Baby boomers' retirement planning

So I'm watching CNN: Poppy Harlow is reporting on the fact that the first wave of baby boomers will be turning 65 and retiring in large numbers in 2011 - and the ramifications of that fact.  Her report notes that the boomers are in for some serious economic pain in the form of a substantially reduced standard of living, and states that the baby boomers have "failed" to plan properly and effectively for retirement.  Consequently, the report concludes, many boomers will have to work throughout their retirement.  The implication is clear: the boomers are up the brown, runny creek, and they're there because they screwed up.

If you don't know Poppy Harlow, she is a pretty blonde who just may be as old as 30.  She's a pretty decent reporter.  Now, with wisdom born of her great age and depth of financial and life experience, she criticizes her parents' (or grandparents?) generation for failing to plan enough and save enough to take care of themselves as they age.  In the interest of painting a broader and more accurate picture of the boomers' current situtation, allow me to mention a few economic trends that all of the boomers' saving and planning couldn't have accounted for:

• the burgeoning cost of their children's educations;
• the cost of their parents' long term care and medical expenses;
• the loss of whole classes of well-paying jobs, through offshoring and/or corporate downsizings that had the effect of purging older, better paid workers and replacing them with the very generation of children that boomers raised and educated;
• the systematic elimination of employer-provided health insurance;
• the ever increasing costs of private health insurance and medical and dental care;
• the systematic evisceration of corporate retirement programs; and
• the impact of the recession on boomers' investment and retirement accounts.

With all due respect, Poppy Harlow, walk a decade or two in the boomers' shoes before you conclude that they are responsible for the economic pain they may be facing in retirement.  Stop blaming the boomers, and start looking at the great risk shift* engineered by corporate America and the legislators it has bought and paid for, not to mention the "bubble and bust" economy created by our virtually unregulated financial institutions.

*   For more information, try reading Jacob S. Hacker's The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream.

Christmas musings: morality and the distribution of income, wealth and opportunity

This morning on CNN (yes, I watch the news even on Christmas), there was a story about Sesame Street’s “Food for Thought” initiative, segments in which the Sesame Street characters explore healthy food choices and learn to love broccoli and whole grains.  The mastermind behind this laudable effort identified the target audience as economically disadvantaged families who suffer the “stigma of nutritional insufficiency” – aka, poor people who are blamed and shamed because they don’t have enough to eat.

Shame implies a moral failing.  In 21^st century America, poverty has become a moral failing:  it is now shameful not to be able to afford to buy enough food to feed your family.  This is just a smug, self-serving  rationalization foisted upon us by wealthy Americans and their political handmaidens, the GOP.    Republican tax and economic policies exacerbate inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth in America the likes of which we have not seen since the days of the original Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Mellons and Morgans.  Meanwhile, the GOP’s base, the wealthy, the neo-cons, and the Christian right, are happy to believe that they are prospering because of their moral superiority, and, conversely, that everyone else – including the sick or disabled, the unemployed, and the working poor – are doing badly because of some moral failing (e.g., they’re lazy, they’re stupid, God doesn’t love them).  Not only does this belief make the wealthy feel better, but it apparently absolves many of them of any sense of obligation to contribute to the common good by paying their fair share of taxes. 

So I’m wondering, which is the bigger moral failure?  To cry on national TV about making sure our children achieve the American dream, while voting consistently against programs that make that dream achievable?  Or to work 2 or 3 jobs and still not have enough to feed your kids?  To get paid 20 or 30 times as much as your employees for maximizing profits by cutting employee health, disability and retirement plans?  Or to declare bankruptcy and lose your house because one of your children has a rare form of cancer and you have no health insurance?  To make tens of millions of dollars buying and selling the companies other people have built?  Or to depend on extended unemployment benefits because your company was sold and your job was moved to Bangalore?  To wear your mink coat, your Rolex and your Christian Laboutins to church to worship the Christian God, while exploiting a rigged financial system the other 6 days of the week?  Or to buy your clothes at the Salvation Army store so your children can attend a public college or university?  

It seems clear to me that the moral failure here is that of a socio-economic system that has grown fat and happy exploiting -- and then blaming – its victims.

Some thoughts on taxes and public policy

An old colleague and friend whose politics and opinions I have always respected posted the following comment re:my last blog entry:

one thing I think we should all consider is for all of us to stop buying the mantra that taxes are evil, or that "we" can spend our money better than "they" can. Taxes pay for services - police, fire departments, teachers, clean air, food safety --- things that individually, we cannot do by ourselves in virtually all cases.

The middle class was all too happy to support continuing tax cuts for themselves...but we do, as a country, have debts to pay...and we should pay for our wars (or not get into them or get out of them), for one thing.

This comment raises two points that I feel inclined to address.

Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society that provides for the basic needs of its citizens – needs that those citizens cannot provide for themselves – and, yes, we should pay them without begrudging them, provided they are used in the best interests of the common good.   These days, a lot of folks object to paying Federal taxes because they feel that the Federal government just pisses their money away, or gives it back to them “with strings attached.”  The crux of these folks’ objections (and my own, at times) is that the government has used their tax money for a LOT of stuff that doesn’t benefit them directly and/or that they don’t agree with.  But that isn’t really the standard, is it?  The standard is the common good.  We elect a President, Senators, and Representatives to figure out what that common good is and to spend accordingly.  If we don’t agree with their decisions, we elect someone else.  We don’t start mailing tea bags to Washington and electing demagogues who promise to cut taxes to nothing and to starve the Federal government out of existence.  I shudder to think where we’d be if the demagogues succeeded with that agenda.  And you can be sure that the Tea Baggers, the GOP, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck would be among the first to complain about the failure of  government services under that scenario.

Yes, the middle class should pay its fair share of taxes, along with wealthier individuals.  But not now, when we’re trying to get our economy restarted.  Let me present an illustration of why I believe that we should raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans first, and NOW.  Let’s take two families of 4:  the Middle family has a combined gross income of $75,000; the Betteroff family has a combined gross income of $750,000.  The Middle family’s income is likely to be almost entirely earned income.  The Betteroff family probably receives a portion of its income in the form of stock options and other “capital gains” and can better afford to use tax shelter and deferral mechanisms.  Consequently, the Middles already pay more taxes, as a percentage of gross income, than the Betteroffs do.  (In recent years, the wealthiest Americans paid 17% or less of their gross income in taxes.)   Moreover, the Middles must dedicate a much higher percentage of their net income than the Betteroffs do to “nondiscretionary” spending on housing, food, insurance, clothing, utilities, medical expenses, local property taxes, etc.  When all is said and done, the Middles are going to be awfully lucky to have $20-25,000 left for discretionary spending and saving, and they are likely to spend most of it.  On the other hand, the Betteroffs will likely have $200,000 or more left for these purposes, and they will save a healthy chunk of it.  The Betteroffs’ savings is NOT money circulating in the economy, spurring production and growth and creating jobs.  It’s just wealth piling up, to be passed on (tax free up to $3.5 million) to the next generations of Betteroffs.  The Betteroffs are better able to maintain their standard of living even if they pay 5% more in taxes, and that 5% could be put to better immediate use for the common good than sitting in the Betteroff’s VUL policies, stock accounts, or laddered CD’s. 

