Another Data Point

We are approaching a point of no return: Either we increase taxes, or we abandon the New Deal (i.e., Social Security) and the Great Society (i.e., Medicare/Medicaid).

Make no mistake, the deficits are essentially the product of the relentless drive to reduce taxes. Every tax cut beginning with Reagan led to enormous deficits. The difference now is Tea Party intransigence (or irresponsibility) on raising taxes.

And what have we gotten from lower taxes (principally for the very wealthy)? Lousy roads and schools, stagnant wages for most Americans, and a few people getting insanely wealthy.

We would do well to recall the destitution that typically accompanied old age before Social Security. We’d do well also to recognize that, with all its faults, Medicare is the best-run, most cost-effective health insurance enterprise in the United States.

The problems of most people in this country stem not from high taxes, but low wages, not from big government, but big business.

Eventually, even the Tea Party folks (well, not all of them) will probably figure this out. The question is whether it will be too late by then.

So some Tea Party candidates got elected to Congress. Good for them. I could pretend I respect their views, but why bother? I’ll only concede their right to hold those views.

What I won’t concede is that they have such a perfect vision of the truth that they get to destroy everyone else’s economy.

The Tea Party is welcome to their irrational devotion to tax breaks for the richest Americans. But common sense and the America way of government demands that they recognize and respect the views of the majority of Americans who realize that enough is enough already.

In other words, compromise. The freshmen hardliners need to understand that their view is not the only view, and is in fact a minority view. (That is, if you’re counting voters; if you’re counting dollars I suppose you get a different result.)

Tax breaks for the wealthiest simply have not benefited most Americans. Polls show that 60% of Americans recognize this. But rather than accepting a return to historically normal rates of taxation on the wealthiest Americans, the Tea Party is willing to bring economic ruination on America and the world.

It’s a bitter disappointment to me that President Obama is not hammering on this point every hour of every day.

What are the leading causes of the deficit?

1) Bush’s wars
2) Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy
3) the economic meltdown.

So what are the solutions?

1) Eliminate tax cuts for the wealthy
2) Stimulate the economy
3) Get out of Afghanistan and Iraq ASAP.

Job done.

This, of course, isn’t happening. Discuss.

I usually abhor psychologizing by amateurs like myself but it hit me just now that there’s a kind of timidity in Walker’s constitutional* refusal to negotiate.

I think he’s afraid he’s not smart enough to handle himself in a serious policy discussion.

I think he’s a political idiot savant, but when comes to policy, he’s quickly out of his depth, and at some level he knows it.

So he just takes a position and sticks to it, even if he has to resort to lies — perhaps even to himself — to justify it.

* Not in the sense of a governance document, but in the way his personality is constituted

Why do we have unions? Because before unions, workers were exploited. When we lose unions, workers will be exploited again.

Why has government grown? Partly because Americans recognized that the standard market economy doesn’t do a good job of providing for people at the margins of society, in particular people who have left the economy because of age or injury.

Government also serves as a counter-balance to the enormous corporations that otherwise would have more control over society than democracy can tolerate.

So when the extreme right wing of the GOP wants to eliminate unions and government, ask yourself whether this is a step forward or a step backward.

I’ve been on the sidelines long enough.

Here’s what got me off the dime:
Walker’s Trojan Horse (Thanks, Marlene.)

This, in turn, made me see the Senate Democrats’ move in a new light: It affords them — and us — some time to actually examine and bring to light all aspects of this bill.

One final thought: There’s a revenue side to this budget question. Yes, we can actually raise taxes to address state and federal deficits. Our tax burden has steadily been dropping, and government is less and less able to adequately do the jobs most of us want it to do.

The conservative notion that government is bad, and that tax is a four-letter word must be addressed directly:

1. we do want decent schools
2. we do want clean water
3. we do want honest and fair business transactions
4. we do want decent roads
5. etc.

What’s going on in Madison isn’t about convincing some crazed conservative politicians, temporarily in charge of our state government. It’s about convincing the 50% of the people who didn’t vote, yet support our core values, that the state and country they love are being run into ruin by the right-wing — and they can stop it by making their voices heard above the conservative noise machine.

We’re making a good noise in Madison.

I woke up this morning and found a state employee in my bed. Sleeping, of course. I’m mean, that’s what state workers do, right? Not teach dozens of students each year, spending late nights correcting papers, office hours with individuals.

It shocks me to think back a couple of months, to when this state worker (the one I found in in my bed) WENT TO THE DENTIST. That’s right, she has dental insurance! I’m thinking, “Wouldn’t it be better if she lost her teeth and couldn’t eat? I mean if she starves to death, there’ll be no pension to pay, no Social Security, right? That’s the natural order of things.”

