GOP Governors Gone Wild!

Watch them fall all over themselves to eliminate unions, fire teachers, and “balance” their budgets on the backs of the working class.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Gone Wild!

Watch them ignore the rights of working people to organize.  Watch them cloak their own in darkness.  Watch them ignore the killing of innocents in an undeclared war.  And now, their latest hi jinks, watch them shuffle women back to the 10th Century (where they belong).

Let’s get corporate money out of our elections!  Here’s what I propose – somewhat along the lines of the historic agreement between Elizabeth Warren and Senator Brown in Massachusetts.

1. Candidates for office should disavow any effort by 527s, PACs (super or otherwise), state and national parties to pour money into ads, mailers, telephone calls that do not have the explicit “I am (candidate’s name) and I approved this message.”    How about it J. Paul, Patrick, Scott, Sal, Clifford, Steve?

2. The chairs of the county Democratic and Republican parties (Becky Herman and Jim Huffman respectively) should issue a joint statement to the same effect.  How about it Becky and Jim?

3.  The Sun and the Daily Post should monitor mailings, ads, and calls and submit the most grievous claims to rigorous analysis and fact-checking (FactCheck.org, Politico.com, Politifact.com, and ProCon.org  can help here).  How about it Karl and Bill?

4.  I will take the same grievous offenders and follow the money trail to find out who is trying to buy our elections (with assist by tracer.sos.colorado.gov).  How about it, Terry?  Terry: “I’m in.”

5.  The voters should let their parties and candidates know that they disapprove of these ad, mailers, and calls.  Let any media outlet that airs such stuff know that you expect more from them.  How about it John and Jane Q. Public?

Maybe together we can have our elections about issues, facts, and policies that are conducted with respect and rigor.  How about it?

We are on the eve of a liberal resurgence.  We have survived 30 years of the Reagan-conservative binge.  Sharing in economic wealth is grossly and immorally unfair.  Government, the manifest expression of our best intentions, is NOT the problem, but it has been neutered and maligned beyond recognition.  The game is rigged for and by the wealthy.  This must and will change.

1. REVIVE public services.  Education, physical infrastructure, social welfare, research and development.  We need to support our future by spending money on it.  Austerity is not the path to growth; investment is.  Period.
2. REINSTATE Glass-Steagall.  Simply put, banks should be prevented from speculating with my savings.  Period.  If they do, prosecute and imprison them.  Period.  If they are too big to fail, they are too big to exist.  Period.
3. REPEAL the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.  Get corporate and PAC money out of my politics! Corporations are NOT people.  They are artificial entities created by people, but designed to produce profits.  Let them do that, but not by buying legislation to protect and shelter them.  Let the market work.   Simple – you can only contribute to a candidate if you live, actually, in the district in which they are running.  Period.  Corporations cannot make contributions to political candidates at any level.  Period.

If we can do these three things, we will enter a new progressive period.  Period.

Remember those $16 government muffins that outraged critics of Washington spending? Turns out there’s no such thing.

After Hilton Hotels denied reports that it charged $16 per muffin to the Department of Justice at a 2009 conference, the Department of Justice said the $16 fee included much more than muffins.

“Under a complete accounting of the services provided for the Executive Office for Immigration Review conference, it is clear that the muffins did not cost $16,” DOJ spokeswoman Gina Talamona said in a written statement. ”The abbreviated banquet checks did not reflect all of the food and services provided.  The package consisted of food, beverages, staff services and function space, including a 450-seat ballroom and more than a dozen workshop and breakout rooms each of the five days of the conference.”

The Justice position on the $16 paying for multiple items, not just muffins, squared with a Hilton spokesman’s claim to ABC News.

“Dining receipts are often abbreviated and do not reflect the full pre-contracted menu and service provided,” a Hilton statement said, “as is the case with recent media reports of breakfast items approved for some government meetings.  In Washington, the contracted breakfast included fresh fruit, coffee, juice, and muffins, plus tax and gratuity, for an inclusive price of $16 per person.”