For an outstandingly clear and well reasoned extended discussion of these and related policy issues, I highly recommend Robert Reich’s new book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.

This is WAR

In October, my husband and I attended Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity – a gathering dedicated to the proposition that, if we all just dialed down the rhetoric and listened to each other, we could work together and make America a better place.  What a lovely thought.

Lately, however, I can’t help but notice that the only folks who are dialing down the rhetoric, trying to play well with others, and – yes – compromising, are Independents and Democrats.  The GOP, including its Tea Party faction, has turned up the volume and is single mindedly pursuing its “lower taxes and smaller government” agenda.  In the name of that agenda, Republicans are blatantly and shamelessly pursuing policies that benefit major corporate interests and the wealthy at the expense of America’s middle class and less affluent citizens.

 The GOP’s top priority is “lower taxes” for the wealthiest Americans: Republican Senators and Representatives made this undeniably clear by their willingness to add $874 billion to the Federal deficit by passing a “compromise” extension of the Bush tax cuts and emergency unemployment benefits earlier this month.  Meanwhile, in the name of smaller government and deficit concerns, these same Senators and Representatives refuse to fund health care reform and health benefits for our post 9/11 “heroes.”    Look for them to use the same justification for cutting or withholding Federal funding for education programs, regulatory enforcement, entitlement programs, and anything that looks like a stimulus program.   

Of course, everything that Republicans want to cut in the name of “smaller government” and/or “deficit reduction” directly benefits the lower socio-economic classes of Americans.  The wealthiest Americans don’t need these programs: they can afford to pay for the best education, health care and long-term care, in addition to saving a bundle for a comfortable retirement.  They can afford them in part because they pay a ridiculously small percentage of their income in taxes.  And, with the GOP ascendant, they can count on their ridiculously low tax income and estate tax rates to remain in effect for the foreseeable future.

The GOP says it is declaring war on the “welfare state” in order to enforce “constitutional limits” on government and protect the “financial liberty” of American citizens.  From where I’m sitting, it looks like it’s declared war on everyone but the wealthiest 10% of us.  So, no more sanity and polite discourse: I’ve been attacked, and I’m declaring war on the GOP.   I will expose and fight the GOP’s agenda by every legal means at my disposal.  If you’d like to join my army, or contribute ideas, I’d love to hear from you.  I’m guessing that I’ll need some help.

Just because these people are technically “human” doesn’t mean they’re the same species as I am, does it? (Please, please say no)

I don’t know very much about Elizabeth Edwards, except that she lost her 16-year-old child to an accident (which would have absolutely destroyed me), suffered public betrayal by her husband and relentless embarrassment at the hands of the press, and gracefully and courageously fought a truly nasty disease.  Now she is dead, and her family has the right to commemorate her life and bury her in peace and with dignity. 

I was brought up in the Methodist Church, and taught that it was not my place, as a mere mortal, to judge another person’s life and sins.   Jesus said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”  So, whatever sins Elizabeth Edwards committed should and will be judged by God alone, right?  WRONG!  Apparently, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, has been deputized by the Almighty himself to pass judgment on Elizabeth Edwards.

The WBC has announced that “God Hates Elizabeth Edwards,” because:

When they [the Edwardses] were visited from the Most High God with the death of their 16-year-old son, they did not humble themselves before His mighty hand. They reared up in rage, decided they would show God who is boss, and meddled in matters of the womb, resulting in 2 more children -- now motherless."

Asserting that Elizabeth Edwards is now a "resident of hell, where her rebellion and rage will take full flower," the WBC has announced its intention to disrupt and defile her funeral – just as its members have disrupted and defiled funerals of several US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  (You will recall that the WBC justifies those disruptions by asserting that God hates America.)
I refuse to believe that real flesh-and-blood human beings could be as hateful and cruel as the leaders and members of the Westboro Baptist Church.  And isn’t it the ultimate irony that they invoke their faith in a loving Christian God to justify their behavior?

Some thoughts on the President's hostage analogy . . .

In his press conference today, President Obama “had some ‘splainin’ to do” about his tax cut deal with Congressional Republicans.  The President made it pretty clear that, in the face of Republican obduracy, he thought the deal was the only way to make sure that middle class taxes didn’t go up on January 1 and that those most in need continued to receive unemployment benefits.  When asked if he didn’t think that he was setting a dangerous precedent for future dealings with the GOP, the President resorted to the hostage analogy.  He said that, although everyone agreed that it was a bad idea to negotiate with hostage takers, exceptions had to be made when it looked like the hostages would get hurt.  He felt that the injury to the hostages – higher taxes for the middle class and the loss of benefits to the long-term unemployed – was just too great to risk in this case.

Okay, Mr. President, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one.  You say that you only caved on the Republicans’ “holy grail” of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans on a temporary basis and because the risk to the middle class and the neediest Americans in the current economy was too great.  You say that you are looking forward to future tests of will against the Republicans, when the immediate risk to the middle class and the unemployed is no longer an issue.  You say that the Republicans will find that you will not blink under more stable and less dangerous economic circumstances.  I fervently hope that all of that is true.  Time will tell.

Meanwhile, in any hostage situation, aren’t the hostages always in danger of getting hurt?  Isn’t that danger the factor that makes hostage-taking a potentially successful course of action for people who don’t give a s*** about the hostages?  Isn’t the hostage takers’ indifference to the fate of their hostages the very thing that gives them leverage over the folks that want the hostages’ safe return?  So here’s the takeaway for all of us who aren’t among the very wealthiest Americans (for whose tax cuts we were taken hostage):  the Republican Party does not give a rat’s ass about our financial well-being.  They do NOT care about us.  At all.  And as long as we are stupid enough to keep electing them and handing them the power to determine our future, they will screw us six ways from Sunday. 

Is we learning yet?

Extortion works . . .

