Blog #12: TWO REFLECTIONS ON THE 2016 RACE

Who Speaks for the Powerless?

            Most political buffs have concluded that the best predictor of a Trump supporter would be a middle aged white man who hasn’t graduated from college.  But the Rand Corporation has found an even more precise way to predict a Trump supporter – voters who agree with the statement, “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does,” are most likely to be Trump supporters.  Feelings of being powerless and without a voice are “much better predictors of Trump support than age, race, college attainment, income, attitudes toward Muslims, illegal immigrants, or Hispanic identity.” 

            Rand’s conclusions turn Democrats' self-image on its head.  Democrats have traditionally aspired to give voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless.  That formula worked fine for decades when the powerless were poor, black or Hispanic.  But where is the Democratic Party when those who feel they have no political voice are middle aged white men?  Where is the Democratic program for a generation of formerly privileged white men who no longer feel privileged?  Who speaks for them?  Trump. 

*****

Recapturing  Innocence

             There was, to me, a defining moment in the Michigan debate between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.  Hillary blasted Bernie in Michigan for voting against saving the auto industry.  Bernie came back with his usual rant about Hillary voting to bail out Wall Street.  At the time, it seemed like a lame attempt by Bernie to divert our attention away from a major mistake.

            After two days of cable commentary, I finally got the story straight.  Bernie (and Hillary) had, in fact, voted for a pure stand-alone bill which funded the auto industry bailout.  But when that failed, the Senate was presented with an up or down vote on a bill which combined about $380 billion to stabilize Wall Street (the TARP bailout) with about $80 billion to support restructuring the auto industry.  Sanders voted no, and Clinton voted yes.  The combined bill passed and between two and four million jobs were saved. 

            This vote is a metaphor for the mind of each of the candidates.  Bernie remained pure.  He represents the innocence of first love; Hillary stands for married love.  When faced by the choice of all or nothing, Hillary chose something.  Call it opportunism, or call it taking opportunity when it knocks, but it certainly explains why in the 25 years in the House and Senate only three bills have Bernie’s name on them and two are renaming Post Offices.  

Blog #11: OBAMA'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS

        

            Although President Obama is known as an inspiring communicator, he has been strangely reluctant to convincingly explain the reasons for his actions or take full credit for his successes.

            But rather than settle for immediately palatable slogans, Obama has quietly played the long game. He has kept his eyes on long-term results which were essential to our country and our world.

            What follows is a list of Obama’s achievements -- hard won from an opposition party which vowed to withhold any success as a matter of party policy. I believe these achievements will place Obama in the list of top ten American presidents.

A. Economic Recovery:

            --He led us out of the near-Depression panic of 2008 – caused by too little regulation of too much speculation on Wall Street.

            --By the time Obama took office, the Bush economy was hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month. Since February 2010, there have been 60 straight months of private sector job growth, with 14 million jobs created.

            --Saved US auto industry: Millions of workers, small businesses, parts manufacturers and dealerships depended upon the industry for their livelihoods. The big three automakers have recovered and gained market share.

            --1.45 million jobs saved by government funding and restructuring of GM and Chrysler to avoid liquidation; $96 Billion in personal income losses avoided by Obama saving the auto industry.

            --Unemployment rate reduced from 10% (2009) to 5% (2015)

B. Health Care Reform:

            --Led the fight to pass the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the first successful attempt to reform Health Care in fifty years.

            --ACA reformed insurance so that children could stay on their parents policies until age 26, subsidies toward buying insurance were provided on a sliding scale, and insurance companies were required to disclose how much of the premium went to pay for patient care.

            --Additional provisions of the ACA: lifetime limits and annual benefits were prohibited; women no longer charged higher premiums because of gender; preventive services covered at no additional cost; mental health and drug addiction are covered essential services; customers can’t be denied insurance for pre-existing conditions.

            --Medicaid was expanded to cover those below 133% of the poverty level.

            --About 16 million more people have health insurance coverage under the ACA.

            --By 2016, the number of uninsured Americans had dropped from 16% (2009-14) to 9% (2016).