Without the tax and tip, a spokesman noted, the cost of the continental breakfast was $14 per person.

The melee over the muffins went viral this week, with presidential candidates, politicians and the public citing the cost of muffins a new symbol of government waste.

The original report on the muffin costs came from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which reviewed spending for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Legal Conference in August, 2009.

The IG reports said “the EOIR spent nearly $40,000 on refreshments at the conference. The service and gratuity charges applied to each bill equaled 20 percent of the total price of refreshments. Applying the 534-attendee figure to the total cost of refreshments over the 5 days of the event, EOIR spent an average of $14.74 per person per day on refreshments.”

Exhibit 13 of the inspector general’s report suggested that the investigators based their muffin findings on this line item:

That’s 250 muffins at $14 each — $16.80 with tax and tip, for a total of $4,200.

Today, a spokesman for the Justice Department inspector general said, “We stand by our report.”

But Hilton suggested the inspector general did not dig deeply enough.  If the IG had followed up and asked the hotel for details, it would have found out that the $4,200 covered a full continental breakfast for each person, at a price that was competitive for most full-service hotels.

But the gnashing of teeth within the federal government had already started.Vice President Joe Biden criticized the cost of muffins, and the White House budget office responded with a memo directing federal agencies to review policies associated with conference expenses.

They should be in jail!

Medicare takes a hit. No revenue increases whatsoever.

We are quickly devolving into a country of the Have Nots and the Have It Alls.

Way to go Barack.

P.S.  The Republicans still won’t like you.

[Your email response] I share your concern about out-of-control federal spending. Our national debt has surpassed $14 trillion, and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that public debt will consume 100 percent of our nation’s economy as early as 2021.

I did NOT express a concern about “out-of-control” federal spending.  If fact I believe that one way to kill a constricting economy is to constrict it even more.  What you propose is like helping an asthmatic by choking them.  The problem with the economy is the lack of total demand.  We need to stimulate demand by government spending, not throw more people out of work through permanent budget cutting.  Once demand has recovered and business begins to expand to meet that demand and create jobs, then we need to address the long-term debt.

Further, while we share faith in CBO research, I dislike citing conclusions out of context.  Since you offered no citation for your assertion, I consulted the recent CBO report “The Long-Term Budget Outlook” (Aug, 2010). http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11579/06-30-LTBO.pdf I have highlighted aspects of that report that bears upon the conclusion you cited.

The federal government has recently been recording the largest budget deficits, relative to the size of the economy, since 1945. As a result, the amount of federal debt held by the public has surged. Debt is expected to equal 62 percent of the economy’s annual output, or gross domestic product (GDP), at the end of this fiscal year, up from 40 percent at the end of 2008. That sharp deterioration in the fiscal situation reflects several factors: an imbalance between spending and revenues that predated the recent recession and the turmoil in financial markets; a decline in tax revenues and an increase in spending on benefit programs caused by those economic problems; and the costs of federal policies enacted in response to the problems. If current laws were to remain unchanged, the budget deficit would drop markedly as a percentage of GDP in the next few years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects, and federal debt held by the public would stabilize at about 67 percent of GDP for the next decade.

Those baseline projections, however, understate the budget deficits that would arise if policies that are in effect now or have been in effect recently were extended, instead of implementing what current laws specify for future years. Specifically, if most provisions of the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 were extended rather than allowed to expire as scheduled, if provisions designed to limit the reach of the alternative minimum tax (AMT) were also extended, and if annual appropriations kept pace with the growth of GDP, by 2020 the budget deficit would be growing steadily. In that case, debt held by the public would reach almost 90 percent of GDP in 2020. [p 1]

. . .

If policymakers are to put the nation on a sustainable budgetary path, they will need to let revenues increase substantially as a percentage of GDP, decrease spending significantly from projected levels, or adopt some combination of those two approaches. With economic activity and employment currently well below the levels that could be achieved by fully utilizing the nation’s labor force and capital stock, raising revenues or curbing spending immediately would probably slow the economic recovery. [p 2]

And recent research indicates that the long-term effects of budget cuts compared to tax increases is significant for the economy.