It get worse: The other day I saw a state worker driving to work. In a car. One she OWNED! Though really, since she’s paid with public funds, it’s really OUR car, I suppose. She can keep the kid she’s taking to day care, but I hope she is properly maintaining our public property — even though I’m against public property, which must somehow infringe on my liberty.

Of course, not all my horrid visions of life in socialist hell are waking nightmares. Sometimes at night I think of my daughter. Since she has Down Syndrome, she won’t be driving a car, state owned or otherwise. I’m not quite sure how she will get to work in the future, but the way things are going, I can be pretty confident that she won’t be subjected to the Stalinist horror of public transportation. My socialist nightmare will be over.

Of course, her social darwinist nightmare, envisioned years ago by Anne Rand, will be just beginning.

H. L Mencken does come to mind.

The Republicans have been rewarded for lousing up (not my words) the economy.

2012: We always have to keep the next election in mind. In 2008, we failed to keep 2010 in mind. So we reap the whirlwind in 2010.

OfA has failed to use the tool they discovered to good effect: To build local network in service to local politics. It’s not all about Obama’s agenda, guys. It’s also about the off-year elections. It’s also about people remaining engaged and engaging their neighbors. It’s also about supporting the next generation of candidates. Or maybe they found a tool created by Howard Dean and thought it was just a shiny toy, instead of a strategy that goes deeper than the four-year election cycle.

Political journalism is essentially dead. E.g. PolitiFact parsed trivialities; substantial policy questions got paltry treatment. Case in point: Americans are voting on the wrong information

Scott Walker, Ron Johnson and Leah Vukmir are out of their depth. The republic — and the state — have survived worse, I suppose.

This was an inspiring experience for those involved in the campaign.

1. An amazing campaign operation, particularly given the resources arrayed against it
2. Wonderful staffers I worked with: Stephanie(!) Nate, Jackie, Dan, Zach, Matt – you stood in the face of a tremendous tide beyond your control and brought hundreds people together to serve a common cause.

We are slowly digging our way out of a hole that was deeply dug by Ronald Reagan and which reached its nadir with George W. Bush. This is a bump on the road.

My personal experience with the electorate was cordial. Don’t make too much of the “Tea Party rage” meme.

FDR lost House and Senate seats in all but the first of midterms during his presidency.

Watch for a useful 1994 vs 2010 analysis.

From ‘Express Milwaukee’:

“What sets Vukmir apart from many of her Republican colleagues are her ultraconservative positions that are far to the right of the standard GOP platform.”

Read more…

How’s the hope and change working out for me? Pretty well for me, and for most Americans.

We’ve passed the sort of health care bill we’ve be trying to pass since Teddy Roosevelt was president.

We’ve seen taxes lowered for most Americans.

We’ve seen economic stimulus package that has arrested the worst economic downturn since the 30s.

There are problems to be sure, primarily a deficit that’s largely the result of George Bush’s tax cuts and failed wars, and a weak economy whose meltdown began before Obama was elected.

But yeah, there’s no doubt that the change has been for the better.

Of course, complaining about the government is the great American pastime — I do it myself. But who really thinks McCain/Palin would have been better?

And make no mistake, the candidates the GOP is offering today are essentially McCain/Palin — on steroids, in many cases.

Think about that when you vote in November.

This article by Henry Banta is as good a summary of the state of the GOP as I’ve seen in a long time.

I would only add that I suspect there are plenty of heavy-hitting contributors to the party for whom this is less ideology than a trojan horse for a plutocratic power-grab. These people are perfectly happy to contribute to deceptive party messaging that conflates middle class economic anxiety with “culture wars” (i.e., racism, misogyny, homophobia)

Homophobia trumps national security; anti-abortion concerns trump economic justice; etc.

Craig Gilbert seems to be as lost in Paul Ryan’s road map as those he purports to give direction to.

Most notably, the claim that the CBO projects a balanced budget in 50 years disguises the fact the the CBO did NOT use Ryan’s tax (revenue) plan, but another another one, to balance Ryan’s spending plan. So we don’t know whether Ryan’s taxing plan, combined with his spending plan, will do what’s claimed in Craig Glibert’s account.

So Paul Ryan is going to reduce revenues by trillions of dollars — by disproportionate tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans — and balance the budget?

Sure, by destroying Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — but only for people who won’t notice for 30 years.

This is the sort of voodoo economics the GOP has tried before, with the result that the hyper-rich get vastly wealthier, while nearly all other Americans see their incomes stagnate or fall.

It’s a shame that a Journal Sentinel reporter is party to this.

Drove up U.S. 41 to the Packer game last night, and was struck by the cultural signs along the way.