            --ACA tax breaks allowed 3.5 million small businesses to provide health insurance to their employees, making them more competitive with larger corporations.

C. Passed Wall Street Reform: signed Dodd-Frank (2010) to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. Dodd-Frank tightens capital requirements on large banks; requires derivatives to be sold on exchanges; requires banks to arrange to cover potential bankruptcies; limits their ability to trade with their customer’s money for their own profit; and creates the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to crack down on abusive lending products and companies.

D. International Achievements: Through seven years of patient, quiet negotiations, Obama reoriented America’s place in a changing world.

            --Iran: negotiated deal with Iran to renounce nuclear ambitions. First led multi-national imposition of economic sanctions to bring Iran to the table.

            --A decade after 9/11, ordered and oversaw Navy Seals raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed and a trove of al-Qaeda documents was discovered.

            --Pivot to Asia: reoriented America’s focus from the Middle East to the Asian-Pacific region by simultaneously engaging China and crafting new alliances with Asian countries uncomfortable with Chinese expansion; also poised to increase trade with growing middle class populations in Asia. U.S. business investment in Asia doubled 2009-2015.

            --With increased oil production in the United States, decreased dependence on Saudi Arabia and the Middle East region.

            --Negotiated a historic global agreement on climate change, with 190 countries signing on.

            --Negotiated ratification of new SALT Treaty with Russia, limiting each country’s strategic warheads to 1550 (down from 2200) and launches to 700 (down from 1400).

            --Prohibited the use of torture, putting the United States in compliance with the Geneva Convention.

            --Played a lead role in getting the G-20 Summit to commit to a $1.1 Trillion deal to combat the Global financial crisis.

            --10,000 air strikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq; slowly rolling back their control of territory.

            --Led successful world-wide fight to stop the spread of Ebola virus in West Africa, saving millions of lives.

            --Ended 54 years of ineffective Cold War hostility towards Cuba; increased trade, contacts, and a better life for Cubans and Cuban-Americans will follow.

E. Various Domestic Achievements:

            

Energy and Environment:

            --Ordered energy plants to prepare to produce at least 15% of all energy through renewable resources, like wind and solar, by 2021.

            --Doubled federal spending on clean energy.

            --Designated more than 2 million acres as wilderness, created thousands of miles of recreational trails, and protected more than 1000 miles of rivers.

            --Presided over an increase in the average fuel economy standards from 27.5 mpg in 2010 to 35.5 mpg starting in 2016.

           

Workers Rights:

            --Made it possible for employees to discuss their salaries without retaliation, and ordered salary data collection.

            --Authorized six weeks paid leave for all federal employees with a new baby.

            --Ordered all federal contractors to pay a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour.

            --Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which restored basic protections against pay discrimination against women.

Other Domestic Achievements:

            --Ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” allowing Gays and Lesbians to serve openly in the military.

            --Put a cap on student loan repayments at 10% of wages. Ended decades-old practice of subsidizing banks to provide student loans, saving $7 billion a year, half of which went back to provide Pell Grants to lower-income students.

            --Released thousands from federal prisons by reducing drug sentencing guidelines, leading to the first drop in federal prison population in 32 years.

            

Federal deficit: -- Oversaw a reduction in the dollar amount of the federal budget deficit by three quarters since taking office. Reduced the federal budget deficit from 9.8 % of GDP in FY 2009 under Bush to 2.4% of GDP in  FY 2016.

            --Immigration reform: instructed Immigration Department efforts be concentrated on those who commit crimes, rather than undocumented working families.

            --Under President Obama, the bottom 95% of taxpayers are paying lower federal income taxes than at any time in the last 50 years.

          I am so proud we have a man of humor, integrity, and decency in the White House.

SOURCES:  Washington Monthly, “Obama’s top Fifty Accomplishments” (2012); “A List of 321 Obama Accomplishments with Citations,” PCTC; Democratic-hub.com.

Blog #10: HIRING A PRESIDENT

     Hiring A President

The other day

I was interviewing
An applicant for President.
Can you steer a boat?
I asked. Straight down
The middle, she said;
Unless there are rocks.
Then what? Then I go
Around them. Ah, I said,
What if the rocks are submerged?
I've been here before,
She said.

