, employee severance and cancellation of contracts. The fourth quarter of 2008 includes $45.3 million of losses (including an impairment charge of $37.8 million) from the Company’s equity investment in Kapalua Bay Holdings LLC and $10.6 million of charges for the write off of deferred developments costs.

For the year 2009, the Company incurred a net loss of $123.3 million ($15.33 per share) compared to a net loss of $79.4 million ($9.98 per share) for 2008. Revenues for 2009 were $50.4 million compared to $51.1 million for 2008. In addition to the fourth quarter 2009 charges included in the Company’s discontinued Agriculture segment operations mentioned above, other significant charges recognized in 2009 include $47.2 million loss (including an impairment charge of $21.3 million recorded by the Company in June 2009) from the Company’s equity investment in Kapalua Bay Holdings LLC and $14.3 million impairment of deferred development plans.

The Community Development segment reported an operating loss of $1.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to an operating loss of $61.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2008. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 were $2.3 million compared to $900,000 for the fourth quarter of 2008. For the year 2009, the Community Development segment reported an operating loss of $62.6 million compared to an operating loss of $40.0 million for 2008. Revenues from this operating segment were $19.9 million for 2009 compared to $11.4 million for 2008. In 2009, revenues include $12.0 million from the sale of developed and undeveloped land inventory compared to $4.4 million in 2008. The Community Development segment operating losses include the Company’s equity in the losses of Kapalua Bay Holdings LLC, which were $-0- and $45.3 million for the fourth quarters of 2009 and 2008, respectively; and losses of $47.2 million and $18.8 million, for the years 2009 and 2008, respectively.

The Resort segment reported an operating loss of $4.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to an operating loss of $6.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2008. For the year 2009, the Resort segment reported an operating loss of $16.1 million compared to an operating loss of $19.7 million for 2008. Resort segment revenues were $6.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to $8.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2008 or 19% lower than the same period a year earlier; and $29.8 million for the year 2009 or 20% lower compared to $37.4 million for 2008. The decline in revenues primarily reflect a lower number of visitors to Maui and a drop in expenditures per visitor that resulted in fewer paid rounds of golf, a decline in retail sales, and lower room occupancies and average daily rates from the Kapalua Resort’s golf, retail and villa operations. Cost reduction measures implemented in 2009 were responsible for the lower operating losses for the fourth quarter and the year 2009.

In early November 2009, the Company announced the cessation of its pineapple operations and, as of year-end all of the Company’s Agriculture segment operations were terminated. The Agriculture segment is being reported as discontinued operations and prior period amounts have been reclassified for comparability. The loss from discontinued operations for the fourth quarter and the year 2009 include charges of $20.9 million and $22.8 million, respectively, related to the sale or other disposition of the Agriculture segment assets, employee severance and cancellation of contracts.

Lawyers, 'Black Farmers' Shake Down Taxpayers National Legal and Policy Center

Lawyers, 'Black Farmers' Shake Down Taxpayers National Legal and Policy Center

Blacks account for about 1.5 percent of all farm operators in this country - and apparently a lot higher share of the civil rights lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). On February 18, lawyers for the USDA and thousands of black farmers reached a $1.25 billion class-action agreement resolving, for now, claims that the department had engaged in willful racial discrimination in managing its loan and other aid programs. Think you've seen this headline before? You have. Back in 1999, black farmers, armed with similar claims of racial bias, snagged a federal guarantee of $50,000 per plaintiff plus loan forgiveness and tax liability offsets.

These two cases - and other pending ones - speak volumes about how "civil rights" has become little more than a pretext upon which to shake down employers and taxpayers under the guise of social justice. It also reveals more than a little about the insatiability of the plaintiff's bar and the timidity of the federal government in the face of charges of racial discrimination.

The latest out-of-court settlement is contingent upon a likely appropriation of $1.15 billion on top of $100 million Congress set aside in May 2008 as part of a larger farm bill. Prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus are making sure colleagues feel the heat. "This settlement is a case where justice delayed will no longer be justice denied," declared House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. "History has taught us to never give up when fighting for what is right. What happened to these farmers was wrong, and we now have the opportunity to make it right."