President Obama has just announced that he is caving on the Bush tax cuts – for the noblest of reasons, of course.  I know that symbolic victories don’t mean squat to the average American family, whose income has remained at a standstill (if they’re lucky) while the cost of food, education and utilities has climbed steadily.  BUT:

·        The President’s deal with the GOP trades off 13 more months of unemployment benefits for a 2-year continuation of ALL of the Bush tax cuts to everyone, including the richest Americans. 

·        The cost of the unemployment benefit extension is substantially less than half of the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts to the richest Americans.

·        Neither the unemployment benefits extension nor the tax cut extension is in any way “paid for” by this deal.  In fact, the deal includes absolutely NO SPENDING CUTS.  None.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  So, while everyone claims to be concerned about the deficit, the President and the GOP have just agreed to spend a lot of money and to pass up even more in revenues.

·        Economists report that each $1 of unemployment benefits produces $1.60 in spending in the private sector, while each $1 of taxes not collected from the wealthy produces considerably less than $1 in private sector spending.  So, while everyone is concerned about stimulating the economy and private sector spending, the President and the GOP have just agreed to incur substantial additional Federal debt while producing less than optimal economic stimulus.

·        Among the Bush tax cuts that will be extended under this deal are cuts in the Federal Estate Tax that allow the first $5 million of every estate to pass tax free.  This is a bonus for the wealthy which produces no economic stimulus whatsoever.

Sadly, I have to conclude that:

1.      President Obama lacks cojones.

2.      Political extortion works when your opponent lacks cojones.

3.      The GOP is totally full of crap.  Republicans don’t give a rat’s anus about the debt or the unemployment rate or the state of the economy.  The only thing they care about is making sure that rich people pay as little in taxes as possible.

On the plus side:  The Republicans and the business community have told us for the better part of a year that employers would start hiring just as soon as they could be sure of what their tax situation would be after 12/31/10.  So any day now, new jobs should start falling on us like rain.  Laissez le bons temps rouler! 

Tax and Spend vs. Borrow and Spend

It turns out that, after these most expensive mid-term elections in American history, both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee are about $15 million in debt.   The difference is that the DNC has $10 million in the bank, while the RNC only has $2 million.  This translates into a $5 million deficit for the Tax and Spend Democrats, and a $13 million deficit for the Borrow and Spend Republicans. 

HELLO Republicans!!!!  Spending alone does not create deficits:  it’s spending substantially in excess of revenues and assets that creates deficits.  But I guess a party that can’t grasp such a basic economic concept in managing its own little committee can’t be expected to apply that concept to managing a big Federal budget. 

Don’t worry, little RNC: your big donors can bail you out with all the money they’re going to save when Republicans in Congress extend the Bush tax cuts for our richest Americans.

GOP: Still the “party of no,” unless you make more than $250K a year

Today, all 42 Senate Republicans signed a letter informing Harry Reid that they would block any “legislative item” in the Senate unless and until the Bush tax cuts are extended. Now, let’s be clear: the tax cuts the GOP is determined to extend are tax cuts to Americans making over $250,000 a year.  The Democrats would agree in a New York minute to extend the tax cuts for those making $250K or less, i.e., for everyone but the richest Americans.  In fact, House Democrats plan to vote on a permanent extension for all but the richest of us tomorrow morning.  House Republican Eric Cantor has dismissed that vote as a “non-starter” and “political chicanery.”

The legislative items that are being held hostage by the GOP include, inter alia, extending unemployment benefits and ratifying the New Start Treaty.  Seems nothing – including fundamental fairness and nuclear non-proliferation – is as important as making sure that the richest Americans don’t have to contribute their fair share to the common weal.

FML – we are sooooooo screwed. 

Thanksgiving Break from Dispiriting Partisanship

I'm watching Republican Congressman Jo Bonner (a good ole boy from Alabama) make an "opening statement" in the punishment phase of Charlie Rangel's ethics trial -- he's crying crocodile tears about his sad duty to publicly judge Charlie's malfeasance.  I'm not an apologist from Charlie - he's behaved badly, arrogantly and without remorse.  But Bonner's pomposity and poorly disguised partisan glee at Charlie's fall from grace is sickening.

Equally disgusting was Republican Senator John Kyl's decision to block immediate Senate consideration of the proposed New Start Treaty with Russia.  New Start is a top priority of the Obama White House and a treaty that would impose no discernible disadvantage on our national security.  In fact, the White House has been courting Kyl's support for weeks,  providing him with reams of information and delivering big bucks for the maintainence of our nuclear weapons systems in anticipation of Kyl's assistance in shepherding the treaty through Senate ratification.  Nevertheless, Kyl took a photo opp this week with Republican worthies including Sens. Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn to announce that the Senate would not have time to consider New Start in this lame duck session.  Score one for McConnell's self-announced agenda to block Obama's every initiative.  Meanwhile, I'm sure we will see New Start added to the media's list of President Obama's foreign policy failures.

Finally, I was sorry to see the Democrats elect Nancy Pelosi as their new Minority leader.  I have nothing against Pelosi or how she did her job as Speaker.  However, she has been a remarkably polarizing figure on the Hill and among the electorate, and her election by House Democrats can only exacerbate the continuing partisan dysfunction in the next session of Congress.

So I'm grateful for Thanksgiving - an excuse to take a break from the depressing disharmony that rules our country these days.  Despite the pressing problems that face our government, I have absolutely no confidence that our partisan legislators will allow anything to be solved or accomplished over the next two years.  I'll be back in December, if I can haul myself out of the slough of despond.

Meanwhile, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Take solace in the companionship of family and friends, and eat lots of turkey.  The tryptophans will elevate your mood.  And don't ruin it by watching the news!

Can we cut federal spending by 40%? I don't think so . . .

In its latest issue, Newsweek reports that, for about 30 years, federal tax revenues have amounted to approximately 18% pf GDP, while federal expenditures were about 20%.  The 2% difference created a manageable deficit.  However, in 2009, tax revenues were only 15% of GDP, and expenditures were 25%.  This 10% difference leaves us with a federal deficit that is anything but manageable.

Now, admittedly, math is NOT my forte, but here's how it looks to me.  If we keep the Bush tax cuts in place, we have to reduce federal spending from 25% of GDP to 15% just to stop the deficit from growing any larger.  That would be a 40% reduction in federal spending!   Does anyone seriously believe that the Government could actually cut spending by almost half?  Federal discretionary spending is nowhere near 40% of the total budget.  Entitlements, defense and interest payments on the deficit comprise approximately 75% of the budget.  If we eliminated everything else,  we would have cut spending by only 20-25%.  And what kind of country would we have? 