Professional forecasters estimate that a tax increase equivalent to 1 percent of the nation’s economic output usually reduces gross domestic product by about 1 percent after 18 months. A spending cut of that size, by contrast, reduces G.D.P. by about 1.5 percent — substantially more.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/business/economy/03view.html

That is not just theoretical, but real to the families and children in my community who are out of work and desperately looking for a job.

[Your email response] If we fail to act now to enact serious spending and budget reforms, we will push this crippling burden of debt onto our children and grandchildren and bring ourselves closer to the most predictable economic crisis in our nation’s history. In order to prevent a debt crisis, it’s time that Congress make permanent spending cuts, enact spending caps, and pass a balanced budget amendment to the constitution.

There is NO debt crisis per se.  The debt limit was raised 7 times during the Bush administration.  If we really wanted to take ownership of any deficit problem, I have proposed that anyone of voting age from 2000-2008 should repay the $4.7 trillion added to the national debt through a 5 year tax surcharge.  We are the ones who oversaw waging three wars on the credit card, passing a drug program without any means of paying for it, and reduced federal income through the so-called Bush tax cuts.  Permanent spending cuts and a balanced budget amendment are not sensible at this time; they remove all flexibility in adapting to economic circumstances.  I and my family deficit spend all the time.  We borrow money for shelter, education, transportation, and capital equipment.  These are all investments that yield valuable returns in the future.  What you propose would stagnant the economy and those in it as well.  This is unacceptable to my way of thinking.

I encourage you to reconsider your positions and move to energize this economy, not strangle it to death.  We need to start talking about job creation, not short-run deficit reduction.  That includes increasing revenue as well as budget prudence.  And let’s not eat the seed corn while doing it – education, health, and infrastructure.  Let’s use an investment mentality.

If you reply, please point me to the whole cloth of the CBO research that is pertinent to your position; perhaps then we can engage on specifics.

The “Marriage Vow” proffers the opportunity for all elected (or soon-to-be-elected) official the opportunity to  “ . . . solemnly vow to honor and to cherish, to defend and to uphold, the Institution of Marriage as only between one man and one woman.”  It is promulgated by the Family Life Center, a rebranding of the Iowa Family Policy Center, which I know from personal experience receives federal funds to help families in need by foisting an often unwanted Christian worldview.  As a homeless man in my area to whom I frequently give rides once told me “Things are OK unless I get ‘helped’ by Christians.”    The IFPC campaigned against the re-election (successfully) of three Iowa Supreme Court justices when the Court decided that the legislation prohibiting gay marriage was unconstitutional (thus making Iowa one of the 6 states legalizing gay marriage).  Check out Andy Kopsa’s tracking of The Family Leader – “As Goes Iowa:  The Family Leader, Religious Politics and 2012.”

Aside from its (hidden) ideological source, there is little problem here.  Anyone can pledge “solemnly” to their beliefs.  But when they want to make public policy on the basis of dubious data and misconstrued faulty research, then we have to treat it differently and sternly.

Point #1

From the Preamble:  “Faithful monogamy is at the very heart of a designed and purposeful order – as conveyed by Jewish and Christian Scripture, by Classical Philosophers, by Natural Law, and by the American Founders – upon which our concepts of Creator-endowed human rights, racial justice and gender equality all depend.”

Aside from the faith traditions emitted from this list, there is the personal habits of the Founding Fathers (e.g., Jefferson comes to mind) that suggest that perhaps “faithful monogamy” wasn’t one of their founding creeds; unless, of course, you weren’t privileged or wealthy, or male, or white.  Oh well, . . .  The cited and footnoted texts include the Genesis text on God making Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs (2:18-24), Mark’s record of the story against divorce (10:2-9) and Ephesians 5:22-33 wherein wives are told to submit to husbands and husbands are told to love their wives.  Based on these 3 citations it is tough to conclude as do the authors that “Faithful monogamy is at the very heart of a designed and purposeful order . . . upon which our concepts of Creator-endowed human rights, racial justice and gender equality all depend.”