But exactly what did happen? The more one examines the evidence, the more the conclusion emerges: This has been a shaky if not fraudulent case from the very start. It's fitting irony that the Agriculture Department has brought many of its woes on itself. Here, then, is some background.

Back in 1994 the Department of Agriculture commissioned the Atlanta-based consulting firm of D. J. Miller & Associates to analyze its patterns of treatment of minorities and women. These were the Clinton years, and the entire executive branch was feeling extra pressure to root out discrimination. The Miller report concluded that minorities were underrepresented in USDA program participation and were getting less than their fair share of crop payments, disaster payments and Commodity Credit Corporation loans. The researchers could not determine the reasons for disparities due to "gross deficiencies" in data collection and analysis.

Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman was among those alarmed. Spurred by a small but aggressive group of black farmers demonstrating in front of the White House (and President Clinton's demand to do something about them), in December 1996 he ordered a suspension of all government farm foreclosures pending the outcome of a full probe of discrimination by his department. He also conducted a multi-city "listening tour" whose entourage included a Civil Rights Action Team and almost a dozen government officials. Glickman appointed an in-house civil rights task force whose report, released some two months later, recommended more than 90 steps to combat bias.

As an accusation of racial discrimination in today's political climate all too often suffices as proof of it, a lawsuit was almost inevitable. Soon enough, the hour found its man: Timothy Pigford, a black farmer from North Carolina. In August 1997, Pigford, who later was joined by another North Carolina black farmer, Cecil Brewington, filed a class-action suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Some 400 black co-plaintiffs accused the Department of Agriculture of discrimination during 1983-97. The USDA, rather than refute the charges, agreed to mediation and a potential settlement.

Like predators smelling prey, a gaggle of litigators appeared to represent the plaintiffs. Naturally, they upped the ante, requesting blanket (rather than individual) mediation for all farmers who may have been victimized by discrimination. They also managed to raise the total of aggrieved parties to 2,000. Attorneys for the Justice Department vigorously opposed the blanket mediation, arguing each case should be investigated separately. But as the case progressed, it was clear the USDA would be unable to resolve the huge backlog of complaints - surely a self-fulfilling prophecy on the part of the plaintiffs' attorneys.

The court proved willing to break the logjam on behalf of the plaintiffs. In March 1998, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, a Clinton appointee, lifted a stay and set a trial date of February 1, 1999. In October 1998, Judge Friedman certified as a class all black farmers who had filed discrimination suits against the USDA from January 1, 1983 to February 21, 1997. But a complication arose. The two-year statute of limitations contained in the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the basis for the suit, would invalidate most complaints. Not to worry. Congress, led by the Congressional Black Caucus, inserted a provision into the Fiscal Year 1999 omnibus spending act waiving the statute on all civil rights complaints against the USDA during 1981-96. That such legislation, brazen in its transparency of motive, likely violated the constitutional ban on ex post facto laws was of minor concern to lawmakers. The USDA decided to settle rather than expose itself to bad publicity. The stage was set for a big payday for Timothy Pigford and his co-plaintiffs.

Payday came on April 14, 1999. The court approved a consent decree for a revised settlement of all claims. The agreement called for a two-track settlement: "Track A" and "Track B." Track A plaintiffs would be eligible to receive $50,000 plus relief from outstanding loans and tax liability, provided they demonstrated "substantial" evidence of USDA discrimination. Track B plaintiffs would be eligible for far larger payments so long as they met the higher "preponderance of the evidence" bar of proof. More than 99 percent opted for Track A. The money wasn't as good, but it was a lot easier. And there was plenty of it to go around. The filing deadline was October 12, 1999, extended to September 15, 2000 for exceptional cases.

How many people and how much money are we talking about? As of March 2, 2010, federally-appointed contract adjudicators had ruled on 22,549 Track A applications, approving 69 percent of them (www.pigfordmonitor.org/stats). Total relief in Pigford v. Vilsack and Brewington v. Vilsack (the nominal defendant being current Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack) stood at a little over $1 billion. The $50,000 lump sum payouts accounted for about three-fourths.