It's time to get real:  we must increase tax revenues as well as cut spending.  And the spending cuts will have to include the sacred cows of the federal budget: defense and entitlements.  Our incoming Tea Party Congress will engage in legislative acrobatics to try to avoid these inevitabilities.  Unfortunately, we'll be circling the drain while we watch the entertainment.

Et tu, Lou Dobbs?

Those of you who’ve known me for a while can probably remember when my big newsman crush was Lou Dobbs (circa 2004-2006).  I didn’t always agree with Lou, but his positions were generally well-reasoned and factually supported.  In 2007, Lou started to slide off the rails.  Although he was fond of boasting that he was an Independent, Lou sounded more and more like a conservative who just didn’t want to be known as a Republican during George W. Bush’s administration. Throughout 2008, Lou’s rants against illegal immigrants and candidate Obama became ever more extreme, and he finally left CNN under circumstances that suggested that the network was not exactly sorry to see him go.

This week, Fox News announced that Lou will be joining its lineup during the first quarter of 2011. Oh Lou, say it ain’t so!  Huckabee, O’Reilly, Hannity, Rove, Palin, Beck . . . and DOBBS?  I haven’t been this disappointed in anyone since 2002, when I got together with an old friend from high school – the guy who introduced me to the Stones, the Doors, and the Chambers Brothers – and learned that he had become a Frank Sinatra fan.  It’s almost enough to make a woman swear forswear newsman crushes.  On the other hand, Jon Stewart is pretty hard to resist.

Time to break out the big girl (or boy) pants

Yesterday, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of President Obama's bipartisan debt commission, issued their initial draft proposals for reducing the deficit and "saving" Social Security.  (Bear in mind that their draft does not present the final, formal recommendations of the commission.)  Their proposals include three options for simplifying the tax system (but raising taxes), general proposals for cutting defense and domestic spending (with examples of such cuts, including freezing military and civilian salaries for three years), and common sense contribution, eligibility and benefit changes designed to maintain the continued viability of the Social Security system. 

Predictably, Speaker Pelosi and other righteously indignant Democratic spokespersons deemed the proposed spending cuts "unacceptable."  Meanwhile, Republicans swollen with their recent victories at the polls have been blithely assuring CNN anchors all day long that they absolutely will not vote for any tax increases under any circumstances. 

Come on, people, get real!  Are you serious about attacking this deficit problem?  If so, then: Democrats, you will have to cut spending; and Republicans, you will have to raise taxes.  It's going to suck for you, because you will be perceived as responsible for the resulting financial pain.  But it will be far worse for us, because we're the ones who will be experiencing the pain.  So please, put your big girl or boy pants on and accept the responsibility you were elected to handle.  Start by being honest with yourselves and with us. (Most of us already know what has to happen, even though many of us keep hoping that there's an easier answer.)  And then start making the hard, practical decisions that this situation demands.

David Stockman makes sense. . .

OMG –  I’m watching David Stockman being interviewed by Elliott Spitzer on CNN, and the man absolutely makes sense.  In other words, he agrees with me on a number of issues.

·        You can’t lower taxes and continue spending.  Government spending that consistently exceeds revenues will always result in deficits.

·        We cannot afford to extend the Bush tax cuts; the government needs the money to reduce the deficit.

·        The Tea Partiers may be well intentioned, but they are tremendously naïve.  They will find that there is very little room for cutting enough to make a dent in the deficit without tax increases.  The Tea Party’s favorite targets – waste, fraud, abuse and earmarks – collectively account for no more than 15 hours of Government spending per year.

·        Major changes must be made in the Social Security and Medicaid programs.  Income limits on Social Security contributions must be raised.  Social Security benefits must be made subject to means testing of income and assets.  Wealthy Americans who are currently receiving Social Security should have their benefits reduced, too.

Stockman also appeared on 60 Minutes on October 31, and called the Republicans’ continued insistence on extending the Bush tax cuts as “demagoguery.”  Stockman noted that, “[i]n 1985, the top 5% of [America’s] households – the wealthiest 5% - had net worth of $8 trillion – which is a lot.  Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top 5% have net worth of $40 trillion.  The top 5% have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.”   Stockman would impose a special 15% surtax on the wealthiest Americans to help reduce the deficit.

It’s really creepy to find myself of one mind with Ronald Reagan’s budget director, but these are strange days indeed.  God bless you, David Stockman.  As far as I’m concerned, you’ve redeemed yourself.

Mea culpa?

I’ve been hearing a lot of Republican leaders and supposedly “liberal” media pundits accusing President Obama of being clueless because he has failed to take the blame for the Republicans’ midterm gains in the House and Senate.  The conventional “wisdom” expressed by these folks is that Obama must admit that it was his “failed” policies and agenda that drove the electorate to the right. 

I certainly understand, and could almost forgive, the Republicans for taking this patently self-serving position.  In today’s hyper-partisan atmosphere, one can only imagine the political value of an Obama mea culpa.  It would certainly add credibility to the Republicans’ post-election narrative of “repudiation” and “mandate.”

What I cannot excuse is the media’s insistence that there is some sort of historical requirement that Obama admit that his agenda is flawed and ineffective.  Interestingly enough, Candy Crowley (bless her!) did a segment today that excerpted speeches by Presidents Reagan and Clinton in the wake of midterm elections that favored the opposing party.  While both of them acknowledged a new and less congenial reality, neither admitted failed policies and/or a flawed agenda.  In fact, Reagan asserted that his administration would not compromise on principles, and Clinton stressed that his administration would stand firm and resist any effort to move the national agenda backwards.  Notably absent from the Crowley segment was George W. Bush.  However, we know that, although he famously recognized a political “thumpin’,” W. acknowledged neither error nor failure.  In fact, W. has yet to admit error: even now, he is publicly defending his “decision” to waterboard suspected terrorist detainees!

So can anyone tell me why (and for what) Obama should apologize?

What’s the message?

I’m hearing a lot of bloviating punditry on just exactly what message the electorate sent to Washington on Tuesday.  Depending on who is “analyzing” the election results, the possibilities are as follows:

1.      The electorate is angry about the “socialist agenda” of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi “axis of evil,” and we all voted for the Republicans to “repudiate” that agenda.

2.      The electorate is angry and scared about the economy.  The Democrats have had two years to fix it and they’ve failed, so we all voted for the Republicans to try something different.

3.      The electorate is just generally angry, so we all voted for the Republicans to change things.

4.      The electorate is angry at both parties because they’ve been too busy playing partisan politics to do anything effective to address the economic problems we’re facing, so we all voted for the Republicans to punish the incumbents.