Several anti abortion signs, including the particularly revolting, “40 million babies won’t pay into Social Security.” Besides being stupid on its face (they won’t be taking SS payouts, either) it was a weird reduction of the value of human life into dollars. Furthermore, I’m willing to bet that the author supports the people who want to destroy social security.

Another class of signs sells pornography, which put me in mind of the odd red-state disconnect between “family values” and divorce rates. See, e.g. this New York Times article

And then you have the shooters’ supplies stores.

All this, taken with a large number of people driving 80 mph (in Wisconsin!), made me feel like I was in a part of the state like no other.

Saw a bumper sticker the other day:

“I support the IDF.”

My reaction: So, unfortunately, do I, with my tax dollars.

… and I’m one of them.

Whatever the progressive complaints about the Obama administration may be, isn’t it nice to be able to have some confidence that our government is returning to competence?

It’s early days, but consider the difference between Bush’s response to Katrina/New Orleans and Obama’s response to the Haitian disaster. To me, the difference is already clear.

I’ll make a couple predictions here:

1) The American response to the Haiti catastrophe will prove vastly superior to the national response to the Katrina disaster

2) There will be excessive right-wing disparaging of that effort to mask (1) above.

Here’s my letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (AskDOJ@usdoj.gov):

Mr. Holder,

It is my belief that persons who engaged in torture should be prosecuted on both criminal and constitutional grounds.

1) I believe that laws and treaties of the United States were broken by torture.

2) I believe that the Constitution was violated by the executive branch essentially making its own laws regarding torture.

I further believe that the country would support the full and legal repudiation of torture, and that our nation would gain immeasurable respect around the world by behaving as we claim to behave.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Greg Walz-Chojnacki

There’s much to be disturbed about with the pace of change — as in “Change is Coming” — but let me suggest two things to bear in mind.

First, consider the situation in late 1941, when the United States found itself in a war that required our nation to take a fight across two vast oceans. The difficult decision was made to take a holding position in the Pacific Theater and concentrate on the war in Europe, despite having been attacked by Japan, not Germany. I’ve never heard anyone argue that this was the wrong choice.

While I’m fully sympathetic with the complaints of LGBT Americans, as an an example, I think that it is prudent to similarly triage our national problems, starting with the basic economic troubles (in which I include health care). And as angry as I am with the lack of accountability for people who’ve made out like — or is it as? — bandits in the financial sector while the rest of the country has burned, I think it’s politically and even morally prudent to concentrate on getting the bleeding under control with the most conservative means possible.

Secondly, as President Obama moves relatively slowly across a broad front, it’s natural for progressives to say, it’s our time, let’s get moving. But I’d suggest that this is a direct response to Bush, Rove and Co. riding roughshod over progressive sensibilities. We must be careful not to emulate them, but rather consider, as Obama is rightly considering, the spectrum of political beliefs that makes up America.

The real challenge, I believe, is not for us to put pressure on Obama, but to concentrate on making our voices heard in the places our laws are written — our state and federal legislatures. We also need to engage our neighbors in respectful dialog, encouraging our sympathizers to become more active and vocal, and reminding our opponents that we can disagree with respect.

This is a long road, but the grand victory we seek will not be won by presidential fiat, or a single election. Instead, it will be won by a steady accretion of progressive argument and gentle persuasion. It demands a commitment of many tens or hundreds of hours in service and activism by all of us who want to advance the progressive agenda. It means paying attention to local and state government, and communicating our wishes to our elected officials.

So be passionate about the causes you find compelling. But think strategically. And gear up for the long haul.

The primary reason I supported Obama, was that his campaign had the promise of making individual voters more important than dollars. But that’s more than a promise: It’s a challenge.

I’ve maintained this blog for quite a while, but recently a large portion of it was inexplicably and irrecoverably lost.

That by way of explaining the vast gap found after the first few recent posts.

George W. Bush has been spending a lot of time responding to the Congressional (and popular) mandate to end his misadventure in Iraq. He is whining that Congress is making decisions that the generals should make.

Leaving aside the disingenuousness of the suggestion that unqualified people are making military decisions, I’d like to point out that in our form of government, generals are rightly left to make the tactical decisions about warmaking, and even given a large role in strategic decisions about how to conduct wars.

What they are not entitled to do is decide whether we start or stop wars. That is a decision for the the public to make. When the public elected a Democratic Congress, it knew full well that such a Congress would work to end the war.

I’m not sure how we lost track of the fact that we shouldn’t be engaged in wars without congressional declarations of war. (Obviously, Truman and Lyndon Johnson are the two previous offenders in this regard.)
The people have spoken, and Congress is listening. It’s time for our feckless, reckless, and careless President to start listening, too.