There is good reason why so few plaintiffs have opted for Track B relief: They would have to produce hard evidence of discrimination. And the evidence was skimpy at best. Understand that the original complaint cited no specific cases of discrimination other than a reckless (and guilt-ridden) statement by Secretary Glickman that discrimination was rampant in his department. Pursuant to his Civil Rights Action Team's recommendations, Glickman ordered an immediate review of 956 backlogged discrimination complaints. The review found that in only five of these cases - less than 1 percent - was there evidence of even possible discrimination, a finding the department conveniently suppressed. Yet even though the USDA admitted no wrongdoing at its April 1999 settlement, as part of the agreement it had to spend nearly $500,000 in various media outlets advertising the availability of cash awards. Those outlets included Black Entertainment Television, TV Guide, Jet magazine, 27 general circulation newspapers and 115 black-owned newspapers. The word was out: Come and get it!

Appallingly, that wasn't the half of it. A claimant did not have to prove ownership of or even employment at a farm; any claim of being turned down for a loan, whether or not substantiated, could qualify as having "attempted to farm." That the Agriculture Department kept unsuccessful loan applications on file for only three years was an open invitation to fraud. Black "farmers" claiming acts of discrimination occurring prior to 1994 held the upper hand.

Indeed, many likely hadn't ever stepped on a farm. A review by an Oregon contractor, Poorman-Douglas, revealed that some claimants tried to certify young children as aggrieved parties. Husband-wife couples applied separately in hopes of double compensation for the same act. And a number of deceased persons "claimed" their reward, with surviving family and relatives filing on their behalf.

Timothy Pigford, one might add, was less than ideally suited as a lead plaintiff. As it turned out, he had filed an earlier suit against the USDA, only to have the action dismissed "with prejudice." That means he was prohibited from filing a subsequent suit making the same claims. On that basis alone, the Agriculture Department could have had the case thrown out. So why didn't it? Given today's political climate, the answer is pretty obvious. The department, like any status-conscious organization, lives in dread of being publicly tarred as "racist." Dropping the case would have triggered a storm of moral opprobrium, especially from the National Black Farmers Association, which has been vocal since the case began. "There's a huge trust factor that has been broken," said association President John Boyd Jr. recently. "The $50,000 will not put a farmer who has lost his farm back on his land, but it will help them have some comfort in their final years."

Such statements reek of moral entitlement. And they go a long way in explaining why the 1999 consent decree proved to be the opening phase. Now Pigford II, as it is known, is upon us. Due to supposed technicalities, numerous black farmers, mostly in the South, were unable to file a complaint on time a decade ago. To address this problem, Congress nearly two years ago reopened the case, authorizing up to $100 million in damages. Take heart: The tab could have been a lot higher. In 2004, a group calling itself the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association filed a $20.5 billion class-action discrimination suit against the USDA. The court dismissed the case when the group failed to show it had legal standing.

As could have been predicted, other aggrieved classes of "farmers," inspired by the original Pigford settlement, have brought forward civil suits of their own. In 2000, a group of Hispanic farmers (Garcia v. Vilsack) went to federal court to get their piece of the pie. The lead plaintiff, Lupe Garcia, a spokesperson for Justice for Hispanic Farmers, last year stated, "Tim Pigford knows exactly how much we have suffered from USDA's decades of discrimination - because the same thing happened to him and his fellow African-American plaintiffs." That same year, a group of women likewise filed suit in Love v. Vilsack. The plaintiffs are demanding compensation for USDA loan denials to women who farmed or "attempted to farm" during January 1, 1981-December 31, 1996 and during October 19, 1998-present. And the year before, in 1999, a group of American Indian farmers and ranchers had filed their own suit against the USDA, demanding $1 million in damages for each claimant. In a prepared statement this past February, the lead plaintiffs in the case, Keepseagle v. Vilsack, affirmed their position: "We applaud the president's (Obama's) decision to compensate black farmers and ranchers for the decades of wrongful discrimination committed by the USDA and his goal of putting that shameful era behind us. As our nation's first farmers and ranchers, Native Americans have also suffered from the USDA's history of discrimination, and we too should be made whole."