I’m sure that some segment of the electorate voted for only one of these reasons, but I suspect that others’ motivations were far more complex and nuanced.  Unfortunately, the pundits’ simplistic analyses will become the accepted narratives.  Sad to say, all but #4 can and will be interpreted by the Republicans as a “mandate” not to compromise or cooperate with the Obama administration and the Congressional Democrats.  As always, the Republicans will cleave to their base” and remain the Party of NO.  In addition, they will have to accommodate the agenda of Republican freshmen who were elected as Tea Party candidates.  And although I will enjoy watching Boehner and McConnell deal with their Tea Partiers, I’m sure that their problems will not facilitate any genuine progress in the House or the Senate. 

It seems to me that it would be a good idea if we all communicated with our elected representatives on a regular basis, just to remind them that we expect them to actually DO SOMETHING to make things better.  I’m planning on doing just that.  Will you make that commitment?   Will you ask your friends to spread the message?  Who knows?  Maybe we can make a difference over the next two years. . .

They’re back. . . . .

It’s hardly surprising that the Republicans have regained control of the US House of Representatives.  The economy absolutely sucks – in no small part because of the Republicans’ “borrow and spend” policies under Bush 43 – and, when the economy sucks, the American electorate takes it out on the party in power.

So, what can we expect from the Republicans in the House and the Senate?  John Boehner, the Speaker-in-waiting, has made it pretty clear that he expects the President and the soon-to-be minority House Democrats to play nice with the Republican majority, although one suspects that what Boehner really means is that he expects Obama and the Democrats to capitulate to anything the Republicans dictate.  Funny how perspective changes – when the Republicans were the minority in the House, they whined constantly about how poorly they were treated by the majority.

Although the Republicans did NOT win a Senate majority, nobody seems to have told Mitch McConnell, the current and future minority leader.  Sen. McConnell has made it crystal clear – most recently today – that the Senate Republicans’ top priority will be to make sure that President Obama does not get a second term.  As McConnell explained today, if the Republicans are to implement the mandate of the American electorate in this election, they must have a Republican president who will not veto their tax cuts, repeal of health care reform, and other spending cuts. 

From where I sit, it looks like we’re in for two more years of legislative gridlock in the service of partisanship.  Boehner is a skilled partisan infighter, and will make sure that the House Republicans hew to the party line – which is the same agenda that got the country into this mess.  However, there are still enough Senate Democrats (if you include the DINOs) to make sure that much of what the House sends up goes nowhere.  And, if something untoward does get passed by both houses of Congress, the President can veto it.  The Republicans do not have enough seats to override a veto.

It will be interesting to see how the Republicans spin the legislative inaction we can expect under their watch.  It will be more interesting to see if the electorate will be paying attention, and whether we will make the GOP pay for being the “party of no” in the 2012 election.

Rallying to Restore Sanity

I'll be taking a break for the next few days: I'm off to our nation's capitol to join Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity.  I'm sure the rally will provide plenty of material for future blog posts!

Meanwhile, I'm leaving you with some updates on previous posts:

As a nation, we have spent a total of $4 billion on this election -- that's FOUR BILLION DOLLARS!!

Last Monday, one of Rand Paul's county campaign coordinators stomped the head of a MoveOn.org volunteer, a 23-year-old girl who had been wrestled to the ground by two of Paul's supporters who were congregating outside a Senate debate venue in Tennessee.  The "stomper" actually had the chutzpah to tell the media that he felt he was entitled to an apology from his "stompee."  Rand Paul characterized the incident as a "crowd control problem."  Why did the national media not report this incident in any significant way?

Thanks for reading, and thinking. . . I'm glad someone does!

What’s What in the Tea Party

The many factions that comprise the Tea Party movement are not particularly diverse.  It should be no surprise that the movement’s “big tent” leans decidedly to the right.

The Tea Party broadly espouses only the fiscal and budgetary conservatism that attends upon its “Taxed Enough Already” anagram.  However, the “astroturf” factions of the movement have ensured that the movement embraces conservative Republican values – lower taxes cure everything, Government should be as small and unobtrusive as possible, and business and capital markets should be unfettered by regulation.  For most Tea Partiers, these values are a natural fit in any event, since they are (a) consistent with their reading of the Constitution, and (b) relatively inexpensive. 

Almost all of the Tea Party factions embrace a commitment to a predominantly, if not exclusively, Christian America and to the notion of “American Exceptionalism” (requiring a massively strong and well-financed military).  The Tea Partiers’ Christianity opposes abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, women’s rights, religious tolerance, and, in some cases, racial equality.  As Christians, many Tea Partiers support local school systems that teach creationism and/or intelligent design, either exclusively or with evolution (a "theory" of equal weight).   Many Tea Partiers and their candidates believe that he Constitution doesn’t actually mandate the separation of church and state.  Some go so far as to assert that this separation is “unconstitutional.”

Most Tea Partiers profess to be governed absolutely by the Constitution, but they tend to read that document – and particularly its Amendments - quite selectively.   They ignore the First Amendment’s mandated separation of church and state, but hold sacred a Second Amendment right to unfettered gun ownership.  They invoke the Tenth Amendment’s “state’s rights” language to justify dismantling Federal agencies like the Department of Education and maintaining local control of many governmental functions, but believe that Civil Rights legislation and programs that enforce the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th Amendments are “unconstitutional.”  They advocate repeal of the 16^th and 17^th Amendments, thereby eliminating the Federal income tax and the popular election of US Senators.  However, they generally support adding amendments that would define “marriage” and require a legislative super-majority to impose any tax.

Many Tea Partiers, especially at the local level, espouse the nativist views of the Minuteman movement, the John Birch Society, and even the Klan.  Moreover, they are astoundingly anti-intellectual.  They despise the “liberal elite” and deny that there is any scientific evidence for evolution or anthropogenic global warming.   All but one of their Senate candidates believe that global warming is a hoax of liberal pseudo-science. 

The Tea Partiers’ belief in free markets and “financial freedom” would leave the unsuccessful to starve.  They bemoan the high unemployment rate, but believe that unemployment benefits are unconstitutional   Their candidates are, to a man (and woman), committed to repeal or block funding of health care reform.  They advocate cutting welfare, and privatizing Social Security.  They appear to trust business (big and small) as much as they distrust government.

OMG - What kind of country will we have if these folks are in control?  I fear that we are about to find out. . .

Who’s Who in the Tea Party? (Part IV)

The last two factions of the Tea Party movement that we’ll look at in this series are the ResistNet Tea Party and the 1776 Tea Party.