                             --EG

Watch for my next blog post, “Obama’s Achievements,” coming soon!

Blog #9: QUESTIONS FOR BERNIE

1)         Putting aside whether he could win a nationwide election and putting aside if he won whether he could pass anything through a sharply divided Congress, what will Bernie replace what he tears down with?

What will replace Wall Street? 

What will happen to the trillions of dollars invested in “corrupt” Wall Street by retirement funds of union members, teachers, and middle class workers?  Will Bernie make reforms to Wall Street or will his “revolution” tear it down?

2)         As part of Bernie’s attempt to link Hillary with “corrupt” Wall Street, he uses her speaking fees from Goldman Sachs as an example of her connection to “Wall Street.”  The implication is that Hillary has been bought out by “corrupt” Wall Street.”

Does Bernie have any – any – evidence that Hillary did any favors for Goldman Sachs because, after she was out of office, she was paid an honorarium for giving speeches about her views of what was happening in the world? 

If he has examples, let’s hear them.  If Bernie has no such evidence that she has ever changed a view or a vote because of a donation, it is simply a clear smear and he ought to stop it. 

3)         Every revolution causes upheaval, chaos, rapid loss, and sometimes widespread death.  When (if) Bernie unleashes his revolution, how will he avoid the most destructive results of his revolution?

                                                                                                           

4)         Bernie is clearly bringing out new voters who yearn for a different, better world.  But will not Bernie also mobilize even more millions of mid-level working people to defend what they have?  For instance, though one may hate (the abstraction) “pharmaceutical companies," the hundreds of thousands who work for them stand to lose their jobs and homes if Bernie undermines them.  Will they vote for him?  Or workers in the insurance industry, defense industries, automotive industry, or oil and gas industry…  All of whom depend on Wall Street.  Will they risk their livelihoods by voting for him?

5)         Is Bernie a Democrat, a Socialist, a Progressive or a Revolutionary?  Are they all the same thing?

Blog #8: THE ESTATE TAX

A recent propaganda piece by the well paid lobbyist for the American Business Defense Council tries to persuade us to pressure our Congressional Delegation to vote to end the estate tax (Grand Forks Herald, December 16, 2015).

But it makes its case only by deceptively appealing to our emotional support for “family farms” and “small businesses.”  Nobody wants to see a parent’s lifetime of hard work wiped out by the estate tax.  But before we let our emotions run away with us, we ought to know, factually, how the estate tax really works. 

Here according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is what the state tax means to us: 

·         Nationwide, only 2 out of every 1000 estates are subject to the estate tax.  That’s right, 99.8% of estates owe no estate tax at all.  That astounding figure is because of the tax’s high exemption amount, which has jumped from $650,000 in 2001 to $5.4 million in 2015. 

·         No estate valued below $5.4 million pays any estate tax.  Of the few estates which pay the tax, the effective tax rate (the rate actually paid) is far below the statutory rate of 40%.  On average, estates valued at less than $5 million pay nothing; between $5 and $10 million pay under 8%; and those valued between $10 and $20 million pay under 16% -- still leaving a generous head start for the next generation. 

·         Loopholes have been written into law which allows wealthy estates to pass on large portions of their assets while avoiding estate taxes.  These loopholes should be closed. 

·         In 2011, only 18 North Dakotans were required to file estate tax forms.  Their gross value was $444 million.  Of the 18 filing, only 11 ended up paying estate tax.  Their estates paid $7.7 million and kept the remaining $436.3 million.  (If I had to pick a parent, I guess I wouldn’t mind being born into one of those families.)

Far from being a “death tax,” the estate tax is a life tax.  It promotes social mobility and opportunity, it rewards hard work and talent, and it prevents capital from being concentrated into too few hands – thus reducing the evils of an aristocracy of the wealthy and propertied class the founders of the American nation warned against.  In a 1789 letter to his friend James Madison, Thomas Jefferson gave perhaps the shortest explanation of why we need an estate tax:  “The Earth belongs in usufruct to the living.” 