Success in Pigford II inevitably will serve as a catalyst for plaintiff victories in these other cases. And eligible beneficiaries are growing exponentially. Thanks to plaintiffs' litigators and Judge Friedman, about 80,000 black farmers are now eligible for compensation. That's a remarkable feat of recruitment given that the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture counted only 32,938 black-owned farms in all of the U.S.

It's not likely anyone in the current administration will resist the bullying. To the contrary, they are joining it. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the nominal defendant in the active cases, is determined to pressure Congress into appropriating the extra $1.15 billion presumably needed to satisfy the black plaintiffs. "I'm going to focus all my time and resources on making that happen," he told reporters following this February's settlement. "The president is prepared to indicate that it's a priority not just for his administration but for the country." Attorney General Eric Holder endorses this view. "The plaintiffs can move forward and have their claims heard - with the federal government standing not as an adversary, but as a partner," he said in a prepared statement. And President Obama lauded the action as "bringing these long-ignored claims of African-American farmers to a rightful conclusion." The plaintiffs will win, too, unless enough members of Congress can muster the courage to denounce this case for the fraud that it is.

The late Eric Hoffer wrote many years ago in The True Believer: "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." By that yardstick, civil-rights activism has been a racket for decades. And it isn't simply government that's been knuckling under to the racketeers. It's hard to imagine a single white CEO today willing to fight accusations of racial bias directed at his company. More likely, he would celebrate the possibility of a "historic agreement" and announce his corporation's renewed commitment to "diversity."

Timothy Pigford recently wrote Agriculture Secretary Vilsack: "You, sir, are in a unique position to end once and for all USDA's all-too-well deserved reputation as ‘the last plantation' and to bring long-overdue accountability and transparency to the USDA-administered farm credit and non-credit farm benefit programs." Civil-rights activists see in such words a cry for justice. A more accurate description would be a shakedown.

Tomato shortage hitting stores, restaurants


Tomato shortage hitting stores, restaurants



SOUTH PHILADELPHIA - March 9, 2010 (WPVI) -- There's a severe shortage of tomatoes, and it's showing up everywhere from your favorite Italian restaurant, your local fast food restaurant, and of course the supermarket.

At Scannicchio's in South Philadelphia fresh tomatoes are a staple for their Italian cuisine and are popular among patrons.

But while the price stays the same for the customers' tomatoes are setting the restaurant back these days after the frigid Florida winter caused a severe tomato shortage and soaring prices. With 70% of the crop destroyed the wholesale price is nearly five times higher than last year! Management at Scannicchio's is longing for summer and the much cheaper Jersey tomatoes.

The shortage isn't going unnoticed by fast-food restaurants. At some Wendy's stores your burger will only come with tomato at the request of the customer. It's a short-term policy the company hopes will only last a few more weeks.

Restaurants aren't alone in feeling the pinch. At supermarkets, customers are seeing an increase in prices and are accordingly adjusting their menus and their shopping lists, by buying a little less because they cost a more. Signs posted in one supermarket predict that the elevated prices will only last a few more weeks. In the meantime customers will just have to weather the storm.

Forget food activism, Hollywood

Forget food activism, Hollywood
David Martosko

From the Oscar nod for the anti-farming documentary "Food, Inc." to Gwyneth Paltrow hyping meatless recipes in her "GOOP" newsletter, Hollywood's enthusiasm for all things vegan and organic seems to be at a high. But with the overwhelming majority of Americans still choosing conventionally raised foods and eating a balanced diet, elitist foodies' moment in the gastronomical limelight could be just that -- a moment.

It's easy for celebrities to passionately condemn farming by large agricultural firms. They don't have to worry about a grocery bill.

For average Americans, bringing home the bacon gets a lot harder when you have to buy $29-per-pound artisanal cured pork belly.But that hasn't stopped Hollywood's out-of-touch food purists from trying to guilt-trip all of us into changing the way we eat.

In the past year, glitzy celebrity propaganda campaigns have become ubiquitous. Longtime PETA activist and occasional actress Alicia Silverstone wrote a vegan cookbook. And vegan techno musician Moby is branching out into nonfiction writing with a new title that attempts to eviscerate livestock farming and traditional models of food safety.