The ResistNet Tea Party is part of a corporate family that includes several for-profit organizations and a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit, all owned by Steve Elliott.  Throughout the last decade, Elliott and his corporations/ organizations developed a long list of literally “right” thinking individuals by conducting petition campaigns on “American values” issues like supporting the BSA’s anti-gay stance, “saving” traditional marriage, “standing with the unborn,” supporting Judge Roy Moore’s fight to keep the Ten Commandments in his Alabama courthouse, making God Bless America the “national hymn,” supporting the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “under God,” and opposing immigration reform. 

The ResistNet’s public interface is the ResistNet.com website, the self-proclaimed “Home of the Patriotic Resistance.”  As of October 27, 2010, Resistnet.com lists 83,441 members.  In addition to the typical Tea Party emphases on fiscal responsibility, states’ rights and Second Amendment rights, ResistNet’s website advertises study groups and projects reflecting a significant anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agenda, with topics like “Watchmen on Amnesty,” “We Stand with Arizona,” and “Guard against Creeping Sharia in America.”  The ResistNet Tea Party is strongly supported by Minuteman and anti-immigration groups throughout the United States.   In turn, ResistNet publicly supports anti-immigrant agendas like Arizona’s; ResistNet is currently taking donations for an “Arizona Defense Fund.”

The 1776 Tea Party, aka TeaParty.org, is even more directly associated with Minuteman organizations than ResistNet.  In 2009, Dale Robertson, the self-promoting, confrontational and blatantly racist US Marine veteran who founded the 1776 Tea Party, sold interests in the organization to Stephen Eichler and Tim Bueler, then the executive director and media director of the militant anti-immigrant Minuteman Project.  Under the management of Robertson, Eichler, and Bueler, the 1776 Tea Party’s list of “non-negotiable core beliefs” have expanded to include “Illegal Aliens are Here Illegally,”  “Pro-Domestic Employment is Indispensable,” “Gun Ownership is Sacred,” and “English as Core Language is  Required.”  Currently, TeaParty.org reports that “Tea Party braces for ‘epidemic’ phantom-style voter fraud” as “Non citizens [will]  vote Democratic.”   Most of the 1776 Tea Party affiliate groups are small; it appears that this Tea Party faction’s overall membership may be as low as 10,000.

Tomorrow, this series will conclude with a summary of the collective “core values” contributed by the diverse factions of the Tea Party movement.

Who’s who in the Tea Party? (Part III)

The Tea Party Patriots (“TPP”), incorporated as a 501(c)(4) organization with a website and a PAC, is the umbrella organization for the local chapters that comprise the genuinely grass roots Tea Party movement.   As of October 26, 2010, the TPP website had almost 138,000 “Registered Patriots,” and TPP had over 500,000 followers on FaceBook.   The thousands of local TPP chapters that are listed on the TPP website are distributed all over the US, but the largest numbers of chapters are in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.  It’s hard to tell whether this distribution merely reflects population distribution or actually represents higher than average interest in the Tea Party agenda. 

The original TPP founders include Jenny Beth Martin, Mark Meckler and Amy Kremer.  Martin was once a Republican campaign consultant who, with her husband, managed to rack up over half a million dollars in unpaid Federal income taxes during the Bush administration.  After filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Martin helped organize TPP, which pays her about $6k per month for her services as CEO.  Meckler, a California attorney offering email list-building and petition services to Republican political candidates and for Republican ballot initiatives (e.g., a ban on public employees unions), served as coordinator for the Sacramento and California state Tea Party groups before co-founding the TPP.   Kremer, a “birther” who is now chairing the Tea Party Express, is the blogger behind the ultra-conservative “Southern Belle Politics.”

Although TPP’s website declares that it is a non-partisan group, it proudly advertises its partners, including FreedomWorks (run by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey), The Leadership Institute (“training conservative leaders” and “supporting the conservative movement”), Let Freedom Ring (“supporting the conservative agenda”), Red State (“the leading conservative news blog for right of center online activists”), Red Country (“the place for state and local conservative politics”), Regular Folks United (“I started this site because I’ve had enough of the liberal elite new morality”), and Michele Malkin (conservative columnist, contributor to Fox News, and author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies). 

TPP’s website lists the organization’s “core values” as fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.  However, its May 2010 “convention” included militia and Posse Comitatis rhetoric, anti- immigration and anti-Islam speakers, and advocacy for repeal of the 16^th and 17^th Amendments to the Constitution.  Given the large number of local chapters, it is likely that a wide variety of additional “core values” have been added to the grass roots’ agendas.

Tomorrow, we will discuss how some Tea Party groups have been co-opted by individuals with different agendas.

Who’s who in the Tea Party? (Part II)

The Nashville-based Tea Party Nation, Inc. (“TPN”) describes itself as a “user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms [sic] which were written out by the Founding Fathers. We believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country! ”   Its founder, Judson Phillips, is a Republican activist personal injury attorney whose personal history of bankruptcy and tax delinquency suggests that at least one of the “God given Individual Freedoms” TPN supports is the freedom to disregard one’s personal financial obligations, including taxes.

Since Phillips and his wife and cronies have operated TPN as a for profit corporation and have charged substantial fees for participation in its events, it appears that TPN also supports the freedom to cash in on the political movement of the moment.  On more than one occasion, Phillips has been quoted as saying, “I want to make a million from this movement.”  This opportunism is partly responsible for the distance that many other Tea Party factions have maintained between themselves and TPN.  Another source of disharmony between TPN and the rest of the movement is Phillips’ adherence to the Republican Party line.  Other Tea Party groups have accused him of trying to hijack the movement for the benefit of the GOP.

Phillips may be a Republican, but he is an extremely conservative one.  He has said that he isn’t looking to attract moderates, because moderates are just “those who have no core beliefs.”   TPN organized a quasi-religious “Revival Rally” and an “Altar Call” against the “Obama-Pelosi-Reid axis of evil.”  The July 2009 “Altar Call” was led by Phillips and a local conservative talk show host sporting a green Army jacket and calling himself “Sergeant Bristol.”  The “Sergeant” exhorted the congregation of Nashville’s Cornerstone Church, many of whom were dressed in paramilitary uniforms and guns, to march out and slay the socialist monster. 

Despite the steep $550 registration fee, TPN’s “national convention” in February 2010 was extremely well attended.  Phillips justified the registration fee by citing the expenses associated with the convention, most notably Sarah Palin’s $125,ooo speaking fee.  However, it appears that Palin’s fees were paid by a long-time Nashville Republican donor named Bill Hemrick.  In addition to Palin, the convention speakers and workshop leaders included Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo (who attacked illiterate voters and the “cult of multiculturalism” that elected President Obama), Alabama Republican gubernatorial primary candidate Roy Moore (who, as an Alabama Supreme Court Justice, was impeached for failing to enforce a court order to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments from his courthouse, and who warned convention attendees that a spiritual war to take America back for Christianity was “inevitable”), and Dr. Rick Scarborough (a leader of the Christian Right who told attendees that American Christians had a “Godly duty to defend American exceptionalism”).  If, as Dr. Scarborough suggested, the goal of the TPN convention was to close the gap between fiscal and social/ political/religious conservatives in the Tea Party movement, it was quite a success. 