Ben Franklin, himself a wealthy man, gives a more radical justification for the taxing inheritance.  He argues that, beyond minimal subsistence, most wealth is a creature of public laws and convention.  Franklin concludes:  “Hence the public has the right of regulating descents, and all other conveyances of property and even of limiting the quantity and the uses of it.”

Democracy and inherited wealth are incompatible.  Those who argue for an elimination of the estate tax are servants of an aristocracy of wealth and property.  The number obliged to pay the estate tax is relatively few and the amount paid by the estate is relatively small.  The estate tax is just. 

Rather than being eliminated, the estate tax should in fact be increased. 

Blog #7:   Hark the Herald (Juba)

            The story in the Grand Forks Herald on 12/11/15 about the Juba Coffee Shop’s intention to rebuild starts, “A possible arson attack has triggered an FBI investigation.”  Four paragraphs later the story says, “The restaurant…was damaged in a fire police say was deliberately ignited.” 

            If police are willing to say this fire was deliberately set, the story’s lead paragraph might more accurately say it was arson rather than “possible” arson.  (We’ve also seen the video of a person breaking the window and throwing something into the store.  “Possible” arson doesn’t cover it.)

            This confusion is cleared up in the December 12 story in which police name the likely arsonist and clearly identify the fires are deliberately set.  But in neither of the two most recent articles are we told whether Juba owned or rented the building.  Nor do we know if it was insured.  The latest report (12/12/15) omits information on how much the community has raised in support of Juba and whether the community vigil at the burned coffee shop is ongoing. 

            The fire and the Grand Forks Police Department’s identification of the arsonist are, of course, sensational news, but we hope the Herald will provide us more important news we need to have about rebuilding community trust and safety for all. 

            Good news:  Yesterday police said they weren’t doing anything special to protect the mosque.  Today we learn that police were instructed to provide extra security by increasing drive-bys and parking in the mosque parking lot.  Somebody made the right decision. 

            In putting the Juba arson in context, the story refers to the Paris attack by “Islamic Extremists” and the San Bernardino killings by a “Muslin couple.”  This language in the press calls attention to religion and ethnicity and makes attacks like the Juba arson more likely. 

            In a different section of the paper, an article on U2’s performance in Paris earlier this week quotes Bono for the Herald and other media as saying “Isis and these kinds of extremists are a death cult.”  I wonder if it would be best to identify all terrorist acts as done by “death cult extremists.”

            By the way, by looking up the meaning of the word ‘Juba,’ I found that it is a state-like division in southwest Somalia.  It’s likely that the coffee shop was named after the refugee’s home; that makes it all the more sad that the reminder of home in their adopted country was torched.  

Blog Post #6
Republican Roller Coaster Ride
 
For at least the past three sessions, the Republican-controlled legislature has cut income and corporate tax rates. This was done to please the public who noticed that rapidly increasing oil revenues made it appear the state was awash in money.

To reduce the surplus in the General Fund, the Legislature could have (a) put some of it in the Legacy Fund; or (b) sent every North Dakotan a one-time check; or (c) spent some of it on economic development or programs that worked to keep people out of prison or off welfare; or (d) simply saved some of it for a rainy day.

But instead, the Republicans did absolutely the worst thing: they permanently lowered the tax rates on personal and corporate income. I say permanent because I don't believe they would ever have the courage to raise rates should revenues ever fall short. (In addition, most of the corporate rate cuts went to out of state corporations; most of the personal tax cut dollars went to higher income people.)

The Republicans made themselves look good by these cuts--as well as state subsidies to local property taxes--which they paid for with volatile oil revenues. I warned them then that basing permanent reductions on temporary income was irresponsible. 

Now that oil prices are plummeting, and with them state revenues, Republican candidates (as well as editorial writers) are calling for deep spending cuts to make up the budget shortfall. And of course they're blaming oil prices--which were out of their control--for the state's fiscal crisis rather than their own lack of foresight and wrong choices--which were within their control.

What a roller coaster ride they've taken us on.