Promoting a vegetarian lifestyle by focusing on health benefits may seem intuitive, but it shouldn't be. A 2006 Oxford University study found that vegetarians are just as likely as omnivores to die from strokes, and from colon, breast, and prostate cancer.

And research has repeatedly shown that organic fruits and vegetables are no healthier than their conventionally grown counterparts. The organic label, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirms, is no more than a "marketing program." In other words, buy organic produce if it soothes your conscience, but don't think you're getting a health benefit to justify the cost of those $6 carrots.

Likewise, proposals to convert more farmland to pesticide- and fertilizer-free operations may feel good. But feelings won't change the economics of growing food.

Organic farms produce less food with every acre. An analysis last year by researchers from Cornell and Washington State universities found that organic dairy production would require more cows (and therefore more land, more feed, and more water) to produce the same amount of milk as conventional cows. More cows produce more methane and more manure.

If today's cattlemen reverted to the agriculture of 60 years ago, they would need an additional 165 million acres -- an extra land mass roughly the size of Texas -- to produce the same amount of beef. That land would have to come from somewhere. How enthusiastic is Hollywood about clear-cutting forests to make room for "free range" animals?

And how come today's anti-pesticide crowd also is against American advances in genetically modifying food plants? It is advances in food technology that make some crops less attractive to pests, allowing farmers to put less pesticide on the land.

In the spirit of debate, let's hear from the opposition. When Food Rules writer Michael Pollan sat in the cushy guest seat on Oprah in January, the darling of the "slow food" scene smugly exhorted viewers: "We all can vote with our forks."

I couldn't agree more -- but I don't think Pollan will like the results.

If organic produce isn't necessarily better for the environment, and avoiding meat isn't going to prevent you from getting cancer, maybe Hollywood should go back to just making movies again. Preferably silent ones. I think the rest of us can handle the grocery shopping on our own.

David Martosko is the director of research at the Center for Consumer Freedom, a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies and consumers to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100310/OPINION01/3100308/Forget-food-activism--Hollywood#ixzz0hm0HAfHr

Obama Foreclosure-Prevention Plan Lagging, New Data Shows

Obama Foreclosure-Prevention Plan Lagging, New Data Shows

Only about a third of the homeowners who have successfully completed the trial period of the Obama administration's mortgage modification program have been offered permanent relief, according to new federal data obtained by the Huffington Post.

The conversion rate -- about 33 percent -- is woefully short of what the Treasury Department had forecast. Treasury thought the rate would be "ranging up to 75 percent," Herbert M. Allison Jr., assistant secretary for financial stability, told the Congressional Oversight Panel in October.

The other two-thirds of homeowners who have gone through the trial program and made the necessary payments remain in limbo. Some of those homeowners -- more than 350,000 of them -- will ultimately lose out on the kind of relief the administration has repeatedly promised: averting foreclosure through lower monthly payments.

"I remain very concerned about the relatively small number of conversions from trial to permanent modifications for homeowners," said Richard H. Neiman, New York's superintendent of banks and a member of the COP, in an email to HuffPost. "Hundreds of thousands of homeowners are left in limbo by [mortgage] servicers and [are] once again at risk of foreclosure."

Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican on the House Oversight Committee who had a memorable exchange last month with one of Treasury's top housing officials, was more blunt: "It's not surprising these numbers are lower than expected," he said in an email. "This program has been a waste of taxpayer dollars and harmful to the very families it was supposed to help."

The Home Affordable Modification Program, a year-old initiative which promised to help up to four million homeowners avoid foreclosure through lower monthly payments, is the administration's signature effort to help struggling borrowers stay in their homes. Part of Obama's $75 billion Making Home Affordable program, HAMP is designed to help homeowners by paying everyone in the mortgage chain, from the borrower to the mortgage bond investor.

But this incentive-based program, criticized by many consumer advocates and Wall Street housing analysts as inadequate and ineffective, has had a rocky time delivering on its promise.