Stay tuned:  we’ve laid the foundations for the grass roots organizations, which we’ll discuss tomorrow.

Who’s Who in the Tea Party? (Part I)

Just so we’ll know who’s supporting and/or financing the folks who will likely take over our Congress next January, I thought it would be a good idea to get to know the various groups that make up the Tea Party movement.  In the process of researching this series of posts, I discovered that the Tea Party movement is anything but monolithic.  It’s made up of: (1) the independent local  grassroots groups,  all of which are known as and/or loosely affiliated with the Tea Party Patriots;  (2) the “astroturf” groups, specifically the FreedomWorks Tea Party and the Tea Party Express; (3) the Tea Party Nation network, operated for profit by a small group assembled and controlled by a Republican personal injury attorney with tax-protestor inclinations; and (4) extremist groups that have jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon, including Resistnet and the 1776 Tea Party (aka TeaParty.org).  

So let’s start with the Astroturf groups, shall we?

The D.C.-based FreedomWorks Tea Party was built on the organizational and financial structure of a pre-existing FreedomWorks foundation and tax exempt organization, chaired by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey.  Even before the 2008 Presidential election, FreedomWorks was looking for a way to revitalize the Republican agenda by separating it from the unpopular policies of the Bush/Cheney administration.  The nascent Tea Party movement soon provided the perfect vehicle.  Although the FreedomWorks Tea Party is currently one of the smallest and most localized of the Tea Party organizations, the FreedomWorks organization provided significant political/public relations know-how and training, organizational assistance, conservative lobbying contacts and funding to the Tea Party movement. 

The Tea Party Express grew out of an existing California-based Republican PAC (the “Our Country Deserves Better Political Action Committee”).  The PAC was founded by a former Republican California state legislator and his former campaign manager, a California political and public relations consultant; both of them are still actively involved in the organization.  The Tea Party Express’ first chairman was Mark Williams, a conservative radio talk-show host who was forced to resign from his leadership role in the Tea Party movement after his racist “Tea Party Letter to Abraham Lincoln” attracted national media attention.  Williams was replaced by Amy Kremer, a former Tea Party Patriots staffer,  author of a right-wing political blog known as “Southern Belle Politics,”  and an outspoken “birther.”  As a PAC, the Tea Party Express is not a membership organization; it collects big bucks from conservative donors, and uses their contributions to finance bus tours and advertisements in support of right-wing political candidates around the country, including Scott Brown (the Massachussetts Republican who replaced Ted Kennedy in the Senate), Sharron Angle (who is challenging Harry Reid in Nevada), and, of course, Christine O’Donnell.

Stay tuned: tomorrow we’ll talk about the Tea Party Nation.

Seriously - $733,647,242.31? Are you *#^!ing kidding me?

The October 25 issue of Newsweek reports that, collectively, candidates for the US House of Representatives have raised $733,647,242.31 in campaign contributions for these midterm elections. (To put that figure in perspective, the TARP bailout cost about $700 billion, and President Obama's stimulus program cost about $787 billion , including tax cuts for the middle and working class.)  That's almost 3/4 of a billion dollars - and that's just for Congress.  It doesn't include the Senate and all state and local races.  And it doesn't include all of the money that corporations and PACs are spending on political advertising that is "independent" of the campaigns themselves.  Imagine what the grand total of what is being spent in this election cycle must be!!

In these dismal economic times, where is all that money coming from?  Well, it seems likely that huge chunks of it are coming from the very corporations that are not investing, not lending, not hiring - and, under the Citizens United holding, not disclosing what they're spending.  These are corporations (and organizations representing them) that  would rather buy control of our government than help dig us out of the economic hole they dug for us.

Another likely source is individual donors of the conservative stripe - Tea Baggers and Republicans - because liberals, as the media have told us, are currently disaffected.  These are folks who are so burdened by taxation that they are invoking the spirit of revolution, but can nevertheless find the wherewithal to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to seize control of every level of government.

Imagine how many middle class jobs $733,647,242.31 could create, or how much of a dent it could make in the deficit.  But attacking unemployment or the deficit directly isn't really the point, although Tea Baggers, Republicans and corporate America complain bitterly about both.  These corporate and individual contributors are spending on what they really think is important: control of our government.

Taking a cue from the Brits

Yesterday, George Osborne, Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, announced his government's plan to attack the country's debt.  The plan is designed to save $130 billion (actually 83 billion pounds) by 2015.  It will impose budget cuts averaging 19% across all government departments, eliminate approximately 500,000 of the current 6 million public sector jobs, limit unemployment benefits and child benefit payments, raise the retirement age to 66 by 2020, and cut various other government and welfare programs.  The cuts will severely impact pensioners, the poor, the military and the middle class.  There will definitely be wailing and gnashing of teeth, but most pundits and economists in the UK acknowledged that the painful steps will have to be taken, because Britain's debt has reached a "crushing" 11.5% of the country's total economic output. 

The Brits' debt-busting plan should be of particular interest to us because our Federal deficit is 10.7% of GDP.  As the Tea Partiers never tire of telling us, we need to cut that sucker - and the sooner the better.  The problem I see is that Tea Party and other candidates of the conservative stripe don't really seem to have any definitive proposals about what we should be cutting.  They keep telling us that we can save "billions" by eliminating waste and fraud in Government programs, but billions - even tens of billions - won't make a significant dent in the deficit problem we have.  So what will we cut?  Tea Baggers and other conservatives apparently wouldn't mind cutting a few hundred thousand public sector employee positions, but wouldn't that just make the unemployment problem a lot worse?  And in which departments and program areas, specifically, should those positions be eliminated?  Shouldn't candidates make some effort to answer these questions before they ask us to vote for them?