Point #2

From the Preamble:  “Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African American baby born after the election of the USA‟s first African-American President.”

A sadly a-logical slam at President Obama.  The citation for this conclusion that slave children were better off under slavery that a country presided over by an African-American is a study published in 2005 reviewing studies conducted 1990-2004, including the authors’ re-analysis of survey data from 1973-2002.  Note that all the data was likely collected well before Obama was elected, let alone before he actually assumed office. If you know academic publishing it is likely that a study published in 2005 was written in 2003, and, moreover, the study relies on data gathered well before Obama even declared his candidacy.  This lays bare the racist and ideological use of sociological research to create a false and distrustful picture of the President, as well as a nostalgic remembrance of when all was well on the plantation.

Point #3

From the Preamble:  LBJ’s 1965 War on Poverty was triggered in part by the famous “Moynihan Report” finding that the black out-of-wedlock birthrate had hit 26%; today, the white rate exceeds that, the overall rate is 41%, and over 70% of African-American babies are born to single parents a prime sociological indicator for poverty, pathology and prison regardless of race or ethnicity.

This is a classic “gotcha!”   The underlying study upon which this assertion is based ignores the fact that the data is correlational, not causal.  First year stat students would shudder at this epistemological error.  Add to that the fact that this is a “webmemo” that reports no original research, and uses studies of 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 20, and 23 years ago.  Come to think of it, this takes us back close to Reagan, and certainly Bush I and Bush II.  I sense some other causal hypotheses lurking in the historical attic.  When Cheney declared that “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter” is this what he meant?

Further the author labels those with whom he “debates” as “the Left” and “Liberals.”  Such straw man argumentation lays bare the author’s real agenda (as befits his publisher the Heritage Foundation) that being of good moral character trumps poverty or, given the author’s transitive logic, the poor do not have good moral character.

For example,

Marriage matters. But mentioning the bond between marriage and lower poverty violates the protocols of political correctness. Thus, the main cause of child poverty remains hidden from public view. And even when the Left reluctantly mentions the decline of marriage in low-income communities, most of what they say about it is untrue.

This is followed by a triology of “liberals insist that . . .”, all of which the author dismisses as false.

Further “the phrase ‘intact married family’ refers to the biological father and biological mother of the child united in marriage.”  None of this adoptive stuff, none of this family rearing, none of this gay partner stuff.  Given the constrictions of the definition of intact married family, factors such as the availability of birth control, family planning counseling, good paying jobs for women, a male-dominated social structure in which women must “submit” to their husbands (I guess defined as the biological father of her children), etc., all that is irrelevant, especially if espoused by a known Liberal.

From the Preface:  Social protections, especially for women and children, have been evaporating as we have collectively “debased the currency” of marriage.

At last . . . the culprit revealed!  Read the list below and see if you find anything about the defunding of Planned Parenthood, TANF, WIC, Medicaid, etc.

This debasement continues as a function of adultery; “quickie divorce;” physical and verbal spousal abuse; non-committal co-habitation; pervasive infidelity and “unwed cheating” among celebrities, sports figures and politicians; anti-scientific bias which holds, in complete absence of empirical proof, that non-heterosexual inclinations are genetically determined, irresistible and akin to innate traits like race, gender and eye color; as well as anti-scientific bias which holds, against all empirical evidence, that homosexual behavior in particular, and sexual promiscuity in general, optimizes individual or public health.

No?  The solution is simple—strong married men who stay at home!  To be fair, that is certainly part of it, but to assume the matter is closed when we get to character flaws is to rejuvenate a politically perverse Calvinism.

There is much to discuss and consider when it comes to raising healthy, smart and energetic children.  Unfortunately “The Marriage Vow” plays fast and loose with data and dates, and uses deceit and trickery to reach a foregone conclusion rather than fostering a respectful and sober discussion of public policy.  But, then as I said, this is Michelle Bachmann and  . . .