USDA TARGETS IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOL MEAL ENROLLMENT WITH AID TO STATES

USDA TARGETS IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOL MEAL ENROLLMENT WITH AID TO STATES
Direct Certification Breaks down barriers and streamlines access for Children in Need


WASHINGTON, March 9, 2010 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced approximately $1.9 million in grants to five State agencies to increase enrollment in school meal programs through direct certification and verification processes. Direct certification allows States and local educational agencies to automatically certify children enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program (TANF) for free school meals without the need for household applications. Medicaid records also can be matched to simplify verification of eligibility for school meals programs.

"Direct certification and verification are critical tools in ensuring that every eligible child is enrolled in a school meal program and these grants enable the school food authorities to maximize the number of eligible students participating in school nutrition programs," said Secretary Vilsack. "USDA is actively pursuing opportunities to reduce hunger, promote program access, and improve the overall health and nutrition of children and these grants will help us reach those goals. We look forward to building on our successes with the upcoming Child Nutrition Act reauthorization and we will work with States to expand the use and effectiveness of processes such as this."

In recent weeks, the Obama Administration has detailed ways it is seeking to improve the quality of the School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs, increase the number of kids participating in these programs, and ensure schools have the resources they need to make program changes, including training for school food service workers, upgraded kitchen equipment, and additional funding for meal reimbursements for schools that are enhancing nutrition and quality. President Obama has proposed a $10 billion investment over the next 10 years to help meet these objectives, and to allow additional fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products to be served in our school cafeterias and an additional one million students to be served the healthy diets in school.

Authorized by public law 108-265, the grants being announced today help State agencies implement solutions to expedite the certification process for students eligible to receive free and reduced price meals in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. States can use grant funds to identify eligible students by matching school records and federal assistance program data.

"These grants are intended to improve access, increase accuracy, and reduce paperwork in school nutrition programs by simplifying the certification and verification process," said USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon. "The funding is an important opportunity to make access to school meals as easy as possible for children in need throughout the country."

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service oversees 15 nutrition assistance programs that touch the lives of one in four Americans over the course of a year. The programs work in concert to form a national safety net against hunger. The National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs provide nutritionally balanced, free and low-cost meals to 31 million and 11 million children, respectively, each school day. SNAP puts healthy food in reach for over 38 million Americans each month, half of whom are children.

Earlier this month, First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Let's Move! campaign to end childhood obesity within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight. The campaign has four primary tenets: helping parents make healthy food choices, serving healthier food in schools; improving access to healthy, affordable food; and increasing physical activity. The Administration has introduced its plans to improve school meals, introduced a financing initiative to reduce food deserts, implemented new research tools that detail local food environments and health outcomes, including grocery store access and disease and obesity prevalence, and announced a broad range of public/private commitments to solve America's childhood obesity epidemic. Learn more by visiting www.LetsMove.gov.

The five states receiving the FY 2009 Direct Certification & Verification grants are:

* Massachusetts - $583,200 to leverage their current technology and develop online applications to query TANF, SNAP and Medicaid participant databases so that they can expand their current direct certification and verification process and improve participation rates.
* Nebraska - $200,000 to create a database that will interface with state record systems and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services database to match children enrolled in SNAP and TANF programs.
* Pennsylvania - $630,132 to leverage state Geographic Information Software, Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program information for data matching and streamlining enrollment verification processes.
* Rhode Island - $334,298 to enhance their existing software to validate and synchronize the school meal eligibility data.
* Texas - $177,433 to expand their existing direct verification system to provide matching capability with TANF, SNAP, Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

For more information on the Direct Certification & Verification Grants visit http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Grants/FY09certgrant_cover.pdf.

#-941

Florida's $3 Billion Deficit and Slow Recovery May Force Deep Cuts to State Programs

Florida's $3 Billion Deficit and Slow Recovery May Force Deep Cuts to State Programs

By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Ledger Tallahassee Bureau

PTALLAHASSEE | The Florida economy has hit bottom but the slow recovery will hinder lawmakers as they try to write a new state budget.

n the short term, state economists said Tuesday that while state revenue is growing, it won't be enough to offset a $3 billion budget deficit. Instead, lawmakers will use the next seven weeks of their annual session to craft a budget that likely will include deep cuts in key state programs ranging from Medicaid to state employee jobs.