And then there's the other piece of the deficit-busting equation: increasing tax revenues.  The British plan includes an increase in taxes on financial institutions: Osborne stated that his government intends to extract the "maximum sustainable taxes" from financial institutions.  He also announced that the Value Added Tax that the British pay on almost all of their consumer goods will be raised from 17.5% to 20% in January - a 14% increase.  (In addition to the VAT, the British pay income tax of 20% on annual income up to $60,000, 40% on annual income between $60,000 and $240,000, and 50% on annual income over $240,000, as well as National Insurance contributions of roughly 11% of annual income, and "Council Tax" (i.e., property tax) averaging $1800 per year.  Can you imagine?)  Well, of course we know what Tea Party and Republican candidates would say about that: they are absolutely opposed to tax increases of any kind.  Come on, folks: how realistic is their position?  If the deficit is that bad, and we're serious about fixing it, how can we not raise taxes?  I'd really love to hear a fact-based, well-reasoned answer to that one, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why does the US media "airbrush" the Tea Party?

Last night, the BBC America World News presented a story entitled "US unemployment fuels anger."  Part of the segment covered a Tea Party rally where a man and his young children were selling playing card decks that featured pictures of politicians with editorial comments.  The two "Jokers" in the deck were President Obama and VP Joe Biden.  The deck labeled both as "socialist/communists."  Over the heading of "The Ultimate Race Card," the President's card said:  "Trust me, I am not a Kenyan born, lying, arrogant, Muslim communist that hates America - really, I'm not."  (You can see for yourself on http://www.bbcamerica.com/.)  It's a pretty sickening spectacle indeed, but no more so than the collection of Tea Party rally signs preserved for posterity in the YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI.  (I won't bother to quote them here.  You're welcome to go see them for yourself.)
My question is: why does the US news media not report these ugly facts?  Does the American public not have the right to know how ignorant and bigoted the Tea Party can be?  Why would the media soft-pedal the hard truth about a movement that seems to have so much influence in the upcoming elections?  It's as if the media wants to "airbrush" this political movement, to make the Tea Partiers look much nicer and more reasonable than they actually are.  I honestly don't know why this would be so.  I guess it would be cynical of me to suggest that it's because our media is controlled by big corporations who believe that our President should be neutralized until 2012 and then dumped.  I'd be interested to hear your ideas. . .

The budget is NOT value-neutral

Last night, I was watching CNN cover a relatively minor story about how Alaska Tea Party Senatorial candidate Joe Miller's private security guards had a newspaper reporter handcuffed and detained because the reporter was doggedly questioning Miller about an ethics violation he is alleged to have committed while he was employed by city government.  (Subsequent questioning by CNN elicited Miller's admission that he did use city equipment for political purposes, but only "on my lunch hour.")  A panel of blatantly right-leaning political pundits then agreed that the Miller ethics issue was irrelevant, because the only issues that matter to midterm voters are the economy, jobs and the Federal deficit.
Here's a news flash: grave concerns about the economy and the deficit do not make candidates' ethics and values irrelevant.   Economics and budgets are not value-neutral.  These candidates have vowed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and many have declared their commitment to eliminate capital gains and estate taxes.  They have also comitted to balancing the Federal budget.  Lower tax revenues mean less money to spend.  So it's important to know what these deficit-hawks' and budget slashers' ethics and values are, because those ethics and values will determine what they will slash and what they will fund.
In govermnent, the power to withhold funding, like the power to tax, is the power to destroy.  If the Tea Party candidates believe there is no such thing as anthropogenic global warming, they will not fund green or alternative energy development.  Nor will they fund the EPA.  If they believe that Amendments 13-15 should be repealed, they will not fund the Justice Department's civil rights programs.  If they believe that education is a purely local concern, they will not fund the Department of Education.  If they truly believe in the free-market individualism that they proclaim, they will not hesitate to cut early childhood education programs, student loans, unemployment benefits, job training programs, Medicaid, and any other social service programs they consider expendable.  Most of them already have vowed to repeal - or withhold funding of - health care reform legislation.  And that's just the beginning. . .
So don't buy the conventional wisdom that the only thing that matters is the economy.  The economy and the Federal budget reflect the social and moral values and commitments of the people who control them.  And you will have to live with that.  So, before you vote, ask yourself: are this candidate's values consistent with mine? 

Known by the company they keep (Part V): Michele Bachman

Compared to Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin looks brilliant and Christine O’Donnell looks absolutely reasonable.  She is living proof that any idiot can get a law degree (from Oral Roberts University) and that intelligent, competent individuals who want to serve in Congress are rare in the 6^th District of Minnesota.

Bachmann is a major Tea Party darling seeking a third term in the House of Representatives.  (She also served for 6 years in the Minnesota state legislature, where she twice proposed a same-sex marriage amendment to the state’s constitution.)  Her 2006 Congressional campaign received major backing from James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.  During the campaign, the pastor of a charismatic megachurch provided Bachmann with a speaking platform and a personal endorsement, much to the consternation of local ethics watchdogs and the IRS.  Bachmann herself has said that she was called by God to run for Congress.  At the time, she was a member of a church that is part of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, whose published doctrine teaches that the Pope is the Antichrist.  However, Bachmann insisted that claims about her church’s beliefs were “patently absurd.”  (Interestingly, Bachmann was quick to ascribe Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “anti-American” beliefs to Presidential candidate Barack Obama.)

Science is not Bachmann’s strong suit.  She believes that anthropogenic global warming is a hoax.  She made a statement on the House floor explaining that she opposed cap and trade legislation because it would  regulate carbon dioxide, a “natural byproduct of nature” that is “beneficial” to plant life.  She has consistently opposed all legislation aimed at protecting the environment and/or regulating the energy industry.  She is a true believer in Sarah Palin’s “drill, baby, drill” energy policy.  Bachmann introduced legislation – the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act – to repeal a ban on incandescent light bulbs, because: (1) she believes that the government has no business telling people what kind of light bulbs they should buy; and (2) she believes that compact fluorescent bulbs are more polluting to the environment because of their mercury content.  Bachmann advocates teaching intelligent design in public school, and co-authored a bill in the Minnesota legislature that would have required teaching evolution and intelligent design as coequal theoretical explanations of the origin of life.  She has publicly stated that “there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not” and that “there are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.”

So Bachmann is not a rocket scientist, but she is reliably anti-government and anti-tax.  In 2001, Bachmann wrote that Federal economic policies were designed to promote a centralized, state-controlled US economy.  Predictably, she has opposed the Wall Street and Big 3 auto bailouts, the stimulus bill, and Health Care Reform.  She also opposes minimum wage legislation, capital gains taxes, government-funded student loans, Social Security and Medicare. 

Bachmann’s campaign website vows that she will work tirelessly to eliminate wasteful Federal spending. Meanwhile, the Bachmann family farm in which she holds an ownership interest received over $250,000 in Federal subsidies, primarily dairy and corn price supports, from 1995 through 2006.  I’m guessing that farm subsidies are not wasteful . . . ?