"It's good news, things are stabilizing," said Amy Baker, head of the Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research.

But while sales taxes, real estate fees and other revenue sources for the state are inching upward, "it's not going to translate into dollars quickly and certainly not in time to help them (lawmakers) this year," Baker said.

Barely needing to revise an estimate they made in December, state economists added another $25 million to this year's forecast and $56 million for the new budget year, which begins July 1. But those are paltry figures in a $66 billion budget.

In a more positive vein, the economists remain confident that revenue collections this year will exceed the prior year, breaking a three-year slump. And they projected a healthy, 6.7 percent boost in revenue next year.

Quinn budget to mean painful choices for Ill. AP

Quinn budget to mean painful choices for Ill. AP
By CHRISTOPHER WILLS - Associated Press Writer
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- After a year of insisting Illinois should raise taxes, Gov. Pat Quinn is set to propose a new budget that would leave tax rates untouched. Instead, he'll address the state's massive deficit mostly by borrowing money and letting bills go unpaid.

But top aides hint that he will also present higher taxes as an alternative to the deep cuts in social services that would be likely if state government continues letting bills pile up.

"He's not included a tax increase in this budget, and that's a conversation that has to happen," his chief of staff, Jerome Stermer, said Tuesday.


Letting more bills simply pile up could be disastrous for those who need help with child care, job training, services to the elderly, drug counseling and more. The local organizations the state hires to provide those services, which are already struggling to survive, could go under if they don't get paid.

"It's a question of whether the creditors that we owe money to can actually stay in business or whether they'll collapse," said Quinn budget director David Vaught.

The Democratic governor has long embraced an income tax increase as the key to closing the biggest budget deficit in Illinois history - $13 billion or more.

But the budget proposal that the administration described Tuesday night for legislators and reporters does not include a tax increase. Instead, it addresses the deficit by cutting expenses by $2 billion, borrowing $4.7 billion to pay old bills and letting about $6 billion in new bills pile up for another year.

Quinn's aides did not outright call this budget proposal a doomsday scenario meant to pressure legislators into supporting a tax increase, but they did say repeatedly that Quinn has not had a change of heart.

Wednesday's speech will address state revenues, they said.

Sen. Matt Murphy said Quinn must tell lawmakers how he prefers to handle the budget and not simply leave it for the Legislature to decide. "To punt from day one is a total failure of leadership," said Murphy, R-Palatine.

Ralph Martire, executive director of the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, said it would be irresponsible for Quinn not to propose a tax increase. The state's budget problems are too big to fix any other way, he said, adding that Quinn may be challenging lawmakers who oppose higher taxes.

"I think that what you see the governor doing is calling the bluff of those who say you can do this without a tax increase," Martire said.

Most of the savings in Quinn's proposal would come from cutting education spending by $1.3 billion, or roughly 10 percent. State employees would have to take unpaid days off, saving $200 million. Prescription drug benefits for the elderly would be cut in half, saving $70 million.

Quinn proposed a $2,500 tax credit for each new job created by small businesses. He said it would create 20,000 jobs.

Lawmakers last year rejected Quinn's proposal to raise income taxes. Now, in an election year, lawmakers aren't any more eager to consider the idea.

They could pass a temporary budget and postpone any politically touchy decisions until after the November election. At that point, legislators will be safe from voter backlash and Quinn will either have won a full term or have been beaten by Republican Sen. Bill Brady, who opposes any increase.

"I'm really curious about what the next governor thinks we should do," said Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago.

With revenues falling and expenses climbing, Illinois government has a huge hole in its budget. Experts predict the deficit will top $13 billion in the upcoming fiscal year. That's nearly half the entire discretionary-spending portion of the state budget.

The state faced a similar, though smaller, deficit a year ago. Quinn proposed closing the deficit with a mixture of higher taxes, lower spending and temporary budget maneuvers.

Legislators, however, balked at raising taxes or making deep cuts. They passed a budget that cut some spending but relied mostly on borrowing money and delaying bill payments to keep the state operating for another year.
Associated Press Writer Deanna Bellandi contributed to this report.